simonus

any chance that the money opening up for pittsburgh signings is a signal that lemieux isn't going to be playing? It seems like lemieux is going to keep playing forever, but it might make some degree of sense. Perhaps they are delaying the announcement until they get some free agents.

i would like to see a transcript of this recent interview. I believe about 5% max of what I read in articles such as these, Especially when Kovalev's statements are characterized instead of quoted. I've also seen articles say that kovalev was adjusting well to the Julien system and one could imagine that a kovalev/Koivu/Zednik line would be forced into less of a system than other canadiens lines.

i dont think that lindros has that much to offer at this point in his career and is too injury-prone for his contract demands. Also - Lindros is not allowed inside the province of quebec without getting lynched. The quy definitely burned every bridge in quebec, including the champlain, cartier, and the victoria.

I see what you are saying, but none of those players particularly excite me. Lindros can burn in hell and Allison is too injury-prone. Carter could end up being good and one could sign Selanne and hope that last season was a hiccup.... if we are gonna pick up some potentially damaged goods in a depressed market, I want kovalev.

well.... im pretty sure i heard that pennsylvania had passed that law putting slot machines in the state. I remember that the pens were always pushing for that to help fund a new arena... perhaps that has something to do with it.

Joe Thorton signed with Davos in case of lockout. http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/news/story?id=1836692

kovalev's agent brings up a reasonable point... how much is kovalev actually worth in this market. What happens to demitra, palfy, etc will say a lot - I just hope that the habs and kovalev dont sit around gauging the market's temperature until such point as there is nobody of kovalev's level left to sign. Who knows? Perhaps it will turn out that kovalev is worth less than the original tendered contract.... would the canadiens be able to revise to a lower number without insulting kovalev and pushing him to another team? I realize that is a pretty unlikely scenario, but all I can do right now is theorize.

Were there really that many deserters? I haven't heard of any. Why isn't Hannity, Limbaugh, NYPost, or FoxNews talking about it? BTW - US and Canada recently signed a treaty to help return draft dodgers and AWOL's, so you can't really get too PO'ed about that. Canada has given significant assistance to the war on terror, look at Afganisthan. (BTW - thanks america for setting the world price on murdering canadians - $5,000 USD, good to know) I could not agree with you more that american does not have to be an American boot licker in order to maintain relations, too bad neither the earlier portion of your post nor President Bush agrees. Canadian relations with the US has not declined steadily under the liberal administration - they have delined steadily under the Republican administration. I dont remember so much crap between us and canada during the Democratic period of the Chretien government - shit, they put nafta together.

11 + 9 = 20 I guess this was a typo, but i hope everyone notes that the stat reads that bonk scores more.

I dont think that fanpuck was saying that perezhogin's actions were acceptable, only that there were mitigating circumstances. I think that this is very true and I am still a little p.o.'ed that the guy he hit got basically no punishment for instigating.

martin's in, i guess. Best of the possibilities.... Martin stinks and harper is a nut, so I'll take martin. Big congrats to the NDP, got another ten seats or so, hold the balance - hopefully this will push martin to the left a little bit. Broadbent for PM (in my fantasies).

chill dude. the doctrine of fair use allows you to quote for these purposes without getting worried.

the possible links that are often mentioned between iraq and al-qaeda are generally unproven, if not disproven. To which newspaper are you referring? I am quite interested to find such a liberal bastion. Are you referring to the NYtimes? Washington Post? USA Today? That liberal stronghold - The Wall Street Journal? Are there liberal journalists? Sure. Are there right-wing journalists? Sure. Whose voice is more prominent? Probably depends on who's listening. One thing to note - most of the people who own newspapers are other media outlets are generally right-wing. Why would they blow so much money to propagate points of view that they disagree with?

i just think that in the current climate of hockey it is a better thing to reward the offense side of the game.

then one should count the wanderers and the AAA's

perhaps i miscommunicated in my earlier post. As far as jews are concerned the first three commandments do not apply to christians because as far as jews are concerned, christians are of the other nations. Christians hold themselves to the first three as they feel themselves to be heirs to the covenant.

the bible is clear that only jews are required to abide by the first three commandments. If you are not of the tribes you are held only to the latter seven. When christianity arose, it took on the mantle of the chosen tribes and thusly held themselves to the first three commandments. Certainly the first three commandments demand a seperation from the other nations, but it does not consider the other nations evil. From where did you get your listing of corrolaries for the first commandment? I particularly would insist that there is not complete consensus on your fifth corrolary: This is not immediately evident from the bible, it really sounds more like augustine or kempis. People often use that corrolary to find religious backing against adictions. You will often hear this used against the sexually active - in some fundamentalist circles referred to as 'sex addiction'.

