The Avenger

I just watched The Bridge online last night - wow. Very well done, but those images stay with you - I'm having a hard time getting it out of my head. It's hard to imagine what would make anyone do that, but in a small way I guess it was bit comforting knowing that only the most troubled in society actually resort to something like that. Just about everyone who jumped had a history of mental illness, bi-polar disorder or severe clinical depression. Speaks to the state of mental health care in the U.S.

You'd be hard-pressed to find a more outright depressing movie than 2001's "Wit" starring Emma Thompson. In this movie Emma Thompson plays an eglish professor dying of cancer and reflecting on her life - how she's never really had any good strong relationships, how alone she is, how her work has been her life and how few people know or like her. So you follow a lonely woman as she slowly dies a terrible death - hard to get more depressing than that. After I watched it I wondered why I had done that to myself.

I guess you and I may have a different idea of a solid draft. While I haven't completely given up on Maybin, all I can see from this point is a guy drafted in the top 10 who can't break into the starting linup behind a journeyman LB castoff from the Dolphins - that's pretty damn pathertic if you ask me. McKelvin before him also doesn't appear to have broken nto the starting lineup behind another veteran castoff, but at least he's had some playing time and done something on the field. Not saying there weren't also some good picks in those drafts, but if Maybin never gets off his current career trajectory and McKelvin can't crack the starting lineup those are HUGE misses AGAIN from a front office that has had far too many - how much money are we going to tie up in players who don't even start?

So no sooner do I leave for a week's vacation and check my TV via my Slingbox when I realize that yet again my wonderful DTV DVR has gone into a funk is is non-responsive. I'm not home to reset the damn thing and the Slingbox can only do what my remote can do, which in this case is absolutely nothing because the DVR won't respond to anything! I call DTV to see if they can reset it - naturally, they can't because mine is a model that can't be reset remotely. I told the folks at DTV that the hunk of junk DVR has been doing this one a week or so and that they need to send me a new one - she says they will not until I can get home and troubleshoot it with them via the phone - what part of "it's a piece is S^%T that's been freezing up" don't they understand? I'm so ticked - looks like I'm going to miss the game on Friday - I had planned to watch it on Slingbox but that's showing a whole lot of nothing right now....

Exactly. It's not like this team is so loaded with talent that the young guys have to wait to see the field - quite the contrary - we have so many holes to fill that we absolutely have to have guys that can come in and play from the get go. Unfortunately, most of the same old talent evaluators responsible for these picks are still in the same roles, and one of them in now the GM - makes me wonder why everyone is so damn convinced we have a GM who is going to get us on the right track.....

Agree 100%. If you want insight, analysis and even some cool tools from guys who live and breathe fantasy football, this is your site. In all honesty I thought I was way too much into fantasy football, but these guys put anyone else to shame - even I'm not going to write a 5000 word article on tweaking your VBD projections to historical curves for running backs across years in the league tiers. If all you're looking for is a basic cheatsheet this site is probably overkill, especially if you don't care whether the rankings you'll use actually reflect your league's scoring system.

