stebo

That ASU game was like 3 or 4 years ago, why do people have to talk down to our conference brothers? Every single program in the Belt is in better shape than North Texas right now - maybe we should be asking ourselves if we are good enough to be in this group rather than trying to figure out how to "escape" them, lol.

Yeah, I was lumping them all together. As far as the hotel revenue is concerned, I thought that all hotel taxes were to pay for the AA Center?

Thanks guys, I can't believe that I am finally 21.

The best comparison that I have heard is that Nascar is no more of a sport than an Airshow is. And I have to agree with that. It is a spectator's event - but not a sport.

I just got an e-mail with the unfortunate results from the Prop 1 election prohibiting Dallas from trying to build and operate their own hotel. To me, this is a bad idea. Maybe in some cities this would be feasible; but Dallas is not one of them. We can't even run the school district. I am inching closer to getting involved in Dallas politics as much as I don't want to. There is a real need for some common sense and it might pull me out of political retirement. Grrr. I haven't held an office since Denton where I served two terms as Historical Landmark Commisoner (appointed by the mayor, not elected) but the incompetence is driving me crazy.

I think that we can ALL agree that Pelosi sucks and is a liar.

SUMG is probably one of the smartest guys that you could ever meet. He could argue the other side with just as much passion. The true sign of intelligence is being able to see someone else's point of view and to compromise. I bet that SUMG could argue it better and with more comedy than most liberals. Organized religion - oh god, we would need another message board for that. My family moved here from California and found out at an early age about Southern Baptists. I had absolutely no idea at the age of 8 that only the southern part of the United States was going to heaven - thank God we moved here. When I was in college, I met a man that changed my opinion about Christianity in general. Up until that point, the only group of people (to me) that seemed to live clean lives, take care of one another, and did not judge others were the Mormons. Such clean living and positive attitudes - kinda refreshing. Have ya ever met one? They are the nicest people in the world! Anyway, my first experience with Texas Baptists was at a very young age was when I was in 7th grade. A friend of mine invited me on a ski trip and GUESS WHAT - it was only $110 bucks!!!!!! My parents jumped at a subsidized church trip and I guess they were being naive by not thinking that there were other motices involved. It turns out - we weren't there to ski! We were there to get saved. Everyone had been partnered up with their "guest" and it was their job as good little Baptists to spread the word. Every night around the campfire, we would sign songs about Jesus and then asked if it was our time to be saved. If you didn't go downstairs to the hot tub room and agree to accept Jesus into your body and forgive yor sins, you were pretty much considered a leper so everybody did it eventually. They managed to break the whole group down. When I went down on night 2 or 3, I asked why I couldn't discuss it with my parents first and the youth pastor explained to me that something could happen to me before we made it home and he would hate for me to go to hell. I asked him why I would go to hell, I had never really been THAT bad - and he explained that everyone goes to hell that has been told the word and rejected it and by me not accepting the word THAT MOMENT, I would not be "protected"... Later on in the trip, there was one hold out named Ron Jennings. He was jewish and didn't feel comfortable converting to Baptist without at least talking to his parents. What I saw next made me sick to my stomach - they played a game on everyone. They had a contest to see who could hold their hand over a lighter for the longest amount of time. The winner got $20 bucks. All us 7th graders were going nuts to try. When Ron came up to try, the youth pastor held his hands (unlike the rest of us recently "saved" kids) - the burn was literally stinking up the room and Ron was crying. When they handed the crying Jewish boy the $20 bucks, the guy (Rick was his name) told Ron that if he thought that his hand burning for 30 seconds was bad - could he imagine spending ETERNITY surrounded by fire? Ron immediately broke down and got "saved"... Out of that trip - not one of us ever went to that church again. Fear and intimidation was used on young kids when they were away from their parents to "spread the word"... f-ing crazy, and ONLY in the south. There were other Christians in there that had to get saved specifically to Southern Baptist because their parents' form of Christianity wasn't good enough for Rick and his guitar playing youth ministor self. I will end my Plumm style post by saying that I believe that there is a God. I believe that a man that Jesus did walk on this Earth. I believe that Jesus explicitly died for all of our sins whether we like it or not. God gave his only son to save all of us and we will all accept that to be true when the truth is REALLY shown to us by our death and the truth is really shown, not man's version of the truth. The Bible is a nice lesson book that teaches good family morals. It is supposed to start with the start of the Earth and move through the times of J.C. It was originally written in a dead language and has been translated into 500 different languages to reach the status that it is in today. The most accepted version - the King James version, was chistened by a politician and he was the final editor so what he wanted in stayed in and the rest was interpreted in a different way or excluded. The Bible has always been used as a controlling mechanism and it saddens me that so many people take it literally and actually quote scriptures written by some hired hand after they had gone through rroughly 500 translations due to language changes. Heck, if you try to ask a guy from Spain how to say a sentence - he will tell you, "well, you could say this but it wouldn't mean the exact thing.. but that is as close as you can get"... now try doing that over thousands of years with politicians involved. It does not account for the true age of the Earth. Speaks nothing of dinosaurs. And much of the crazy stuff that happened can be attributed to reasonable explanations like plagues and volcanos and earthquakes and hurricanes. If you want to quote scripture, maybe you could quote how a man has the right to cheat on his wife and have multiple wives at that. It doesn't account for evolution - which is going on RIGHT NOW - the average age, size, and DNA make-up of our race has changed drastically over the last 100 years. I really could go on and on... a civilized, educated country takes the good and uses their reasoning abilties to understand that you can't take everything in the Bible literally. But there are always those that were scared as kids on a ski retreat or by their parents that know nothing else - and to find out at this point in their life that everything that they know to be as God's Word might just be Man's Word but hiding behind the moniker of God's word - well, I would be fearful as well and try to convert people to be more like me. I could care less if you believe what I believe in, and I am sure that I will get REAMED for this post if anyone bothered finsihing it.

