Robviously
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Posts posted by Robviously
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I can't even begin to be able to argue one way or another about the New Deal but I will definitely add those to the queue since I like to get a number of perspectives on an issue.
Economics sucks though. TrueBlue, you say it's science but I firmly believe it is sport haha
If you like U.S. History, all of the Oxford History of the United States books are outstanding. Check out Battle Cry of Freedom. If you admire FDR as a wartime president, you really need to read what Lincoln went through. (He literally had to run for re-election during the war (1864) against the guy who served as his top general when the war began - McClellan.)
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Just finished "The Plots Against the President" and am finding myself more and more enthralled with FDR the man and FDR the President. His politics and economic policy is just as relevant today as it was in the 30s and 40s.
His economic policies are relevant today as an example of what not to do. It's not a coincidence that the Great Depression didn't end until World War II hit and we gave up on the New Deal.
If you want a balanced look at what went right and wrong during FDR's term, try this:
Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945 (Oxford History of the United States) by David Kennedy
Or if you want a counterpoint on why the New Deal didn't work, there's this:
The Forgotten Man by Amity Schlaes
I just finished Shelby Foote's famous Civil War Trilogy. Absolutely outstanding and definitely worth your time if you're willing to take on ~3000 pages of history over three books. It lived up to the hype. http://www.amazon.com/The-Civil-War-Narrative-Vol/dp/0394749138/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334890121&sr=1-1
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Most of them seem to think Hodgson wouldn't be making a huge difference for them. The part that hurts (Vancouver) is that none of them seem too thrilled with Kassian thus far.
EDIT: Also, I want to thank you for not letting posters have graphics and animations in their signatures here. That's really tough to look at for even a couple minutes.
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4 million is a little high but i would most likely do that especially if this keeps up into the playoffs but that is pretty high. If its closer to five million i probably turn it down, this is a kid that has not played center for very long and he looks great right now i would just like a larger sample size before im paying him top 20 center money.
The sample sizes for most players in the 2008 draft (i.e. players the same age as Ennis) are pretty small:
http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/draft/nhl2008e.html
It's remarkable how many games/points we've already gotten out of our first three picks in that draft (Myers, Ennis, Adam) and now we have Hodgson from that draft as well. That was a really good draft for the Sabres and will only get better if Ennis the Center is for real and if Adam turns things around.
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How could you not be shocked??? There has been 6 offer sheets in the last 14 years, obviously due to the CBA but if tyler ennis is the 7th that is pretty shocking. If someone said at the trade deadline that you get a 1st and a third for ennis, you make that deal. Its not giving up on him it is getting a higher return. Im not saying I wouldnt sign him around 3 million, but if a team wants to take him they are going to have to offer him higher than we are willing to offer, so if they go with that 5 million dollar sheet (which they wont) the compensation is much better than overpaying. I think ennis is awesome but not at 5 million a year.
I wouldn't trade Ennis for a 1st and a 3rd unless the picks were in the top 5 of the respective rounds.
Same here. If Ennis was part of a package that got me to the very top of the draft, I'd definitely consider it. But I wouldn't trade him for any 1st round pick and 3rd round pick.
Also, I do agree (intuitively) that being smaller probably makes it tougher for a guy to stay healthy in the NHL. But it's not everything. If not for that cheap shot last year, Pominville would have never missed any time and he's just an average-sized guy. Style of play really matters when you think about who gets hurt and who doesn't. And some guys are just more durable than others.
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This thread has drifted a bit from strictly a discussion re: Kassian-Hodgson, but I saw this Hockey News article this afternoon and thought the notion that Hodgson trains under Gary Roberts in the offseason probably should dispel any real concerns about a bad attitude:
http://www.thehockey...-in-201213.html
"Not surprisingly, the newest Sabres weapon is also a client of ‘Scary’ Gary and whatever subterfuge has been out there in the past about Hodgson’s attitude can pretty much be tossed out the window based on the company he keeps in the summer. Simply put, Roberts does not mess around. What the former NHLer preaches is no less than a lifestyle decision, where players commit themselves to both rigorous workouts and nutrition rites involving organic food and the right kinds of it."
Awesome article. And I thought I heard Ted Black say that Hodgson doesn't drink too. I agree with Roberts -- being a pro athlete is a lifestyle decision. I want guys who are so committed to winning and being their best that it touches every part of their life.
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Are you thinking of Nathan Paetsch?You are dissing him by comparing him to Paille. I've never seen Paille try to turn a defenseman inside out. The thought of Paille trying to turn a defenseman inside out is depressing.
Tropp can muscle a player off the puck, and he can pass, and shoot, and fight better than a 7th defenseman turned forward.
