RuntheDamnBall

I guess that depends on what you view as a waste of tax money. I think there are right and really wrong ways to do these things. No doubt greed, kickbacks, corruption and incompetence mean the wrong way usually gets chosen. I'd be the first to admit that. My point was more that one side is claiming to be fiscally conservative when it's anything but. You know, LessGovernment™except for more of the kind we like. At least among their many lies the Dems aren't using this one so much, and so successfully.

LOL.

yet throwing $30BN at Iraq seems to be no issue at all. If our government is going to throw our money around, the least they could do is use it in such a way as to make life sustainable for more Americans and to make us more independent of other unsavory nations for our energy. Instead we are using that money to remain as dependent as ever, damage our reputation in the world and lay the groundwork for a civil war in a sovereign nation. I'm sorry if your concern for our tax dollars seems a little disingenous to me in light of this.

So the Cardinals and Redskins are out, then, right?

It was really nice to see Ryan Gosling recognized for his work in "Half Nelson." Didn't think they would do it. Certainly it's a difficult film and it didn't make a ton of money, so all the more impressive that people saw his stellar acting for what it was. I am a little bummed that what I feel was the most creative display in cinema this year, "The Science of Sleep," didn't even get a well-deserved Art Direction nomination, or anything else. Michel Gondry is a genius and should be championed for more than just his music video work.

It will be real interesting to see where they go with their No. 1 pick. What Davis really should have done was hire a shrewd front office.

way too much plastic. ugh.

Only if that money looks like chump change when adjusted for league / economic / salary inflation. It's a risk.

They were pretty good at times. I'm not saying we should make a run at Freeney at the expense of DT help (and at DT we have a MAJOR, MAJOR question mark in what the return and development of McCargo means to that rotation). However, if you have the opportunity to get a guy who puts the fear of God into a QB and he could make the switch, why not? The question of making the switch is the much bigger issue, IMO. It makes him not a need, but a luxury.

Bull. Marino on that team, playing their scheme correctly, would carve the Bills to pieces with regularity. It's probably the best scheme the Bills have had to face in-division. But you're measuring a Marino that never had a running game and faced the best Bills team of all time with a Brady that has faced a Bills squad perpetually in the doldrums or just on the cusp of getting out. It's a team game. The Pats have been winners because they've exemplified that to a T. And what they've been able to do is somehow maintain their cool when it seems they are always losing the guys who brought them there; Milloy, Branch, Law, etc etc etc, now Samuel. Good front office, great scheme, smart staff. Bill Walsh did the same thing. Brady is very good, no doubt. But he is not a better individual QB than Manning, Young, or Marino. He may be a better 'team QB.'

No way we get Freeney, but if this were to somehow happen it would be the offseason delivered from God. And I would never say a bad thing abouut Ralph Wilson or Levy again. Just did some looking up. Freeney grew up in Bloomfield, Conn. and obviously, went to 'Cuse. Buffalo would be closer to home (unfortunately, Foxboro might be closer, though if there's one thing you can say it's that NE doesn't often throw the cash at big-time guys like this). A smaller edge rusher and a disruptive force. Would seem to fit in with what we do and we do have former Indy personnel in our the D coaching staff, do we not? Man, please, Marv. Does he play the same side as Schobel? Would this be an issue?

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30 at the end of August. Still, certainly should have some decent years in him. That said, whomever is calling him the next Montana should bear in mind that Walsh didn't even think Montana was the best QB on his team. Young was probably one of the best and better than JM, by extension better than Brady, in an era in which the Cowboys presented far more of a challenge than any team has presented NE in their dominant time.

This is probably the correct context to put this in. Which of these guys is worth the money they're being paid, to the team that's paying them? Among the CBs, you could say maybe Bailey, maybe Lucas, perhaps Rolle. Big stretches all. I think aside from the premiere LTs, of which perhaps 5 exist at any given time, few great teams are locking up that much money in one guy. In fact, I'm floored that Peyton Manning is not on this list. So, are we prepared to put so much resources into one CB position for such a long time? Will the deal we sign with him now look reasonable in 4 years? With the Tampa-2 is he a luxury we can afford with concerns on the D-Line and the right side/depth on the O-Line, LB? Could Youboty fill in capably (remember, Asante Samuel was a young liability the Pats were able to afford at one time)? I'm glad this isn't my job to decide.