I will throw in a third scenario if you don't mind - the Clinton model... Someone that is willing to change on policy issues with public opinion during their term(s). Clinton is a great example of someone that evolved with public opinion. Some people call that a flip flopper, others would call it someone with an open mind prepared to listen to others opinions at all times. Clinton was only elected with 43% of the vote his first term due to Perot and overwhelming won re-election despite a plethora of scandals. I voted against him for term 1 and for him for term 2. I would even put McCain into this category, he has sound fundamental politics but is very central otherwise and would flip flop a lot both before and after he ran for President. Then there is someone like W that knows what he believes in and trusts that God (literally) will guide him to carry it out. He guided us through a terrible attack on the country and had the highest approval rating of any President for about a month, despite losing the popular vote just 10 months before. W Bush could care less about polls or public opinion - he had his party's ideals and wasn't going to budge. He also believed strongly in fighting religious fanatics (kinda ironic because his base was filled with religious fanatics - again, I voted for him despite this). I would go with Rick for local issues - you vote for someone to represent what they promised you. If they keep those promises, they get re-elected. On National issues - you have to look at what the person stands for. You pick someone that will represent your ideals because politics is a game/dance about compromise. And you pick someone that is powerful enough in both speech and character to accomplish his goal or else we just have another warm body in Washington taking up space. Carter is a good example of a man with great ideas but TERRIBLE execution. By the time that Carter was in his 2nd year, he couldn't talk Congress into saying the Pledge of Allegiance (I read that in a textbook once). The guy could not get ANY of his ideas implemented. Carter wanted fuel efficient cars and energy independence. A man before his time when it came to SOME ideas, just terrible at execution. Can we please not hijack this by arguing about the current president? I have always said that Bushy will be judged fairly well in the history books for keeping us safe after 9/11 and I maintain that to this day, despite the other things that he did that I might disagree with (for the record - I voted for W both times). I feel that I am a true Independent because I choose the person, not the party.

