JohnC

You are the go to guy for UB sports. What are your thoughts on the HC and the prospects for the team this year? Whether the team regularly wins or loses will this team be palatable to watch? Over the past couple of years I watched some UB games played in front near empty stadiums. They were gut wrenching bad to watch.

You bring up a good point as to why the school monitors didn't put in an effort/encourage other kids to sit with him. Even if it was somewhat manufactured it would have been a good teaching moment for the other students to have more empathy towards kids who are different. When I saw the picture it was like this kid who had challenges was simply dumped in a situation that he was not equipped for. A little more effort by the school to have the populations mix a little more would have benefited all parties. The picture of the football player sitting with the kid warmed my heart but it also made me sad thinking what the kid usually goes through during the lunch hour.

A wonderful act of kindness by a kind soul. The cafeteria can be a place of community and also a place of isolation.

He penalized you for your seismic farts that broke the Richter scale.

First you laugh and then you get furious with the absurdity. You can't shame shameless people!

If the rate is at the level that Kelly the Dog stated in post #1449 is it appropriate/reasonable to come up with rules that negatively affects many more people who want to vote. Or another way of making this point is that the benefit doesn't come close to matching the cost. In the situation you are describing that illegals can vote in a local election why is it so wrong if the community supports that particular position? What is the harm? Taxes are being paid (sales taxes) by that group so why shouldn't they have a say if the local community allows it.

Just curious? What state and local jurisdictions are allowing illegal immigrants to vote? You may be mixing up the fact that some jurisdictions allow driver licences for illegals but never heard of allowing them to vote.

Putin and Russia are being mischievous with their hacking. What do you expect from communists? http://www.12news.com/news/politics/russian-hack-targets-arizona-voter-information/310913671

Isn't the voting period for the mail-in votes in Oregon a month? In Maryland when you go to vote they don't ask for ID. The person at the receiving table will ask you what your date of birth is and may ask you where you live. Then you are directed to a voting machine. I have not heard of any cases of voting fraud. Why would an individual risk a criminal charge for their one vote? What is lost in this discussion is not only the issue of IDs but also the limiting of early voting days and the closing of voting locations that make it difficult for people to get to their voting sites. The clear intention with the added hurdles to voting is to suppress the vote for specified groups rather than encourage it.

It is far fetched to believe non-citizens would willingly register and attempt to vote when those actions would expose them to the criminal justice and immigration system. Just because a person is undocumented that doesn't mean that person is stupendously stupid.

There is nothing wrong voting as an absentee voter. If you are in the military or are working out of the country that may be your only option to vote. My central point is that it is known that there is more fraud problems with the absentee vote than with voters going to the polls. The measures that are proposed to curtail voter fraud don't address the area in which it happens the most. Statistically more republicans use the absentee ballot than democrats. But that is not an issue that should matter. If the legislators are serious about curtailing voter fraud then they should deal with it where it does exist. It's getting scary. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fbi-is-investigating-foreign-hacks-of-state-election-systems/2016/08/29/6e758ff4-6e00-11e6-8365-b19e428a975e_story.html

A couple of years ago Pennsylvania with a republican governor was defending their new voter ID laws in court. Their argument was that although they couldn't cite any examples of fraud theoretically it could be a problem. In other words they were vigorously proposing a solution to a problem that didn't exist. The irony is that where fraud is most likely to occur, in absentee ballots, the ID laws that are usually proposed to address fraud don't deal with absentee ballots. It's not surprising that once the Supreme Court in a ruling last year or a couple of years ago ruled that more stringent ID laws were permissible and that scrutiny of states with a history of discrimination by the civil rights section of the Department of Justice were loosened there was an immediate run on more restrictive ID laws by states that had republican legislatures.

The attached link is the same link that I used in a previous response to this topic. I respectfully but strenuously disagree with you that all communities are treated the same by the police. The Department of Justice recently did an extensive investigation of the Baltimore Police Department. Their condemning conclusions can be found in the link. This is the type of police behavior that CK was addressing with his controversial stance when the National Anthem was played. http://www.vox.com/2...partment-report

Your responses over his response to the anthem is as telling as his act of sitting down. You are getting carried away! I have no problem with you disagreeing with his behavior. But you are treating his behavior as if it was an act of sedition. It wasn't. His act certainly was a public act of protest but you are treating it as an act of betrayal to his country. It's not.

