RochesterExpat

Despite the talk about defamation, no one has pointed out the obvious: Pegula is a public figure. That makes any defamation case he brings against an individual to be substantially more difficult. ”The person who told me the quote, Larry King, stated it as a fact. I was just repeating what I heard. He may have lied or embellished it. I don’t know. As noted, I didn’t claim to hear it first hand. I repeated it because it was materially relevant to my own lawsuit.” That statement is almost certainly enough to have the suit dismissed. You would need to prove that he knowingly lied and acted with “actual malice.”Meeting that threshold is extraordinarily difficult because the courts require “clear and convincing” evidence which is difficult to satisfy. The majority of statements made in court do have a shield from defamation suits—as someone pointed out—but that does not extend to a plaintiff’s statements about a third party in a complaint (complaint didn’t load for me but based on what’s posted it seems like TP is a third party).

I’m guessing #2. It sounds almost insulting even if I don’t mean it to be, but he strikes me as the epitome of a player who is a future trivia answer. The type of player that has a relatively low-key career and ends up being the answer to future trivia questions where each time you go, “oh, yeah, I forgot about him. Really? That [whatever stat/fact] was him? Huh.” That kind of player. No shame in that either. That’s just what he makes me think of.

Curious if the number of nationally televised games will impact this as well.

I have to go Sabres > Ottawa > Detroit because I keep expecting Detroit to take the next step and they haven’t yet so I’m done believing in them. Ottawa and Buffalo are probably there already and would be playoff teams if they played in the West.

I think it will be $5x4 because it gets him to the magic “he’s 29 and therefore isn’t 30 yet” next contract and it syncs nicely with a bridge deal for one of the younger guys (JJP, Benson, Savoie, Kulich, etc).

I agree with the reasoning. I just don’t think others will as much.

I just want to watch this thread to read everyone’s almost assuredly reasonable, thoughtful and friendly takes on this contract value.

I don’t understand this move at all if it’s being done entirely in a vacuum.

I think everything has already been said that can be said about this, but none of it said better than how RJ would have said it. He will be missed.

I could have sworn he said in an interview that he wanted to get involved in the administrative side, but he wanted to take a year off to spend time with his family and that any job he ultimately took would be dependent on how much time he could spend at home. I’m like 99% sure of this. Now you have me doubting myself.

1 - Dallas because it's close to where I live now and I think the organization is relatively well-run with a fun mix of young and old players. 2 - Seattle because it's an opportunity to have an impact on a new franchise. 3 - Pittsburgh to play with Crosby/Malkin/Letang/Karlsson 4 - Carolina because I want to know what Rod's workout program is. 5 - Boston because team culture (even with Bergeron and Krejci leaving) Which one?

The five Canadian teams with the smallest airports. I don’t want to move to Canada for half the year, sorry Canadians. I think a more interesting question would be, “you’re a free agent and 31 teams (Buffalo is the only one missing) have made you identical offers, which 5 teams do you want your agent to negotiate with?” I think those answers might be more fun.

Sorry to continue but this is a mischaracterization of what I was trying to say and I realize I wasn't clear so I'd like to clarify. When speaking about the American economy, my argument is we've created a corrupted system wherein we artificially limit the ability of people to do the proverbial bootstrap pulling. My opinion is that it's absurd we allow barriers to market entry and I used the simple examples of lemonade stands and eyebrow threading. Those barriers to entry are contrary to a free market exchange of goods and ideas. As for bootstrap pulling, if I don't expect people to spend $70,000 in permits and fees in order to open a lemonade stand, it's hard for me to think the issue with poor people in the west is their work ethic. To be clear, I don't hate poor people any more than I hate wealthy people. I believe people should be judged independent of their means and the fact society on the whole no longer believes that to be true is a sign of how things have evolved in an unhealthy manner. I fully recognize the system is broken. I believe the solution isn't greater authoritarianism because, historically, that doesn't benefit the mass of people. That authoritarianism is ultimately corrupted for personal gain by those in power.

"With the 32nd selection of the 2045 NHL Draft, the Buffalo Sabres are very proud to select, from the Andromeda Athletes of the Intergalactic Hockey Federation, '⎍⍻ µ⍼' " "You know, John, I really like this selection by Buffalo. µ⍼ is a really solid goaltender. At 14'4" and weighing in at four tons, he's basically a slug in the front of the net. In the Intergalactic Juniors, he posted an impressive 0.2 GAA across fives games with his one goal against happening when he fell asleep and rolled out of the net. Now, he's not the most mobile goalie and we know that the TKKXK species have trouble with cold climates, but if they can keep him awake and warm, he might just be the solution to Buffalo's net problem."

