As a Sabres fan, I don't care who we play. We'll whip anybody. But the best idea I have heard about remaking the NHL is a Playoff Draft.

This would save the NHL from the problem whereby the second best team in a conference is often seeded 4th because the three division winners are ranked 1-2-3 regardless of records. That means sometimes it is the the advantage of a team to lose down the stretch so that they can face the weaker #3 rather than the stronger #4 or #5.

For example, if the playoffs were held today, the Islanders would be seeded 3rd although by dint of their record, the should be at best 5th and possibly 6th.

So, the answer? Get rid of the divisions altogether. Take the best 8 teams in each conference and rather than having them play for seeding, have them play for the right to choose who they will play.

If the Sabres have the most points at the end of the season (and they will) they get to choose which of the other 7 playoff teams they want to play in the first round. The second best team gets to choose among the remaining 5 teams, and so on.

The in the next round, the process is repeated with the highest team choosing which of the three opponents it wants to play.

This would be genius. Think of the talk radio time that would be devoted to strategizing about this. think of the recriminations when things go wrong. it would also make the NHL a trendsetter by completely re-imagining how a playoff system works.

who's with me? let's start a campaign.

I just had a dinner party at which I served a lovely squab tagine with almonds and apricots with six doves I shot earlier this fall. Mmmmmm...... People who don't like pigeons haven't eaten them enough.

Please, stop it. STOP IT! The horse race reporting of presidential election is not neutral. It feeds the beast. In fact, it IS the beast.

Please, Joan Walsh, set a standard: disavow all horse race reporting right now. Don't devote one more kb to it.

Instead, lead the way with a discussion of issues, position, policies, histories. Tell us what McCain says he would do and what he has done in the past. How about telling us in some detail how Vilsak or Bayh have actually governed?

Unlike the weather, which everyone famously complains about but does nothing to change, we can change the nature of political reporting -- and by extension, politics themselves, by simply refusing to play that game.

Make a vow to engage in journalism which improves the national debates, not just wallows in its lowest neigborhoods. Take a clue from Prof. Jay Rose of NYU and Press Think and actually use the power of the press to help make an informed educated decision.

Plus, it is just bad strategy. How many of us -- I count myself in this number -- backed Kerry not because we liked him or were inspired by him or thought his policies were brilliant , but because we believed the hype that he was electable? Why make that mistake again?

As a former resident of Stratford, I would like to defend it. However, being a former resident of Stratford, I can't do that in good conscience.

Here's a true story: I lived there while conducting dissertation research because it was all I could afford on a grad student's stipend. When my folks came to visit, I met them at Gatwick and navigated the rental car to my place -- a nondescript mid-Victorian era row house on a small side street. When I pulled over, my mother got very worried that we were lost in this sort of neighborhood. When I explained that this was where I lived, she burst into tears. And that was before the weekly police helicopter visits on the weekend!

So while I am morally against public finanacing of stadia etc, it's about times those poncy bastards in Ealing and Chelsea forked over a few bob for the poor East End.

I believe the correct phrase should be "caveat ludio", not "caveat athleta".

Caveat is Latin. Athleta is Greek.

I just don't get it. Why can't critique in this country ever stay civil? I absolutely love Grey's Anatomy. Maybe that makes ME a simpering narcissist or an idiot or an idiotic simpering narcissist, I don't know. But I DO know that I can like both GA and BSG -- for some of the same reasons and for some different reasons. This doesn't have to be a competition.

I find am constantly moved emotionally and intellectually by both shows. Both make me think about current events in interesting ways. Both make me imagine myself in the morally/ethically difficult situations in which ambiguity of one sort or another is the only likely outcome.

While BSG nominally follows the sci fi tradition of a multi-racial cast, GA's anatomy really takes multi-racial casting to heart, going far beyond tokenism. As a member of a mixed race family, I am appreciative of the way race is both present and invisible in GA.

Just because the actors on GA are all gorgeous doesn't make it stupid. In fact, they are some of the most three dimensional characters I have seen on TV in a long time.

But these ad hominem attacks!? For fuck's sake, it's like highschool all over again. People don't need to be pigeon-holed by what form of artistic product they consume. People who like country music aren't necessarily dumb rednecks. People who read adult comic books are neither smarter nor dumber (nor, are they hipper or dorkier) than people who read Dan Brown or Tolstoy.

I thought this site prided itself on nuance and acceptance. I guess not.