Drunkard

I wouldn't call it an honest effort when you attempt to move the goal posts as far as you do with ridiculous assertions. Nobody is saying to make it $100 thousand a year and your absurdity makes it difficult to keep an open dialog and honest discussion. You try to pretend like you are open to other viewpoints and learning about the other side but repeated crap like this doesn't help at all. To respond to your other point, increasing the skills of everyone won't solve the problem either because as I previously stated there just aren't enough good jobs available. There are tons of people out there who are under employed given their education and work experience (myself included). I have an MBA and a double major for my Bachelors in Finance and Economics and I make a little over $16 an hour as an Administrative Assistant working for the government. I happen to love my job and find it rewarding because of the field I work in and the people I work with, but my job doesn't even require an Associates degree if you want to get technical. Maybe one day some cushy job as VP of a bank will open up and fall in my lap but I'd be willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that the person who takes my place will be overqualified for my current position as well because it's tough to find a decent job and there are 10 qualified or over qualified people applying for every position where I work. I get that there are job openings for welders and plumbers, as well as doctors and engineers that companies need to outsource for because people too many people get degrees in fields where there aren't enough jobs, but even if we had some massive re-education program that allowed retraining to fill each and every one of those openings it would still amount to a drop in the bucket. There are way more people out there in need of good jobs then there are good jobs and instead of trying to make it possible for those people working crappy jobs to be able to provide for themselves and their families we allow businesses to pay them like crap while earning record profits and we give them tax breaks on top of it with the hopes that they create even more jobs and keeping the cycle going.

This is an all too common misperception that has never been backed up by the data. If that was the case the economy would suffer every time they've raised the minimum wage and it hasn't happened. It usually helps the economy and doesn't lead to large scale price increases. Prices go up slightly but the people who have had their wages increased are still better off and so are the businesses who are able to sell more products because people have more money in their pocket.

Wouldn't raising the minimum wage to a level that would get someone working one full time job or two part time jobs over the poverty line help to achieve your smaller government agenda though? If McDonalds, Walmart, 7 Eleven, and Dominos suddenly paid their employees enough to no longer qualify for financial assistance then that would allow millions of people to leave the public dole. You seems to like to characterize liberals as wanting everything for free but you seem to ignore the fact that conservatives want to have their cake and eat it too. There simply aren't enough good jobs in this country for every household to have one, let alone two. That leaves a ton of households that don't have a good job getting outside assistance from the government. Wouldn't it be better to have McDonalds and Walmart pay them that money rather than having them have to get assistance from the government? Instead we allow them to keep wages low and reward them with tax breaks for being the good "job creators" that they are, and ignore the fact that most of the jobs they create suck because they aren't enough to survive on while also ignoring the fact that they outright encourage their employees to go on the public dole because they know these jobs they created pay so little that most of their employees will qualify for public assistance. How does that help anything?

$3.5 million x 3 years or $4m x 2 years after trading him at the deadline. Any more than that and I'd prefer another team to overpay him.

Can we get VIP laminates too, or is that just reserved for out of town Leafs fans?

I think it would be a mistake to buy out Moulson. Given his age if he gets bought out over the summer wouldn't his cap hit be roughly $2.5 million for the next 6 years? I'd rather be stuck with the $5 million hit for 3 years or hopefully we could trade him. I'm not a fan of retaining salary on guys who don't have expiring contracts though since I think you can only do that with 2 contracts at any one time and that may make it tough to get other deals done when we are trying to push for the playoffs in a year or two. That would definitely limit who would take him in a trade but that's still a better alternative than having a multi-million cap hit on him until the spring of 2023.

I think it means putting Reagan and a baby fetus on the $1 bill, Ted Nugent on the five, and Cliven Bundy on the $20, banning teaching children and adolescents about evolution and birth control so that time can be better spent worshipping at the altar of supply side economics. More succinct than my interpretation. Nice work.

Aren't convention centers giant money pits though? I remember reading some articles that talked about how the number of conventions overall have been trending down in recent decades and how even the best rated convention centers (like the one in DC) fail to meet their goals or even turn a profit most years.

