Dr. Tom

Re: Angelos. I would hope he dies, but his sons are probably even worse than he is. I don't see him selling the Orioles anytime soon, since I'm sure he still sees himself as the man who saved baseball in Baltimore, a moniker that the late Edward Bennett Williams deserves. New ownership would be good for the team, IMO, as Angelos has become a polarizing figure both within MLB and his own city. Re: The Expos. I guess everybody wins, in MLB's usual cynical way: the owners get a free new stadium the taxpayers have said they don't want, the fans will eagerly scarf up tickets and merchandise for a while, and the nation's capital gets an actual local team. The fans of Montreal lose out, but had they bothered to support the team before now, it wouldn't have gotten this far. I know they had some ownership issues up there, but still. Re: Selig. He sucks a savage sausage, and the best thing he can do for baseball is die in public.

Shaun's too common a name, though. Part of the completely arbitrary selection process for single-name tilde-bang status is that the player's name can't be something too common. DEUCE~! is the best example, really, since it's a cool sounding name, looks good written that way, and McAllister is a heck of a RB to boot. Alexander's good, but he also has a habit of disappearing in games... basically, he has Corey Dillon Syndrome, where he'll have 120 yards and 2 TD one week, and 35 yards and no scores the next.

You'll just have to live with the RAVENS~! bias. I've never claimed to be objective. I will hereby consider Green for single-name tilde-bang status. You'll see if he gets it or not in next week's installment.

Wow, a lot of road teams are the favorites this week. It's tough to lay points on the road, but we'll have to in a bunch of those games...

Here's another good use for my Napalm Pits idea.

So steroids are responsible for Bonds' one big HR season? Never mind that he's been consistently hitting about 45 a year for a decade or so now, and we KNOW that a man can't have an aberrational year in the power department without being on the juice. Wade Boggs, 1987? Clearly on steroids, at least by the "logic" shown in this thread. Why I bet he gained 5 pounds that offseason! Barry Bonds is the best hitter of his generation, and the best to come along in quite some time. He has made himself into a very disciplined hitter with a short, explosive swing. Yes, he's gotten bigger since he arrived in SF, but did anyone consider that he bulked up (naturally, not with roids) to make up for the inevitable decline in skills he knew was coming? Bonds has managed to avoid going into a tailspin at this juncture of his career because he's absurdly disciplined at the plate and is in such good shape. He's definitely lost some skills, notably on defense and the basepaths, but he's fended off the effects of time at the plate. I'm sure those of you who are so insistent he took steroids have some actual proof? You know, besides the "OMG he bulked up and hit a lot of HR~!!!!11!" "argument" that some of you are trying to substitute for proof.

Explain yourself. Do I really need to? Hell, that's basic English, with a little remedial geography.

Lies. I liked T3 (gave it a 7.5/10 in the review, IIRC), but T2 is a modern classic. Especially the director's cut... that is some QUALITY shit right there. It's easily one of the best movies I've ever seen.

Actually, I'm 1/8 English. Now go sod off, you blighter.

I'm going to leave this open for one week. Hopefully, by that point, enough of you will have gotten these free iPods that we won't have to see these bloody threads pop up every week. Next Monday, it'll be closed, but it'll still be here for people to use referrals and such. In exchange for not closing this thread like we have all the others, I don't want to see anymore free iPod (or free any other similar offer) threads started. If they are, then they will be closed, and the person who started them will meet the same fate as the rest. Happy free stuff-ing.

Having worked on Army installations for several years now, I've met my share of US servicemen. I've never had a problem with any of them, and while my job only has me interacting with officers, the soldiers and NCOs I've met in my travels have always represented the uniform quite well. I've also met a few chaps in the German army, and they were also excellent representatives of their uniforms.

"Activist" my ass. They killed a terrorist, and good for them. Syria can fuck right off. Good. Here's hoping they wipe out the rest of the organization. Again, good. If Syria has such a problem with Israel's actions, let them do something about it. I'm sure the Israelis could use some more land. Quit your theatrical bellyaching, commie. Israel is a vital American ally in a cesspool of terror, and they're surrounded by countries who hate them and would love to destroy them. The problem for those countries is that Israel could wipe the floor with them if it wanted to, so they have to use cowardly terrorist attacks. The fact that we can still speak of Palestinians in the present tense is a testimony to the patience of Israel. Personally, I'd like to see them kirk out and kill a few hundred million "people" over there, but that's just me. Indeed. It's Hamas, the Palestinians, and Moslem terrorists.

