oldguystudent

Yeah, but it was still pretty sweet when they beat Texas. But then, even though it's successful for them, I still hate watching that godforsaken spread offense they employ.

I'll field this one. I went to high school in Santa Cruz in the 80s where beach volleyball, both recreational and seriously competitive, was king. 1) Four on a side sand volleyball does exist. I haven't seen it since the 80s though. Haven't really paid attention to whether or not the olympics includes it. 2) Depends on where the player grows up. Having gone to high school on the sunny beaches of California, the indoor players were mostly converted beach players who went on to play indoors in college, then bolted back to the beach once the scholarship was over. If, on the other hand, they grow up in, oh, say, North Texas where there isn't any sand and the weather isn't fantastic all year long, then they most likely start playing indoors. Playing on sand is a huuuge transition from playing on the court. Your feet just don't move the same. I also attribute the west coach culture of beach volleyball to there being men's teams in so many colleges out there. Of 39 NCAA men's teams, half of them are on the west coast. Another 4 or 5 are from Puerto Rico.

Seriously? If she'd become president, I'd be right there with you on the sky falling and the thought police knocking down my door. She makes Bill look like a regular Pat Buchanan, and if I recall my 1990s, conservatives (or Republicans, depending on how we're using the terms) just absolutely hated Bill.

Fixed that for ya'.

On an episode of No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain, Ted Nugent was using a big automatic assault rifle like that for purposes other than shooting people. He was spending a relaxing afternoon on his ranch down by Waco hanging explosives from a tree and shooting them with his assault rifle. That's not scary at all. It's good clean fun.* *I respect Ted Nugent's self sustaining hunting practices and think his BBQ looked pretty damn fantastic.

So how much do we owe her if UNT gets tier 1?

And that's why I wonder. A company I worked for in the 90s was Swedish, and the Stockholm crowd was a bunch of humorless, angry people who complained about everything. I attributed it to living in brutal cold and dealing with $9 bottles of beer. That would make me humorless and angry too.

Touche.

I just have two simple questions: 1) Does she like pie? 2) Does she like hot dogs? If the answer to either question is no, then I say we throw her to the curb. Otherwise, I don't care what she makes. She certainly deserves to be making more than our vaunted football coach. At least she has college experience.

I have another question on economics and taxes. The argument is that if you place too high a burden on the upper classes, it deincentivizes working harder. So looking back to the 50s, the top tax bracket was a walloping 90%. As far as I can tell, the relative per capita standard of living was about as high as it's ever been in that decade. As for the wealthy, country clubs, yachts, expensive jaunts to Paris and fancy hotels still existed. The 90% tax I would imagine effectively put a cap on earnings, so how is it that everything ran as it did? I'm really fascinated by this stuff because I believe the answer lies in the data somewhere, but somebody's got to be willing to cast aside the dogma and go searching through it without bias.

I've been trying to understand Sweden for quite some time. They have the most socialist country I know of with some of the highest taxes I know of, but I've read in some publication like the Economist that they have the highest per capita standard of living in the world.* I've never been able to understand how all those variables fit together. *I honestly don't remember where I read this, but it was a non-partisan source as far as I can remember.

LOL! I think the obligatory rubber and glue remarks follow at this point!

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With all due respect Flyer, I've met you several times, and in person I think you're a pretty cool guy who does a lot of great things for UNT, but Jesus H Christ on a pogo stick! You frequently make some good points, but your constant vitriol and condescending tone discredit your message. I swear I feel like I'm in the freaking pre-school playground sometimes. Am not!

So which dire prediction comes true first? The wacko environmentalists who say the globe will melt in 10 years or the wacko xenophobes who say Europe will implode in 10 years?

They might have some nuclear material, but they sure as hell don't have any nuclear weapons capability. They have yet to even produce a working conventional missile. The North's main strength lies in its standing military, which outnumbers the South's military by about four to one. Their perceived strength lies in remnant memories of the old USSR backing them with money and weapons. The resources just aren't there anymore. The real great hope of the North is that that US will piss off the South enough one day to get thrown out of the country. There is already lots of periodic Yankee go Home rhetoric in the South. If this happens, well, let me just say that if you go into the war museum in Seoul and read the English language documents they have on display, you'll see the phrases "South Korean soldier" and "running away" in the same sentence quite a bit. This was a description of the south before they had money, status, and LG televisions. Take a bunch of fat, happy kids living high on South Korea's massive economic development and throw them up against a million strong army of hungry, brainwashed Northern soldiers, and it won't be pretty. However, as long as you've got the US military bases pointing really large guns to the north, Kim Jong Il just ain't that stupid. He's crazy and delusional, but he ain't that stupid. The international saber rattling is, in my opinion, nothing more than another facet of his domestic cult of personality. It also works wonders in getting South Korea, Japan, and the U.S. to send him top ramen. I can see the comercials on North Korean television right now. "Mmmm!!! Top Ramen!!! Better than rocks and weeds!" Honestly, the real hope of both sides of the peninsula is that the US will leave and they can settle their differences once and for all, thus becoming a unified country again that is capable of taking over Asia and then the world. Very jingoistic group those Koreans. The part the US realizes is that the ideologies of North and South have split so dramatically to opposite ends of the spectrum, that unifying the peninsula really ain't gonna' be done without one side violently forcing its ways on the other. Like capitalism, it would all eventually find equilibrium, but the short term would get awfully ugly. ETA -- When it comes to human rights violations, Iraq and Afghanistan ain't got nothin' on North Korea. Why have the world morality police that is the US military not done anything about that? Given our recent track record, for those salivating to send troops into Korea, the whole human rights mantra would be a far easier door to open than the tin can nuclear weapons they supposedly have. That whole strategy of finding big bombs went real well for us earlier in the decade, didn't it?

That is absolutely true. I was very amused up at the DMZ, both sides have these huge speakers blaring propaganda at the other side. The North says something along the lines of, "Hey! South Korean soldiers! Come join us in the North! The Dear Leader has provided us with too much meat and we can't eat all of it! Won't you come help us eat it?" From wiki:

Albino squirrels The burning of the tomato Frat boys striking out on Fry Street Gretchen Bataille's salary The Sun Belt Conference's OOC record Helmet stickers

Pfft. This guy got it so wrong. I drive up to the pump and say, "Fill 'er up, buddy," and he'll say, "that is not my job. Pay before pumping please! Be sure to see my selection of taquitos. Thank you, come again!"

Fine. Here's another version, with an extra helping of vile.

And while we're all attacking the costs of education, somebody want to explain to me why the used price on my accounting text is over $200 while I can use my publishing connections to get the same book, brand new, shipped to me from Sinagpore for under $70? (And yes, I know for a fact from two previous legal departments that not only is it legal to import, but also to resell such books) Misguided anger on the part of the news team. I don't see any university presidents standing before Congress to defend their long and established history of profiteering, but I sure as hell do so representatives from the big three publishers showing up on Washington's steps.

She's making $14 per student. Dammit! That's a whole night of drinking on 50c well night at the Garage! Somebody fetch me my pitchfork and mobbin' torch!

Since I'd rather watch a race between paint drying and grass growing than listen to the antics of Jerry Jones and Dirk Nowinskyvonichnia on the radio (read not from Texas, don't care about the teams here), I almost never tune into sports radio here. What makes the ticket so special? Honest question. I've listened to maybe 15 minutes of sports radio in 5 years so I really don't know.

If you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear.

In much younger and more profane days, my friend's dad would take us to get hot dogs. He'd say, "Hey boys! Let go get some lips and a#$holes!"