MattM

No logic being defied here. Recall that this Super Bowl was played under the shadow of the Pats* cheating scandal re-breaking two days earlier. If (and it's just an "if"--I'm not accusing anyone) there was a deal in place for one or more refs to do the usual number on the Pats* opponents don't you think such a breaking scandal might give them second thoughts? I certainly do. Not saying there is a conspiracy, but I am saying that based on what I've seen in numerous games, yesterday's being only the most recent is a series of data points, I wouldn't be surprised at all if we find out years from now that someone in the Pats* organization has been paying officials, especially considering the things we know they've done when it comes to cheating (Spygate, HGH use among their players (many of whom tend to be of the "aging vet" variety)) and the things others suspect them of doing without proof as of yet (head sets on the fritz, bad spots, miked linemen, etc--again, see that NYT article from 2007 on the suspicions of others in the League on them).....

If you can read, I was talking not about the RTP calls, but the PI on Carr and the 15 yarder for Lord knows what on Jim Harbaugh immediately after that--20 yards of garbage penalties on that drive. Penalties that Pats* opponents seem to be the only ones to ever get (especially the one on the coach, which even the announcers mentioned never really seeing)......

You never answered my question above on the horrible calls other than the RTPs (probably since they don't support your view), but I'll answer yours. I think it should be seriously looked into, especially after things like the Donaghy stuff in the NBA and the Serie A scandal in Italian soccer two years ago (in which there was in fact a vast conspiracy involving refs in one of the biggest soccer leagues in the world) show that it can be done. There's an awful lot of money at stake and, in the Pats* case, awfully large egos involved, so who knows what people are capable of?

Don't forget Harbaugh getting a 15 yarder for talking to refs about a garbage PI call on one of their DBs--as per the announcers "when have you seen that before?". Someone seriously needs to look into this, it's just getting way too obvious......

Read what I wrote, please. The PI call on Carr was complete garbage, as was the 15 yarder on Harbaugh that followed it--those are the kind of calls you only really seem to see in Pats* games. I mean when was the last time you saw a coach flagged for talking to an official? When I originally posted I had not seen the Suggs hit on Brady, but I have since and that was really, really weak. The guy was blocked into him and barely glanced him. The League really does need to look into this when it's one team every time that we seem to be talking about getting the benefit of bad calls......

What's interesting and being swept under the rug here in the coverage of this is that in the initial interviews Lewis and Reed were comparing the officiating to that in the 2007 MNF game when (surprise, surprise) the Ravens got robbed on national TV against the Pats*. They seemed to be implying (correctly in my view) that that was not a coincidence. It's more than just the RTP calls--the PI call against Carr was an absolute joke, as was the 15 yarder against Harbaugh that followed it. This favoritism by the refs towards one team really needs to be looked into by the League.....

The Ravens are getting completely screwed by the refs--horrible PI call on Carr and then when Harbaugh complains about it to the refs he gets hit with a 15 yarder. According to Ravens fans there were too iffy RTP calls against them in the first half that had Harbaugh hot. Someone official (like Harbaugh) needs to say something about the officiating in their games, fines be darned.....

http://gawker.com/5371146/sarah-palins-gho...ists-and-wackos Here's a good one on Palin's ghost-writer. If she's to be judged by who she's ghost-written for in the past (which seems to be good enough to smear people on the left as per the right), sounds like she's a far-right ideologue with racist views--what a shock. Here's an article from the LA Times on Sarah's dinosaur views: http://articles.latimes.com/2008/sep/28/na...palinreligion28 There is indeed a video on Youtube called Sarah Palin Dinosaur church Parts I and II, but as the video was long, I must admit to being too lazy to watch it all. As for the economic crisis, Magox, as someone who works in the industry I'd say that it had a lot more to do with the Bush administration's decision in 2004 to effectively let the I-banks regulate themselves, figuring that the market would discipline their risk appetite. It didn't work, as instead it created an asymmetrical risk/reward payout, which lead to bad decision-making. That had a lot more to do with the failure of the financial system than Fannie/Freddie's failures, which were not a major part of the whole shebang. Letting Lehman fail was the real big mistake that set the whole thing off, and guess who's watch that came on?

I just want to know who wrote that book for her--anyone who ever saw any of those Katie Couric or Charlie Gibson interviews knows she's as dumb as a rock. I particularly liked the one where she couldn't name a single publication that she reads. Absolutely incredible if you ask me. I also loved the Youtube video I saw where she's at a church in Alaska where folks are talking about dinosaurs roaming the Earth 6,000 years ago. Folks gave Obama grief about hanging out with Rev. Wright, but isn't hanging out with creationists about as daffy? But what do I know, I'm just one of those Ivy League lawyers that our pal here seems to think steals all his money--newsflash, pal, if you want someone to blame for the current economic crisis look no further than your friends in the GOP. In the WH for 8 years and in control of Congress (both houses) from 2000 to 2006, but somehow not at all responsible for the sickening mess the economy's in? Yeah, go figure, but they don't seem to want to fess up for responsibility for much. I mean, ever read the President's Daily Briefing dated Aug. 6, 2001 entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike Within the US" that talked about Bin Laden's desire to hijack planes? Look it up, it's been declassified and can be found on the Internet pretty easily. But heck, listen to them and 9/11 was all Clinton's fault--my favorite in that regard was seeing a Fox News scroll in July 2006 blaming Clinton for North Korea's nuclear bomb, notwithstanding that GWB had done nothing about NK for the prior 6 years. Sheesh....

