Herodotus

Social Democrat. There is nothing socialist about him. He is very much a middle of the European Social Democrat. Saying communism or socialism is right wing well poisoning.

But not a first in terms of diplomacy. Yes Turnip gives the Ukrainians lethal aid, and yes Turnip is slapping [symbolic] sanctions on Nordstream 2 and Southstream so he and his buds can sell American LNG at very expensive prices, but the Ukrainians are very skittish about anyone who has good relations with Russia. This has more to do with them making sure Trump is not actively doing Russia's bidding than them caring that Turnip is a psychotic asshole.

I think another way people are misreading this tweet is by thinking someone on minimum wage in 2009 is still at that level today. In 2009 I was at Wal-Mart making 8.10 an hour for a level 1 one job. In my current line of work I make 22.50 an hour. I do not think this post was about someone staying at minimum wage, but asking why minimum wage has not increased with cost of living increases.

I agree, we have 9 picks, Beane probably deals us down to 5 or 6 picks in the first three rounds. I can even allow him 1 defensive player if he uses the other 4 or 5 to get us upgrades at OL, WR, TE, and depth

Greens, and the only way I vote for either of the two main parties is a state dept job to Moscow or Berlin, and a billion dollars

Nope, 7-9. They were 9-7 when they hired Rex Ryan. McD was hired after a 17 year drought. He had a much bigger hole to dig out of. Also, do you really think Ryan Tannehill is going to get the Titans to a Superbowl, and give them long term success? McD and Beane are building a much more solid and long lasting success. Year one they went to the Playoffs with the assorted garbage of Donahoe, Levy, Nix, Brandon, and Whaley. Year two they tossed that crap out and got their future QB and the heart of their D. Last year they got the D in the shape they wanted and got us depth for the O. This off season they get the O where they want it. Lets be a bit calm about McD. He has done nothing to tell me he should be fired. Nor has Beane.

Meh, I turned over my Bills heartache after they lost because its college basketball season which means the Shockers will find creative ways to abuse me in March. Then its a long summer of substandard Royals baseball followed by the Buffalol Bills. Wash, rinse, repeate ad nauseum

1. Was money sent in for these prizes? If not, I am not sure if the courts will want to get involved in an internet spat 2. Lit, just send the gifts to these people. Its bad PR if you don't, and besides sending the prizes clears the air so folks can fight over whose fault is it that Allen is not yet a HOF QB.

I too am pleasantly surprised that his imbroglios in Syria and Iran have not turned nuclear. Putin and his allies have showed amazing constraint. If he had spent more time doing presidential shit, well yeah I think nuclear war is a distinct possibility. As for being occupied by Russia, well that is an absolute never going to happen. Russia -for 300 years now - is an almost unmatched land army. They tend to start out slow, suck you in to their country and then beat the shit out of you when you have exhausted your forces driving deep into their country. This is now, and always has been their defense strategy. This is a major reason they were very unhappy with the orange revolution in 2004 and why they readily accepted the Crimean referendum in 2014. Its also why they had a an East Bloc. The Russians were going to put as much space between American, British, and French forces and the Bundeswehr and the Soviet frontier as possible. They packed that bloc with armies and weapons because we were going to be bogged down in those countries and they were going to then launch a counter attack while we were bogged down in central Europe. So yes, in an eastern European war, if NATO invaded Russia and somehow it stayed conventional I am not really all that sure that we would beat them. They are well trained, they are fanatically patriotic (they tend to always hate their governments but they love their motherland), well armed, and have always acquitted themselves well on the battlefield. On the other hand, Russia is not good at force projection. They never have been and they are not now. The Russian navy does have lots of ballistic missile subs, does have a lot of coastal defense ships, and a lot of ships designed to piece by piece sink our carrier groups, but they do not have a blue water navy and nor do they have sufficient transport planes or a large enough merchant marine to support a massive undertaking such as the invasion of the North American Continent. They lacked this ability during Imperial (Alexander II gave Lincoln Russian America [Alaska and the pacific northwest) times, they lacked it during the heights or depths of the Soviet era, and they certainly lack it now. They could probably take Ukraine all the way to Odessa and the Dniepr if they wanted too as that area is predominantly ethnic Russian and Belarus would probably help them. However, anything west of that would not be something they would be willing to risk. I don't think Putin would even risk that. He likes an easy victory that makes him look tough. Rotate planes and troops to Syria to get them combat experience without having to engage NATO, send a flotilla to Venezuela to project power to show the Americans that Venezuela may fall under Russia's nuclear umbrella, have war games with the Indians and Iranians, establish quasi independent republics in parts of the the Republic of Georgia and Ukraine where there are sizeable Russian and Pro Russian populations, and annex Ukraine. These actions impress the Russian electorate, make Russia appear strong, and they are achieved -in Russian terms* - for very little loss of life. *I don't think people in our country can quite wrap our minds around just how many people in the Russian Empire and then Soviet Union died during the course of WWI, the Civil War, and WWII. As Col David Glantz of the University of Kansas points out, the numbers of Soviet dead during WWII are never going to be accurate. Conservative estimates are 27 million people, with roughly 8 or 9 million of those being estimated as soldiers. In WWI, the records suggest 5 to 7 million dead, and during the Civil war, probably another 2 to 5 million, but nobody will ever know quite for sure. We won't even mention the Purges, the famine caused by forced collectivization, or the Great Terror during the time of Stalin that killed 9 million more people. Essentially from 1914 to 1945, in terms of troops alone and not civilians (the Russians suffered half a million casualties each and every year), or 1,502 a day. Lets put that in perspective. During WW1 and 2 combined we lost 800,000 troops. When the WaPo says 300 Russians were killed in an airstrike in Syria today, the Russians go, and?