I actually read this article just now, as opposed to just glancing at the headline last night. This is one of the most ridiculous suggestions I've ever heard, and it pisses me off. Fuck every stupid, knuckle-dragging, slow-to-act motherfucker in Europe who wants a say in American politics, fuck the asshole who wrote this shitty excuse for an article, and fuck every cretin who agrees with him. Fuck them all with a razorblade dildo. Maybe if a lot of countries would get their heads out of their asses, they'd see that the era of polling opinions and waiting for your allies to do something is gone. America has acted when it needed to. We don't need some sissy in office who would get the opinion of spineless shithead world leaders instead of just acting to protect his people. Gah, this infuriates me. The fucking GALL... argh.

Study Shows Dogs Can Smell Cancer Thursday, September 23, 2004 LONDON — It has long been suspected that man's best friend has a special ability to sense when something is wrong with us. Now the first experiment to verify that scientifically has demonstrated that dogs are able to smell cancer (search). Experts say it's unlikely that pooches will become practical partners in cancer detection any time soon, but the results of the study, outlined this week in the British Medical Journal (search), are promising. They show that when urine from bladder cancer patients was set out among samples from healthy people or those with other diseases, the dogs — all ordinary pets — were able to identify the cancer patients' urine almost three times more often than would be expected by chance alone. "The issue is not whether or not they can detect cancer, because clearly they can. The issue is whether you can set up a system whereby they can communicate with you. That requires further ingenuity," said Tim Cole, a professor of medical statistics at Imperial College in London, who was unconnected with the study and is the owner of a chocolate Labrador retriever (search). David Neal, a bladder and prostate cancer surgeon at Cambridge University in England, said it's plausible dogs might be able to pick up the scent of cancer because people with the disease shed abnormal proteins in their urine. "I'm skeptical about whether it will be implementable, but scientifically it should be followed up," said Neal, a spokesman for Cancer Research UK, Britain's cancer society, who was not involved in the research. "It might be that the dogs are better than our current machines at picking up abnormal proteins in the urine. What are the dogs picking up? Can we get a machine that does the same?" It is thought that a dog's sense of smell is generally 10,000 to 100,000 times better than a human's. The idea that dogs may be able to smell cancer was first put forward in 1989 by two London dermatologists, who described the case of a woman asking for a mole to be cut out of her leg because her dog would constantly sniff at it, even through her trousers, but ignore all her other moles. One day, the dog, a female border collie-Doberman mix, had tried to bite the mole off when the woman was wearing shorts. It turned out she had malignant melanoma — a deadly form of skin cancer. It was caught early enough to save her life. Then in 2001, two English doctors reported a similar case of a man with a patch of eczema on his leg for 18 years. One day his pet Labrador started to persistently sniff the patch, even through his trousers. It turned out he had developed skin cancer and, once the tumor was removed, the dog showed no further interest in the eczema patch. A handful of similar anecdotes have since been reported, but the latest study is the first rigorous test of the theory to be published. The experiment, conducted by researchers at Amersham Hospital in Buckinghamshire, England, and the organization Hearing Dogs for Deaf People, set out to prove whether dogs could be trained to detect cancer. Six dogs — all pets of the trainers — were used in the study. They included three working strain cocker spaniels, one papillon, a Labrador and a mongrel. The trainers used urine from bladder cancer patients, from people sick with unrelated diseases and from healthy people to train the dogs over seven months to select the cancer-unique elements by process of elimination. They learned to ignore differences in the urine samples that were due to age, sex, infection, diet and other factors. Urine from 36 bladder cancer patients and 108 comparison volunteers was used. Each dog had to sniff seven urine samples and lie down next to the one from a bladder cancer patient. The test was repeated eight times for each dog, with new urine samples every time. Taken as a group, they correctly selected the right urine on 22 out of 54 occasions, giving an average success rate of 41 percent. By chance alone, you'd expect them to be accurate one-seventh, or 14 percent, of the time. The two best dogs, Tangle and Biddy — both cocker spaniels — were right 56 percent of the time, according to trainer Andrew Cook. The papillon Eliza, tied with Bea, the third cocker spaniel, followed by the Labrador, Jade. Bringing up the rear was Toddy the mongrel. "Toddy, bless him, was working at a rate no better than chance, really, but we still love him," Cook said. One of the cancer patients was identified correctly by all six dogs, whereas two other cancer patients were consistently missed, indicating that perhaps the strength of the urine signal varies from person to person, or according to severity of the disease. Perhaps the most intriguing finding, though, was in a comparison patient whose urine was used during the training phase. All the dogs unequivocally identified that urine as a cancer case, even though screening tests before the experiment had shown no cancer. Doctors conducted more detailed tests on the patient and found a life-threatening tumor in the right kidney. (OMGTEHDEVILSN00Z~!!!11) Well, it's certainly interesting. If we can train dogs to lead blind people around, I'm sure they can be trained to tell their owners of cancer, if this ability is legit and can be utilized.

