segnosaur

The problem is not that your point isn't getting across. The problem is that you're somehow not understanding the concept of 'charity'. To be charitable, you have to do something to help others, not just yourself. However, not everything that a church does will be done to help others, much/most of it is to help the paritioners themselves. But if its your job to document old architecutre, and you're getting paid to do so by some real estate developer, then your work is not 'charitable'. You are doing it for your own self interest. But if you're getting paid to sing songs in the park, and the kids are charged admission to listen to you sing, then your work is not 'charitable'. You are doing it for your own self interest. So, a church and priest/minister that just caters to members of the church (and only uses donations to maintain the church or pay the minister's salary, i.e. it does not run soup kitchens, or help orphans, or sing songs to children in the park) is not doing charity. the people in the church are paying for a service through their donations (be it mass, confession, or sermons) and they are receiving said service. Its no more 'charity' than if someone pays to go see Tony Robbins speak.

Saying "mass" is helping peolple in the same way that Tony Robbins helps people...might make them feel good, but that's about it. And since the people who receive mass are often the people making the donations, then its more selfish than charitiable. Maybe we should install some of these: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/jul/26/praying-booth-at-manchester-university

And some charities don't give anything to recipients. Thing is, we can measure that... registered charaties typically have their books scrutinized so you have an idea of how much money goes to overhead, and how much actually gets used for its indented purposes. Compare that to a church... if a priest administers to his parishioners and they run a soup kitchen, how much of his time do you consider being "charitable"? Do you measure by the hour? What if they preach at the same time as working at the soup kitchen? And if the soup kitchen is in the church, how much of the church maintenance is considered "charity"? Do you go by square footage? The problem is, trying to determine how much of what a church does is 'charity' is pretty much impossible. When I talk about "helping the parishioners" I'm talking about the people who both go to church and are the donors. If someone gives to the church, and instead of running soup kitchens, giving to the poor, etc. they just use all the money to pay for the basic church services, then its not really charity in any way. In that situation, the parishioner is doing nothing different than someone who goes to see Tony Robbins speak. Yes, you might "feel good" but its ultimately a selfish act.

Actually, there is a web site called 'charity navigator' that will be of at least some assistance in that regard. It looks at a charitie's income and overhead, its transparency, etc. See: http://www.charitynavigator.org/ Its not a perfect measure (since there's no way to quantitativly compar the goals of various charities) but its a start. Compare that to a church, where even if they do charitable work, its almost impossible to determine how much of their resources is used to help others, and how much is used for internal purposes.

Depends on the church and depends on the charity. Some charaties have very high overheads, others manage to divert a much bigger portion of their donations to their intended recipients. Unicef and the Red Cross (2 of the bigger charities) manage to spend >90% of their revenue on their indended programs (only 10% overhead). And while your local church may have a "missions" fund to help overseas, or run a soup kitchens, I suspect most of the money collected by the church ends up being used for things like simply maintaing the church infrastructure, pastor's salaries, etc. (Your local priest may spend time helping the poor, but its only a fraction of his job.) Edited to add: I should also mention that while you're talking about "churches helping people", the definition of a "church" also includes such sleazy individuals as Benny Hinn. And heating and maintaining a large building that's used primarly for people to come in and pray. Which might make the parisioners feel good, but it isn't exactly 'charity' in that it helps the community at large.

Not sure if this is the reason, but in addition to the depression, some of the western provinces also had to deal with the "Dust Bowl", a perioiud of time in the 1930s featuring dust storms and massive soil erosion, tipped off by a multi-year drought. This problem hit the prarie provinces harder than eastern Canada.