Dan Paille scored 19 goals for us in 07-08. I don't know what happened to him after that but at one point he looked like he had a really bright future in Buffalo. If Tropp is a better, edgier version of Paille who doesn't turn out to be a head case, he'll be an awesome player to have.
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I'm with Robviously on this. It seems like there's a fair amount of forgiving and forgetting going on here. There is still a good 30%-40% chance that the Sabres miss the playoffs, and probably 70% or so that they get bounced in the first round. This is the team with the highest payroll in the NHL, and the same "core" group of forwards that has failed every single GD test since Black Sunday. And I totally agree that trading Gaustad has lit a fire under some underperforming rear ends.
If they keep the hammer down, make the playoffs and then upset the Rangers or the Bruins in the first round? OK, in that case I'll be open to tweaking the forward group as opposed to revamping it. But if they don't get out of the first round, and the "core" again produces zero in the playoffs, I'm not interested in a forward group that hasn't parted ways with at least 2 of Roy, Pommer, Vanek and Stafford.
Think about when the team has been good the last three years:
2009-2010: Tyler Myers shows up out of nowhere, wins the NHL Rookie of the Year, and leads the team to the division championship. Ryan Miller has his best season.
2010-2011: The Sabres have the worst record in hockey at Christmas, Derek Roy goes down, and Vanek starts playing like a superstar. The team makes a furious run to the postseason behind Vanek, Ennis, Gerbe, and Enroth.
2011-2012: The Sabres are dead in the water at the trade deadline and unload Gaustad. Suddenly the team gets hot again behind Ennis, Foligno, Stafford. Miller is playing some of the best hockey of his career and Pominville is having his best season (not statistically but definitely in terms of stats and leadership).
So of the Black Sunday leftovers, the only ones who ever carried the team anywhere good are Miller, Pominville, and Vanek. Connolly, Gaustad, and Roy were never a big factor when our team has been good; younger guys have had way more to do with it than them.
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That would be my exact plan: roll 3 lines, 2 scoring and 1 hybrid. Foligno is cheap (900K), Ennis will be relatively cheap (I expect a Stafford-esque second contract 2 year $4 million contract) and Hodgson is relatively cheap ($1.6).
Vanek-Hodgson-Brown
Foligno-Ennis-Stafford
Leino-Roy-Pominville
I'd be perfectly comfortable with this lineup heading into next season. I'm not opposed to offloading Roy, but at this point I don't want to rely on Luke Adam to fill his role, so we'd have to find somebody else viable...and I can think of worse things in the world than Roy in a contract year when at his age it's his last chance to cash in big time. Also, in any deal for Brown, I'm assuming we're dumping a few million of salary (Sekera or Leopold, for instance). I don't think money is an issue unless we're trying to add Parise or Nash.
I would still like to move Roy. I'm more convinced than ever that the After-Black-Sunday core needs to be dismantled. We took off last year when Roy went away and we took off this year when Gaustad went away. Stafford got better when we moved him away from Roy. Correlation is not causation, but I've seen enough that I'm ready to find out what this team can do with a new leadership structure.
Keep Poms and Vanek as your captain and alternate, then ask the younger guys to step up. The team is at its best when that happens anyway.
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What a fantastic series....
So you've never imagined how it would all play out for you if there ever was a zombie situation?
I can honestly answer that question with a no.
The whole basis of good storytelling relies on putting relatable people in difficult situations. So 1. the characters are relatable because you see some of yourself in them and 2. you're interested because you wonder how the situation would play out if it were you. Based on how popular all the zombie books, movies, TV shows, and video games have been recently, I'm thinking a lot of people (for whatever reason) like to daydream about living in an apocalyptic zombie scenario.
You even have stuff like this: http://runforyourlives.com/
People see horror movies because they want to be scared and they see romance movies because they want to experience (usually absurd) love stories. People like to pretend. And it's not just zombies -- people have Mad Men parties where they dress up like upscale New Yorkers from the 1960's.
And based on the part where you said this was a "fantastic series" I'm guessing you've also daydreamed about life in the Walking Dead universe.
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You may not want to watch anymore. I don't find Michonne to be too unbelievable actually. You do know there are tons of crazy people around this country right now planning and training for the sociopolitical collapse of this country right? I would go so far as to say some are even prepping for a zombie apocalypse. I don't find it to unbelievable that there might be a chick who knows exactly how to combat zombies and she ends up being completely right when said zombie apocalypse actually occurs.
I like zombie stuff so I'll probably watch it the way I watched this season -- a couple minutes here and there to see if there's any action happening. The character/dialogue scenes are consistently awful, but zombie action is always, at worst, fun.