Definite Keeps: Shaq, Phillips, Spain, Liuget Keep for the right price: Foster, Wallace Offer coaching position: Gore

I want to see what Allen has when he isn't being sacked 2.5 times a game. Yeah, last year he was actually sacked fewer times. We need upgrades on the OL and he needs a big sure handed Metzlaars/McKeller type. I am mixed on Daboll. Part of me wants to hang the bastard, but part of me wants to see what he can do with Allen with another season and some upgrades at WR/TE and OL. I think the league is catching on to some of Allen's tricks, but again I will know pretty much all I need to next year. If we cannot win with this D and a completed work on offense next year then yeah it may be time to move on from him. I will bookmark this thread and pay it a visit next December.

Anything on the Defensive side of the ball in the first three rounds? Well, how does that song go?

True that. My first tears were after Norwood kicked wide right in XXV. I will never abandon this team.

2019 Bills Post Mortem: The Good: The Defense and the ability to take any and I mean any game to the end and make everyone have to work 60 minutes or more to have a chance at victory is a major gain from this year. Devin Singletary is a heck of a fine running back and we have a solid second and third receiver set in John Brown and Cole Beasley. The Bills also have almost 100 million in cap space and some draft capital as well. Also, Josh Allen is what we all knew he was, a project QB from a small college with lots of potential. He showed much improvement in completion percentage, TD to INT ratio and wins. He is our future. There is nothing wrong with that The Bad: Sean McDermott, I do like what you are building, but what you do not have is what Apollo Creed in Rocky III called the Eye of the Tiger, that is to say The Killer Instinct. We lost to Houston because you took your foot off their throat again just like you did when we played Cleveland and New England in Foxboro. If you do this again you will be our own Marvin Lewis or Marty Schottenheimer, in other words, good enough to get to the dance, just not good enough to win a ring. The Ugly: The coaching of Brian Daboll. Hey Cleveland, if you want the guy, I will pay for a one way greyhound ticket for him and a Motel 6 room (ideally one with bedbugs, roaches, and fleas) so he does not come back. This team is built for power running and so in the Biggest game for this team in decades you move away from the run. You did this too against Baltimore, against Cleveland, and against Philadelphia. Good coaches play up and play to the talents of their players and the weaknesses of their opponents and you do not. Also, I think you delayed Josh Allen's development. Even uglier than Daboll, is the fact that this team is situationally unaware, prone to make ridiculous penalties, and turnover prone. Yes, the turnover problem got better by and large as the season progressed, but the stupid penalties and lack of situational awareness proved fatal to this team. Some of this was certainly on the players (Lee Smith, Duke Williams, and Cody Ford, but some of this stems from coaching). The diagnosis: This team is every bit what their record says they are, a competitive team that can hang with or beat just about everyone in the league. They are a very good team, but not yet one of the elites. We have not seen the last of this team. The prognosis: IF they can sign most of their Defenders, upgrade at OL and WR or TE, replace Daboll with a competent offensive coordinator, stay healthy, and IF -and its the biggest IF of them all - Josh Allen continues to develop like he has over the past couple seasons then I think they could actually contend for it all next year. Thanks for a great season

My story, I grew up in a spiritual home, one that was Christian but we did not really go to Church until I was in middle school. Well my 8th grade year, I went to this Assembly of God church and there was an altar call, you know the sinners prayer and all that. Yeah, I did feel a change. What can I say, I did have a fervor and a zeal. Then in my sophomore year of high school there was some shakeup in the Church's leadership and cruel gossip and mean spirited things were said about me so I stopped going for almost six months. Ash Wednesday 1999 I went to a Catholic Mass for the first time in my life, it was beautiful and I really felt something quite beautiful in the depths of my soul. However, I at the time did not really have a desire to be Catholic and so I did not convert or anything, but I was just really impressed with the beauty of the liturgy. Well, i went back to the AG church and I grew in faith, we got a really good youth pastor who really loved Jesus and who really taught us the scriptures and that was awesome. Well I went to UCM and joined the Baptist Student Union there. The AG church in that college town was way away from campus and the BSU and FBC Warrensburg were fairly close to campus and this was important as I did not have a car at the time. Well, the family fell into some hard economic times and Kansas City Catholic Charities helped my mom make her rent and so in gratitude I went to the Newman Club near campus. Wonderful kids and I could really feel their love for each other and their love for me. Made life long friends with many of them. I even went through RCIA, confirmation classes for adults. However, I was not quite ready to join the Catholic Church at that time. I went to FBC Warrensburg, loved the preaching and the fellowship there. However, I had lots of questions about Christianity and the teachings of the various denominations and so I learned quite a bit. Then shortly before Easter of 2009 I went to the Kansas City Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception and during the consecration the priest at the time proclaimed this is the Body of Christ as he elevated the Host and it clicked and made sense to me. So I decided to enter RCIA at the Newman Center and Parish in Wichita where I started courses that fall. I was confirmed into the Church Easter of 2010. That was a pivotal year in my life. Everything I thought I knew about God and the faith and life in general was severely tested in late 2010 when the love of my life passed away from suicide. That hurt. It felt like someone had ripped out my heart and stomped it into the ground. I honestly do not know if I would have made it out of that terrible and dark time if not for the Eucharist and Eucharistic Adoration. Oh the dialogues I had with God in there. In 2011, I traveled to Spain for World Youth Day and I got to within 15 feet of Pope Benedict, that, seeing young people in love with God (the universal nature of the Church on full display) and so much else was a major blessing. I remained active in the Church until mid to late 2013 and then I started going maybe once a month, then maybe every other month, then maybe a couple times a year. Then in 2017 I returned. I have prayed daily and I am so thankful that although I am not perfect and although I am prone to error that God is merciful to and full of love for me. Thanks for sharing your stories of faith, I hope mine has not bored you.