JJHardy7

I don't want to see a bunch of saggy-skinned, half-assing has-beens (sweet... 3 hyphened words in a row) on stage for a moneygrab featuring the same music I you hear every waking hour on WKLH and every other major market in the US. I think your post is exactly why bands like the Who are doing the halftime. I'm not a big fan of it, but there obviously is a market of people that enjoy it. I know some people that 'loved' the halftime show. I thought it was kind of lame. I'd like to see a breakdown of viewer demographic for the Super Bowl. I'd love to see the Foo Fighters do it and now that we have the delayed 'live' television thing if there was a mishap it could be blocked...I get the feeling that an older audience might tune in for these bands. No offense, but the White Stripes would never work for a halftime show band. The Who is old and all that...but they have a huge following from the older crowd. My guess is that this demographic is being targeted. I'm in my 20's and everyone I know watches the game from beginning to end...regardless of who the halftime show performer is.

...I hope everyone realizes that this plan will cost much, much, much less than roadways. And I know money from the Feds is tax dollar money, but it is NOT 100% state income tax/sales tax money. The entire country is paying for this...not just Wisconsin folks. Again, just because one person doesn't want to use it doesn't mean it will or won't work. It is somewhat off base to base any opinion off of one's own personal view or 'poll'. I don't live in Wisconsin...I'm not going to use it. I haven't done intense studies or reports though to determine whether or not it will work...thus I'm willing to give it a shot. IMO Wisconsin just happens to have to destinations (Milwaukee and Madison) that should generate some interest, but the real issue here is a rail that goes from Chicago to Minneapolis. That is the prize. I just think there are plenty of other things to complain about than this issue. It is a relatively small percentage compared to the transportation budget as a whole. If this rail system does work (not saying it will), Wisconsin would look awfully foolish for saying 'no' to the federal money.

Great interview! As most people around here know, I've been a big Seth McClung fan for awhile. He's a class act.

I loved the David Wallace appearance. Turns out the one guy in Dunder Mifflin who truly respected Michael was also an idiot. I guess I had a different take on it. It seemed like Michael might have been willing to just be fired, but then saw a person he once respected who was fired and realized his issue wasn't worth getting fired. I thought that part was pretty funny. I also agreement with BC04...the song was hilarious.

My opinion on this is rather divided. Like Invader said, this seems like a real lousy and very rushed way to do this. The government is spending close to a billion dollars on a rail line that they didn't bother to really figure out how much use it will get. Those numbers thrown out earlier in this thread are absurd....something like 22,000 fares a week? Whoever came up with that number is obviously biased. I'd love to be able to hop on a train and get to Madison in 30-40 minutes but it's just not going to happen. I think once the initial "cool a new train" attitude wears off this system is going to be an enormous mistake. Our deficit this past year and these next two years are something like 3 times higher than any deficits in the history of our country. I'm just saying, is it so wrong to study this plan before you spend close to a billion dollars on it? It is not wrong to study a plan...how do we know there wasn't a study done of some sort? I mean if billions of dollars are being spent and there has been no study...that's dumb. I just highly, highly doubt that is the case. I'm not saying it's going to work, but I'm also not going to speak about things I don't know. I'm sure the fares per week weren't a number pulled out of thin air. I'm sure going forward we'll hear more about the research done. It does remain to be seen how accurate it will be.

id expand it to 68 to force all 16 seeds to earn a spot. It wouldn't hurt the tournament at all. 96 teams would make a mockery of it and make the conference season worthless as all "bcs" schools and most mid majors with a winning record would be in. Thats approximately 1/3 of all D1 schools. I believe more than half of NBA teams make the playoffs...and isn't something like more than half of D1 football teams go to a bowl game? I know the 1/3 sounds like a big percentage, but it's not that different than some other current scenarios. If this happens, it'd be nice to get rid of the NIT tournament.

The failure of any 16 seed to advance really makes it difficult to justify expanding past 64 teams. This is a good point. I guess the way I look at it is that if you have a mid major that had a winning record/good season, but didn't get inot the dance as it stands now...they'd play a weak automatic bid team in the '1st round' and settle the issue on the court. No offense to any smaller schools or small conferences...but some of these 16 seeds clearly aren't better than a lot of teams left out. I know it would not be a good thing for small conferences (like the Ivy league), but I think if you're going to put the best teams in the tournament I like the idea of expansion. It does have its own issues though.

