SCREAMING EAGLE-66

---You are thinking in terms of a very large city.... there are many places that there is no other real option.... One large community hopital... example... Lubbock has Methodist Hospital (huge) with 3000 employees.... . People in Lubbock really have few other choices with to find something with good modern equiptment.... What if it happened to be Catholic instead. Some places that is the case.... As for schools .. people really do have a choice usually, because public schools and other options exist. ... not so for medical places that serve the public .. and not just members of their church. Besides churches do not completely underwrite the cost of their their hospitals... fees and grants do. ---When churches own property such as a business or apartment complex (some do) they have to pay property taxes and their income is taxed.... but not the church or parsonage. I look at medical facilities the same way.... follow the rules that everyone has to follow... because the public uses them. This is not war on religion or any particualr religion. ..

--They fear us.... we are an extremely large state university in their back yard... If we get start getting more attention and higher status than they have they likely have a very bad problem. They have very few local fans and we have a huge alum base and might could dwarf them. ---The other part is just plain arrogance... due to thinking they are superior because they think they so wealthy and so upper class. I am not saying it is true... just their attitude.

--30-06..... I own one... yes they have unbelievable power..... ever heard of anyone using one in a drive-by putting dozens of holes in a house or car or shooting indiscriminately into a group..??? That is the big difference...

---These "super conferences" are insanity. College football is not pro football, they are supposedly student athletes. I even believe a real playoff would put a stop to some of this craziness. Then championships would be decided on the field and not from what conference you are in as it somewhat now. To be national champion you need to be in one of 4-5 conferences. Ask TCU. I am getting more disgusted with college football all the time... because of these super conferences and all the cheating and scandals etc. that goes on. Even coaching salaries are insane compared to what they were just a few years ago.

--- True but not entirely.... In 1788 it was a completely different world... a frontier with Indians and wild animals that were very dangerous and people needed those guns on an everyday basis.. they were also used to provide food ... no supermarkets.. Granted there was a need to use against criminals even then too... not much law enforcement on the frontier but need some in towns as well. Today I see a big difference in city and some what rural people think and about guns ... outside of towns there is is often a NEED for for one [not an assault gun] ... snakes, wild hogs, rabid skunks, even a mountian lion chewed on a Odessa kid lately in the Big Bend. The father got lucky... saved the kid with a knife as he stabbed the lion.. and the lion retreated. Guns should not be considered toys. --I am sure glad a neighbor of mine didn't own an assault weapon.... one night he was drunk in the front yard shooting at the moon with a small pistol. Thank goodness he moved. My neighborhood is far from a redneck one..... two D.A.'s live within a block of me.

--To you they are mostly just a toy... I am guessing you live in a city. There is a totally different attitude by people who are somewhat rural. I know of several of those type guns used in murders... I know of none that were actually used to defend a person's home. The guy that killed the three cops I mentioned was 50+, and not a gang type guy and not a criminal type... just a gun nut and if I remember right not sober. Hunting wise if I can't hit something with a couple of shots, let it go. Learn how to shoot. How many real shoot-outs involve a homeowner defending his home needing to shoot a zillion shots. ... As one said... it is not that difficult to make them fully automatic.. kits exist if you know the right people.

.. --That inflation all stated as Iranian oil( a huge American sourse then) became unavailable after the revolution and OPEC decided to kick up then prices on their oil...... All of this is oil...gasoline, asphalt, ALL plastic including plastic sacks and styroform, a lot of insulation, roofing materials, almost all lubricants at that time and so much more which kicked up costs of materials and transportation on about everything... that caused the extreme inflation. . There is so much more but the increased cost of oil raised the price of everything including delivery costs. It was all about what was happening internationally and not so much what happened here. ---Our Government doesn't control OPEC or those countries and shouldn't... It is their country.. It all fell apart when they dropped prices and West Texas suffered greatly because oil companies had too much invested in oil field equiptmentincluding multi-million dollar rigs that just rusted and the oil industry wthen cheaper oil from the middle east flowed again... I live in the West Texas oil fields. Oil dropped below $10 a barrel in 80's and so many out here were out of work and banks going belly up.. There was no construction and those companies went broke as well as apartments that went empty. Lots of retail stores and restaurants just disappeared The Reagan years were the worse for us.... not so much for what he did but what OPEC did raising and dropping those prices... That craziness is not occuring out here again now... less 4% unemployment here but so much in oil industry is now pay as you go and not on credit as they did then.. Blaming or crediting either Carter or Reagan is mostly foolishness.... you needed to be here and see what happened to us and America as a result of Iran revolution and OPEC to completely understand... Even mega sized oil companies disappeared or merged do business under two names [ Exxon and Mobil for example ]... Seen any Gulf stations lately...??? That was the largest to go. --All of the above caused W.Bush to move from Midland... he lived about a 1/2 mile from me. They then bought the Texas Rangers from a bankrupted oil-man... Eddie Chiles .... at a bargain.