Wow, amazing... blueblood managed to post an article that: A: totally ignored anything from my previous post B: repeated stuff that had already been handled/debunked He numbers are stating that the league is growing and is on par with the NBA. Again... he ignored the fact that the NBA A: has a better revenue sharing plan than the NHL B: has bigger TV contracts C: isn't dealing with yet another work stoppage So no, the NHL is not 'on par' with the NBA, and your repitition of the claim doesn't make it a 'fact' The trend over the past 20 years suggests that the expansion down south and current management has done well for the NHL. Again, ignoring the fact that the "financial success" of the NHL is conentrated on only a few teams, and a large number are loosing money (and many have done so consistently for several years). And yet another work stoppage. So how is that 'doing well'? Enjoying your NHL season so far? How's your favorite NHL team doing this year? And evidently the league can't really grow much in the U.S. either, as teams like Phoenix show. Its just not something that's in their culture. (The lack of ice in the winter might have something to do with that.) Oh, and I forgot to remind you: your very article (which pointed out how 'great' the NHL was doing) praised the movement of teams back to Canada. Strange that you didn't mention that in your response. Or maybe they don't. Once again (since you seem to have ignored this)... if being rich makes you omnicient and capable of making perfect business decisions every time, then explain to me why the Thrashers moved to Winnipeg. Did they earn so much money in Atlanta that they had nowhere else to put it? Heck, explain all the money-loosing teams in the NHL (especially the ones that have lost money on a regular bases.) Explain the Nashville Predators, who are scrabling to find new investors. If the NHL was such an assured money-making scheme then why aren't they beating investors back with a stick?

Well, the movie is sitting at >90% on Rotten tomatoes, so it seems like most critics also liked it. Its not surprising that a person might dislike popular movies if they fit into a genre that a person doesn't like. (I doubt my parents would have liked Avengers, since its not "their thing".) I just thought it was strange that you disliked avengers but liked Spiderman, since they're in the same Genre, both going for pure entertainment, both highly rated, etc. But without Forest Gump, you'd never get that famous line in Tropic Thunder: "Don't you know you never go full retard."

The first two Spiderman movies; Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Superman (seventies one)....... Well, it might be understandable to like the Nolan Batman movies and not like The Avengers because Nolan's Batman had a totally different "gritty" treatment of the character that might appeal to some people. I would have to say that Spider-man was better than Thor/Captain America, but better than Avengers? Both Spiderman and Avengers were aimed at being fun/enjoyable. As for Superman, I could never really get into those films. When I was younger, it seemed to lack action (and at that age I didn't care as much about storyline, acting, etc.) Now that I'm older, I'm disappointed for a whole other set of reasons (Mostly stemming from the fact that even though superman was near god-like in abilities, they had to resort to time travel to 'win'.) The only Superman movie I've liked enough to buy ws Superman 3.

If you liked superhero movies in the past, but didn't think Thor or The Avengers were enjoyable, then what superhero movies did you like?

Good points. Maybe you are right, ahhh the good ole' 80's... Yeah I used to be cool in the 1980s. Ah, who am I kidding? I don't want you to think that I'm totally ignoring some of the more recent changes. I do recognize that a few of the rule changes do make the game better. I also agree that because of greater globalization we get access to star players that might not have been available 30 years ago. Just that the other drawbacks (more expensive tickets, work stopages, etc.) detract enough from the game to out-balance the good changes from the past few years.

And people who have billions of dollars say otherwise. In case you didn't know, being a billionaire doesn't necessarily make you Omnicient. (the financial melt-down in the past decade should be proof of that.) - Some owners may have made bad judgement calls. Being successful in one business doesn't necessarily make you an expert in all businesses. (They may have misjudged the benefit of things like the salary cap, for example. Or ran into unexpected arena problems) - In other cases, a team may be "community owned", taking over from an owner that has bailed because the team is unprofitable If you think that being rich means they automatically make perfect business desions, then explain why Atlanta had to move. Was the team earning so much money that the owners (I think it was Time Warner) didn't have any more place to put it? Edited to add: One other thing... the NBA also has billionaire owners. Yet early you posted an article suggesting major problems in the NBA. If being a billionaire makes one competent to run a team, why would the NBA be in such trouble then with all the financial genious' around?

