Leaderboard

Nobody is asking you to be.

My sincere hope is that, if Collin plays for SMU, he averages a triple double... In each of the ponies' 30 losses.

I miss Bacsik too.

But, as long as we're in it we should do our best. We will finish either second or third depending on whether Troy can finish ahead of WKU. Right now, they are tied which means that WKU gets 4.5 points. That's enough to put them in second place by half a point. We need baseball.

never

I don't believe teachers are paid too much; I AM disgusted by teacher's unions who take actions to protect teachers who shouldn't be in teaching, and who have been a part of building pension programs that are unsustainable instead of securing more cash pay for teachers and letting them invest in and for their own futures and retirement. ...you rail against the pay for teachers being artificially low - and I agree 100%. ...now ask yourself why that is. If someone can go to college and go into a private career and make more than they can teaching, what does that tell you about the public school system? Teacher's pay isn't the problem with our education system. ...the fact that our education system is run by bureaucrats and that a teacher's pay is set by a scale insured by the union and not based on excellence and achievement is a huge problem with education - but it isn't the only problem. Sorry to confuse.

turn in your unt alumni card

we need out of this bubba conference.

A non-factor in what? Too many people stupidly IMO think that the only thing that mattered is how good is your football team when evaluating possible conference affiliations. If being good in any sport is important, it is men's basketball because a team that does well in the NCAA; monetarily benefits the whole conference. Public perception of the university, geography, and political relationship with the potential conference mates are all factors that are as important as athletic prowess. Universities generally want to be grouped with similar institutions in athletics and academics. Even though a school like UT has to get almost all their athletes in school as special admits because of their academic selectivity, they still want to be associated with university with the highest of academic standards. While every university now would like to be in a regional conference to cut costs, most still do not want to give a leg up to potential competitive programs. Tulane does not want to be involved with other Louisiana schools, Memphis with Middle, SMU and others with UNT, etc. In summary, every school is going to act in their own interest and there are a vast number of issues involved with football competitiveness being only one criterion. NT is in the best position, they have ever been to be considered for other conferences. Facilities including the building of a new football stadium are turning from a big minus to a plus. The recent push to become a first tier academic institution will be of substantial help. Being the only public football playing university in the fifth biggest media market has to be very positive. Also being the third largest campus in Texas can't be ignored. Yes, NT has negatives too, but overall NT has recently make great recent strides in athletics and academics. NT is far from a non-factor in the potential conference realignment.

Actually La Tech has recently and somewhat mysteriously moved up to a tier 3 national university per US News and Report. A point that in some of their minds makes them academically superior to all the Belt teams. When NT and La Tech were both being considered for CUSA, I looked in depth at what was published academically and NT was ahead in all categories such as selectivity, average entrance exams, programs offered; I wonder how even on the severely faulted USNR ratings they have passed NT. Whatever they have done, maybe NT should copy it, I can't believe that La Tech has any more resources than NT and as ridiculous as these rankings are they do get a lot of publicity.

I like this guy better. Yours is a yellow bellied limp wrist.

e-more, nobody said we did not want additional improvements for safety or otherwise. it is too bad that good men had to die on the rig but all things considered "stuff" does happen with anything than man makes no matter how many safety nets are installed. rigs will leak oil, planes will fall from the sky, your car will break down but do you really want the government to micro manage every detail? i think not. glad to hear progress is being made on the leak.

The American Citizen is having control of everything stripped from them on a daily basis.

This is never okay anywhere.

Contradiction.

Why? As in, why do they need the additional seats?

I wish I had more time right now to reply to your post. While there are definitely things I agree with you on...I have never heard of anyone saying the problem with our education system is the teachers get paid too much????? There are alot of things in the education system that need fixing and teachers pay is one of them, except it is far too low for what we expect them to do. Teacher pay if why we are falling behind in education. Why go to college to become a teacher with a starting salary in the $35,000-$40,000, that will max out at $60,000 when you can go into business or engineering where you will start in the $50-$60K range and proceed from there. That is why we no longer get the best, the brightest, the most motivated to educate our future generations.