Like I said, I just wish the writers could make their non-zombie characters halfway decent. Especially since that's supposedly who the title of the show is referring to.
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World War Z by Max Brooks is a great read and tells the story of people who survived a zombie apocalypse. Not just individuals but also a military and governmental perspective.
Read it and loved it. He dissected all the really practical problems you'd face if this ever really did happen. The most chilling part was towards the end when they (spoiler) find all the people who successfully barricaded themselves in from the zombies but just ran out of food and starved to death. That had way more of an impact than any really "out there" ideas they could have gone into. Or the bit about no one knowing what happened to North Korea.
My favorite zombie anything is still the first 10 minutes of the 2004 Dawn of the Dead. You basically see the opening hours of the end of the world and just how frantic and insane it would be. It's still as jarring as anything I've ever seen in a horror or action movie.
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That bolded part may be the most ludicrous thing I've ever read. I just wish I could highlight it in plaid.
So you've never imagined how it would all play out for you if there ever was a zombie situation? Isn't there an industry built around people doing that? Books, video games, movies, TV shows.......yeah, I can see how that would be completely ludicrous given the billions of dollars people are making from that. <_<
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The lady with the hood and the 2 armless zombie slaves is straight out of the comic book series. This is an escape from reality not reality so don't ask for reality in a zombie series. Sorry. It don't exist.
Obviously a show about zombies is going to take some liberties with realism but they can tell some interesting stories without getting too silly. The single most intense part of the show on Sunday (and maybe the entire series) was Andrea stumbling through the woods, possibly surrounded, and with no discernible escape route. The other best part of the show was in the first episode when Rick was hiding in the house with the father and son and they heard a car alarm go off, attracting other zombies until the house was completely surrounded.
The show, and any zombie movie, is at its best when it sticks to scenarios you could easily imagine yourself in in a zombie apocalypse. You don't need to fill the show with gimmicks.
On the other hand, given how much trouble the writers have writing for non-zombie characters, I'm not surprised they're going in this direction.
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Here's how you know this isn't a great show: I watched Season 1, skipped ALL of season 2, and then came back in for the S2 finale and it didn't feel like I'd missed anything. Basically it took me a couple minutes to figure out what had happened in the previous 12 episodes.
I enjoyed all the zombie killing in the first half of the episode, but I'm still not sure what the plan was. They see a few thousand zombies bearing down on their farm and decide to drive around in circles shooting at them? Even discounting that these characters can miraculously score perfect headshots from moving vehicles on un-even terrain, I don't see how that was supposed to work. (It didn't.)
I like the way Rick kills Shane in self-defense but somehow picks the single worst way to explain that to the rest of the group: "I KILLED HIM! I WANTED TO DO IT!!!! HE KEPT PUSHING ME!!!!!! SO I KILLED HIM!!!!!!1! ......oh, and by the way he pulled a gun on me and said his plan was to kill me and then steal my family......but.....anyways....... I KILLED HIM!!!"
Introducing a new character who has a samurai sword and slave zombies is a little rough too. They couldn't figure out a way to tell an interesting story in a post-apocalyptic world full of zombies without resorting to cartoonish gimmick characters?
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If we're gonna put "rookies" in the shoot out, have rather seen Foligno take a shot - he's actually gotten the puck in the net 3 times so far in 1/3rd as many games as Hodgson has played (and done nothing, I might add).
Plus i'd say Foligno is a lot more of a 'rookie' than Hodgson is.... guy just got called up from the minors a week ago!
Hodgson is 1 year older but just played his 80th NHL game. They're both rookies.
I'm also not really sure if Foligno's game translates to the shootout.
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We don't know what other veterans the Sabres tried to unload, although personally, I am disappointed that Stafford is still around.
And of course, the move discussed in this thread is significant.
Well, we know the Sabres were "close" to trading Roy last summer. And Chz said the Sabres were shopping him again at the deadline this year but balked on moving him when they were only offered a 1st rounder.
So the Sabres seem to recognize that Roy is a guy who should be off the team. But they can't bring themselves to get it done.
I guess my point is that if the Sabres were ready to unload one veteran (Gaustad), they should have made sure to get a few more guys moved. Especially this year when it was definitely a seller's market.
As for this thread's trade, it's not present-for-future, but future-for-future. So not the type of trade I was talking about, although Regier deserves credit for thinking outside the box. Very rare for two teams to swap their top prospects. It made sense for both teams and it would probably make sense for more trades of this type to take place, but teams don't think that way.
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If they were making a playoff push they never would have sent Gaustad to Nashville. It's amazing how quickly people ignore that one.