the ten commandments dont specifically call those who do not follow the "way" evil, but I do follow your point. Fully 30% of the ten commandments are specifically religious in nature. That's a lot of chaff for some wheat. I agree in theory, fanpuck, that school are not to sing "christmas" songs, but in my experience at public school this was not the case. I went to these schools in the mid nineties, not so long ago. Christmas has the luxury of being secular as long as you don't happen to have been raised christian. I am glad that we agree that right wing groups are unacceptably radical, but their opinions are frequently aired. I really do not want to step into abortion, but to call for life at conception is a little disingenuous. Most fertilized eggs never reach term, most being disposed of in the next menstrual cycle.

you are very lucky to be in the majority race and the majority religion. I never had a 'christmas' break, no matter what my classmates did. I couldn't be a part of their tree lightings and their gift exchange, nor did I want to. It is quite lonely and at times embarrasing to be exluded like that at school. Children are often not as accepting as some adults are. Of course the teacher singles out christmas, the choir sings "the twelve days of christmas" and "hark, the herald angel sings" etc... I didn't need that stuff around. I didn't want to explain to the conductor that I really didn't want to play in those songs. It was almost as bad to sit out for those songs as it would be to be a part. You have never had to experience that, so you minimize it. Where does one draw the line in incorporating religion into public life? Okay, we put up the ten commandments - do we teach the biblical sex laws in sex ed? How about the dietary laws in health class? Standard American sociological theory often speaks of the "slippery slope". When people protest gun control they say that next we will be under mashall law with no method of defense. Anti-abortionists say that social security will demand abortions from welfare mothers. Anti-tax activists warn of total taxation. And religious groups warn that the government will confiscate your bible and close your church. Are any of these things likely? No, but we hear variations of these earlier arguments constantly from right-wing commentators. Why am I called ridiculous when my friends and I call for the government and public institutions to not play favourites with any religion by abstaining from making its opinion known. Question - would the deists beliefs that you have enumerated be considered heretical by any modern church? I'm pretty sure they would. The christian god is not an absentee landlord. Certainly throughout the old and new testament he is quite present. Who delivers the christ? who gives the gift of languages to the apostles? Who strikes down the dietary laws by giving pork to Peter? Who delivered the ten commandments? Was it an absent clockmaker? The deist view is so heretical as to render pascal's wager meaningless. It goes something like this - "No.no,no... don't worry I believe in God, I just don't think it has any direct relevance to our lives or the cosmos." What makes the deist god any different from the atheist's big bang?

of course it is atheism. It is atheism for a time when you couldn't be atheist. Jefferson took out the miracles because he didn't believe in the supernatural ability of the trinity. He pulled out the godwork and said "look - aren't these just nice moral parables?" It is not children wishing each other merry christmas that reasonable people have a problem with, it is when the teacher wishes people merry christmas. It is when the teacher says "come to the front of the class and tell everyone how your family celebrated christmas". I was not raised christian and I personally found these moments quite uncomfortable. BTW - no non-christian is so stupid as to believe that one nation under god has anything to do with theirs. Anyways, why do you want to say the pledge anyways? It was written by a socialist! It didn't even have the under god phrase in it until congress inserted it years later! Why don't you just start celebrating may day? PS - send me your address and some money, I'm putting up a statue of mohammed ascending to heaven in your town square.