The WAC does to a degree because of BSU

I 100% agree.

So baseball (lack thereof) is going to put is in 3rd place. What a shame.

Wish I could make that a plus 2.

And that would be horrible for the Sun Belt... we'd become nothing more than a glorified FCS conference. I think the WAC survives, too many teams like Fresno State, San Jose State, Boise State and Hawaii and too few expansion spots to allocate to both the MWC and WAC Cinderellas. More than likely I see the MWC falling apart, with UNLV, Wyoming, SDSU, New Mexico, and maybe Air Force all joining the WAC, TCU and Colorado State goes Big 12, BYU and Utah go to the PAC-12. We end up with an improved WAC with two slots still available to make a 16-team conference, with invites to UNT and Houston. WAC West San Diego State UNLV Boise State Idaho Hawaii Fresno State Nevada San Jose State WAC East LA Tech UNT Houston New Mexico Air Force Wyoming New Mexico State Utah State

Done. Thanks for the info.

i don't think t.c.u. will be invited to big 12 unless conference just can't find anyone else. t.c.u. brings no new market to the conference, as big 12 already controls both dfw and houston media. i would look to new mexico or memphis first, or utah if pac 10 doesn't snatch them up.

Sorry, but I am leary of any academic credentials from Louisiana with the exception of Tuland.

Drill more. We can not stop oil/gas exploration/drilling because of far and few between accidents just like we can not stop or place more regulations on cars for their accidents and trains, planes, playground/recreational equipment, baby cribs, and the list is endless. Once we have banned or placed draconian restrictions on everything because of safety then we go back to living in caves. Crap happens......crap happens every day.....live with it. Nobody does it intentionally. Do I think what happened is bad? yep.....will it effect the environment? yep, for a short time...but the good thing about where we live is that the environment will get over it too.

Which is what exactly? What the hell are you doing? Being pissed about an oil spill is not a liberal or conservative emotion. When man fucks up and in turn it helps destroy mother earth, shouldn't we all be pissed off?

If your thing is gone and you wanna ride on...

If C-USA doesn't extend an offer, we may need to go to the WAC because I really don't see the Sun Belt surviving realignment.

I just find it comical that we denounce drilling for oil domestically when we demand isn't influenced by which country is doing the drilling. We're going to get the stuff no matter what. One of the hopes of getting oil from US reserves is the price be more stable and not subject to wild price swings due to geopolitical situations which the average citizen of the US has no control over.

This what happens when we "drill baby drill".

For the last several years we have watched the UNT Homecoming parade from an area on Hichory Street near her house. As the parade started she would be sitting on her front porch. The North Texas band would stop in front of her house and play the fight song to her. She would smile and wave to acknowledge the tribute. We will miss seeing that.

Exactly. And, ever visit a VA hospital? They are awful. My dad thought he'd go down there because he's a vet. He went once and never went back. Thankfully, he's been successful enough to not have to use these government run atrocities. The FDA? You must be kidding. It is the apex of political hackery and backroom machinations.