You make a good point Rick, if 73% of the country has volunteer fire departments - we should just make it 100%. I don't want my taxpayer money going to other people's problems. Fire Departments are funded by tax money and all social services are bad. I will take my chances with an all volunteer force because I believe in the hearts and minds of the American people. You could volunteer and everything. My dad did it, while working at IBM and running 2 rental houses and a coin operated car wash.. surely we can get enough volunteers to take this tax burden off of the cities and counties. I have never had a fire and I have insurance in case it happens, why should I pay for other people's mistakes? Thank you for changing my mind. I know that you don't believe a word that comes out the of the Devil... err, Obama's mouth - but he has stated numerous times that the federal government should not be in the auto industry. But the big three were going out of business. We have an economic crisis going on in this country. Allowing them to fail would have hurt more than intervening. Bush recognized that and was a part of the first bailouts. Obama has asked for accountabiility. You can't keep throwing money into an empty business. The U.S. auto industries are producing an outdated product that the country doesn't want. The cost to tax payers would be much more by letting them fail because it would hurt so many other facets of the economy. Look, like I said earlier - I don't want the government involved in private industry. This was an intervention and it is supposed to be a temporary one. Instead of giving a blank check, Obama is trying to get some sort of return on tax payer's money IF they are able to turn it around. He has stated numerous times that he wants the government out of these industries as soon as possible. You just don't believe him. Reagan grew the federal government larger than any President in the history of the country. Most of his spending was on defense in a time where there was no war - but the money was spent either way. Obama is not perfect, but he walked into a complete MESS. I don't agree with all of his policies but he is the first Democrat that was elected by a military majority vote in over 40 years. If anything, I have to agree with you that he is a smooth talker... I never thought in a million years that he would support these wars that cannot be won in the middle east. He is trying to be all things to all people. But he is also cutting programs - in fact he cut 171 government programs in his budget equalling 17 billion dollars of government (fed) spending. I work for a college and he is reforming financial aid as well. While it will probably change the way that our students get money, the grants are going up and the loans are going down. The people that are choosing to get loans will no longer have subsidized interest if their income is above the $250K/year mark. Why in the world should the feds subsidize interest on a student loand for someone that can clearly afford to pay cash for their classes? That is what Bushy had put into law. The interest rate is locked at 5.85% so its not like a huge amount - but what people were doing is taking out student loans that they didn't need and using it to buy cars, houses, invest in stocks, etc... because the interest was paid for by your taxes. Obama took out that loophole. Makes my job harder but it is the right thing to do.

That is not what the NCAA site says. Students that leave in good standing do not affect the report score from what I understand. They kind of do, becuse it is one less passing student to be put on the whole. In other words, the percentage of 10 (failing players) out of 100 (total players) is 10%... When a player leaves in good standing, his number is not put into either column, so instead of have 10 out of 100, we have 10 failing players out of 99... so the 10% number goes up a little to .101 or 10.1% ... so there is an effect, but it is minimal. Not nearly the hit of a failing student. The report is about their academic progress. I think that you are confusing this report with NCAA grraduation rates. That system is screwy too but not the same critera. All that a deaprting student does is take away from the total in the formula. They slightly hurt it but the amount is negligle. Basically 11 kids leaving in good academic standing hurts about the same as 1 leaving in bad standing. So if you lose 5 all the way to 14 it hurts the same.

That is crazy, I thought he was a Senator from Illinois. I am such an idiot for believing that crap. You know, someone once told me that Reagan had been an "actor" - lol, yeah right. Oh, and some jerk tried to tell me that W was a drunken failed oilman.

I think that it is 6 total, the report comes out every year. Last year it was 5 - this year it is 6.

Yes, I read the entire article. I wasn't going to listen to some radio hack because people on the radio these days are either with Obama or against him. 73% of the country is with him, but I guess that they are all just morons. Anyway - I read the article and I read one side blaming the other and both denying it. Really no evidence to point either way. The car industry is corupt, all the way down to the companies that make the parts. They involve unions and unions have killed this great industry. It makes me sick to my stomach that Chrylser made it through the 80's only to be a subsidiary of freaking FIAT now, with freaking OPEL making the parts. At least they could have gotten a GOOD car company to help them build a decent car. Why is it that America cannot build a nice economy car? Why is it so hard? Ford has a couple. The Fusion is a car that I might even buy. I want to see if the $4500 tax credit gets passed and I will trade my BMW in for the Ford Fusion Hybrid. And that's not because I am a fan of Ford, it is because I am a fan of America and I want our auto indistry to survive. It is pretty sickening to think out of all cars made in America - that is the only one that I would even consider. I drive back and forth to Austin every weekend so a truck is not the right fit for me - but my dad's Toyota Tundra is 10 years old, has 200,000 miles on it, and he has never had to do a thing to it other than change the oil.