Won't he be lining up against Jake Long, however--an undisputed good first round pick?

It's kind of funny that you focus on the form of delivery of TO's message, but not its substance. It's an undeniable fact that Harrison took HGH, a banned substance. (The only way he was caught was through sending it to his home address, BTW, so perhaps other aging Pats* vets weren't so stupid over the years--just a thought, or a suspicion on mine and others' part.) It's also pretty undeniable that he was a cheap shot artist par excellence. The voting most years for dirtiest player was something like 23% for Rodney and the next highest guy had 7% (those were the actual numbers one year). How someone with that background has ANY business criticizing someone else for ANYTHING is beyond me. I never understood this hire from the day it was made--just goes to show perhaps the pull that Kraft has around the League and with the networks to get his (tainted) guy in. I know, why doesn't ESPN bring back Pete Rose to comment on baseball......

I always liked him as well--he always seemed like a very decent guy. Eveything I ever heard about him down here (I live and work near and in NYC) from people interacting with him was positive. Tough break.....

Anyone with access to WNY local media (I live near NYC) able to tell us who's hurt and their status. Through the garbage spewing from his mouth most of the game, I thought I heard Pitts say that Whitner was out as was Bell. I know McKelvin went out, as I saw that. Am I right about this? If so, any updates? This was a bad loss (if only because the D did the impossible for 3 and a half quarters and the O couldn't do squat to come through for them), but the season's not over, especially with Miami and the Browns coming up.....

Wow, that was a horrible whiff by Byrd on that play.....

I agree--he and Lynch both are brutal.....

"Buffalo Bears", "83 plus thousand", not telling us what the penalty on the last punt was, etc. These announcers are just atrocious!

Must have flown in the guys who reffed the Pats* game today then--the Falcons found out how bad officiating can be at Foxboro today.....

Today will tell a big tale in terms of whether the Pats* are indeed in trouble. If they lose today at home to the Falcons, with the Ravens coming to town next week. If Bart Scott's recent statements are any indication, I strongly suspect that the Ravens all remember to a man the BS officiating screw job that cost them that Monday nighter in 2007. I also strongly suspect that they plan to take that out on the current version of the League and media darlings. Wouldn't surprise me to see the Pats* get embarrassed in that one.....

After reading the article, in a way it's a nutshell of the Pats* themselves--even their biggest homer is jumping off the bandwagon when the going looks like it may be about to get tough. Typical......

I've been saying for about a year now that their recent drafts have sucked, but all I got from Pats* fans was "in BB we trust" and "your team sucks and you're just jealous" when all the objective evidence showed that they have drafted horribly over the last few years. Good to see that angle getting some play.....

Who's what, 45 years old now, and doesn't have Fat Vince, Seymour and Warren, 1st rounders all, in front of him anymore?

Also pretty funny how he still has the Pats* several spots ahead of the Jets despite last week's game. In a nutshell, that really tells you all you need to know about these rankings.....

He's just mad his Pats* lost--awww, so sad.....

That's exactly what's wrong with the picture--it's a monopoly. We have no choice but to go through them for football and they can do whatever they want to us. It's just plain wrong.....

IMHO, DirecTV is an evil, evil company. My personal experience with them has been so bad that I've switched to cable, but get their basic package only during the season to get Sunday Ticket. It's a monopoly effectively and so what you get is monopoly pricing and monopoly customer service. Twice I've made service appointments for first thing in the morning and not only are they late, but they don't bother to show up at all, meaning you've essentially wasted a day. When you call them to complain, they shrug their shoulders and say "Sorry, we outsourced our installations, so we're not really responsible--would you like a $30 credit for your wasted day?" It really is scandalous and should be investigated. In fact, I'm on the phone with them right now (or trying to be) over a billing issue. This most recent problem I had with them required a service visit and this time the guy was only 3 hours late and promised a $75 credit which, surprise, surprise, hasn't shown up on my bill. I've been hung up on by the system once, hung up on by a customer service person once (each after long waits) and am now waiting for 15 minutes or so more just out of pique. TMQ or someone in the media really needs to do an expose on these guys. I've got some friends who work for some of the major papers here in NY and would love to pitch this as an idea for them on the crappy state of customer service by some companies today. They truly are a bad company in my opinion, making cable look like angels in comparison......