I think the Bills are going to surprise a lot of people this year - THIS is the year we make the playoffs! - New coach - that last guy was a total moron - Gregg Williams Mike Mularkey Dick Jauron Chan Gailey is just the coach this team needs - he's a REAL coach who will get the most out of this team! Although he has yet to do anything, I LOVE him! - Front office changes - we have a new guy (OK, he was part of the old regime, but he's got the top job now). Although he's done nothing yet, I LOVE him - he's got this organization on the right track! - I know our past drafts have been pretty weak and we've not really gotten any serious impact players, but Donte Whitner Marshawn Lynch Leodis McKelvin James Hardy Aaron maybin C.J. Spiller is the REAL DEAL - he's a game changer that's going to be a perennial Prow Bowl player! - Injuries - I know we had a lot of injuries last year, but this year's going to be different! We can completely control injuries and by hiring a new strength and conditioning coach and taking the TVs out of the weight room - we should have at least 8 fewer guys on IR this season! - Free agents - did you see who we brought in this year! Everyone says he's at the end of his career and has no place left to go, but we got a steal - that guy's gonna be a monster playing for us - Offensive line - I know we've had real problems at the offensive line, but all we need are a few games together and this unit is going to gel big-time. Everyone who says we have one of the worst o-lines in the NFL is buying into that "lower round draftees are better than rookie free agents crap" - hey, anyone ever hear of Jason Peters? We have 5 Pro Bowl offensive linemen nobody knows about yet! - Division opponents - we've had trouble beating the Fins, Jets and Pats in the last few seasons, but they really aren't that good. On paper they've added players that evryone says make them much better, but I don't buy that media hype. I haven't seen them play, but I know they're not going to be all that great. On the other hand, the Bills haven't shown anything yet but I really believe they're going 12-4 this year! - The defensive changes we made are finally going to suit our personnel - what a concept! I think that alone gives us 5 more wins than last season, even with new coaches and guys playing positions they never played before..... - The Bills are flying under the radar this year. Nobody but nobody in the media is paying any attention to this team and I love that - we're going to sneak up on teams and destroy them, mainly because other organizations get all their Bills information from folks like Peter King. I can't wait to competely stun Bill Belichick because he was looking for us in Monday Morning Quarterback and didn't read anything about us - that's gonna be sweet! [feel free to cut and paste and post this next year - it'll save you the trouble of making the same "THIS is the Bills year" arguments you've made for the past decade]

Good call - remote and the locals have a deep seated distrust of the government - nobody there's going to give you up and they'll probably help you. If you thought they hated the government before Ruby Ridge.......

You also have to have consistency - that seems to be the problems we had with Trent and Fitzpatrick last year. They can make some great thows, but others are just way, way off. Unfortuntely, you can make a bunch of great throws on a drive, but you throw one bad one and it's all for naught because it's a turnover.

There is no right to a religious marrige now, nor does there appear to be any movement to do so - you're confusing right to marriage bestowed by the State and right to marriage bestowed by the Church. If the fight was for the right to marry anywhere, in any church this would be a whole different ball of wax with civil rights vs. freedom of religion. Right now the only part the churches have in the argument is that their traditions/morality don't support gay marriage and therefore the State shouldn't allow it - in this latest ruling the court said that didn't really matter. If there was a right to a church marriage churches would already be defending lawsuits - "Why can't I get married in the Mormon temple - it's so beautiful!" "Why won't the Catholic church marry me because my fiance is Jewish?". Churches can and do set the parameters of who they marry and under what conditions - plenty of people haven't liked it, but they can't sue - they just have to get married somewhere else. Saying that allowing gays to marry will require any church to marry them as an uninteded consequence is a straw man argument.

I've not seen where anyone is trying to force churches to accept gay marriage. The churches can and do select who they will marry in their own religious tradition - I know the Mormons won't marry non-Mormons (in fact, you have to be Mormon to attend the ceremony in a Mormon temple), and from what I understand the Catholic church puts all sorts of conditions on marrying (pre-marital education, willingness to agree that children will be raised Catholic, etc.) - there's absolutely nothing wrong with that and as a separation of church and State issue the State should not dictate who churches should marry. What is being argued is that if the State decides who should be allowed to marry (and it is the State making this decision), gays should not be excluded. People talk about civil unions all the time, but the truth is that these are not full marriages - they aren't recognized beyond state borders, there is no legal precendent requiring them to be recognized and in general serve as some sort of "separate but equal" arrangement. The push is for full legal marriages in the State sense, not the church sense - this is where people aren't willing to compromise. The problem really is that a marriage often has components that aren't easily separated - the civil component and the religious component. It may just be a matter of symantics, but until society shifts to be concerned with whether you're "in a civil union" instead of whether you're "married" this problem will continue. I think gays need to be allowed to have a marriage, called a marriage, with all the rights of any other marriage but with the understanding that this is a State marrige, not a church marriage.

Depends on how you define conservative - I was defining in social terms ("social conservative"). Sadly, social conservatives have had so much sway over the right that social conservatives have been almost synonymous with conservative. You're right - conseravtives who don't care much about social issues could care less about this issue, but these folks have been far less vocal then their social conservative cousins.