Ummm... look at the date of the article. It was from 2011. Some of the information is outdated, and some of it is built on rather shakey assumptions. - It talks about the risk of the NBA loosing a season. However, since the article was published they have signed a new collective agreement, so no risk of loosing a season. Furthermove, the collective agreement they did sign gives the owners a much bigger share of revenue than they received previously. - The NBA also has better revenue sharing model than the NHL has. Perhaps the NHL owners can pull their collective heads from their rears and put in a better model, but it doesn't really look good - So, between the new collective agreement, the better revenue sharing, and bigger TV deals, I doubt the NBA has that much to worry about. - They seem to be concentrating on league profits as a whole. I've already pointed out that the league average is gragged upwards by a few teams. (That also happens in the NBA, but with their better revenue sharing deal that won't be as much of a problem anymore.) - They seem to put a lot of emphasis on "gimmics"... the winter classics, the changes to the all-star format. Perhaps those changes will continue to be successful, but perhaps we should wait a few more years to see if they still remain popular in the future. (And, more importantly, whether those changes actually make a difference to the overall popularity of the sport, or whether they remain one-off gimmics that give a temporary spike and nothing else. Plus, keep in mind that some of those can also be adopted by the NBA. No reason they can't hold their own "classics". - Also, keep in mind that this article praised the move of the Thrashers to Winnipeg... considering your claim of a need to expand to the U.S., I find it ironic that you're citing an article which pointed out that the best thing was for a team to move from a 'new' market to a more traditional hockey territory.

Not quite true in my estimation... Lets see: - Hockey night in Canada started in the early part of last century - The Hockey news (magazine) started in the 1940s - Hockey teams have always had local broadcasts (with plenty of pre-game and discussion shows) both on TV and the radio Ummm... Sportsnet didn't have any shows on in the 1980s because the channel didn't exist until the late 1990s. That's something else you have to keep in mind... in many cases, all those extra shows may be on not because the league expanded, its because the number of cable channels expanded, which means that there would be more hockey shows on locally simply because all those new networks have empty hours to fill. And prior to expansion most teams probably had local TV broadcasts. The Leafs had regular games shown on Global when I lived in southern Ontario in the late 1990s. All of those are recent incarnations, Sorry seg, no go on that. Without the fans there is no rivalry. You seem to be ignoring the fact that while you do need fans for there to be a rivalry, there were already enough fans in the traditional hockey markets to carry on rivalries without expansion. The leafs, Canadiens, etc. had no problem selling tickets even without teams in Arizona, Columbus, and Florida. It also doesn't help when, due to expansion they play each other fewer times every year. Because the teams are in different countries, in cities that don't have any particular reason to dislike each other. How would a rivalry between those particular teams interest someone like me, who will probably never see any of their games because I live so far away? Making a few big assumptions there... - That snowbirds would have the needed disposable income (remember, many retiries are on fixed income) - That those snowbirds would feel any interest in acually seeing hockey (after all, many are down there to get away from any reminders of winter) - That they would actually have any sort of connection to teams in towns that they only visit a few months of the year.

The more fans there are, the more excitement it generates. The more excitement generated gets translated into a multitude of things from coverage in newspapers , magazines , TV , radio etc. But the thing is, in the more traditional hockey markets (Canada, Northern-East US, etc.) there was already significant media coverage. Its not necessarily the number of fans that build rivalries. Such things tend to be built on things like history and geography. i.e. Calgary doesn't have a rivalry because there are plenty of hockey fans around... they have a rivalry because: They're from the 2 biggest cities in Alberta (which causes conflict), and because they've both had strong hockey teams in past years. If anything, the recent expansion (coupled with changes in the playoff format) have actually harmed rivalries. With more teams in the league, you have less opportunity to face your "traditional rivals". Less conflict, less build-up of fan frenzy. I find it ironic that you talk about how expansion helps traditional hockey fans because it promotes rivalries, yet you end up referencing 3 teams that are in traditional hockey markets.