Indeed. It's a television show and nothing more. Besides, as I was remarking to my wife this morning, accepting the show's premises means you're accepting that there is this small group of powerful people more interested in money and power than in life itself, even on a day where a nuclear bomb exploded a few miles from them. And that this group even controlled the President. Which is pretty much a left-wing conception.

Any prognostications for tonight? Inquiring minds want to know: - How many times will Jack scream "WHERE IS THE _______?"? - How many times will Jack inform someone that "he can't do this anymore."? - How many times will we be shown that, yes, torture always works? In spite of its silliness, this show is great televison. Really interested to see where they go now that most of L.A. has been exposed to A-bomb radiation.

OMFG Hilarious. The Onion does it again.

Awesome. Now they just need to sign Bledsoe.

I was more wary of the fact that they charged Indy a timeout for injury but didn't for the Pats when Seymour went down for an equal amount of time. But thankfully it didn't impact the game's outcome.

Has love of a football team ever been rational, Joe? If it was it'd be a hell of a lot less fun and euphoric (and a lot less disappointing when the losses came).

Perhaps they'll just follow their own blueprint to success. The point is not to copy what's been done by others. We may not need to draft two top-notch OL; Colston is proof-positive that great talent can be found in the depths of the draft; our QB has more upside and athleticism than Brees. The key will be our coaching staff continuing to learn how to make in-game adjustments, an infusion of more young talent (and I am excited that we might have a shot at Lance Briggs -- it'd be awesome to have a jersey with my own last name on it... ) and a good stay-the-course philosophy. The continued growth of a QB who is already, IMO better than this year's NFC Super Bowl QB is going to be a big deal. This year the team learned what it could do with limited resources. In 2007 we should have more at our disposal.

Umm, isn't this pretty much the heart of why Bills fans hate the Dolphins? Oh-for-the-70s? And why it was so sweet when we did start beating them? I hate them because they are good, because they seem to get the breaks more often than not when they need them, and because they're in our division. Add on top of that the incessant media fascination with them. By your logic we should have just loved those 90s Cowboys teams because they were so good and did everything right, instead of hating them because they won with their !@#$ coach, Deion Sanders, cokehead Michael Irvin and golden boy Troy Aikman. That's horseshit. We're entitled to be happy the Pats lost -- and I'm happy that a Polian-constructed team won with a good guy in Dungy at the helm, and a QB who is one of the best in the game without fancying himself bigger than the game or the team (the main reason, to me, that Marino never won). And in the meantime, why bother with the Bills if they've ruined your life so and are so damn hopeless? Or will happy Joe be back should the Bills be sniffing playoffs in December 07?

How good was New Orleans last year? How about the Jets?

This is no news flash nor is it a really bad thing. A major library journal reviewed Wikipedia and gave it various grades on different topics. It was pretty interesting to see how it graded out (C- on history, B- on sciences, etc). In general, it was found that egregious errors in more serious topics of discussion were quickly fixed. So, in a sense, it works. And at its best it can be sort of like open source, in that this medium that is free to all to review and use and amend, with the eventual outcome of the best prevailing. As with this system, the work of a joker or a hacker can certainly permeate the system, but it's often remedied with better results. Where caution should be taken is that students and serious educational authorities should take pains to make it clear that it's not a valid scholarly source subject to the kind of peer review standards required for serious educational research. But this goes more at the heart of how research is taught than it does to Wikipedia (and our search for quick and easy answers) itself. Wikipedia is just reflective of an Internet that was never a 100% reliable source of information anyway. It's a good pointer, and I really value the 'links' at the bottom to more credible sources. At the same time, we need to think about how we conceive of knowledge as a saleable item. Do we have these problems if something like Britannica.com or an academic journal search is available to all? And if it is, how do the makers of it make a living?

As a Senator in the minority party it's tougher to do such things and less in the 'job description,' whereas Representatives are more expected to bring home the bacon for districts. We'll see what, if anything, she can do with her party in power, assuming she's not already out to lunch for her term getting ready for the presidential race (an unlikely assumption).