The_Godfather

See this is where your close-mindedness comes in. The benefits of religion do not come from validating as a fact the extraordinary claims they do make. Go on then, please tell me some of these benefits and how they are the *exclusive* property of religion. Just one example will do... It's not my place to tell you what benefits religion may have to you it's different for everybody I think. I'd like to know how many churches have you gone to with an open mind?

Disagree. I think a 'better educated' society comes from having diverse schools and having less close minded people like you. Wrong. I'm extremely open-minded and will happily believe that religion of any form has benefits the day anyone can actually validate objectively anything any of them claim. In the meantime all it does is impose close-minded thinking (look up "dogma" in the dictionary) that ergo can do nothing other than impede educated points of view. Hence my comments. i agree...i have christian friends who claim to be very open minded people who also think cuba is full of godless communists who wish to destory america...and this is a small example... people need to think for themself rather than bow down to someone who claims he can talk to god... Hey Jimmy I once read an article about a guy who smoked pot everyday going crazy and killing someone. I guess all pot heads = killers and we should make pot illegal, right?

Disagree. I think a 'better educated' society comes from having diverse schools and having less close minded people like you. Wrong. I'm extremely open-minded and will happily believe that religion of any form has benefits the day anyone can actually validate objectively anything any of them claim. See this is where your close-mindedness comes in. The benefits of religion do not come from validating as a fact the extraordinary claims they do make.

Good. Less dogma = a better educated society. Disagree. I think a 'better educated' society comes from having diverse schools and having less close minded people like you.

Well, I heard of a guy who has a lot to prove that is willing to sign for the minimum. I think he has something to do with home run record? I wish, man. It'd be treat to get to see one of the 5 greatest baseball players of all time on our team even if he is a shell of his former self.

That is sad. I do wonder though what percentage of professional athletes do have the HIV virus though, I'd think it is higher than what know of.

Godfather do you consider yourself a Buddhist or do your beliefs just happen to match up that way? I really don't consider myself anything, I guess they just match? I was actually kind of surprised by the results.

1. Mahayana Buddhism (100%) 2. Hinduism (98%) 3. Unitarian Universalism (88%) 4. Liberal Quakers (86%) 5. New Thought (85%) 6. Jainism (82%) 7. Theravada Buddhism (82%) 8. Neo-Pagan (77%) 9. Scientology (75%) 10. New Age (75%) 11. Reform Judaism (65%) 12. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (64%) 13. Taoism (64%) 14. Baha'i Faith (61%) 15. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (58%) 16. Orthodox Judaism (58%) 17. Sikhism (55%) 18. Islam (51%) 19. Orthodox Quaker (47%) 20. Secular Humanism (39%) 21. Seventh Day Adventist (32%) 22. Jehovah's Witness (30%) 23. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (29%) 24. Nontheist (27%) 25. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (25%) 26. Eastern Orthodox (16%) 27. Roman Catholic (16%) Funny considering I grew up with a Roman Catholic (my last choice according to this test) and Jehovah Witness family.

I hope somebody here will take the time to read this one and half page book except. It's funny I just sent a different excerpt thru PM that related to something completely different but having just read this page tonight, I thought it did the perfect job of conveying exactly how I feel about the entire A-Rod situation. It's from the book 'The Brothers K' and read starting from the headline 4. War Prayer (a Pro contract is a kind of a vow) to the beginning of page 518. The characters and back story are really not important or necessary to know. I can't copy paste so here is the link - Note: you may have to sign into your Amazon account, I'm not sure. EDIT: I think you may have to go back one page, to the heading War Prayer, not entirely sure. http://www.amazon.com/gp/sitbv3/reader?asi...4wVKLrn6w0j1o=#

haha that is pretty funny.

Good Luck to him he was a good player and and even greater Person. Hopefuly he makes the Hall one day. That hurt my soul.

I know who Andy Bernard is, but I don't get why he was reference here. Also, fun fact: Ed Helms who plays Bernard is actually the cousin of our very own Wes Helms. FTR I want to see Andy + Oscar as a couple - that'd be hilarious and perfect. Oscar did seem to get upset when Andy mentioned he liked that girl last week. He just said...I have to go to my desk and walked away. :lol I could see it. Count me in as not getting the Andy reference either, btw.

I went to a place in RI last night called the Mews Tavern, they have 69 beers on tap. Several nice selections. For some reason the guy sitting at the table next to me was drinking a bud light out of the bottle. :lol that always throws me off too. Some people just like their bud light though and don't even care to try something else. Last night I had the Spaten on tap, not the October fest Spaten, I assume it was just the normal Spaten. Really liked it, we talked about it before but how did you rate the Spatens? For Dgreco, I had the Spaten at the Wine Bar on Hollywood Young circle, Harrison street. That is a great place to take a girl after Opa. You're a lock if you take a girl there. Go out back behind the doors it is kind of secluded but it is an entire open air area with lounge couches/chairs/swings/fire place...it's nice.