We already have socialism in the USA. We have the richest poor, in all the world, on all our social financial programs...no wonder they don't want to work...no wonder we are flooded by illegals who see a financial gold mine. A banker friend of mine cashes Social Security checks up to $2500 - $2600 a piece for illegals who know no English and only present their Mexican Consulate I.D. Cards. On a side note...if the United States imposed the same restrictions and punishment for illegals as the Mexican governement there would, probably be less crossings and more out cries from American liberals. We subsidize all our transportation, tell educators what and how to teach, pay the poor not to work but vote democratic (see paragraph 1), own the banking industry & getting ready to bail out Greece (yep, as I have been saying all along I knew the American people would come to the aid of Greece just like we did when this administration help bail out some of the other European banks on the first bailouts), getting ready to own insurance, agriculture...., foriegn aid up the yazoooooo. Over the last year and a half or so months their has been an interesting shift in European politics. They, as a general group, have been shifting more to the right. I guess you might say conservative socialists but it has been a move to the right. I think Greece has been the final wake up call with Spain and Portugal not too far behind. England just elected a Conservative .... whatever a conservative is in a socailistic country......Germany has been riding a conservative government....Italy has been riding a small wave of conservatism, lately....but the Italians could swing totally the other way tomorrow and another way the day after that. I think it is in their genes. not to confused with jeans. My point is that while this Admin like past administrations have been going socialist since Wilson, more so under FDR & LBJ the "European socailist model" is in meltdown. Too many people on their "government rolls" and negative population growth brought on by various factors. The only group, in Europe, that is growing are the Muslims. Europeans are at around 1.1 - 1.2 growth (as i remember) and you need something like 1.4 children per household just to maintain growth. The Muslims are at about 4-5. Why are we headed toward socialism? A friend of mine son...who now is a British citizen and works for the government said...."we are still trying to find a model that works." The United States is too far along to go back toward democracy. Everything that is being said, now, is toward "Global Governace." All you have to do is read what is being said by the various governments including ours. One world government.

At least equal parts of it anyway. And we don't need oil to get electricity. Yep, Americans want their means of transportation to be big, comfortable......and cheap. Even though there are many oil disasters similar to this around the globe, we don't seem to care until it starts directly effecting us....or at least is right in our faces.

Both parties are "spaghetti-spined". They're all politicians... it goes with the territory. Talking in circles. Posturing. It's what they do.

Well, now we know who passes on all the rumors around here. You are not to be trusted. There goes that. I guess journalists don't know the definition of some words, like "private". And, trust is so hard to regain after you have lost it.

The governor of the state of Louisiana and the City of New Orleans initially said they had it covered too. Again, I am glad that the press is not trying to make a political game out of this...just looks like some individuals are...time to focus energy on getting this stopped, cleaned up and learning another lesson. NO ONE wanted this to happen and no one is getting any pleasure out of what happened. The good people of Louisiana and the gulf coast have suffered plenty in recent years, but have come back strong and will again...much to their own initiative and can do spirit.

You actually think that any of the mentioned conferences matter on the national stage now?

There is oversight - legitimate oversight, and then there is bloated bureaucracies that manage this oversight inefficiently and often with a political agenda. You bring up Education, so let's look closely at that. We spend more per child in this country by a long shot on education than other countries which quite frankly are kicking our ass in that same effort. There are far too many layers of crap between the taxpayer and the student in our system and as a result the actual dollar getting spent ON each child is a very small portion of the huge number that gets spent PER each child. Too many layers of administrators, and debt due to unsustainable pension programs (teacher's unions have done the same thing to the Public School system that GM and the other car guys let unions do to them. When it happens to GM, people call it bad management. When it happens to levels of government, no one is blamed, but our taxes just go up to compensate.), programs designed to get students to pass standardized tests instead of actually learning and wasteful spending are the biggest factors in the waste in the public school system. I notice in a time when teachers are being laid off we never hear news stories of Teacher's unions offering to do more for a little less for the good of the system and the children and families they serve. I never hear about Administrators getting laid off. Your argument about the police limiting your freedom wins the strawman of the year award. Conservatives depend on the rule of law as the foundation of our belief system. We are not anarchists. Roe vs. Wade is far from settled law. In fact, constitutionally speaking, it is bad law, and is a perfect example of legislation from the bench. In this case, a constitutional right to privacy was made up out of thin air so that the court could side with the Pro Abortion side of the case. Roe vs. Wade should be overturned by the courts and the issue should return to being a states rights issue, OR a constitutional amendment put in place, which would be the two lawful ways to regulate a medical procedure. ...and lest you blast me as a neanderthal pro-life Christian who doesn't like your statement because you "don't go to the right church", I'm personally pro-choice. ...but my political opinion doesn't change the constitution. I think the argument being made here is that there is a happy medium. Public Hospitals are fine so long as they aren't abused and taxed beyond their limits by folks who are abusing the system or here illegally (or neighboring counties who won't spend their money to take care of their citizens) - but Private ones are too and if folks want to make their own health care decisions without input from Washington they should be allowed to. The FDA is fine, but it isn't efficient, and if a private company let as much tainted food on the market they would be hauled up to capital hill and grilled like BP was last week, but the FDA is given a pass. The reason you're hearing socialism so much right now is the hard swing that this administration and congress has taken in that direction. We've been moving further and further in that direction for decades (since the early 1900's) but now all of the sudden we're adding spending and social programs and making more people dependent on the federal government for their very lives at an astounding pace, and bankrupting us in the process. We need to tax our people less, give them incentive to depend on themselves and not government and get the hell out of the way of the hard working people and businesses that have made this country great. Giving huge new entitlements to more and more people who don't contribute (either by choice or by situation) is not how we get this economy on solid ground and will only take us deeper into debt and further from a point where we can turn it around.