---I agree with your gasoline pricing pretty much... not the other one.. My father was in wholesale gasoline business so I remember those prices pretty well. When in college in the 60's you could get 3-4 gallons for a hour's work at min. wage... during the late 70's due to the Iranian revolution and OPEC [ nothing to do Carter being President] the price jumped greatly and you could not get 2 gallons for an hour's worth of min. wage... Now based on minimum wages ... we can get 2-2.5 gallons for an hour at minimun wage. Coffee and TV is missing this one although I do agree with a lot he says usually. ---Back in 2002 or so.... I thought then Bush went after the wrong one if he was intent on having a war... Iran was the real threat of nukes... Reagan had even sided with Saddam in the Iraq-Iran war and supplied him weapons.. He was extremely evil but not a threat to us. ... Syria is a bad situation.... We need to stay of of Middle East as much as possible... especially with troops on the ground... those people are too crazy, ignorant, and irrational and often religious nuts.. should not have been in Iraq either.. ---Answering another question someone brought up .... different states have different state tax rates on gasoline.... that accounts for some of the different prices from state to state. ..

---Plum is so right.... He was alive and an adult then and remembers... Arkansas and some others got tired of filling the stadiums of the smaller colleges in the SWC.... plus most were not very good and it did little for their reputation to defeat them. That is the big reason they pulled out and also the cheating by SMU and a couple others though not quite as bad. Later when the Big-12 was created there were no very small colleges in it. UT, A&M and TTU had the same argument which was a factor as well in the death of the SWC. Nebraska, KU, OU, colorado, and OSU were opponents that meant something when you played them.. I complement TCU though because they have recovered nicely... but maybe by not playing those teams every year anymore. ---Personally at this point, I would rather we don't play SMU any more... they may need us to fill stadiums but we don't need them. They have no respect for us anyway. Just ignor them. If any other Texas college wants to schedule us.. fine.. do it.

--Well another bad assumption.. I teach mathematics (not politics) in a community college and am not a member of a union and never have been. You are somewhat right about 2008.... but look which party was in power when it got into that condition. Most people remember.. especially those who look at the numbers and statistics. Obama should be defeatable.... but I doubt it with cast that is now out there and with the crazy divided mix they are... We shall see. Dude.??? Sounds pretty much like some movie with HS characters.. ..

---Gasoline was over $3.90 in Texas in the summer of 2008.... and when I drove to Florida most of the Southern States had it priced at over $4.00 (expensive auto trip).. Then the banking crisis happened in Sept-Oct. along with the Banking bail -outs and it dropped greatly and has never been that high again.... nor has employment... Low gasoline prices don't necessary mean good economy. At the same time in 2008 the stock market started tanking and continued to do so until it went into the 6000's in early 2009.... It began recovering in March of 2009. It is now almost 13,000 again. Also car companies were bailed out in early 2009 and Chrysler has paid that money back, Ford didn't take any...GM still owes some.... and the "Clunker" program increased production and helped keep people working in factories and at car dealerships. That was a much better option that the increased employment that could have resulted and insane amount of unemployment checks that would have been paid. Deal with facts not political party prejudice.... I am not sure some really realize what conservative is... balancing the budget which happened in the 90's was... Doubling the debt it as happened after 2001 isn't. You don't spend more than you take in (for all eight years) and be considered conservative. True the debt is still going up.... well... what has Congress passed to help...? about nothing. The President doesn't pass bills, Congress does, he just signs or vetos them. ...

--Completely disagree... and we are not just talking about sports. Besides UT and Arkansas [ Royal and Broyle] were the two that wanted us (with Hayden Fry) in the SWC as team #10. This was not too long after admitting Houston as #9. The Pac-8 had just gone to 10 with the two Arizona colleges taken from the WAC. SMU talked TCU and Baylor into opposing us. We needed 7 approvals and only two against... that was three against.. officially no vote was taken... no point with three speaking against it. Arkansas and UT had played us recently and I think UT that year.