So since it is your tax payer money bailing out all these industries - did you prefer W handing off a blank check and not asking for any changes in return? Or do you want a return on your investment? I don't get this - W started all this, and I voted for him and I stand behind his intervention in the economy.... but he just handed off the money without asking the companies to change anything at all. Chrylser will soon be Chrylser in name only, it will be a a cruddy Italian car with the name Chrysler on it. Oh, and good news! Now they have Opel involved! So our money went to Chrysler, they were completely incompetent and could not turn their company around and produce the cars that people want - so now they are bankrupt and are being acquired by an Italian automaker that will make its parts in Germany. Sounds like a really good plan. How is this Obama's fault again? At least he is trying to hold these guys accountable for spending our children's money. I suppose the blank check idea by Bushy was a much better solution. You still haven't answered my question.

Rick, You and I are friends. In fact, I consider you a very, very good friend. Not a more trustworthy man. You have trusted me and I have trusted you for years. Maybe this is the thing that people always talk about when they say that friends shouldn't discuss politics. But I was married to a doctor - and regardless of the outcomes, I dealt with student loans and paying them off. And I guarantee you that if I really wanted to - I could find a collection of articles to say the exact opposite. And you can find doctors that will agree with you and I can find doctors that would agree with me. I am a conservative. What I learned from being married to a doctor is that it is all a game. The entire system is bs. We are already paying for it but its hidden in rising costs. I actually do not agree with public medicine from the feds, but I do believe that each state should have protection for children. A doctor takes an oath and that oath is all bs if they have to check with an insurance company first. What I was trying to say is that there should be a system for those kids - other than the ER (which affects our premiums and med prices). If a kid could go to a clinic for the flu or strep throat or whatever - they wouldn't go to the ER for it. It wouldn't get out of control. And the costs would be minimal to treat them. A doctor just out of residency (4 years of med school and 3 years of residency) generally has $100K + in loans if not more. Their first job pays them anywhere between $80K-$130K to be a grunt and get their licks in. And I don't need anyone to affirm that - my ex was an internist. After student loan payments, that can be knocked down to between $50K and $100K a year. Working in a family practice subsidized by the state - like many states in the NE, would be a great way to get their career started... they could give back and gain experience under an attending physician. It is basically what the military offers, in fact - it is more than the military offers. I set an abstract amount of 100K. I didn't do any research on it and I just went by a reasonable amount based on my own life experience. After completing their time and the loans were forgave, they could stay on as an attendee or start their own practice. Instead of paying off student loans their first 4-10 years, they would be working debt free and building up credit to open a practice. It would also allow them to buy a house. They could leave at any time and choose to pay the remainder of their debt. This system is not a new system - it exists with the military already. There are some things that a civilized nation has and those are the basic abilities to take care of their people. If their people are sick, we should take care of them. If the roads need to be fixed, we should fix and build roads. If a fire starts, we should be civilized enough to use tax payer money to make sure that the fire doesn't hurt other houses or buildings. Sure those people have insurance for fire but their safety is important. So I ask you the same question again - since you work for the government. How is working for the fire department with the intent on saving lives and protecting property a civil right but getting treated for a broken leg not? It doesn't make sense and you pay for it whether the right wing wackos want to admit it or not. You pay for it because you have insurance and your insurance pays your doctor/hospital bills and those bills are over-inflated to subsidize the folks that don't have insurance. Because it is such a sneaky system as it is, the insurance companies - which are FOR PROFIT organizations, raise their prices to whatever they can get. The hospitals do the same. HMO's have broken down the system worse than any type of free clinic system would. If you are able to coordinate a system of available care centers for the non-insured AND force the current industry back to reasonable rates all the way around, the monopoly in place will be broke up and the true capitalistic system that you hope for would actually happen. So I will ask you again - and I love ya brother - and I thank you for what you do for a living... how is the right to services such as the fire department any different to rights for medical care? Would you agree that at least children should be covered? What about college students that no longer are accepted by their parents' insurance? Should they just be "extra careful" and damn them to hell if they rupture an appendix? I had a guy that worked for me when I owned the bar - he was 22 and had been dropped from his parents' insurance because of his agre despite being a full time college student. He couldn't afford health insurance and he had his appendix rupture. I don't remember the exact amount but it was over $100K. I remember thinking at the time, he will probably not be able to buy a house until he is 40. He will get a credit check upon looking for a job and unless he is up to date, he won't pass it and thus not getting a quality job. As great of a company that I work for, we will not hire ANYONE in default of more than $10K worth of debt. The system is screwed. So I ask you - wha if you had to ask a person for their insurance card before you put their fire out and if they didn't have it - you just said - "sorry, I can't help you buddy" and get back on that truck and drive back to the station. How are the instances any different?

