rcade

This psychoanalysis is complete garbage. Those of us who are realistic about UNT's current place in the football world are not suffering from low self-esteem or acting like domestic violence victims. Until we get an invite, we're in the Sun Belt and have to make the most of it. The idea that we can move up if we all start feeling better about ourselves is hilarious. Does that work in your everyday life? Do great things happen just because you want them to? I'm guessing no. You have to make them happen by putting in the work. Getting Apogee built and hiring McCarney were two steps in that direction. Actually filling the place would be a third.

I never said otherwise. But the medical uses of marijuana are well-established science at this point, and plenty of people are getting needed prescriptions for it. The claim that marijuana's never going to be anything more than a recreational drug is demonstrably false.

UTSA won't be a bottom feeder. That much is already clear from its first-year attendance. UNT has to prepare for the possibility we won't get invited into MWCUSA. Having UTSA in the Belt makes it stronger than it is today. UNT would be foolish to oppose that. As for Texas State, a stronger argument can be made for their exclusion. But they're still a better draw for UNT fans than schools like Western Kentucky and FAU. When I went to UNT I saw us play them several times. A lot of alumni can say that. It's better than trying to create rivalries out of nothing, the way we've had to do with most Belt schools. You're the one talking self-esteem. We're talking football. Maybe you're projecting.

SMU joining the Big East had nothing to do with UNT being excluded from its conferences. The Big East has gone crazy. Adding schools as far-flung as San Diego State, Boise State and UCF to keep your auto bid is a Hail Mary pass.

I'm surprised. It is completely delusional of Benson to think a CUSA team would switch to the Belt.

Marijuana is being prescribed by doctors to treat glaucoma, nausea and lack of hunger in chemotherapy for cancer, and other illnesses.

Denton is four hours drive from San Marcos and five hours from San Antonio. They'd be the two closest schools we play. UTSA's first home football game was attended by 56,000. Their average home attendance was 35,521, which is the largest attendance for a new football program in its first year ever. They broke the record set by USF in 1997. By comparison, UNT's average home attendance was 18,864 in 2011.

That's the kind of reasoning that SMU used to keep UNT out of its conference for decades. UNT needs to play more Texas schools. We gain a lot more by having two in-state conference rivals than we stand to lose by having those rivals in our conference. Everyone in the Sun Belt gains when a school prospers in the conference.

UTSA is another USF in the making. Texas State has good fan support and a history with UNT. I'd love to see both in the Sun Belt if UNT isn't invited to join CUSA.

The USA fan got the visit he wanted. From his post on that link: " Just got back from my visit to the campus of UNT. Let me tell you guys, Apogee Stadium is what any football fan would want for their team. That thing is amazing."

The albino squirrels are a light-hearted bit of UNT lore. The society was still around as recently as 2008: http://web3.unt.edu/news/story.cfm?story=11208 When did supporting UNT become such serious business? If you believe the sight of a depigmented rodent is disrespecting a cannon, maybe it's time to head up to TCU so they can hook you up with a dime bag of herbal stress reducer.

Linking violent crimes to marijuana use is ridiculous. You think smoking pot made a guy shoot a convenience store clerk twice in a robbery?

Willie Nelson raised a lot of money for farmers by starting Farm Aid. So there's at least one reason to honor him in some way. Lowering flags for Whitney Houston is a joke. What did she ever do to better the state of New Jersey?

If you read this discussion you already know I'm not a marijuana smoker. You should get off the incorrect notion that only potheads care about pot legalization. In my view, alcohol has larger health and societal consequences than pot. But yet it's legal, and we accept that adults can decide for themselves whether to use it. I don't know why we don't grant adults the same freedom with marijuana. The war on drugs is a massive and expensive failure.

Do you drink?

Neither of those links is about the health effects of marijuana use. They're about much more vague criteria regarding "quality of life." You could do a study about heavy Big Mac eaters and get poorer scores on quality of life subjects. Should those be illegal too?

It's hard to be a huge Sun Belt fan when the games aren't on TV. It's a brilliant idea for the Sun Belt to approach Netflix. Imagine having a Sun Belt Network on a reliable streaming provider like Netflix. The schools could put their own content on it to supplement what the network could provide.

I think in a free country, any drug that's no more harmful than alcohol or cigarettes should be legal. You would bring back Prohibition if you could. I think Prohibition was one of the biggest mistakes the country ever made. Why should millions of people who consume alcohol responsibly have to lose out because of the small minority who can't? The same would be true of marijuana. As for whether marijuana is "ingrained" in our society, 42 percent of Americans have tried it at least once, according to a 2008 Time Magazine article.

So we should all just shut up and let the cops and prosecutors keep self-justifying their work prosecuting a drug significantly less harmful than alcohol and cigarettes? If Emmitt or somebody else who deals directly with potheads wants to share tales of how using it ruins lives, be my guest. There are countless stories like that about drugs like meth. It's a scourge here in Florida. I know a bunch of people who've hurt themselves with alcohol. I know some who've hurt themselves with cigarettes. I don't know a single person who hurt himself with pot.

The U.S. prison population has quadrupled since 1980 because of mandatory sentencing laws, many of which came about because of the war on drugs. There are around 33,000 state inmates and 10,000 federal inmates in the U.S. imprisoned for marijuana-related offenses. It costs taxpayers $1 billion a year to jail them. Add the costs required to catch, prosecute and convict them, and the cost of probation officers, and you're looking at many billions more.

No, it's just my taxes.

Of course it affects you. THAT IS THE POINT. I can't believe there are so many UNT graduates who need remedial tips on pot. I thought this was a hippie school.

There are plenty of other reasons people smoke marijuana. It's even being prescribed as a medicine. Chemotherapy patients do it to reduce nausea, for one thing.

So you're in favor of making alcohol illegal too? Sporting events put a lot of drunks back on the road after games. Should they stop selling beer at Cowboys games? I think I'll pass.

Seems like a colossal waste of court and probation system resources to me. Since you're the expert, how about comparing what you see weed doing to people versus what meth is doing to people?