If it's any consolation, I'm not voting for him either, but I generally like him and the job he's done, and I also realize the allegations against him are garbage. Everyday, my concerns about a very close election fall away a little more. Now just don't tell W you're gay and it's all good...

OMG Tyler throws harder than ever now!!!!11 MLB, here he comes!

I'm sure it is. The fact remains that we can NEVER give in to the demands of terrorists. Just once, I want to see a hostage go on TV and not beg for his life, but encourage the allied forces to eradicate the wastes of sperm and egg who captured him in the first place. You've got to be fucking kidding me. Absolutely not. Never. Not a chance. Then why are you being such a sissy and saying maybe we should let free one of the people they want released? Fuck that. Kill the goddamn people they want released just to show them we're not at all willing to negotiate. "Hostages" (the term is poor because hostages usually have a chance, while these poor people are dead the moment they're captured) are nothing to the terrorists, so why should the people they seem to care about be worth a damn to us? To the story: Good. Anyone who understands how terrorist organizations work would encourage their government NOT to try and obtain anyone's release. I do feel sorry for the families involved in this, but they need to stop weeping and snivelling on national TV and trying to get us to change our very sensible policy on terrorism just because it's their family member who got kidnapped. If we acquiesce and release a few prisoners, what's next? We leave Fallujah because a dozen people got taken hostage? We leave Iraq to save a classroom full of kids? Sorry, no. We've drawn the line in the sand and there will be no crossing of it. Amen to that.

Actually, it's a democratic republic. Big difference.

Gardenhire's said the priority is the playoffs, and he fully plans to set his rotation so that Santana pitches twice in the division round.

They might be ready for the Twins, but they'll also have to face Santana twice in a five-game series. That could be a frown squad for any team, but the Yankees and Boston strike me as two teams that should struggle against good LHPs.

I don't mean among the writers and the hardcore baseball fans; we know what Bonds does, and the historical significance and downright absurdity of some of his numbers. I'm referring more to the casual baseball fans, many of whom are tired of hearing about Bonds, tired of seeing him ALL THE TIME on ESPN, and probably think he's a steroid user. I don't think the NL MVP could rationally be given to anyone but Bonds, but there is a large group of baseball fans who will view that selection with disdain.

All fine systems in pro sports are wimpy. Fining a wealthy pro athlete $25,000 is like fining most people $.50. Lavar Arrington could wipe his ass with $5000 every day for a month and not notice the loss. Heck, knowing how light the fines are, if I were an athlete in an important game, I'd go diving at people's knees. Oh, so sorry Peyton's out for the year; here's a check for $35,000.

Twinkies and cockroaches will survive the nuclear holocaust. I am convinced of that. EDIT: And Keith Richards, as another thread reminded me.

As with any dead rassler, I can see saying something to the effect of, "bummer, I enjoyed his matches." Anything beyond that should be reserved for those who actually knew the man. Anyone who wails and gnashes their teeth over the death of someone they've never known has some issues they should investigate.