I can deny that because it's factually wrong. You do realize the poor are getting richer too, right? Not only that, they're doing it at a rate that exceeds the "rich getting richer." That's statistically undeniable. The number of people lifted out of poverty over the last 30 years is one of the greatest achievements in the entirety of the human race and the only reason it isn't celebrated is because it's an inconvenient truth (to steal the phrase). The single greatest solution to poverty is free market capitalism. Wealth creation is not a zero sum game. Wealth creation is not at the detriment of the human race as a whole. It's quite literally the opposite. Yes, there is a gap between rich and poor. Yes, that gap is "widening" but that's a pretty biased use of statistics. If you have a billion dollar net worth and your net worth increases 10%, you are now worth $1.1 billion, or an increase of $100,000,000. If I am surviving off of a dollar a day and my income doubles, I am now making $365 more a year--despite a 100% increase in income. But the "wealthy" person's income increased 274,000X what the poor person's did. So, yeah, the rich guy is getting richer and the gap is widening, but the person making inroads toward the global middle class is seeing wealth increases at a faster rate. The reality is the number of people who are seeing wealth increases from $1b to $1.1b a year is less than 274,000X the number of people globally seeing their wealth increase by a higher percentage each year as the global middle class develops. That is a true fact. So, again, the wealthy person is getting wealthier but that argument ignores the entirety of things like the middle class of China--something that only developed after China adopted capitalist reforms. It also goes beyond just numbers. People that are "rich" are providing goods and services which improve the lives of people beyond just themselves. Now, I'm a believer that not all of it is positive, but it remains a fact. I personally think Facebook, Instagram and whatever else are woefully detrimental to society; however, more than a billion people worldwide take advantage of them for entertainment and personal enjoyment. Is that not increasing value? And it goes beyond tech companies to things even simpler than that. People in western Africa that now can afford eyeglasses for their children when 20 years ago that was an impossibility. This allows children to attend school and see the whiteboard. Those children grow up to be more successful than their parents. Maybe they won't have to join one of the 300,000 Sierra Leoneans who still mine diamonds by hand all so some American can spend $5,000 to ask his girlfriend if she'll want to go to a courthouse with him and get a government seal of approval for their relationship. Meanwhile in the US, we're busy debating whether we want the iPhone 14 or iPhone 14 Pro and only stopping these materialistic debates to complain about how Jeff Bezos used his own wealth to build a rocket and go into space. Wealth that he generated by providing services and goods that the overwhelming majority of us take advantage of. And we use this to complain that capitalism has failed because we read some book that we got same-day delivered from Bezos' book store. That's comical. You are basing your critique of capitalism on a very western view and simultaneously arguing for a global authority and global cooperation. I realize this is idealistic and you intended it as such, but I will address it anyway. Humans are not intrinsically altruistic and evolutionary theory substantiates the predilection toward accumulating ("hoarding") ever greater amounts of goods. This idealist view is fundamentally flawed. In order for this to happen, you'd need to remove tens of thousands of years of evolution. I accept that our version of capitalism is imperfect, but it's the best system we've got. That being said, I also reject any assertion that we live in a truly capitalist society. Most of the criticisms of 'capitalism' are due to cronyism which is effectively what we, in the West, currently have. The irony is that most of these supposed criticisms of capitalism and the solutions proposed to fix them ultimately only yield more cronyism. It's a cycle that repeats over and over again. The greater the authority figure (in your class global) the greater the likelihood of exploitation and abuse. You don't think a global government wouldn't have global lobbyists? I realize that's not what you're saying directly, but we do not have a better economic model than otherwise allowing people to trade between each other freely and exchange goods and services voluntarily. There simply isn't a better model. That is indisputable. That being said, we do not really have that economic model in practice. We have something approaching it, but we're still far from realizing it. Capitalism is not things like excessive occupational licensing. You should not need to attend a school, pass a state license, and complete continuing education credits in order to thread someone's eyebrows. You should not need to spend upward of $70,000 in order to get the appropriate permits and business licenses for a lemonade stand in NYC. Those barriers were created to impede market entry by new forces. That is cronyism. That is what prevents people from generating wealth. It is a corruption of capitalism that we all tolerate because we're conditioned to do so. Rather than create a global government, we would be better off limiting government to the extreme and holding corrupt politicians and the corporations that corrupt them accountable. But that will never happen so it's all a moot point. Maybe we should all question why large corporations are the ones pushing the message that we need greater regulation and greater authoritarianism. People act like anti-capitalism is some kind of dissident world view, but it's the one most promoted on social media and given air time on mass media. We have no problem criticizing billionaires for having billions, but if you criticize a poor person for being poor, you're evil. If you can say '<bleep> the rich, why do they have all the money?' but someone else can't say '<bleep> the poor, why don't they have any money?' without being ostracized--maybe there's a problem? We used to look up to wealth creators (Henry Ford, for example) as a society. That changed. Why?

