Drunkard

What the government should do is offer tax breaks specifically for hiring additional workers at decent wages. We'll cut your taxes X% if you build a factory in Ohio or we'll cut them Y% if you put that new call center in Georgia. Closing a plant in one state and moving it to another shouldn't count though. They have to show an increase in net number of US employees on the payroll.

That was supposed to be W's mantra as well. It was supposedly the CEO administration and things were gonna be run the business way. No pizza boxes and bj's in the oval office or people showing up late to meetings. Suits and ties all around and it ended up being the same crap as Reagan. Tax cuts and deregulation while ramping up military spending as much as possible. Deficits be damned, we'll worry about those once a Democrat gets back in office under the guise of fiscal responsibility.

I agree with your sentiment. I haven't paid attention to the last couple days of public pissing on moaning but if they're crying poor in order to get fan support then they suck just as bad as the owners do and they're even scummier for airing the dirty laundry in public. All I know is that I expect to be getting an even larger discount on my center ice package from Directv this year or I won't renew it. Normally I don't balk at the $160 for 82 Sabres games nearly as much as the $300 plus they try to charge me for 16 Bills games but if any games are lost I won't pay more than $100. If they won't budge, the league won't be getting their percentage from me this season and directv will lose out on their share as well.

Good points for sure, Blue. I wasn't trying to paint the players as the good guys in this (just slightly less at fault than the owners since they made the first outrageous proposal) but I agree with your and the leagues premise that salary growth should be directly linked to revenue growth. If I were representing the league that would be my #1 sticking point as well. Given the lopsided starting offer by the league though, I'm not suprised Fehr went off in a completely different direction but based on his track record it's possible he would have done that no matter what the initial offer may have been.

I'm familiar with state's rights and I don't need some article that's trying to push some fundamentalist Christian agenda to tell me that. I never brought up slavery, just the hypocrisy that a part of the country (which I've lived most of my life in, by the way) which tries to pride themselves on being so patriotic while flying a flag that is the symbol of splitting that country into two separate countries.

I think 50% would be fair but the league was so worried about Fehr's reputation for hardball that their offer was completely unreasonable. Extended rookie contracts and not being able to reach free agency until an age where most players are retired coupled with the big cut in revenue share is flat out ridiculous. Losing 10 or 20% of your wages for one season is still better than getting raped by a bad deal for the next 5-7 years. Both sides are definitely to blame and the players definitely should have conceded more in their counter offer, but I'd venture to say the players side has been more reasonable so far, at least when it comes to the details of the offers that have been made public.

Not to mention that a good percentage of those so called Patriots are people from the south and many of them are still proud of the fact that their ancestors actually commited treason by seceeding from the Union.

That was in the owner's proposal with a cap of 5 years on contracts. I would've been happy with this in the agreement a few years ago, but now that we have Daddy Warbucks for an owner I hope it doesn't happen.

Low taxes, even for the wealthy with the possibility of raising them, massive deficits, and a massive and still growing military budget. Sounds like they are still a bunch of parallels to when Reagan was in office. I will never understand the hero worship Reagan gets. He gets heralded more than Lincoln as the greatest republican of all time but he'd be considered a liberal by many conservatives today if they just looked at some of the things he supported.

Much better off. We may not be contenders yet but with an owner who is willing to spend at least we have a chance.

Leading by sitting there for 7 minutes with some kids after hearing the country is under attack? Was he just waiting for his piss to dry?

Well I could do without your parroting act all the Fox News talking point about Chicago politics, Saul Alinsky or David Axelrod, or whoever you were fear mongering about a half dozen pages back, and all that garbage too, but I guess neither of us will get what we want. As for my anti-religious tone, I think it's completely relevant. When you're a devout Chrisitian who believes that God has granted you dominion over the earth and animals, thereby granting you ongoing permission to do what you want to the land that's fine. But when you're also the governor of Texas or President like Rick Perry or George W Bush and that belief means you shape policy to allow everyone and every business to pollute on catastrophic levels that can cause serious problems. When you're a devout Christian and you believe the end times are coming that's fine, but when you think Jesus will end the world soon, possibly even in your lifetime, then I worry about your ability to think about things in the long term. When your solution to massive droughts possibly brought about my changes in the climate and your solution is to hold a big convention to pray for rain, then it becomes a problem. But that's ok. Drill baby drill, and let's get rid of the EPA while we're at it and try to change the definition of what constitutes education in the field of science. Then we'll also still claim to be the party that wants big government off our backs while telling women what they can do with their bodies and tell gay people they can't be married because that's what Jesus would want. Let's ignore the part of the bible about helping the poor and the thing about how it'll be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it will be for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. More tax breaks for the wealthy job creators. No poor person ever gave me a job. Ha ha! Tenets. I should probably proof my rants better before clicking post, but I definitely missed that.

I'm definitely equal opportunity about it. I was raised Catholic and one of their biggest tenants is based on a woman who really stuck to her story about being inpregnated by an angel magically knocking her up by channeling God or some nonsense. They also tried to get me to believe that there was a talking snake and an old guy who managed to get at least two of every animal to fornicate on a boat and not eat eachother. Then there's the whole spew about walking on water and feeding a thousand people with a few fish and a couple of loaves of bread. It's definitely out there but since they were feeding me the same nonsense since I was very young it took longer to dawn on me how full of ###### they were.

