Hank

57-40 obAma

SC in, 33-3 romney

Romney takes Indiana, up 19-3

I have never felt "hated" on this board. I don't know why you would say such a thing, but I think you are off base.

Tottenham up to 4th place, Dempsey nets another.

My personal experience: a few months ago I got back from the lake, as I'm raising the boat off the hitch I remember I had to go to the store and left without taking the hitch off. On my way home from the store I was rear ended by a kid. The front end of his car was tore up from the hitch but there was no damage to my truck. It was then I realized the hitch is a nice buffer and I've never taken it off since. Why would a hitch on another mans vehicle bother you?

Pure gold right there. Nice...

Yes, union has 15 per side and league has 13. Leeds v Warrington was the grand final, it was live, and it was awesome!

I played for about 16 years. I learned the game when I was in Germany in 92 and played for Kaiserslataurn (military side 92-94) and Stuttgart B side (German club 94). That's back when there were still a few Canadian bases over there. We had a pretty decent military league with teams from the army, Air Force, Canada and England. Most bases/military communities sponsored a team and we had a full schedule to include a playoffs and championship. I played for the fort Rucker military side from 95 - 00, Seoul in 01, and from 02-08 I played for Hopkinsville between deployments with a brief stint for Nashville. Buffalo actually has a good team. They are a division two side who have Made it to the sweet 16 seven straight years, have been in existence for 40 years, and do a lot of work in the community. If anyone's interested check them out at buffalorugby.org. Lockport also has a club, sometimes I would play a B side game with them when I was home on leave. During my break in service I tried to start a club in olean, but failed miserably. As far as viewing goes, Direct TV viewers can find rugby on channels 490 & 491, they have exclusive broadcast rights to the super 15, which features five teams each from Australia, South Africa and new zealand. In my opinion this is the best rugby there is, thier season runs from February - may, the team I cheer for is the waratahs. DirectTV also shows six nations rugby(England, wales, Scotland, Ireland, France, and Italy) and tri-nations rugby(Australia, South Africa, New Zealand) which is now called the rugby championship with the inclusion of Argentina. They also have the Heineken cup, which is the rugby equivalent to soccers UEFA champions league, I cheer for Munster in this tournament. Fox soccer plus also shows a lot of rugby, both northern and Southern Hemisphere and both union and league. For those of you that are not familiar with the difference between union and league, the main difference is that union is similar to soccer in that play is continuous, and league is similar to football in that you have six tackles(downs) to score and on the sixth down you usually punt the ball away.

Anyone out there follow rugby?

I'll piggyback on Miller30 response to the above.

Going into the debate I was undecided. I'm now leaning toward Romney, he had a great night.

Please send me a password

Serious answer. Yes. It's a business. Employers should at least be able to break even. The employees are well compensated, they absolutely should give a little back so that the employers can NOT lose money. The players will still be well compensated, however, if they don't feel they are compensated fairly they can shop thier talents elsewhere. I completely agree with this, though I don't share your sarcasm. Owners and players do not care about the fans wants, nor should they.

Not exactly sure what you are trying to say here. Are you saying that those that serve in the armed forces should not get Hirt pension at 20 years? If so, that's your opinion, nothing wrong with that and I won't try to change your mInd. my experience is that most people join the service for the educational benifits. Initial term is 3-6 years depending on the job and other factors. When that initial term is up, especially for the ones that are in 5-6 years, they have a spouse/kids and might stay for the security for thier family (health care, steady paycheck). By your second reenlistment you can see retirement on the horizon, and the pention is the only thing that keeps at least 80% of us in. Again, my opinion based on my experience, not exactly fact. Enlisted don't make alot of money. It's alot better since Bush II but it's not alot. In 02 I was a single parent of two with 10 years in on a sergeants pay and I received food stamps, that's how little we made. Every single job in the army that translates to a civilian job, especially specialties (I don't mean army specialties, I mean your air traffic controllers, pilots, X-ray techs, like that), can make alot more money as a civilian. The pension is what keeps us in. If they ever stopped giving us pensions after 20 years almost everyone would get out after their first term. A volunteer army would no longer be sufficient and we'd go back do drafting kids that don't want to serve. Something to think about.

I agree with this. I've said for years that higher education should be free, to include trade schools. I would take it a step further though and make it mandatory that you either get a degree, go to school and learn a trade, or do a stint in the military. Never put much thought into free daycare, which is odd because I used it for about four years when I was a single parent. Good idea. Lets slow down on the reduction in military spending though, at least until I retire. One of the first things cut will be my pay raise. Can't have that.

I wouldn't say it picks up. I enjoy the show, but it is pretty slow paced.

Apologies if this was discussed somewhere else. Also not sure on the best place to put this, but since he was mentioned up thread... Anger management was picked up for a 2nd season. I don't believe having a wife he don't live with and rarely sees can not effect miller mentally and emotionally. I'm now on the trade miller bandwagon.

Are you saying that annual salary and cap hit should both be total salary / # years with no variation from one year to the next? If so, I like your idea better, well done sir.

Even with a cap all the way up to 75 mil, 15 mil is 20% of your cap space to one player. I think a current issue we have is teams circumventing the cap and having actual salaries that are 10s of millions over the cap because of the average. Like you said, we just see it differently.

Say you have 35 mil in cap room. Currently, you could give a contract to five guys giving them payouts of 15, 9, 6, 3, and 2 for a cap hit of 7 for each player. If the cap hit was actual dollars instead of average dollars, you can only sign two players at those numbers. I think switching from average to actual will increase parity, not reduce it.

I'm not positive, but I think there's a rule in place that prevents a 90% drop off in salery from one year to the next. Either way, I see your point. I think it's a better system than what's currently in place. You disagree. That's fine.

It did not help. I read it, I understood it, I dismissed it. It did absolutely nothing to address my question to you as to how you draw a parallel between the US and the former soviet union based on the article you linked when you made the parallel. Perhaps you linked the wrong story? Let me try again. I would like to know why YOU draw the parallel. I don't want to read why some agenda driven hack draws it. You. If you are not comfortable explaining YOUR point of view, that's fine, I respect that.

The biggest change I'd like to see made is cap hits no longer averaged over the life of the contract. If a player is paid 15 mil in the first year, 8 mil in the 2nd year, and 4 mil the 3rd year, then the cap hit should reflect that, not a cap hit of 9 mil x 3 years.

Hopefully. I don't know about anybody else, but I'm firmly on the owners side.