Maybe what we're really learning is you can travel through all of time and space but you still can't escape lowest bidder contracts and preventative maintenance. I'm just saying, if the TARDIS were built to industry standards instead of simply going to the lowest bidder, and if the Time Lords weren't so cheap as to forgo maintenance contracts, Doctor Who would have been a far less interesting show.

If the US government--or any government for that matter--created a cheaper (or 'free') energy alternative it would be exploited to the fullest and I have absolutely zero doubt of that. Unless you believe that all the governments of the world are working together cooperatively to keep you poor, the idea that the US government would achieve something like a functional fusion reactor and then not use that leverage to dominate the globe just doesn't mesh with reality. Energy and their associated sources are the leading cause of conflict either directly or indirectly. The ability to produce cheap energy would catapult the US ahead of everyone and create a global dependency. If you're going to argue that people don't want the world to be globally dependent on the US, then you can't simultaneously argue that everything is about the Benjamins. A world that is in a subservient state to the US because of our ability to produce cheap energy would make everyone in the US wealthier than imaginable. We would outcompete the entire globe. Also, to your first point, gasoline is prominent for two reasons. First and foremost, it's the most energy dense source that's easily and readily available that also is relatively stable at normal temperatures. The second reason is simply inertia. If we're going to start going down "Who Killed the Electric Car?" road, I'd like to cut that off at the start by stating it's a truly awful film that creates straw man arguments and uses half truths in order to present a very singular view of the CARB ZEV mandate. I doubt anything more about this will surface. Even if the (literal) smoking gun appears, no one will be held accountable. Maybe I'm just overly pessimistic at this point. Americans are, by and large, placated by excess and conditioned such as to have little willpower or desire to hold our authority figures accountable. In fact, an appeal to authority is basically our nightly news' counter to any dissenting opinion. Then, when the dissenting opinion turns out to be true, the news will do a complete 180 and continue on as if we've always been at war with east Asia. It's all a show. No one cared when we killed Abdulrahman al-Awlaki. No one held Obama accountable. His press secretary said it was because his father was a terrible parent. The US executed a 16 year old US citizen in a foreign country we were not at war with and had no congressional mandate to operate in using a missile fired from a drone. Most Americans don't even know that happened. Even fewer care. Says it all.

https://theathletic.com/4747300/2023/08/07/world-juniors-canada-usa-sweden-finland-rosters/ Projections by the Athletic staff: Team Canada (Pronman): Benson on left and Savoie on right for the first line. Ratzlaff as the backup goalie. USA (Bultman) No Baby Sabres. Sweden (Wheeler) Östlund at 1C. Anton Wahlberg as the 13th man. He elaborates a bit on Wahlberg being 13th and points out he's the second youngest on the roster. Expects him to have a large role next year. Finland (Wheeler) Topias Leinonen is the backup which is a bit of a bummer considering he was the starter two years ago at U18 worlds. So, in short, Buffalo has four skaters projected to play--three of whom are on the first line--coupled with two goalies projected to be backups. It would be interesting to see how many more Sabres prospects would be included if Team Russia were participating.

He and Donny G succeeded in making the team bearable to watch again so credit where credit is due; however, I can’t say the team is successful until the team actually succeeds.

It looks like it’s trying to run away from the last decade of the franchise.

Since it's supposed to be a snippet of a song and there's no way I'm going to compete with whatever Jeff Skinner chooses... I have to go with one of these riffs (should be queued): I am disappointed by the lack of bagpipes, but the only song with bagpipes in it that I can think of without google is Sgt MacKenzie from We Were Soldiers and I'm not sure that's really a good hype song...

Jack Quinn has to use it and I'm not just saying that because I get weird looks when I shout "The Mighty Quinn" Kyle Okposo just because. Victor Olofsson should just embrace his position and go with The Clash.

Not quite a rule change, per se, but I feel that when a match penalty is assessed for intent to injure, the penalized player should be suspended until, at minimum, one game following the return of the other player. If you end someone's season because you took a match penalty, your season should be over too. None of this, "I'm back in two games but he's out for two weeks" garbage. I'd take it a step further as well. The injured player's cap hit (while on IR/LTIR) will be paid by the offending team and it will be counted against as a cap penalty of the offending team the following season. If you're Ryan Reaves and you take out Nick Suzuki for an entire season during the first game, Toronto is paying Suzuki's salary for the season he's unavailable to Montreal and Toronto gets a $7.8m hit against the cap the next season. Of course, this only works in la-la land where referees call games correctly. The reality is the punishment system will only be effective at stopping such penalties if the blowback hits the team directly and/or the owner's pocketbook. I'm sure there's a better way to do it, but I don't like the current NHL system. I also recognize it's because the CBA. I'd just like to see some changes.

I’m confused why people are upset Buffalo didn’t add Tarasenko when we already have Victor Olofsson. We don’t need another forward who plays half the ice.

I want to believe that NHL awards are fair and unbiased. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m about to miss my unicorn to take me back to the land of rainbows and butterflies.