Correct. Everything we're seeing now is "bonus hockey."
Although this again makes me wonder why the Sabres traded only Gaustad at the deadline. You can't attempt to both make a playoff push and unload veterans for draft picks at the deadline. If you're going to unload veterans, go ahead and trade more than one. I hate that the Sabres try to have it both ways.
But this is the problem with letting Regier handle the Sabres' rebuilding. We get a little rebuilding but he wants to keep his job so he's not going to let the team bottom out and start fresh.
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TBPhD, Papazoid and Wolfie beat me to it -- the Sabres didn't make that trade for help down the stretch (although Vancouver probably did). Neither player is doing anything right now and it probably isn't realistic to expect much until next season. I've seen enough out of Hodgie to be optimistic that he'll be a quality #2 center on a scoring line for the Sabres next year. That's an expensive item to add, and the cost was Kassian, who may or may not live up to his potential. And while I agree that ideally the Sabres would have both Kassian and Foligno skating hard, knocking heads and playing well, the Sabres needed a good center and Kassian was the price.
Kassian was the price.
But right now, out of Kassian, McNabb, and Foligno, I'm glad the guy we decided to move was Kassian. Obviously that could change if Kassian puts it all together but Foligno has fit in perfectly starting with his second NHL game and McNabb was basically our "other no.1 prospect" coming into this season with Kassian.
Also, Hodgson and Ennis are the same age. Ennis' game has ranged from completely awful to superstar over the course of this season. So he's still figuring it out. Hodgson is in the same boat.
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I was never down on Ehrhoff and I'm still not high on Leino. And on the other end of the spectrum you have Brad Boyes, who seems to suck more each game over a year after we got him.With this talk of Hodgson struggling, people really weren't all that crazy about Ehrhoff and Leino a few months back. That seems to have changed now. It took time and those guys are seasoned vets.
I'm officially worried. The Sabres haven't traded for a guy who came in and scored goals since Briere and Drury. Their list of trades these past 5-6 years is a disaster.
Maybe Hodgson is still exhausted from all his travel the past two weeks. Maybe he's still trying to find chemistry with other guys on the team. Maybe he's just a bit off from having to live out of a suitcase and in different hotels. Who knows? I'm not giving up but I haven't seen Hodgson do anything to make me think we "won" that trade yet.
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...and let's not forget that the whole team is gay.
:lol: :lol: :lol: Perfect.
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THANK YOU!!!
That's the point...if you are going to blow your wad...don't do it on a 185lb skill guy with potential.....get in the leader this team has been lacking for 5 years.
THANK YOU!!!!
He's 34 this season though. I don't think this team is good enough to trade its best prospect for a 34 year old star. We're not 1 guy away. A 34-year-old Jarome Iginla would have been a good addition to the 2006-2007 Sabres, who really were that close.
The Sabres had a lot of potential this season that they didn't really live up to (although they're playing better now). They can trade their top prospect for someone else's top prospect. If they traded their top prospect for someone nearing the end of their career, that's a problem.
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Right...stack up in the draft......do nothing to active roster.......now trade best hope from draft choices for more of the same.
I have never banged the drum that center was most important. Last offseason I wanted Iginla in here with Regehr...I proposed it before Darcy went after Regehr. I said a true leader up front is much more important than center, and that Iginla would open up the ice and take pressure off of Vanek, thus making Roy more valuable as well. He would also teach Stafford how to play RW like a man.
Yeah, but Calgary probably would have asked for Kassian or McNabb coming back in that trade.
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Name the last center prospect of his caliber we had?
Tim Connolly. :ph34r:
That's not a slight though. I remember being excited as hell when we brought in Connolly and Pyatt. And Tim looked like he was on the cusp of becoming a superstar when he suffered that concussion against Ottawa in 2006. If not for that concussion, who knows what happens?
What are you currently reading?
in The Aud Club
Posted
I'm not sure why you can write it off as a "conservative talking point" when it's empirically true. No recovery took place when the New Deal policies were in place: http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1528.html The Great Depression was basically two recessions (1929 and 1938) with little recovery in between. How is that a success?
And we can know how his policies worked. Crack open any Macroeconomics textbook and you can pick up the broad strokes of how government policies affect national economies. It's silly to say "well, we'll never know" because by that standard you could never criticize anyone for anything. (Not even after you knew the results?) Everyone acknowledges that Herbert Hoover's policies did not help (Smoot-Hawley, for example) and FDR's own people acknowledge that his policies were an extension of Hoover's. There's no mystery here.
In his defense, he latched onto ideas that were popular at the time (both economically and, obviously, politically). That doesn't mean they worked, and that's pretty easy to see in retrospect.