Rick, Don't get defensive but since you work for the "man" - why don't we just have private companies take care of fires? Why should I have to pay for some idiot that fell asleep with a ciggie in his mouth and burned his own house down? What about the police? How about the army? Shouldn't the government just butt out of everything? I look at health coverage the same way that I do as the fire department, the cost of a civilized nation. Of course there will be some people that will want to protect their property even more and install fire detectors and sprinklers. Since the government screws "everything" up - maybe they should butt out of fire departments. And while they are at it - why should we provide public education? Those parents should just work harder! Damn their kids if they are born into a crappy family! p.s. it is really difficult to post from a phone.

And by the way - way to twist my words by adding that it would "cap" at 100K. Typical.

There is a huge shortage in family doctors. Residency pays about $40K a year. After residency, a family doctor could work 1 year for each year of med school and it could even be routed through Job Corp. People just aren't going towards family medicine as a first choice anymore... the way it works is that people apply for residencies and go through a blind match system. They interview and rank their choices. If they "match" up - they get a spot there if there is one available. The folks that don't match, become family doctors. So your family doctors are the folks that were left over. Most are not choosing family medicine, despite it being the fastest way to practice, because dealing with insurance companies and malpractice insurance make it so that a doctor is LUCKY to bring home a 150K a year. I would guarantee you that many of them would choose to give all that overhead and hassle up to just practice medicine without having to run a business. They went to school to help people, not to argue with insurance companies. My family doc back in Roanoke got so burned out that he sold his practice and went to go work for someone else... he later returned to the same building, bought it back, and only takes cash and a few selct insurance companies. I seriously doubt he makes $100K a year but he is happy. So it works in both cases - people that want to retire their debt AND people that want to just practice medicine and not deal with the insurance companies/malpractice insurance premiums.