actually high school professors have little to do all too often with the selection of text books for classes, especially because schools don't buy new textbooks that often so teachers inherit their books. Usually the school board does much of the choosing. Often that choice is more based on state mandates,price and distributor incentives than content. State mandates are something though - like prescriptions against evolution, teaching about the abolitionist component of the civil war, etc.. That county that did the spokes monkey trial even tried to legislate that pie was exactly 3.14. That 80% number really depends how you define liberal - probably not liberal like I'm liberal, I rarely if ever meet americans that are as liberal as myself, certainly not among the faculty at the midwestern public schools that I attended. That $5,000 figure was hypothetical, if you want to get the actual numbers from the trials please post them. Also post the average SAT marks from charter schools. If you think class size would be the only thing affected by cutting 20-30% of a school's budget I think you are mistaken, that too was an example. I don't really see this whole attack against religion thing around me. Christianity seems alive and well in this country. Nobody's closing down those schools and many of those stories about people getting kicked out for wearing crosses and the like are largely apocryphal. Anyways, what the hell are people wearing crosses for anyways, it pushes the focus of christianity too much on the resurection instead of the teachings of jesus and jesus himself advised that one ought not wear their phylactaries long - don't advertise your faith. Now, christians don't wear phylactaries, but I think crosses are similar in this case. The whole of jesus' teachings were directed towards man to man conduct and he makes it quite clear that religious piety is defined by good works and charitable interaction (unless you are a calvinist). He also makes quite clear that this is an individual covenant, not one that ought be advertised on your lapel. Should we spend your tax dollars on statues of mosesor the ten commandments? Should we spend mine? Should we only install those statues in predominantly christian neighbourhoods? Since these statues cost money, maybe we should only post them in predominantly rich neighbourhoods. Are women who are forced to remove their birkas in ID photos also being attacked? Are they being attacked by the atheistic, pinko left? Are jewish children being attacked when they are told not to wear kippas because the school has a "no hat" policy? Does the new testament, or any catechism, demand the wearing of crosses or the placement of fish drawings on vehicles? Are birkas and kippas mandated? Has anyone asked to ban circumcisions in hospitals? Has anyone ever confiscated your bible? Has anyone ever barred entry to your church? Has anyone ever blown up your church? Have you been made to wear identifying articles of clothing so that you can be easily known to the community? Where is this scarlet 'C'?

there are two huge problems with vouchers, neither having anything to do with religion. 1) It takes away aggregate funding from public schools, making them worse. Let us say that currently there are 32 students in a class - bad, but the aregetting 30 students worth of funding per class. Let us say that 6 students per class use the voucher - now there are 24 students per class, maybe, and the school has 20% less funding. If you thought having 30 kids in a class was bad, now you have two choices - consolodate classes so there are now 30 some kids per class with less choice in classes and the school is just as bad, or try to do as many classes and programs with 20% less funding - making the school worse. It is not as if schools are currently well funded anyways. 2) Any voucher system that has been offered gives families less money than the average private school tuition. Let us say you get $5,000 for your voucher (pretty good compared to what most proposals offer)... well that St. Simonus' High to which you are referring probably has a tuition running somewhere around $10,000. So who does this help? Rich and upper middle class families effectively get a tax break because they were already sending their kids to private school (which takes even more money out of a states general fund than that 20% from point #1) and families that are marginally well to do that can now afford the tuition of private schools with the voucher check. What happens to the poor families for whom that voucher is insufficient? Two choices - go to that now much shittier public school, or go to a new private school, lets call it High School, Inc.(HSI), that was created to take advantage of voucher families. HSI is now trying to make a school happen on a small scale for $5,000 a kid, and since this school really needs to make a profit lets say $4,000 actually goes to teaching and programs. Wait, no programs at HSI because there is no way that HSI is gonna blow potential profits on a gymnasium or pay a teacher overtime to run chess club. Basically the people who get the upgrade in education are borderline wealthy families. I have no problem with people getting aid, but helping those people is not my first priority, especially at the expense of those less wealthy. Also, since all families get the same voucher, regardless of their income, it functions as a regressive school tax. I thought right-wingers hated new taxes... or is it only progressive ones? As far as the ten commandments, it is not posting them that bothers me, it is purely an issue of formatting. Different denominations divide the commandments differently and translate them differently as well. Do we use the king james, NVI, Good News, JPS? Is "I am the lord your god" the first commandment or is the first commandment "I am the lord your god and you shall hold no other gods before me"? Are we commanded not to kill or is it not to murder? In certain circumstances we are told that we must kill in the bible, stonings for certain offenses, we must kill in the last defence of our lives, we must kill any moabite or amalekite that we meet, so it would be pretty offensive to some christians to say that we should not kill when that is patently false. What would orthodox jews have to say about any of these translations or numberings - the commandments were given in hebrew, unnumbered, and any translation will, by necesity, be to some degree incorrect, so thusly misrepresentative of the word of god. One simple solution to all these potential problems is to just not post the ten commandments in the first place. Anyways, considering that Jefferson, Washington, and Franklin were confirmed deists (read atheists) I am not so sure our country was based on the religious merit of these principles anyways. [Edited on 6/3/2004 by simonus]