So John Scott actually made the All Star game more entertaining. Who would've thunk it? Other than the thousands of us who voted for him to go.

That would be awesome. The only thing that would make it even funnier would be if he pulled a Joe Thornton after he scored his 4th goal.

Oh I definitely agree in theory but in this case we're talking about NHL fans who are voting for who they want to see play in the all star game. I doubt people in Japan or Egypt are firing up their wifi so they can cast a vote to watch Crosby whine to the refs when Kopitar bumps him too hard off the puck. The people who voted Scott in have just as much of a right to prefer to see him take the ice as any other player. Especially for a joke of a game that is the all star game. Even if the vote was basically a middle finger to Bettman.

Cool. Thanks for the observations. I've seen YouTube highlights only. I'd love to see him get a tryout with the big club to end the season then get his shot in training camp next year before being assigned to Rochester if it shows he's not ready for primetime.

I've been waiting to see Fasching play for us ever since Murray traded for him. He seems very much like McGinn to me, hopefully with more upside and scoring potential.

Interesting. And here I thought it was all those evil regulations that caused global warming. I guess the regulations are just too busy keeping the economy from growing at 10% annually into infinity. That's a big job in an of itself.

Are they saying we can't afford to spend on social programs out of one side of their mouth while talking about how we need to ramp up the war machine out of the other side? That's one of my favorites.

Don't worry I'm sure you're still a special little snowflake to your parents. Too bad they didn't teach you that your opinion isn't any more valuable than anyone else's and what you think doesn't get to trump the thousands of votes from people who wanted John Scott to be an All Star.

I've made my argument. Scott was voted in and deserves to go. You're the one who won't stop whining about it incessantly. Maybe you should get over it. Or suck a bag of ###### while you cry yourself to sleep about the evil John Scott ruining your All Star game.

So all the rest of us should treat your opinion as fact? What makes you such a special little snowflake that your opinions should trump that of the thousands of people who voted him in? I'd rather watch Scott than half of the prima donnas who were selected.

Fighting is a skill. Protecting your teammates is a skill. The league may be trying to phase fighting out of the game but many fans still enjoy it and it's a big part of what turned people into fans to begin with (in my case and many others). A good fight is more exciting than a goal to me and it's unfortunate that both are happening less and less frequently. This whole bs about him not having enough skill to be an all star is just snobbery. The league wanted fan involvement so they allowed fans to vote on the players. The fans selected John Scott therefore he is an All Star.

If I had to pick a Republican candidate to be President it would be Rand Paul in a landslide but given my political leanings I hope Trump manages to win the nomination, the GOP screws him and picks Rubio or Bush, and Trump runs as an independent and splits the conservative vote. Then I just have to hope Bernie finds a way to unseat Hillary and he picks Elizabeth Warren as his running mate.

Lost is good until the last season or two but I'd still recommend it.

Exactly. F'n prima donnas if that's really the case.

That was a great read. I remember hearing about the engineering degree when we first signed him. I'm glad he won the all star vote and I helped him get there with a bit of ballot stuffing myself. I don't usually watch the All Star game but I think I will this year. If the league wants to engage the fans, they shouldn't try to override our choices. He may not be a highly skilled player, but he is an All Star because the fans said so. Enjoy it, Big Fella. I hope he gets a Gordy Howe hat trick and punches some asshat like Kessel, Lucic, or Chara square in the damn nose.

Just under $13 million (I looked it up on that General Fanager site). It still sounds like a good chunk of change but we'll still have to replace them with other players as well so unless they are replaced by young players on ELC's or cheap veterans that won't necessarily be upgrades it is something that we'll need to be concerned about, especially once Eichel, Reinhart, and Ristolainen come off their entry level deals.

My girlfriend usually works on weekends as well. Other than sleeping in, I tend to fill the time by watching countless hours of tv. Pick a random show you've heard good things about but never gotten around to and stream it from Netflix, Hulu, or one of those free streaming sites and binge watch. It may not be the most productive use of your time but it's entertainment and (more importantly) it's free. I've become a bit of a recluse because every time I leave the damn house I spend money on something (gas, fast food, shopping, home improvement projects, etc.).