You know, some people might think placing teams in areas where they have to win to be successful financially is rather foolish. All teams will go through slumps... some temporary (like during a rebuilding phase) others longer. Putting a team in a city where they'll loose money and go bankrupt because they have a few loosing seasons makes the league less stable.

I've asked this question before, but nobody answered, so I'll ask again... How exactly does growning the league and the "fan base" help me as a current fan? How does placing a team down in (for example) Florida or Arizona give me a better experience? I doubt the NHL was ever going to "go away" without these new teams. So all of those extra teams means that there's even more competition for the existing pool of players (which can drive up salaries and increase ticket prices). Why should that matter to the average fan? Back before the recent expansion idiocy teams could make money. Having the team owners/players become richer doesn't really provide any benefit for me (the fan). In fact it can hurt me if part of their plan to make money increases ticket prices. The NHL was always going to have the "cream of the crop" of available players, even without expansion. There was enough money from the existing franchises to lure players away from whatever European teams existed. Keep in mind that there are very few cases where a person can make a concious decision about what sport to play. If they're a hockey player, that's what they're doing. If they're a baseball player, that's what they're stuck doing. Barry Bonds might have been a great baseball player, but even if the NHL offered him a $500 millon contract, I doubt he'd want to play hockey (or even be any good at it.) No, they're not. The NHL has a U.S. TV contract worth $2 billion over 10 years. The NBA has a contract worth roughly 4 times as much. Furthermore, the NBA actually has actually established revenue sharing, and have a new collective bargaining agreement. And having 9 out of the 30 teams loose money is being in a 'better position'? Having 4 work stopages in 2 decades is being in a "better position"?

Not sure if I would consider them "glory years" (since I do recognize that there were still problems with the league) but I'd probably have to say the 1980s for a few reasons: - Goal scoring was at a peak (and many people do equate goals=excitement, with a bit more open play than they had previously - Costs (and player salaries) were still reasonable. (Tickets were a bit more affordable to the average person.) - Equipment and conditioning had improved from previous decades. (Yes, those things might be even better now, but they were still decent back in the 1980s.) - Relative labor peace. (Remember all the work stopages have occured since the early 1990s. Its all fine and good to talk about how great the rules are and how talented current players are, but if they aren't playing hockey, why does it matter?) - Yes, there were teams that struggled. However, to me the problems seemed to be more localized... i.e. individual teams not doing well. The problems seem to be more widespread now, despite the salary cap and supposed big TV contracts.

The problem with looking at averages is that the average is artifically increased by a small number of successful teams (The Leafs, Canadiens, Rangers, etc.) I could point out a bunch of other problems: - According to the biggest increase of value for any team was from the Thrashers moving to Winnipeg. But there are only limited opportunities for such moves to take place - Much of the "net worth" of teams is more or less on paper only (i.e. what people are willing to pay). Its not like there is significant capital involved. A bad season, injury to a few key players, etc. and some teams will see their net worth go down. No, I didn't. But then, not all those players will end up in the NHL. Canadians still make up the majority. That may be beneficial to the league in a few years when the players mature, but in a decade things will start to taper off. So, there's kind of a double dip... league expands quickly and talent is watered down. More players come into the system and things improve, but then they get hit by that second dip caused by having a smaller pool of players. And here's another thing we should keep in mind.. instead of comparing teams today to the teams from the 80s, we should also compare today's teams with the potential teams we could have if expansion didn't happen. Lets say you're right and that better training, coaching, equipment, etc. have given us better players now than they had in the 80s. Could you imagine how great each team would be if they only had to pick the top ~400 players (for a ~20 team league) rather than ~600 players (for a 30 team league)? Those extra 200 players may be good (possibly even when compared to top 1980s players), but they're still below the top 400.