Yes. It's not free money. The Federal government is not going to keep paying for upgrades and other costs that fares don't cover and eventually Wisconsin taxpayers are going to have to foot the bill. Even if they do, people act like federal money isn't taxpayer money. That money comes from us, one way or the other. Its that kind of attitude that led to a soon to be $15 trillion debt (no offense). Of course it never should have gotten to this point. The Federal government never should have forced this down our throats when there were much better ways for the money to be used and would have created the same amount of jobs. Some of it could have been used to create a Milwaukee to Madison Amtrak route, for instance. Or instead the government could have used the money to start buying down the debt. A billion dollars is a billion dollars. I really don't think it's that kind of attitude. It's clear you have a strong opinion about this...I'm just saying since the Feds are paying for it (I know it is taxpayer money) it's cheaper for the state to do this than on their own. We can argue all day about demand and such...and I have no clue about that. I'm sure the people that will have jobs in Wisconsin because of this aren't going to be complaining...you have to admit there are some benefits. I think it'd be foolish in a way to pass up the money until I know all the details. We don't know what the operating costs will exactly be and such. You might be upset in general that they're doing this, but I think that's a different topic than this specific location.

I think the plan is to give a number of first round byes to make things work out...so there still would be nothing lower than a 1/16 game. If this is the plan, I really like it. We'll get to see some major conferences vs. some mid majors and have the best team (not bigger conference) advance. I do not want to see a #1 vs. a #24 or anything like that. I also think this would create better matchups in the second round of the tournament. One of the problems with the tournament is seeding smaller schools. Sometimes they are seeded too high or too low...and sometimes they aren't good, but they received an automatic birth. The additional teams would essentially correct some of that problem.

So should Wisconsin just have said 'no' to the funding from the Feds?

http://www.360financialli...me+tax+filing+status.htm

Brewers haved pulled their latest offer off the table... http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/sports/83198212.html

Point, Not sure if this is what you're talking about, but it seems like it would be 10 years out... http://www.wbay.com/Global/story.asp?S=11898067 I'm guessing this would be on the state's dime.

It just does not make sense to have the only stop being the airport. I'd guess the major issue is cost. I'm sure Wisconsin could 'chip in' and make destinations to all over Madison, Appleton, Green Bay, but I would imagine that would cost billions of dollars...and IMO it wouldn't make much sense at all. If the Milwaukee to Madison think doesn't make sense, I don't think any other destinations would make sense. I don't have a problem with this at all. Until everything is finalized, I'm not going to get too worried about it. I do think Milwaukee and Madison do make the most logical partners for this. Appleton and Green Bay would be nice, but the cost is way, way, way too much.

And yet this isn't a problem in the 32 team NFL, which also has wild card teams in the playoffs. The NFL has much more revenue sharing though...it is not a fair comparison IMO.

I don't think there is any chance the Final Four would be in Milwaukee...they would need to build a HUGE arena for the Bucks in order for that to even be possible. Ford Field holds 65k for football and 78k for basketball. You need huge arenas...and with the retractable roof in Milwaukee there is no way they would roll the dice on that. There would be way too many other cities competing for the Final Four that would be able to provide much more than Milwaukee can. I agree somewhat that it may not be utilized as much as it could, but I also think you have to figure out what kind of events cannot be at the Bradley Center and could be at Miller Park. I don't think there are that many events that fit that category...

It seems like I read about a solution a while ago that would have involved rotating days off and possibly occasional double headers. I think it may have involved scheduling more 2 day series. I can't remember the details, but it made it pretty clear you wouldn't necessarily have to have interleague play the entire season. Oh I have no doubt that it would be possible. I just think the days off and doubleheaders could be an issue with a 5 man rotation. I'm sure there is a way it would work, but I could see some advantages and disadvantages being had based on the schedule. kramnoj - you bring up a good point about games in September. That would be an issue.