Bump for my favorite thread. Anyone try anything new/good recently? DGreco, I see you lurking...we talked about it before, have you been here yet? http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fusea...iendid=56918710

Av: remidns me of sublime, not sure if it is but i'll give it an 8 Sig: Marius is a machine and if it was more horizontal I would say 10, otherwise 8. It is the Sublime sun, been the only avatar I've ever had here since day 1. As far as yours...meh...I don't know what the Avatar is so I guess I'd have to go with an a grade INC. and the sig? It's cool seeing the different Marlin hats, I like that you have a link to your homepage too, but it should be more notable maybe? so I'd go with a 7. I'm a tough grader though.

Many of you are are missing the main point. These are ratings are compiled much like the way insurance companies rate applicants for a policy. MLB teams are no different - they also take out disability insurance on their players. They want to be sure that either their "property" produces, or if not, they are not stuck paying the full salary burden to their non-functioning property, or "capital", if you like that term better. He's not trying to predict actual player injuries. Instead, he's making a probability guess. There's likely a figure something like this for each group: Yellow - [Coefficient for likelihood of multiple injuries] (% chance of injury) X (average games missed in case of injury) = Average Risk Per Player rated Yellow. Let's say the figures for the yellow group is that the average person in this groups misses 20 games (I know games are not a perfect measure for P's vs position players). All he's trying to say is that over a large sample size, the yellow's will approach this actuarially-predicted result. And you can bet your ass they will - insurance companies are extremely good at what they do, and they certainly aren't in business to lose money and have wild volatility swings (at least over the medium to long term). They group players in such a way so that insurance companies can appropriately price the risk of insuring different players salary. Obviously, the red players would have the highest disability insurance premiums, and then yellow players on down. They may even break it down into further categories, but this is the main idea. +1. Good post. It is not silly, you could make a claim that predicting anything is silly, as it is just a guess, but when it is an educated guess like Will Carroll is doing here with many factors involved it makes for interesting discussion. Sure it won't and can't be 100% accurate but what prediction will be?

Avatar = 7 good not great Sig = 10, both the stadium (beautiful) and the quote from one of the greatest movies of all time. Might be the only 10 sig on here too, don't change it!

The Volstad one confused me as well. Maybe it's because we cannot possibly expect him to give us a full year this year when his previous high was 152 IP 3 years ago?

Unfortunately, the Marlins tend to stack their real talent in AA. Depending on who makes the big club, you may see: That will not be the case anymore, the only reason they did that in past is because of the ball park they played triple A ball was way too extreme of a hitter's park.

Yes people are dumb but why spread this garbage around and give this dumb person even more attention? I see something from that I just ignore it as the crazy rantings of a mentally unstable person.

:lol this guy is one of my favorite posters. I really don't think it matters which of those games you go to, personally but I'd like to be there and buy a beer for possibly the only British Florida Marlin fan in the world. You are like a one of a kind gem. EXCUSE ME!!!! :blink: ha! Two of you! You gotta start using phrases like "our family vacation from jolly old England to your glorious and completely lovely United States of America and the wonderful state of Florida" Are you in Scotland right now? I would so buy you a beer too, if you come to a Marlin's game.

:lol this guy is one of my favorite posters. I really don't think it matters which of those games you go to, personally but I'd like to be there and buy a beer for possibly the only British Florida Marlin fan in the world. You are like a one of a kind gem.

So will the Dolphins go 7-9 or 8-8?

Preston Parker got kicked off the FSU football team for doing weed and driving under the influence, which he should have been, but everyone calls him a thug and piece of sh*t. He made the same mistakes as Phelps, but no one really cares about Phelps because he's an Olympic god. Parker is a "thug" because he attends a "thug" school that has a reputation for breeding thugs. Phelps is an idol because he's won more gold medals than I have teeth, and that overshadows a mere DUI and "one-time" pot incident. I could really care less about Parker or Phelps, but it just pisses me off when people talk sh*t about FSU and their players and act like their own school is heaven. No one talks about Myron Rolle and his Rhodes Scholarship, but once a player gets caught with weed, "lulz FSU, what a joke, all thugs." I don't even follow college football that much, so it's not about rivalries. I'm just trying to defend my school, where I graduated with honors, and had the time of my life. Don't call my school dumb and lump me in with those kind of people that just about every school has. I bet most of the people that diss FSU and their weed-smoking thugs probably toke up more than the athletes do. My rant is over. It's been a long day... Haven't really followed either story but I don't think Phelps drove under the influence and if Parker did then there's a huge difference. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/11/08/...ain654380.shtml Olympic gold medalist swimmer Michael Phelps was sentenced to 18 months probation Wednesday after pleading guilty to drunken driving.

she's only ''hot'' because the rest of the drivers don't have vaginas. don't you think a girl in the nhl or mlb will be considered hot because of the simple fact that she's one of few or the only female there? of course :lol :lol