And NATO is STILL fighting the Taliban ... your time line is a minor technicality. Errr... not really. The post I was responding to said: The Taliban (The Afganistan government) was fighting NATO". I was pointing out the error in your post.

Minor note: The Taliban ruled until October 2001. Omar Kahdr was caputured in July 2002, over half a year after the Taliban lost power. So at the time, the "afghan governent" was not fighthing NATO.

Yes – more revenues, more teams, more fans = business success. But having more revenues/etc. doesn't help much if your costs have also increased, and by more than what your revenue increased. If my revenue doubles, but my costs tripple I end up worse off since I end up with a lower profit margin. Maybe, but I do think the problem is worse now that it was before. A few decades ago, there were a few struggling teams (the Nordiques, Jets, Whalers, Stars... am I missing any?) According to forbes, they estimate 18 of the teams are money loosers. http://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2012/09/18/nhl-lockout-is-all-about-the-benjamins-and-who-doesnt-have-them/ I’ve heard the claim before about a “watered down“ league. This is bad analysis. You cannot look at overall Canada/US population growth – what you need to look at are: -What is the total number of youngsters worldwide that are striving to play in the NHL? -How much effort are these youngsters putting into their training? -How effective is the training? I did explicitly say that I made the assumption that the number of hockey players is roughly proportional to the population (and I assume the number 'striving' to be in the NHL is likewise decreasing). However, I might have actually been incorrect... at least in Canada, the number of players in minor hockey has actually decreased over the past few years. Fewer minor players means a smaller pool to select players from in the future. http://www.lfpress.com/sports/hockey/2011/10/31/18902646.html Now, maybe better training, etc. might have an effect in a few years, but that's not much consolation to those who want to watch good hockey now. Good points/questions: OK let set the rules to 1980’s rules. -2012 Kings would without a doubt kick everyone’s ass. -Late 1990’s Devils would beat 1984-88 Oilers, mainly due to defensive play and trap. Don’t forget how much better the goalies are these days. -Average team of 2012 vs. 1984-88 Oilers? Debatable but I would say 2012 Team would win -2012 Leafs vs. 1984-88 Oilers? This would be a great game. What do you think? Lets see: - Not sure how the Kings would do. Yeah, they did win the cup this year, but their regular season wasn't that great. Would we be seeing the team that did well in the playoffs, or the one that only did OK to make the playoffs? - The devils? As I pointed out, much of their success was due to 'clutch and grab' that was allowed at the time. Put them in a scenario where the refs crack down on that, and you'll see a lot of their 'strong defense' disappear. As for "goalies being better", that depends significantly on the style of play of the team and of the league in general (a fire hydrant could probably have a decent goals against average if a team was defensive enough.) Yes most of this is personal opinion, however most of your personal opinions are wrong . IMO, the shootout takes nothing away from the game... Except for the possibility of a tie. And the 'honor' of having 2 teams fight to an equal finish, with honor.

My appogies. But this thread had turned into a discussion about Bettman and his successes/failures. I assume that was still the topic-of-the-day. And I wasn't the one who said hockey was "ruined".. however, I'd suggest the poster who said that was engaging in hyperbole. That's debatable. Yes, there is more revenue, but there are also a substantial number of teams in financial trouble. Does it count as 'business success' if many of your franchises continue to struggle? Ah, but here's the thing... You yourself pointed to several rule changes that had improved the flow of the game (blue line moved, 2 line passes, etc.) I myself have pointed to other changes (e.g. better equipment and conditioning.) How do you know that what you see as better speed/skill isn't just the result of those rule changes? The league added around 7 teams to the league in the past couple of decades or so. So, they expanded roughly 30% in that time. The population of Canada/The U.S. only grew by around 20-22% in that time. Assuming the league takes the 'best' players, and that the number of hockey players is in rough proportion to their population, then the NHL would have had to select players that would have been considered less desirable 20 years ago just to fill their roster. Good question. Do they function under today's rules and conditions or the 1980s rules? And what woudl happen if you took the current cup champions (or, more appropriately, the late 90s New Jersey Devils, who were known for 'clutch and grab') and put them up against teams like the Flames/Oilers under the rules they used back then? But, if your measure of hockey quality is by the amount of "cluch and grab", then a person might not necessarily consider it the "best ever". I agree that most of these have been rule improvements. Except for maybe the shootout rule. It is just a personal opinion, but while some people may see the shootout as 'exciting', I see nothing wrong with a game ending in a tie... a recognition that both teams were equally matched. (Not to mention the fact that a shootout artifically changes the nature of a victory by reducing the importance of a defense.) Haven't seen it, and unfortuately I'm not on my home computer so I can't view it right now. Thing is, there are a lot of things that are barbaric in hockey... some of it is penalized, some of it is considered just "part of the game". (I rather suspect that if I bodychecked people at random on the street, I'd probably end up in jail.)