--An ex-Permian football player might disagree.... a guy put over 90 rounds into his car and most of them into him a couple years ago here on a parking lot. . I am pretty sure the guy in Odessa that killed three cops answering a disturbance call a couple years ago used one too. ..

---I was three or four... He [ white leghorn] seemed about as tall as was... torn my face to shreds but I have only one scar left. My father later knocked the devil out of him with a hoe. He was known to even follow him around .... well until then. I think he later killed him. The Emu --a couple of days earlier he found me while I was checking on cows and did not even know he was around (just wild) he followed me back to a pick-up about a 100 yards away and all I had was a single shot-22 and one shell to shoot snakes ... I kept it pointed at him about five feet away the entire distance. That middle toe of his looked awfully large and dangerous. It look as if he wanted me to know he was the head rooster there and was willing to fight me. The day I shot him he had been circling us and when my son turned his head toward me to say something ... the bird made for him...end of bird.

--- Sunday's Midland paper [ we are in oilfields] claimed it was more about the route of the pipeline than anything.. They claimed there were better routes and not just for evironmental reasons... jobs too in places that needed jobs... doubt Midland oilmen were very upset about it... it might help the price of oil out here stay up and keep jobs here in Texas. Not really said but route may have been somewhat politically motivated on the route proposed. .

. Depends on definition of accident... 1. A friend of mine had a gun on his back seat after hunting , hit a bump, and it fired through the side of his car (his error, unload it) . 2. Know of guns that fell over with no one close that went off. 3. Know of a sonic boom that knocked one off the wall... my country uncle kept it loaded .. but no shell in chamber fortunately.. 4. Knew a woman that dropped a handgun after camping (apparently did not know it got into a bundle of clothes she was carrying in from car)... she died. 5. Know a friend that shot off his car's starter when he tried to unload it after being in 15 degree weather.. cold hands I guess, he got to walk miles. 6. Know of several incidents where guns were thought to be unloaded and weren't. I loaned a deer rifle to my father who returned it to me loaded in a case... I was shocked to find it loaded.. since I thought he always unloaded them, he had unloaded the clip, not the chamber. 7. Have an older pump shotgun that somehow "hid" a loaded shell when I it slid back... fortunately I somehow accidentally noticed it go in chamber as I slid it forward...It had not ejected properly . 8. Have even knocked a gun off safety at times without knowing it... fortunately never an accident. 9. Know of people who got too excited and when slid the slide forward too fast accidentally pulled the tigger as well. My rule: Always check a gun every time to pick it up to see if it is loaded, might even do it twice if a more complicated gun. Trust nothing a person says about it being unloaded. Obviously I am not anti-gun but see no use in these assault weapons.. Guns are not toys... they are tools to me (had cattle) and are needed at times.. rattlesnakes, water moccasins, etc. and unbelievably a 'wild" 6 ft. emu rooster ran and tried to attack my son.. Male animals can be dangerous if they feel you are a threat to them or their "herd". I had the gun with me because of another incident with it. I even have a scar from a common rooster that attacked me when I was a kid. .. ..

--We have totally eliminated them in West Texas.. You can still find sharks teeth though (seriously ..ask any geologist in the oil business... likely millions of years old. ).

---The GOP is a complete mess.... There are the social conservatives that thump Bibles, whose only issues are anti-abortion even to rape victims and very young girls.. plus no gay marriage and seem to care less about anything else..... then there are the T-party guys who absolutely don't want to pay taxes and even want MORE cuts while the debt is going to the devil,..... and then there are the more rare type, the ones that are actually financial conservative and want the debt back under control even if taxes need to be adjusted... [pretty much like Democrats of 1993-2001 when the debt increased less than 2% per year and had the only balanced budgets since 1980] These groups don't seem to be able to compromise or support each other at all. Every GOP candidate offends one of those groups or more than one. Some candidates differ greatly from what their history is and what they say they are... [ Gingrich especially plus Santorum and his history of excessive earmarks]... Good luck...

caustic ... acidic ... bitter. (pick one)

I was once blocked a day or two for saying N*Z*. and others post his picture.... wierd.

