strigori

Under the forced religion file, add the bill that passed the Oklahoma House last week that would remove the State from issuing marriage licences and put that solely on members of the clergy to grant permissions to who can marry.

The deregulation you are thinking of is the removal of the wall between investment banks and commercial banks. So now the hedge fund types get to gamble with your savings account. What could possibly go wrong? Typically why all these banks got shut down by the FDIC after 2008 was simply that if every bank member decided to remove every penny from the bank, the bank would not be able to do so. And as a rule, if a politician wants to "privatize" something, they probably stand to make a hell of a lot of money if it goes through. And you can count on that whatever gets privatized is now much worse off, and so are the people who were using the entity.

Religion. Though that can be expanded to the planet as a whole. So many issues tie back into it, because so many people ardently adhere to a magical book of one form or another that they cease to be reasonable or objective. And that they so strongly self-identify with being of their religion that they can see nothing else.

I'm sure they will have small things they work on week to week, but when you get down to it, defense should be simpler than offense. I would go as far as to say most of the better defenses tend to keep most things fairly simple, mainly designed to put athletes in position to make plays. A lot of defense ends up at "see ball, get to ball" after the ball is snapped. Look at the flip side, Pelini's defense players wouldn't "get" completely for a couple of years. Not the best way to get the best players on the field.

We keep coming back to this, and the abject terror some people have around here involving the passing game. Once upon a time ago we did throw the ball under TO. In fact one of our Heisman Trophy winners was a receiver. And we have some guys that appear to be very dangerous weapons at that position here. And Swift and Peterson were very good for us as well. One more thought, if you want to win in football today, you need to be able to throw the ball. Good defenses tend to shut down one dimensional offenses. If you look farther back than the last couple years, Riley did plenty of run first when that was what the talent dictated. Quizz Rogers and Steven Jackson were both in run heavy offenses. Yeah, they threw a ton the last few years. But with a 1st round WR and a QB who might be the 3rd or 4th QB off the board in this year's draft, he would have been stupid to not throw a lot.

March 18th is a bit early to be worried when installing a whole new offense. They have not had playbooks that long, and 5 and 7 step drops are new for the QBs. They should be getting a ton of reps in with each other in the summer. You know the coaches will give the players sets of things to work on in their own time before fall camp.

I don't know as 'simpler' would be the right thing for the offense. But it certainly is different. Parts of Beck's tended to fall almost into backyard football, like the very loose WR routes. Where we might get simpler is from it being an actual coherent scheme. Beck had a tendency to add a bit of everything in, and not have much in the way of bread and butter plays. He seemed to see a play he liked somewhere, and just add it in, regardless if it really fit or had any ties to the rest of the offense. I think this offense is going to be more technique focused, and certainly will ask a bit more from the QB from a decision making standpoint. But it won't need a record setting RB and a freak athlete at QB to function. Probably - as should be expected - some things will be better and probably some won't. You mentioned "loose WR routes" which I assume is a reference to the option routes Beck used. Not having those should help reduce mis-communications. But TA said today that they used to run routes at a certain yardage - 5 yards, 10 yards, etc. Now they run (it sounds like) more on a certain number of steps. So one guy might run a curl route at 5 yards while another might run it at eight yards; just depends on the receiver. So we're kind of trading one type of "loose" for another. We'll see I guess. Beck's statements to routes were to the effect of "go where the defenders are not" Riley's system will look more like NFL. And by the player accounts, the WR are much more technique focused. Or Williams statement in practice to one of the players "The good news is that was a great route, the bad news is it was the wrong route." Which, like you mentioned, will hopefully make for less misscommunications between the WR and QB, something we saw far, far too much of the last few years.

I don't know as 'simpler' would be the right thing for the offense. But it certainly is different. Parts of Beck's tended to fall almost into backyard football, like the very loose WR routes. Where we might get simpler is from it being an actual coherent scheme. Beck had a tendency to add a bit of everything in, and not have much in the way of bread and butter plays. He seemed to see a play he liked somewhere, and just add it in, regardless if it really fit or had any ties to the rest of the offense. I think this offense is going to be more technique focused, and certainly will ask a bit more from the QB from a decision making standpoint. But it won't need a record setting RB and a freak athlete at QB to function.

Very similar. Banker said as much himself during the meet and greet the assistants did. When asked why MSU's performed so much better, he answered "The Jimmy's and the Joe's"

What it was designed to do is what happened in 2009 and 2010. His system required NFL level talent on all 3 levels of the defense. Lack the skill in any department and the whole house of cards falls down. And like any scheme, the opponent can make adjustments. Teams like Wiscy figured out how to make the whole thing fold, and Pelini never adjusted.

