Taro T

You mean it's down to just Daisy and Luke, or is Uncle Jesse still with them?

Maybe Spacek comes to the Sabres. (Wishful thinking on my part.)

Nuni (pronounced like new knee) was a master of the knee check, not the hip check. He tore up many a player's knee, including Buffalo's own Donald Audette. Schoney and Robi were pretty good at the hip check back in their day.

AD, w/ all due respect, I disagree about the McKee hit. IIRC, McKee hit him w/ shoulder and hip and then his leg trailed out. The hit was clean. It is very difficult to throw a good hip check and stay on one's feet without then having the leg from that side swing out after the check. The leg that came out, IMHO, was used to regain McKee's balance, it wasn't out there to "finish" the check. As for your other point, I've been very impressed w/ Drury's leadership this season. His reaction to the Connolly hit just reinforces that opinion.

Nick, starting new threads to post updates are easier to follow than your posting an update in one of the other threads, so when you do have additional news, please post it in a new thread. I can't imagine the h*ll you and your family are going through right now. For whatever it is worth, in the past 5 years I have had 2 different friends told that their child had little / no chance of making it. Little children are oftentimes much stronger than people realize. The Drs were wrong in both of my friends' cases; I truly hope your Mera pulls through this.

You'd think he'd be old enough to know you're supposed to only eat the Burnt Sienna.

No one said it would be cheaper. IIRC, it was one of the bones thrown to the Democrats to get the DHS approved. (Ironically, they were the ones screaming loudest to get the DHS set up in the 1st place.)

I've been bouncing between the Sabres game and the Vancouver game to hear the CBC version of what happened. Haven't seen a highlight over there yet. Sabres got hosed.

Joe, it's the same thing, just presented differently. Every $ spent by government is a tax that you and I will have to pay. If the taxes are raised, you pay it today and the economy takes the hit today. If taxes are cut, you pay it later and hopefully the economy has grown enough to cover that $ down the road. Every time government spends an additional $, your taxes just went up.

I'd put the one Mario scored in the Finals against Minnesota with 2 defensemen draped on him, lifting the puck over Casey (IIRC) while on his knees up there as well.

What, you don't think a 7' tall guy with arms just about 4' long standing under a 10' tall basket and placing the ball inside the hoop is impressive? You don't think watching a guy travel from the top of the key to dunk the basketball is impressive? For shame, Doc. ESPN couldn't call them the plays of the day if they weren't. Right?

Wow!

Actually, the way you win your 1st election in SD if you are a Democrat is get HEAVY Indian participation along with calls to increase farm subsidies (thus getting a substantial percentage of the eastern ranchers' votes) and do a LOT of handslapping throughout the entire state (lots of backroads travel for many small turnout events). After you have won once and begin to get seniority, the way to get reelected is continue to bring money back to the state. Owing to how small the state population is and the perceived lack of political clout, the voters tend to continue to vote for a candidate once in national office even if they disagree with several of the candidate's positions. About the only way to not get reelected is to blatently ignore the wishes of the locals to the point that they are willing to forego some clout in order to get rid of the bum. Congrats Tom, you managed to do the near impossible and get yourself voted out. IF somehow he were to become the Democratic nominee, I guarantee he would follow in Gore's footsteps and would not carry his home state.

Timmy was on the cover of the December 20th issue, Briere scoring on Turco was the inside cover photo of the December 27th issue and that issue has a small bit on Doug Bodger and President Clinton attending the Sabres game on 12/14, and McKee taking a shot is the inside cover photo of the January 17 issue. The January 3 issue has a cover article on Marty Biron and also has Darcy Regier listed as 1 of the top 100 most influential people in hockey. How much more Sabres focus does THN need to have before they are giving the Sabres publicity?

The city didn't just buy it, they WAY overpaid. When they bought it, the bidding went to $27MM; what was Rochester's counter bid? $27.25, $27.5, maybe even $28? Heck no, the friggin' morons went to $32MM to show the sole other bidder "that we mean business". They are now HOPING to sell the boat for $20MM. The genius Bill Johnson gave the people running CATS (the original owners of the ferry) a 40 YEAR lease on the property at the Rochester harbor for $1.00 / year REGARDLESS of whether they kept the ferry running or not. The BEST operational month for the ferry last year was August. Fares topped $1.0MM for the month, unfortunately fuel costs topped $1.1MM. The genius Bill Johnson wanted to force through a loan guarantee for the Ferry Corp. of $11.5MM 1 week before Duffy was to take over. Why have the City ONLY lose $20MM on this venture when it can lose $30MM? The genius Bill Johnson agreed to give the Port of Toronto $250k/year to dock the ferry in Toronto and also pay TO $1/passenger and $3/car. There is a 14 year contract on this one, so it will be interesting to see what Rachacha has to do to keep from giving TO $250k each year for the next 13 for absolutely nothing at all. According to Duffy, and I tend to believe it based on the results of the 2 year experiment, IF ridership doubled and fares went up 20%, the ferry would ONLY lose $2.7MM this year. This is actually very good considering the ferry lost $10MM in 10 months and the "value" of the ferry itself dropped about $12MM in 1 year.

