The Stig
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Post by The Stig on May 5, 2011 21:53:52 GMT -5
There are a lot of owners/GMs in the league who would have already pulled the trigger on Boudreau. But Leonsis and McPhee might be the most patient owner/GM combo in the league (when you discount owners who don't care about winning). I'd be shocked if they fired Boudreau this offseason.
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The Stig
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
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Post by The Stig on May 4, 2011 20:55:16 GMT -5
Ugh.
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The Stig
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
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Post by The Stig on May 3, 2011 20:47:46 GMT -5
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The Stig
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Post by The Stig on May 2, 2011 19:39:58 GMT -5
It's impossible for us to say what they knew or what they didn't know. Some people who know about these sorts of things say that the whole courier story could well be just a cover story, in order to protect whoever gave them the real tip.
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The Stig
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Post by The Stig on May 2, 2011 18:44:16 GMT -5
I think one thing that's been underplayed in the news coverage is how *incredibly* risky that operation was.
On one hand, it seems like the easiest decision a President could make - you know where Bin Laden is, so you order the attack. But think about it for a second. You have American troops flying into Pakistan without the Pakistanis' knowledge, not far from the Pakistan-India border and near a major Pakistani military base. You have two choppers, one of which wasn't able to return. You have good intel, but intel is never perfect, and you're operating in a residential area. Oh yeah, and the guy you're going after probably has some fanatically devoted and top-notch bodyguards.
The potential for this operation to go badly wrong was pretty high, and the fallout from a fiasco would have been monumental. For starters, you'd have American troops on the ground in Pakistan for no good reason (at least publicly). The best case scenario would have been for the Americans to be captured without a fight, and that scenario is a total nightmare. It's only the best case scenario because the only other possibility would have been a firefight with the Pakistani military, which would have resulted in major casualties on both sides. The fallout from that would have made Desert One or the CIA contractor shooting in Lahore look like nothing.
President Obama deserves HUGE credit for having the balls to order the strike, and the soldiers that carried it out deserve even more credit for executing it to absolute perfection. It was the ultimate high risk, high reward operation, and the extraordinary skills of our soldiers meant that we got all the reward with none of the downside. Bravo, bravo, bravo!
Apparently Obama had the choice to order a B-2 airstrike with guided bombs to totally obliterate the compound, but he chose the special forces strike because he knew we had to have indisputable proof that we had killed Osama Bin Laden. I think today's rumors and such have proven that to be the right choice.
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The Stig
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Post by The Stig on May 1, 2011 0:03:03 GMT -5
Pekka Rinne - Wow.
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The Stig
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Post by The Stig on Apr 27, 2011 17:32:14 GMT -5
Some very interesting choices, to say the least.
Petraeus will do a great job as CIA director, but I'm not sure it's the best use of his talents. I'm also pretty sure it's not the job he wanted. According to those in the know, Petraeus really wants to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and this appointment might be an obstacle along that road.
Panetta will be a downgrade from Gates, but you could say that about anybody. He might do a fine job, but politically he could be a problem for Obama. The great thing about Gates in the political sense was that he was a Republican and Bush's man, so it was a lot harder to call Obama soft on defense when it was a Republican implementing his agenda for the DOD. Without that sort of political shield, I expect a lot more cries about Obama being soft on defense, especially if he cuts the DOD's budget.
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The Stig
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Post by The Stig on Apr 23, 2011 22:48:17 GMT -5
Yeah, I laughed when I saw both the gesture and the explanation.
Based on tonight's game, it appears the Bruins have three goalies who could start for the Flyers. And that's not counting Tukka Rask.
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The Stig
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Post by The Stig on Apr 22, 2011 21:16:13 GMT -5
Really Andrew Ference? Your glove got caught up? Really? We're not quite that stupid!
That said, it was an awesome goal, and a helluva game. Seems like nobody can hold a lead this playoffs.
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The Stig
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Post by The Stig on Apr 14, 2011 18:12:25 GMT -5
And Jason Arnott proves his worth again. That was a veteran's play by Arnott, and a hell of a shot by Semin.
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The Stig
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Japan
Apr 12, 2011 17:32:06 GMT -5
Post by The Stig on Apr 12, 2011 17:32:06 GMT -5
Not really terrible news, since it doesn't come as a result of a deterioration in the situation. There are certain thresholds for total amount of radioactive material released that determine the event level. Those thresholds don't have a direct correlation to human health. Reading between the lines, it sounds like the thresholds for radioactive material were crossed quite a while ago, but for whatever reason the level wasn't updated at the time. The reality is that the situation at Fukushima has actually improved in the past few days. The leak that was allowing radioactive water to leak into the sea has apparently been plugged, so the uncontrolled release of radioactive material has stopped. A good analysis of the situation: www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13048916
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The Stig
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Post by The Stig on Apr 11, 2011 21:26:55 GMT -5
Whatever, Cuse still sucks.
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The Stig
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Post by The Stig on Apr 10, 2011 20:06:36 GMT -5
This really was the weekend of the chokers. Dallas and Carolina have nobody to blame but themselves.
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The Stig
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
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Post by The Stig on Apr 10, 2011 17:35:41 GMT -5
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The Stig
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Post by The Stig on Apr 10, 2011 2:21:54 GMT -5
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The Stig
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Post by The Stig on Apr 7, 2011 17:58:29 GMT -5
Our federal government is literally one day away from ceasing operations, and this is what people are talking about. Sign #846 that this country is terrible. Yet another massive earthquake (with tsunami to follow) strikes northeast Japan and people want to talk about the big vacay for federal employees. Sign #847. For what it's worth, all the federal employees I know are furious about this.
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The Stig
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Post by The Stig on Apr 4, 2011 21:18:16 GMT -5
For what it's worth, Social Security is NOT a pension plan. People (especially seniors) like to think that it is, but it was never meant that way. It essentially is a way to ensure that those who work take care of (financially) those who are now too old to do so. In other words, it's the current generation of workers paying for the current generation of seniors, not the current generation of workers paying into the system to store it there until they can get it back when they're seniors.
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The Stig
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Post by The Stig on Apr 3, 2011 21:08:39 GMT -5
Was talking with some Flyers fans today, and it was funny to see that none of us really want the top seed in the East for our team. Neither of us wants anything to do with the Rangers or the Sabres in the first round.
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The Stig
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Post by The Stig on Apr 3, 2011 19:45:11 GMT -5
"Cutting off Grandma" and "death panel" will be mild in comparison with how the Democrats will demogue Ryan's plan. And the GOP would do the exact same thing if the Dems proposed the exact same plan. The Boz Doctrine applies nicely here. It's interesting that after such a brutal fight against health care reform, the GOP's budget proposal is, in effect, health care reform.
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The Stig
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Post by The Stig on Apr 3, 2011 13:24:50 GMT -5
Ryan's got balls, I'll give him that.
But looking at all the "cutting off Grandma" and "death panel" scaremongering that Obama had to go through for a plan that barely touched Medicare, then imagine what will happen to a plan that explicitly calls for major cuts to Medicare.
The GOP has a lot of momentum going right now. I'd be surprised if they put their necks on the line in that big of a way before the 2012 elections.
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