---SMU will be almost begging Texas area teams to play them.... attendence at SMU games has been awful and the Big East teams are not going to bring many of their fans into the stadium. SMU's only large crowds will be when they can schedule some "somewhat local" teams.. You "may" get a bit more national exposure but I suspect at a terrific cost financially... remember there are sports other than football than will need to travel. Your student athletes especially non football will miss a ridiculious amount of class time. It was all about recognition and image (typical SMU)... not the students. Few alums/students will travel to your out of area games ... that won't help your alums school spirit either.. ---I do agree with you that SMU is not about to buy their way out of the UNT games.... they need games with Texas area schools even more now... for cash (crowds) and recruiting. .

--I am not sure what to think anymore.... I expected the Big East to fall apart somewhat but not to add SMU and Houston. That league is scattered all over American now. Very expensive travel for some and lots of times out of class for student/athletes. Considering this a a college league not pro... this is crazy. Is that league now stable??? ---The Sunbelt is now overlapping with two conferences that have had real problems lately hanging on members.... CUSA and WAC. Again there are travel problems for some. It would not surprise me to see a lot of changes in these three...and maybe only two conferences survive and maybe not with the current names... CUSA now has teams with more recognized names than the Belt but not all that large and not unusually successful now. It does have members that are more regional with us...but not a lot else to offer.. not big crowds, not large alum bases. At this point I am predicting nothing other than things will change. Long term I am no longer convinced tht CUSA is any better other than getting more regional rivals.... too many teams have left it. It is a shell of its former self. ---SMU could not fill the stands with respectable crowds with opponents that were rather regional and contributing to the crowd.... The Big East teams will contribute almost none. This could get interesting.... they may have shot themselves in the foot with increased travel expenses as well... They will be begging regional teams to play them as non-conf foes to fill stands and increase their gate receipts.. ..

--- I know a SMU alum who a couple of years ago at a Christmas party that who starting complaining about other colleges ( I think mainly blaming UT that was on TV at the time) for turning them in for cheating. Oddly he was the one that brought it up... not anyone else. He just didn't get it at all... they were cheating big time paying players to play. When another person asked him, "They were cheating weren't they??" He had a miserable answer. ---About other boards... as I posted earlier.... our dislike of them is all about the lack of respect for us ... or anyone else really. TCU and their alums don't do what SMU and their alums do.. ..

I graduated from UNT or NTSU in 1966....... To me is all about the lack of respect for us. For me over 46 years of it. Yes the SWC deal is part of it but I do understand that why SMU which led the fight against us feared having a large state university compete with them in their back yard. Far worse are all of the items I have read over the years and heard from SMU grads. Even the DMN has throughout the years have printed insulting remarks about us by SMU personal and made crazy claims such as they have the best or only what ever program in the area when then know it isn't true... this has included the music program which isn't even close.... more UNT alums have Grammies than any other university in the USA. SMU have bragged about have a great computer program and first in the area when UNT had the first accredited program in Texas and I think in the first group in the USA.... I could go on.... It is ALL about the lack of respect by SMU to us.... TCU.... I have never seen that attitude by them.... Even their grads in the workplace are far more respectful and don't display "GEE I am great attitude". . Maybe you are respectful... but a lot of your fellow grads aren't. That is the complete difference.... It is not about how many BMW's yawl have ... but I see you sure mentioned that so that must be on your mind as a reason to be superior and throwing that in to our face as well. That is so typical... money..money..money is yawls evaluation of worth.... yawl just don't get it .... Show some respect to others... It is not just us... nearly everyone has a similar opinion of SMU.... arrogant SOBs is being nice to what many think. you likely just hear it more from us because we are so close to yawl. Read your own board.... they still refer to us a North Texas Teachers College..... which we haven't been since the 1930's. We have been UNT for nearly three decades. and your posters refuse to call us that. It is all about about respect. Many have mentioned athletics and the way SMU has treated us there.... but to me that is a minor thing. I care less if we ever play yawl again in anything. Your Death Penalty was also a lack of respect for rules and thinking it didn't apply to them. A couple more were so not clean either but not that bad. Basketball then was just as bad... the basketball guy that got in trouble at Baylor later had been the SMU coach then. ..

---Tell them to return to 2008 spending levels...????... the debt had just doubled in 8 years... !!!! Cutting 1% per year is about nothing... the interest is increasing it much more than that..... Increasing the debt that much is not conservative.. !! We need SOLID CONSERVATIVE RESTRAINED FISCAL POLICY and we need to STOP SPENDING money we don't have. --the Bush administration sure didn't do that... the debt went from $5.5 trillion to $11 trillion. I agree with your comment... but you need to look at what happened. Conservative is not spending more than you are taking in.... applies to families as well. That wasn't happening then or now either.. ..