Well stated. The issue is whether Constitution affords these rights to these people. Short of actually ammending the Constitution itself, you can not by referendum of the people nor passage of the legislature, deny these rights. The only exception to this is if the state has a compelling interest in doing so. So, the questions to be decided are: 1. Are homosexual couples entitled to the Constitutional right to marry? The latest ruling indicaes that they are under the equal protection clause 2. Is there a compelling state interest in not allowing homosexual couples to marry? The ruling indicates that there is not. The arbitors of these matters are the courts - not the people, not the legislature. Again, the conservatives scream about usurping the will of the people and activist judges. In the end "the people" can no more deny anyone a Constitutional right than they could take one away from you (what if they passed a referendum that only white people could marry?), nor is there anything "activist" about a fair interpretation of the Constitution and it applicability to anyone.

Chris Brown ran a blog entry on Monday saying that it was clear Schobel would not be released. At the time I read it that appeared to be a direct quote from Nix - maybe it wasn't. I do think that when you work for the organization, whether it be as the GM or a "reporter", you shouldn't make statements like that if you know that's very likely not to be the case....

Once again the front office is setting the tone for the organization, and that tone seems to be, "we're all talk and can easily be run over". Gotta show something better than that to get some optimism from me.

Agreed - we are not professional front office people and we all knew that, but Nix had to know it, too - why say something stupid 2 days ago when you have to know that there's a very good chance you're going to have to eat your words? Spiller's agent has got to be thinking he's dealing with a bunch of absolute fools and in no mood to try and bargain...

Gotta love the statement Buddy made just 2 days ago about Schobel not being released. If they do release him today not only does it look like you let him go without getting anything for him, you look like an even bigger ass because you are doing something you expressly said you weren't going to do. Maybe there really aren't any options for the Bills, but if you're a GM you should have realized that a few days ago and not said something stupid about not releasing him. This is exactly why I'm not willing to give the new regime much credot until they actually show me something - right now it seems like the same old Bills front office......

The article you cite is from 2009 - wonder how that pilot went and whether it will be offered this year?

All capitalized? All have vowels? What are 8 words who have never been in my kitchen?

You're probably right about the fumble - the Bills will lose because they shoot themselves in the foot, not because they were outplayed. Only difference I see is that even though the only thing anyone talks about is Favre, he actually doesn't have a very good or memorable game and statistically may even have a worse game than whatever NFL backup we having playing for us (Edwards/Fitzpatrick/Ryan Leaf/Geno Toretta) but that will go completely unnoticed - Favre will still be the hero....

Plenty of time for that ankle to heal and watch Brett Favre heroically return to the gridiron on December 5 as the Minnesota Vikings take on the Buffalo Bills. The game will be televised nationally and the Bills will play a great game but fall short - nobody will notice because all they can do is talk about Favre - it's the Teddy Bruschi game all over again......

The problem, I find, is that the folks who are most optimistic are also the ones who are the most suicidal when the team doesn't live up to their expectations. 2 years ago when we were at 5-1 some people were honestly talking about the Super Bowl and praising any writer who had them in the top 5 in the power rankings - nevermind the fact that they had beaten absolutely nobody and soon succumbed to better competition. Call me jaded, but for too many years I've gotten all hyped up at this point in the cycle (training camp) only to see some downright terrible performance on the field. I'm much happier hoping for a win on Sundays and settling for seeing some exciting plays by the Bills than I am seeing them fail to live up to lofty expectations because I see the team through rose colored glasses. The rollercoaster ride between lofty expectations and soul crushing losses is over for me - been there, done that. If that makes me a pessimist so be it, but it doesn't make me any less of a fan.

WHITEST...VIDEO...EVER

They REALLY have to pass a passenger bill of rights - I could understand a year, maybe even 2, but this is getting out of hand... On the plus side, because this is not a weather related delay but due to the airline, I understand Mr. Siefert did get a $5 food coupon and a 5 minute calling card. I have my doubts on whether he'll get hus luggage - these types of snafus have a way of wreaking havoc on bag routing.....

It's there to pick up George Seifert - he's been spotted at the Buffalo Airport, you know.......