No, I won't, I stand by what I said. I never said racism may not be going on there. I said if these riots and protests are based on that ONE incident, they're based on false information. And that's the reason they initially started, then it comes out later that Officer Wilson acted appropriately. I've never heard an apology from Eric Holder, POTUS, or Al Sharpton for their lies. Must be rough to be a officer who has to take on the federal government for his actions when he acted appropriately. That man went through hell all for doing what he was trained to do because of Eric Garner's actions. Now I get people making Ferguson comments on a daily basis which is B.S. but because I'm a cop, I must be dirty and racist in their minds. Lets not even investigate police actions then huh? Lets not even ask a question of why an unarmed man was shot. Or the entire disaster that followed because the police in that town treated everyone with an appalling level of arrogance and disdain for the public. Lets not have a problem with police abusing power, and tear gassing journalists. Because THAT is what this was about. The DoJ did not "throw him under a bus" as they didn't press any charges. They ran an investigation. Hell, in Nebraska there is an automatic Grand Jury called for any officer involved death. An outside body NEEDED to run the investigation as there is absolutely no trust of the system in that town. And lets be honest here. The black community has a damned good pile of evidence and experience that they are unlikely to be treated the same by the police and justice system in general. Knowledge is power. Read the findings, its not some witch hunt. And turning a blind eye to what happened there is a continuing problem in this country. A large, and growing, amount of the citizens feel that this country has become little more than a police state. The police that are supposed to be there to "protect and serve" do not tend to come across like that anymore. There is a prevailing sentiment that the police have more interest in generating income for the municipality than doing the job of true public safety. I'm sorry if that offends you, but its the reality of things right now.

You should really read the findings from that report. What was going on there is really bad. Just about anything would have worked as a flashpoint.

Its the same thing pretty much everywhere that has kicked off spring practice. No games yet, and everyone is undefeated.

BS. On the "particularly in small towns comment" Why would you call BS? Unchecked power has a tendency to corrupt. If the system in a large city was operating the same way Ferguson's was, there would be all sorts of media investigations. And in all likelihood there would have been law suits years ago. But who watches little towns?

I think what happened in Ferguson is probably pretty common, particularly in smaller towns. The first issue is why were the systemic problems not brought out earlier. These smaller towns (21,000 in Ferguson's case) even having SWAT teams and armored vehicles is Orwellian. These small towns have little to no oversight, can run the town like the leader's own little fiefdom. Larger communities will get more oversight from the various news media and national organizations like the ACLU. Small towns have a much easier time silencing critics than large cities do.

That's what I always liked most about MMO's and its what I have not been able to full recapture after leaving EQ1.

Not sure we talked about Brian Williams here. I think the main reason people care about O'Reilly is that he purports to never be wrong. Williams is the more staid stuffed-shirt guy, O'Reilly is an angry shouting demagogue. Williams and O'Reilly are equally wrong but of the two, O'Reilly is always going to generate stronger feelings because that's his stock in trade. When's the last time you saw Williams climb on his moral high horse and denounce someone's character? Never - that's not what network news anchors do. But that's what O'Reilly does every night, and that's why he gets more push-back. The disparity in threads has less to do with politics and more to do with the personalities of either guy. That's probably a good point. I am not very familiar with Brian Williams and I haven't watched O'Reilly in a long time but he did always seem to be on his high horse about something. People in glass houses...... Imagine a TV show or movie includes the most bland, generic, big voice guy to be an anchor, and Viola! You have Brian Williams.

Fry countered all of this in his explanation as well. It never ceases to amaze me how much effort people put into defending a supposed omnipotent and omniscient who, if it chose, could supposedly make everything a paradise with a thought. It is also impossible to "Know all that is, was and will be" and there still exist "free will." These are mutually exclusive. Also, it's extremely telling that any of the Abrahamic sanitize and rationalize large segments of "The Truth" from their various holy books as no reasonable person in this modern world would accept any of the mythology if they tried to push it. Because if they pushed the literal text, they would be trying to run things a lot like ISIS.