Mickey, you WANT to see racism everywhere, and thus you do. You bring in statistics that show a very small %age of people in the US commit "racially motivated" crimes. There is a problem, but there is no way that you will convince me that blacks are "persecuted" today with this statistic.

I'd be interested in seeing the statistics for other nations as well. The 0.0071% is definitely too high, but I am expecting to hear that it is too low because Mickey removed all property and "multiple bias" crimes from his list. I arbitrarily biased the number to the high side to TRY to stave off the cries of biasing it to the low side.

Just for a statistical perspective on this. The US Census bureau estimates the current US population (July 2005) to be 296,410,404. Even if all 21,155 "racially motivated criminal incidents" were perpetrated by different individuals and all occured in a single year rather than a 5 year period, this would account for 0.0071% of the entire population as perpetrating racially motivated "hate" crimes. Clearly this is a much bigger problem than I previously realized.

8-2 loss in Boston 12/10/70. He probably didn't face quite that many shots in reality as the Bruins shot clock keepers were/are notorious for counting anything that an opposing goalie touches and has the slightest possibility of entering the net if the goalie doesn't touch it as being a shot.

I don't see what he would add to the powerplay. The Sabres have the 2nd best powerplay in the league right now, connecting at a better than 22% rate. Only Detroit is better at 25%. I doubt that Andy would improve the success rate. One slight problem with the powerplay is the Sabres are tied with 3 other teams for giving up the 6th most shorthanded goals against. They've given up 7, the worst in the league is 9. Putting one of the slowest guys in the league on the ice MIGHT actually help the Sabres make this even worse. He won't be back at the point losing the puck, but he won't be getting back covering any trailers either.

I don't see the weak spot for the team being the forwards. I still think they need more help on D than they do at forward. Teppo will be close to 38 by the time the season is over. It would be nice to have another solid defenseman on the roster to allow him some rest down the stretch and also to allow the depth player on D to be Campbell or Tallinder rather than Fitzpatrick. I am not as concerned about the compressed schedule after the Olympic break as the Sabres have one of the younger teams in the league. They also have one of the fastest teams. Both of these should be to their advantage as older, slower teams wear down during the stretch run. The one wildcard is, the league has done a good job of limiting the obstruction non-calls so far this season; will that continue after the Olympic break? My guess is that the answer to that question is yes, but we won't know for sure until we get there. If they continue to call obstruction, the Sabres should still do well against teams like NJ (see game of 11/15). If they don't the Sabres will have a rough go of it with teams like NJ (see game of 1/7). I expect the Sabres to "struggle" and play "only" 0.500 until the Olympic break based upon the opponents over the next month and how the Sabres matchup against them. After the break, provided they don't have a trade backfire nor have the league go away from the obstruction crackdown, I expect the Sabres to go back to winning the majority of the games they play. I doubt they will overtake Ottawa, but there are still WAY too many things that can happen between now and April to make any specific predictions.

As opposed to one of those little landing strips that's so fashionable these days?

The way he's been playing lately (prior to getting hurt), the truck would probably go 5 hole cleanly anyway. As others have posted, I'd prefer a rested Miller come March than one who was playing ~every other night the prior 2 weeks.

But you want to use as few words as possible when you write a headline and "West" uses up 4 whole letters and doesn't really ADD anything to the story. It conveys FAR less flavor about the article than the word "just". And heck, prior to the 1860's it was part of Virginia, so are you really losing anything by not including it?

Mickey, thanks for the clarification on agent of a foreign power and US person. I remember thinking you were correct on that point when all this 1st came out, but when revisiting the statute today could not figure out why. I also agree with your interpretation (to a substantial extent) about the AG certification simply being a statement from the AG stating "we think ___ is a bad guy". I don't mean to be painfully obtuse, but I can't help but come away with the impression that surveillance performed prior to the AG certification doesn't fall under the acceptable bounds of FISA. I know that does not make any sense rationally, as this is a type of problem that FISA was meant to correct; but everytime I look at FISA, I keep coming away with the impression that surveillance conducted prior to AG "certification" falls outside of acceptable FISA procedures and any convictions stemming from it (such as the guy who was part of the plot to sabotage the Brooklyn Bridge) would be overturned on appeal. Also, I agree 100% with your points in your 1st and last sentences.