It's really a simple problem to fix and of course Washington can't just use the simple answer. As it is - there are two types of people (no matter the age) that get sick, the insured and the non-insured. The problem is that they both are forced to use the same system to get treated. The people that are paying for their treatment are simply subsidizing those that don't because the system has to make a profit as medicine is a for profit industry. While they are at it, they might as well overcharge and get overpaid. Why not? There is no regulation, there are lobbyists. The problem is that a doctor takes an oath to treat anyone in need despite their economic background - so how does a doctor do his or her duty without breaking the hypocratic oath and still turn the uninsured away? An alternative needs to exist... and not the ER, that is the problem. The cost overruns in the ER trickle into every system all the way to med prices. The only one getting screwed is the family doctor. How do you fix all this? Provide a vaiable alternative for family doctors to accept public health insurance. Think of this like a Club Store - kind of like a Costco. As a member, you have "insurance" and are part of the club. What if that was the only place to get your goods - period. Otherwise you were just screwed because you didn't have a membership. Make those goods something that you needed to survive, go to work, stop your kid from crying, etc... would you rob that store if there were no consequences? Sure you would, because it wasn't fair. The store was closed off to you, and maybe you had a chance to get a membership card but you needed to keep gas in your car that month to get to work. Ok - enough of the sob stories - I have lived without health care as a self-employed man and it sucks. One trip to the ER for a seizure back in 2003 and I am literally still making monthly payments on it... and I was only there for 2 nights. I could choose not to pay it but my credit would have been hurt and I wouldn't have been able to by my houses. And yes, I went to a public hospital - by luck... after all, when you are waking up from a seizure, you don't exactly pick where the ambulance drops you. So stop the sob stories and just set up a second "Costco" for all the jerks like I used to be that couldn't afford or didn't think that they needed insurance. That system WILL cost less than the surrent subsidizing that takes place. If you don't think that you are paying for public health care now - you are not awake. We already have public health care - it is just disguised and it screws the insurance customers in the biggest way. The insurance companies do not have a choice but to regulate doctors, your meds, and raise their rates - they are just being billed by the system. And because you use the same system that the non-payers use, the prices will always be 20 times more than they would be in the open market. Just establich a second system of equally sound health care for the non-insured and subsidize it with taxes. It would be less than forcing everyone to make the change over and it would fix a lot of the problems. Kids would have health care and so would those damn illegals that keep your food/construction/everything costs down! Americans don't want to work, not unless it is in the air conditioned and not unless they are getting what it "owed" to them. You are paying for it anyway - but since it is such a web of lies, deceit, and taking from one account to subsidize another - the fraud that takes place every day is actually ethical to doctors - you know, the knee doctor that has you wait in his waiting room for 3 hours so that he can look at you for 4 minutes before hopping in his Porsche for lunch? How cheap would it be to have recently graduated med students work in these government run clinics for their residencies and than for the next 4 years to wipe out their student loan debt? Wouldn't it be great for people to go to school to actually be family doctors again? I bet that a steady $100K a year with no need to fill out forms or deal with insurance companies would have them linign up around the corner for those jobs. Don't believe me, ask a doctor.

WTH? The news just announced that Fort Worth ISD has shut down the entire school system. There must really be a ton of kids sick for that to happen.... or the admins are wanting an early summer break.

Let me preface this copy and paste job by saying that I do not believe Obama is moving the United States to be a socialist country at all... but a friend of mine does and he sent me this forward and I couldn't agree more with the forward... just not his intent behind it A simple analogy An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before but had once failed an entire class. That class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism. All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A. After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little. The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F. The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed. Could not be any simpler than that.

I guess that you don't understand that Vito wasn't allowed in the fence so he basically boycotted Spring 2009, except for potshots. I hear that they also bound and gagged him on four occasions, dragged him to gitmo, and subjected him to constant waterboarding and other various torture techniques. The good news is that he is trying out to be the hairless doggie in the next Austin Powers movie ;P

They are ripping her a new one. The whole thing is about perks. Her salary is about $350K but after all her perks, she gets a half million. They showed a breakdown of her perks... she gets $10k for a car allowance yet she has a free Lexus provided to her so the allowance is cash in her pocket. They give her another $50K for a housing allowance because the University does not provide a house and she has to entertain guests "sometime twice a month!" - so she needs $50K to water the plants and clean the place... oh, and to pay her mortgage, but the house doesn't belong to the school - she gets to keep the equity. There were all sorts of other amounts, for travel and country clubs and so on - all added up she gets a half million a year. No wonder she is always smiling. I wonder how much Dr B donates to the athletic dept? I would hope that she would be at a VERY high level. She is paid $20K more a year than the Pres of Berkely. Anyway, it was a slam piece - no bueno... probably no Phillip Young involvement though, lol.

It's on right now.

I am watching a DVR copy of Survivor from tonight and there was just a promo at the very end for "College Admins that are Raising Tuition on KIDS but using PERKS to help themselves" and then it cut to none other than Dr B talking about how "perks" help her with her job. I dunno - let me know if you see it. Should be on any minute but I am doing homework.