They could just have one team in each league take three days off while the others play their series. With interleague play, I doubt it would be impossible to simply have one interleague series (or more) at a time. Heck, someone could probably write a scheduling algorithm fairly easily. I guess I don't see taking 3 days off working well. You'd lose your random days off pretty quick. MLB does not need to extend the season any further IMO. They need to end it sooner if possible. I agree on the interleague thing though. I mentioned that in my post. I'd have no problem doing that. That would make sense.

I have heard this before but I can't remember the reasoning because when I think about it it doesn't make sense that you couldn't do everything the way you need to. I'm sure in a world in which we send rockets to the outer rim of the solar system we can figure out a way to make scheduling work with 15 teams in each league. As far as I'm concerned interleague play can take a back seat in order to have equal divisions. As much as I enjoy watching the Marlins and Royals play each other every few years, I can do without it. I agree with Invader. How can you justify having the divisions set up the way they are now? So how would 15 team leagues work without interleague play? I agree on making it more even, but you need an even number of teams in a league to make it work. I'm not saying there isn't a way, but I think the 'best' option might be making it 15 team leagues and always having an interleague series going on. I don't know why interleague can only occur during certain times. Like you mention...not ever series is all that entertaining. I think with 15 team leagues without interleague you'd have teams with too many off days or creating other travel issues.

I'd actually say that Jeff Suppan is the Jim McIlvaine of MLB. A good dude, but you have to wonder what the team management was smoking when they made the contract offer. Not to get too off topic...but timing is everything. Suppan hit free agency at the 'right time'. You could say the same thing about Michael Redd. The contracts might not be ideal, but obviously there are other factors that go into contracts than simply a player's talent (unfortunately). Bell is not really all that highly paid in the NBA. There are a lot worse contracts than Bell (like Danny G) on the Bucks. At least Suppan played well on a national stage to get the deal...I'm not sure what Danny G did.

Comparing Alexander to Haislip is an insult to Haislip. Very true. Marcus is now in his 4th NBA season in the NBA and has scored 25 points in total this year. He CLEARLY is much better than Joe A... Did I mention Marcus is turning 30 this year? I know people hate Joe A...that's fine. Let's just not essentially make up things and treat them like they are facts. As of now, they both might be busts. I still think Joe A could pan out to be a decent NBA player. The problem is he's been hurt and no doubt has struggled. I'd like to see what he could do in an extended period of playing time. Maybe he would suck, but I'd at least like to see it. EDIT - Oh and Joe A has scored something like 33 fewer career points than Marcus. Joe A is 23...Marcus will be 30. Joe A played has played 1 year in the NBA...Marcus 4. Marcus has also played in something like 30 more career games than Joe A. I think if anyone is insulted by comparisons here it might be Joe A...

The deal gives Netflix the right to stream WB's library. I haven't seen details yet about how soon they start rolling out, but it seems to be the full library. I couldn't find the details either. I think it is a good deal if it is the full library. I know some may not like it, but I think over time more and more people will simply stream via Netflix.

So what does this deal with WB do for streaming WB movies?

He's a horribly inefficient scorer. He is only in his rookie year as well though. Jennings no question has a scoring mentality and i'm fine with that from a PG, but not if the PG is shooting under 40% nearly every night. I still have hope for Jennings and don't regret the pick at all, but he really needs to work on a few things going forward I agree. I think it makes it difficult knowing what type of 2 the team needs right now. Obviously a scoring 2 is never a bad thing, but I just don't know exactly what type of 2 would fit now and long-term. Maybe just a jump shooter that doesn't need to take a ton of shots every game and plays some solid defense would be ideal? In other words, I really don't want to take the ball out of BJ's hands (if he develops like I think he will) and have a 2 that needs the ball a lot to create his own shots. That's not a bad thing if it happens, but I think BJ is going to be a playmaker for years to come.

This team needs a scoring guard, pure and simple... just not enough options. When Ridnour is your best option on offense you have a problem. Adding a guy like Ray Allen in his prime would probably make this a 50 win team. So is BJ not a scoring guard? Again...how many teams have had a ton of long-term success with a scoring PG and scoring SG. I know there are a handful, but I don't think this is how you really build around BJ. I think they need more scoring in general, but you are essentially asking for a healthy Redd, right?