I'm never voted for a single democrat in my life other than judges. I would've voted for Clinton in 1996 but I was only 15 and wasn't eligible. I don't care for any religious mumbo jumbo, but in my experience it seems like Democrats seem to be much more secularists than Republicans, which is why I tend to be much more leery of overly religious Republicans than I am of Democrats.

I've never defended Harry Reid and would never vote for him either. The only way I could vote for somebody who is devoutly religious is if they were a strict secularist. Harry Reid however, isn't running for President either though, which is why he isn't under the same scrutiny as Romney. I'd rather not have any political leaders in the vein of guys like George W. Bush or Rick Perry. If your solution to major problems is to talk to an invisible man about what ails your country/state, then I think you should be replaced.

That's completely fair and your right to do so, sir. I'm on the other side of the fence when it comes to that. I can't in good conscience vote for somebody who buys into stuff like that and can't vote for any republican who believes in what I consider to be crazy stuff or panders to religious zealots who want to teach kids in science class that the world is 10,000 years old and was created in 6 days. We already score low enough in science as a country among industrialized nations without trying to pass theology off as science.

Yeah, I'm basically blathering about my grievances with the Mormon church and religion in general. I'm an equal opportunity opponent of religion, but the Mormon church is right up there with Scientology when it comes to crazy claims and retarded beliefs (in my opinion at least). Based on the logic used in this thread, nothing changes and what once was the case is forever the case. Since Democrats were the racist party back in the civil war era, then all the racist hillbillies down South today must still vote Democrat even though the leader is the party is half black. And to follow along that logic since the founder of the Mormon Church was in favor of polygamy then all Mormons must support it.

I buy that as much as I buy the story that the Catholic Church was doing everything it could to weed child molesters out of the priest hood. Sure they can say they frown on it while in the public eye, but that doesn't change what goes on behind the scenes. I doubt Romney will ever come out and admit that he believes in magic underwear and that God is a 6'2" physical man from the planet kolav or kolaf or whatever drivel, but based on the millions of dollars he donates to that sham of a tax write off, I'd say he buys into that nonsense no matter what he says.

Why not? It works for the Mormons. Some guy who makes $50,000 or so a year decides he should have 5 wives and 14 children he can't afford. However, the first marriage is the only one recognized by Uncle Sam, leaving the other 4 women labeled as single mothers with no jobs who are eligible to suck the system dry and collect that free government money that most Republicans love to cry about. By the way, the fee for my marriage services is only a beer. If you ever find yourself in Jacksonville, NC for some strang reason hit me up on here and we can meet at some bar for the ceremony. I'll even offer marriage counseling but the fee for that is a shot of bourbon. I'm not sure how much help I'd actually be at that, but if female chickens are anything like regular females my advice to her will be too stop talking so much and give your ears a break, ha ha!

I fail to see how Joe Biden crying racism about the GOP is equal to him being racist, but whatever. A better argument is that the left has incorporated an agenda of soft racism where they believe minorities can't hack it in an otherwise level playing field (although you have to also assume the field is completely level) so they try to buy minority votes through sponsoring programs like welfare in order to pander to that block of voters.

You're welcome to marry your chicken in the eyes of whatever bat ###### church you'd join that would be willing to perform the ceremony. Hell, I'm an atheist but I'm actually an ordained minister with the Universal Life Church Monastery (paid $10.00 online to register and everything) so I'd be happy to marry you to your chicken and I'll even baptize your chicken with a squirt gun to boot so that it's little fowl soul will be saved and everything will be ok with Jesus. All that is fine, but it shouldn't be recognized by the government with respect to adding the bird to your health insurance, granting it hospital visitation rights, or allowing you to claim it on your tax return. It just shouldn't be valid according to the government

Yes it should be because nobody should be able to file a joint return with their dog or whatever drivel. To try to equate two pillow biters getting married to some old lady marrying her 17 cats is ridiculously and you know it. The slippery slope argument is nothing but a straw man.

Exactly. And when it comes to modern day hillbilly bigots and bible thumpers who constantly scream about the sanctity of marriage, getting rid of abortion no matter what circumstances, putting God back in schools (and trying to pass it off as science no less), building a giant wall along the Mexican border, and getting rid of welfare and affirmative action, it's pretty safe to assume that the majority of people in those camps leans towards the modern day Republican Party. Despite this, I'm not trying to imply that Republicans are racist, just that most racists probably tend to vote Republican (these days Waldo, not the Republican party of 50 years ago).

I figured your reply was tongue in cheek like mine was but I figured I should just frankly state it to be sure. I'd definitely prefer to support a truly viable 3rd party candidate but my pessimistic side just doesn't see it happening because of all the money and corruption involved in politics. The whole tea party thing initially looked like it was taking shape until they essentially just became a more extreme wing of the Republican Party. Maybe someday though, but I think they'd basically have to take the form of a Ross Perot type where you have to start with a billionaire who's willing to bankroll his own campaign and most of those types usually just hedge their bets and bankroll both of the other parties through campaign contribution in order to strong arm and lobby both sides to ensure their agenda will get sent through regardless.

You're still completely ignoring the complete ideology swap that happened when the old Dixiecrats basically swapped platforms and became what are now modern day Republicans and the Republican Party essentially became the current day Democratic Party. Edit: See TrueBlue's explanation for more detail but my point remains the same. The Republicans of the civil war era are basically the Democrats of today and The Dixiecrats of that era are modern day Republicans.