A football player takes a public stand on a social position in which he has strong feelings. He is not naive. Quite the opposite---he is a smart individual who was recruited by Stanford and could have gone to a number of Ivy league schools. He knew that the stance he was taking would draw criticisms from most people.CK is also astute enough to realize by taking a public stance on such a volatile issue that he would be jeopardizing his current endorsement and future endorsement positions. Without worrying about the financial repercussions he held to a position he has strong feelings on. Whether one agrees or not with his actions no one can argue that he doesn't have the right to express his beliefs. If his expressions made people uncomfortable or even angry it at least made people think about the issue that he wasn't willing to go along with. The flag is a symbol of freedom in which people can express their views, popular or not, without questioning their right to express them. Was it the right place to express his views? For many, including me, it wasn't the most propitious time and place. But if the timing made me uncomfortable that is my issue/problem not his. The first link is from SI dealing with an interview with his parents. The second link deals with a Department of Justice report on Baltimore policing. This is the type of issue that CK had in mind when he refused to stand for the anthem. http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2016/08/27/colin-kaepernick-national-anthem-san-francisco-49ers-nfl http://www.vox.com/2016/8/10/12418428/baltimore-police-investigation-justice-department-report

This link is from today's Buffalo News on One Seneca Tower. The major point that should be taken away from this article is that the developer, Jemal, is committed to making this large and complicated project a success. Jemal has the right strategy in his three prong approach to breaking down this gargantuan building into more manageable segments i.e. hotel, apartments/condos, offices. http://www.buffalonews.com/business/real-estate/one-seneca-tower-buyer-tours-buffalos-tallest-building-sees-ton-of-potential-20160824

He's the player that the Buffalo organization aggressively pursued and coveted, as many others did. What made him appealing was that he could be signed for a reasonable price without giving up anything. I believe that if he would have signed with Buffalo there would have been a greater likelihood that Murray would have moved Evander Kane, even if the return would have been of minimal value. I'm hoping that Tyler Ennis demonstrates that he would be a good top too line player that would more than make up for the loss of Vesey.

The protection on that play was textbook good.

You and I are simpatico on the issue of drafting talent over position. Your citing of the selection of Darby underscores the wisdom of that approach to drafting. Of course there isn't a pure philosophical approach to drafting because positional need has to be factored in but overall player ranking should be the most influential consideration when making picks. It is the body of work for a number of consecutive years that build up a critical mass of good players that will determine sustained success for an organization. As I stated in a prior post Ozzie Newsome subscribes to the philosophy of sticking to your board; in my view as demonstrated by his record he is one of the best GMs in the game and a good model to follow.

I did state that the issue of securing a qb is a priority issue for all teams and is in a special category by nature of the position. Where I disagree with you is that you shouldn't look at a particular draft year and then draw conclusions. With the Ozzie Newsome approach of taking the best player carried over a number of years you build up to a critical mass of players that collectively give you a strong roster and allows you more flexibility when deciding to add or subtract from your roster. You brought up Mack to illustrate your point regarding the importance of certain positions. The take I have on Mack is that he illustrates my position on drafting for talent over positions because he was ranked on many boards near the top of the draft. From a talent standpoint he deserved to be a top 1-3 pick. In general, teams that are better at ranking talent regardless of positional needs have more sustained success over teams that give added weight to positions when evaluating and drafting players. It also has to be noted that certain teams don't rank positions in the same way as others do. As an example the Patriots don't expend much resources in securing receivers and running backs while other teams place more weight on those positions.

Your position makes sense but I respectfully disagree with it. It's become a cliche when discussing the draft to stick with your board and take the highest rated player. But in the long run that is the best approach to take. There are occasions when a team has a surplus of good players at a particular position so the draft strategy can be modified to a limited extend. In the long run drafting players where they are rated regardless of the position seems to work out the best. However, that is not to say that addressing desperate needs of the roster shouldn't require some flexibility when deciding whom to take. Following one's board is the Ozzie Newsome approach to drafting. In my opinion it is smart to follow the example of one of the most astute GMs in the game.

With or without Vesey Ennis was going to compete for a spot on one of the two top lines. The loss of Vesey has nothing to do with Ennis's preparation for the season. He is one of the players that I am expecting to give a boost to the roster.

Being a developer is a tough and complicated business to be in. Few projects get done without some public financial inducements to make the project feasible. That is an inescapable aspect of the business. When making a judgment on a person such as Jemal ask yourself if his projects get completed.?The answer is yes. Another question to ask regarding an out of town developer entering your market is whether he has been involved in similar type projects? Again, the answer is yes.

I live in the Md/DC and he is a known figure in the development world. What makes his involvement exciting is that he has successfully been involved in big conversion projects. As the BN article points out it is envisioned that this is a three tiered project that includes a hotel, rental/condo units and office spaces. As the article points out that this is not a quick fix project. It is a multi-pronged project and the financing will not be simple. But what is encouraging is that the new developer has been involved in these type of big projects. Without a doubt this is not the same type situation where an outside fraud from England got involved in the Statler project that ended up languishing.

Vesey bet on himself and used the system to his advantage. What it comes down to is that he used his time at Harvard to develop as a player and played it out until he was a free agent. Not only did he work hard to improve his hockey skills but he also persevered and earned a college degree from one of the best and most rigorous colleges in the world. I have nothing but admiration for him. Although I would have loved to see him in a Sabre uniform I still have a lot of respect for him as a hockey player and person.