No thank you. Which is different than us sponsoring Israel how? Semantics maybe? Israel has assassinated multiple Iranian scientists, blown up their facilities, and (with the help of the US) hacked into their computer systems. Congress does have the responsibility to advice and consent and approve treaties. Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution, includes the Treaty Clause, which empowers the President of the United States to propose and chiefly negotiate agreements, which must be confirmed by the Senate, between the United States and other countries, which become treaties between the United States and other countries after the advice and consent of a supermajority of the United States Senate. Perhaps the admin is going for a non-binding agreement?? http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/patrick-goodenough/did-obama-go-non-binding-deal-iran-dodge-senate-state-dep-t-won-t Regarding Israel blowing up Iranian facilities: up to debate as to what lengths a country can go to in order to guarantee its survival. Israel sees the Iranian program as a direct threat - not to mention Iran's sponsorship of terror groups bent on Israel's destruction - not to mention #2 Iran leaders' stated desire to see Israel destroyed. What might the USA do if Cuba actually ended up wt Soviet missiles or if Venezuela (a known anti-USA govt) was developing terror groups or a missile program to attack the USA? We would act out of self preservation. I get your overall point however: terrorism of one kind breads perceived reactionary terrorist activity of another kind. Thus my point: What good is a peace agreement between the USA and Iran without Israel (and Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt - who basically with Iran represent the whole region) in the deal. Other than oil and our defense treaty with Israel, we have no skin in the game. The other countries have their survival in the game. Find me a case in the last 200 years of Congress going behind any President's back when there are conversations going on. Again, the points raised earlier were cases when the sitting President had refused to talk with those leaders at all.

From Cotton's home state of Arkansas http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2015/03/09/war-what-is-it-good-for-tom-cotton-has-an-idea http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2015/03/10/not-everyone-is-in-tom-cotton-fan-club From Politico http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/tom-cotton-joe-biden-iran-letter-defense-115925.html So we have a guy who wants to end talks with Iran, he has said directly that he wants talks to fail, calls for new sanctions, and the mentality behind his anti-nuclear views with Iran is to do exactly what he wants, or military answers will be used. He has openly called for an increase in spending to give more weapons to Israel. The defense contractors are not inviting him anywhere because he's a funny and entertaining guy. They want things and he is open to giving it to them. And it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out the end game.

I recently watched Mark Levin give a speech at CPAC. I mean I guess it was a speech. Levin does what he––and Michael Savage and Rush Limbaugh Sean Hannity––already do on a daily basis: descend into fits of verbal madness and mudslinging about whatever they happen to be in frenzy about that day. This speech is incredible in its way. Being all hooked into the atheism/philosophy/religion/politics debate, normally people take some pains to provide evidence––or at least an example––that proves their point. Levin is cheerfully unencumbered in that way. Instead he stacks bald assertions on top of specious accusations on top of ​non sequitur on top of ad hominem. His speech isn't ​about the agenda. It is the agenda. Stewart is a different animal. He's clearly a progressive of some stripe (I can't picture him chaining himself to a tree to stop a bulldozer), but his show is not about pushing an agenda. He's a comic. His show is about absurdity. That's his agenda (with the added bonus of inviting guests with actual expertise instead of recycling "political strategists" over and over). If the right takes it on the chin more than the left, it's not an accident, but it's also not the intent. Nobody forces the Republican party to raise up figures of comedic gold like Ted Cruz, Herman Cain, or Sarah Palin. Nobody forces them to deny evolution, or climate change––going even to the Orwellian extreme of banning the use of the term when possible. Cable "news" outlets are what they are. Entertainment. Hype machines fighting a 24-hour ratings war. No story is too trivial for block lettering and Breaking News update––if it fits the needs of the broadcast and its paranoid viewers. Whatever Stewart is, he is not a part of that world. In fact he is one of its lonely critics. The style and substance of a lot of these far right speakers looks comparable to the fire and brimstone preachers. "Doom, gloom, the world is out to get YOU and everything is going to HELL and ONLY I have the answer to save us all" And the same people are buying.

No "ism" exists in absolute form. And the boogeyman of 'communism/socialism/government' is such a load of crap. Every single society if history has aspects of this. Its the reason why we formed societies and stopped living in family groups in caves.

Note a the glaring difference between your listed points and what happened here. In your points, the people in question were trying to secure some manner of peace. This letter to Iran is trying to break off any talks, and is nothing but trying to start a war. The ring leader, Tom Cotton, is the featured speaker at a defense contractors convention. Wars are finally winding down in the Middle East and these defense contractors' gravy train is going to slow way the hell down. And their stock prices, and executive bonuses are in danger. So the good little lapdogs are off to try to get another war started.

Disgusting, reprehensible, and yet somehow not surprising at all.

He's a good adherent to "Never let the truth get in the way of a good story"