So, the people who work to install solar panels (and who often fall to their deaths doing so) are not "members of the public"? The miners who dig out things like copper (used in some types of solar panels) are not "members of the public"? What are they, aliens? Slaves? Once concept you just don't seem to understand: An industrial death will not happen if there is nobody in the industry. One source of deaths from Solar are installation accidents (e.g. falling off the roof.) How many people do you know actually hang out on the roof? (Not sure about you, but I kinda prefer to be sitting on a nice comfy couch inside my house.) If people weren't installing solar panels, then there's not much chance that they'd be on the roof in the first place. Similarly, as I pointed out, Solar panels need more raw materials than nuclear... things like copper. (Yes, they need materials for nuclear power, but much less than for similar solar installations.) So, if the miners (many of whom die in accidents) weren't digging out the copper needed for the solar panels, why would they have been underground in the first place? Think they would be living under there in order to hang out with the mole-people?

Which "good old days" are you referring to? From back in the 50s/60s? Then yes, you have a point. But what about from the 80s (e.g. when Gretzky was heading the Oiler's dynasty)? Be hard to argue that there was "less skill" back then. Secondly, even if the game is faster, a lot of that is due to things like better conditioning, better equipment, etc. i.e. not something that Bettman would have had a direct hand in. Well, Bettman was the commisioner since 1993. The New Jersey Devils won stanley cups between 1995-2003, largely based on a clutch-and-grab style. Why exactly did he let that style of play go on within his tenure for so long? And keep in mind that not everyone is convinced that clutch-and-grab is gone... From: http://www.thestar.com/sports/leafs/article/1151225--feschuk-bad-old-days-of-clutch-and-grab-hockey-returning-nhlers-fear Joffrey Lupul has been getting a different view of the NHL....He’s among a rising crescendo of voices who’ll argue that obstruction is alive and well in the NHL. ...“At the beginning of the year, you put a stick on a guy, you were in the box. Now when I watch games, they’re letting a lot more go,” Lupul was saying this week. ... Brian Burke, the Leafs GM, has been heard to privately complain that an unwelcome renaissance of hook-and-hold hockey has been a detriment to his relatively small-statured team and its reliance on speed. ... Numbers provided by Randy Robles of the Elias Sports Bureau bear out Lupul’s anecdotal observations. In October, a typical NHL tilt saw both teams combine for 2.3 obstruction penalties per game. In March, not including Friday’s games, there had been 1.3 obstruction penalties called per game. ... The members of another skating team of note, the Pittsburgh Penguins, have recently sounded off on the issue. (Now, I do recognize that part of this could simply be 'sour grapes'. And its possible that the decrease in penalties has been due to players being more careful.) Why? I've seen a lot of hockey in leagues that don't allow fighting. I have no specific desire to see a fight. But what would be the purpose of eliminating them? Just to "make the league look good"? Why should a regular hockey fan particularly care what some idiot in (for example) Florida or California thinks when he claims that "All people like is the fights"? They were never going to be fans anyways.