We will be stuck in this bubba conference until we can win consistently in all sports, not just a select few.

The hat store at the mall has some nicely priced Yankee hats waiting for you. Probably about time to grab you a Celtics jersey too!

Good. That damn diamond talk was boring the crap out of me anyways.

+1 for being a dork. You must be a big boy to use those words. I'm just asking you to follow your own reasoning. You said, "This what happens when we 'drill baby drill.'" Drilling is done to provide the resources necessary to drive cars, mail letters, ship packages, etc. If you say you want to stop drilling, you must quit providing the need for those resources. I am not remotely happy about the oil spill. But I am not able to say, "I'm going to quit driving, mailing letters, buying goods that are shipped, etc." Ending drilling is not an option for me, and I doubt it is for for either. You are the one who turned this into a political issue by mocking conservatives who are in favor of domestic drilling.

This is one really good ad.

SMU has always been the Dallas team. It's where they're located. Kate Hairopoulas is the beat writer for SMU. Did you expect North Texas to be picked over SMU? Would Brett Vito pick SMU over North Texas? I don't know how you say that North Texas is not a factor in the SBC. In the last five years of football, that would be true. Before that, four championship seasons. NT stands second in the Bubas Cup rankings but since we do not play baseball could fall to third. That's still significant in the Belt. In the same DMN Sunday paper, writer Chuck Carlton omitted both SMU and North Texas from expansion. I have no idea if he has an inside opinion or if it is just his own but I'd expect the latter, judging from some of the other choices that he made. Also, he gave no idea as to what happens to the teams that he did not list. We don't even know how many will be in the revised Big 10. If it's Notre Dame only then everything else could be as you were. Or, some conferences might try to position themselves for better TV deals and either add teams or make a coalition with other conferences. To say that North Texas is not a player in the DFW market is unconscionable. We have more alumni than any other university and far more potential. To balance that, both TCU and SMU have been major players where we have not. Heretofore, except for our time in the Missouri Valley Conference, we haven't acted as if we wanted higher aspirations. That has changed now. We can't undo the past but the future looks bright. Maybe we need to hire a Paul Tagliabue type to plead our cause.

This is what happens when we don't.

Then do your part.

This is considering the fact that the MAC would even want LA TECH. Based on the cost of travel, CUSA or Belt would be a better fit. I am not sure if the MAC is looking for a media market in Northern LA.

Once again, The Dallas Morning News has snubbed UNT and shown that they do not consider UNT an "area school." The following headline of the article I'm about to link is printed in the Sunday paper edition of the Sports section: "Area Schools Ready for Anything - TCU/SMU." However, they have, at least, changed the headline for the online version of the story to this: "Conference expansion could open doors for SMU, TCU." Now, I understand that the writer (the metropolis of hair) is also the beat writer for SMU but it still pisses me off to see an article about "area schools" that excludes any mention of UNT. It's not even the omission from the story that peeves me so much as it was the headline and what insight that wording of the headline tells me about the paper's opinion of North Texas. Let the emailing of the DMN Sports editor commence: Garry Leavell (Sports Editor): gleavell@dallasnews.com and/or Michael Kondracki (Sunday Editor): mkondracki@dallasnews.com