i guess i am not seeing that much good right now from the bush administration. There has been some job growth, which is being reported on the financial page if not the front page, but nothing compared to the earlier losses. I am currently trying to find a new job and I am seeing only the slightest evidence of a recovery. Schools are not getting better, no matter what one thinks of the iraq situation I think it is difficult to argue that the general international situation is all that great. The coalition isnt doing so hot, especially in regards to spain and japan. Burlesconni and Blair are probably not going to be around for much longer, so italy and britain are not so certain and even many smaller members are getting out. I'm not crazy about the general state of the armed forces, locked up on two fronts where we are losing an inch or two for each we gain. The US's heir apparent in Iraq, Chalabi, has been deemed shitty first by iraqis and now by the US government and Karzai(sp?) is not getting much done in afganistan. Bush stomped on pay raises for the enlisted, which is about as unpatriotic as one can get. It is becoming more difficult to qualify and use the GI bill assistance programs, etc. Our budget is completely unbalanced, Ken Lay hasn't been put on trial, federal government is getting stingy with domestic disaster relief and has almost cancelled international disaster relief. Haiti is going to pigshit, etc... Bush is queer bashing and not funding real sex ed, is attempting to insert church into state via funding of faith-based non-profits... These last, of course could be rephrased and/or deemed good things depending on who you are, but it doesn't make me want to vote for that yellow dog.

i dont know what news sources you are monitoring but I have heard quite a bit about american deaths in iraq, including these individual assasinations. Frankly, there is not as much to say about the american assasinations - when americans do something wrong we are obliged to investigate it and correct the situation. When an american is killed in this fashion what are we supposed to do? Hold hearings? Examine pentagon memos? I hate to say this Fanpuck, because I do appreciate and respect your opinion and postings, but if you felt that they were reporting these assasinations what would your post be? Would you complain that the press was exploiting dead americans to underline the misdeployment of american troops? Would you then advocate the deployment of additional troops to iraq to overwhelm the insurgency as many democrats (and republicans) have? Would you call for the reinstatement of the draft to bolster american force as some politicians have? I fear that it would be very difficult for the press, or anyone to meet the standard that you are employing. I certainly want to know about american misdeeds in iraq because this is my country right or wrong, but if its wrong i want to make it right. If one feels that this country is doing wrong, even if I disagree with them, it is their duty as patriots to bring those perceived wrongdoings into the debate. I did not agree with republicans who complained about clinton's forays into yugoslavia and bosnia, but I rarely if ever questioned their motives for doing so. Now when they complained about sex that was a different story, much as it is a bit mean to make fun of bush for choking on a pretzel.... Republicans in general should maybe start putting some duct tape on their glass house. No reputable democrat has called for bush's censure or impeachment and whether or not you agree with the charges that might be brought (I for the most part do not), they are much more serious than anything that was ever brought against clinton. I don't remember the press being so nice to clinton, or to carter, or to johnson.... the last democrat who got anything close to an easy time was kenedy, and that was a very different time.

Hey Ribeiro - its interesting to see you dis a undersized french canadian from montreal who has been underestimated and scored a bunch to become more integral to their team than anyone thought probable. Why hate on lecavalier and st. louis? Perhaps they are getting too much credit right now, but somehow their team got to the finals and both those guys seem to be a large component of that success. If montreal had reached the finals it certainly would have been above and beyond any legitimate expectation that habs fans could have had at any point during the regular season. I seem to remember a severe tampa bay run last year that left a lot of people impressed with them and others calling them a fluke for reaching the second round.... isn't 2003 the bolts fluke year? Calgary could not have been considered a power team at the beginning of the season, especially when they had turek in net. I would generally refer to a team that made the playoffs for the first time in many years, with a mix of players that most have heard only little about, with a first time starting goalie, and a very high percentage of production derived from a very small group of players to be a 'surprise' team at the least. Especially when they are playing the eastern conference champions. I don't think that fanpuck or any of the other debaters are arguing that the bolts are going to win 3 cups in a row or even three cup appearances in a row, but there is no reason not to believe that they could very well get over 95 points in the next full season. The change in NJ without stevens was a snowball that kept getting greater as his absense grew longer. They very often did not even resemble the devils of old and brodeur often did not even resemble the brodeur of old. Certainly a team is less without a star player, but great teams could figure out how to beat some flukey wet-iced losers from florida... right? I look around the league and I didn't feel so bad about the habs without koivu or souray, colorado without forsberg, kariya (and for practical purposes selanne), st.louis played many good stretches (about as well as one generally expects of them) without macinnis or jackman, the kings played remarkably well without allison,deadmarsh or half their team at any given point. If the devils are truly as bad as that without stevens then we might be witnissing the end of an era in the swamp, cause stevens isn't getting any better and will very soon be gone. And if the devils think that players like Jan Hrdina are going to patch up the franchise we might have some new dominance in the atlantic for some time to come. Who knows? maybe that pesky pavel pure injury has been holding back the rangers. [Edited on 5/24/2004 by simonus]