knapplc

I have heard that Martinez has quit/will be quitting the team. Take it for what it's worth. From whom? Where? When? This whole thread is now going to Rumorville until something substantial happens. Nothing personal to all the "insiders" but this thread is exactly why we made Rumorville in the first place.

He's listed at QB on the depth chart right now, but who knows if that changed? I could be reading way more into it than what was said in an informal, unprepared statement, but it just struck me as odd that all the QBs were there, but Martinez wasn't. Unless Bo thought the press didn't know Martinez was absent, or just had a momentary brain cramp. I don't want to read too much into an off-the-cuff statement, but it stood out to me.

I have long held this belief. There's something you get from being there that you don't get on TV, but overall the viewing of the action is better on TV. That is absolutely true. If I could be at the game and in the crowd but have the game on a T.V. right in front of me, that'd be perfect. Or record the game and have it be available for playback for a while. I'm tired of having to ruthlessly budget my DVR because I want to hold on to some games and watch them a couple more times. I've held the Holiday Bowl on DVR for quite a while, but it's taking up a lot of space, and frankly, we don't record many shows. I have the Holiday Bowl and the Alamo Bowl vs. Michigan on my DVR, plus several episodes of No Reservations, Mythbusters and Dirty Jobs, and I'm almost out of space.

Maybe Martinez was upset that he's not a quarterback anymore. Maybe I'm reading this wrong or maybe I'm just slow on the uptake, but the underlined parts of Bo's quote don't jive. If all the quarterbacks were at practice, but Martinez wasn't at practice, maybe he was told he's not a QB anymore and that was an issue?

Ahman Green played significantly as a true freshman and we had Lawrence Phillips at the time. Playing true Freshmen doesn't necessarily mean you have "problems," especially in a position like DT that requires a lot of depth due to the constant pounding involved.

I have long held this belief. There's something you get from being there that you don't get on TV, but overall the viewing of the action is better on TV.

I thought he did that on purpose so his halo would show better.

Wow. Those could be trainwrecks. It'll be great tuning in!

I'd like to say I'm surprised, but...

Actually, you brought up your sh**ty life, not me. You also accuse me of lying, of giving you special treatment, of being a proponent of childishness by advocating security blankets and of stating that you'd respond to my points by telling me to, "Go f*ck yourself." After doing all of this, you have the audacity to throw out red herrings about ad hominem attacks against your person in lieu of responding to a host of points. Cry me a river. If you believe your spouse is faithful and you live your life in the comfort of that belief and die happy knowing your spouse held fast to their wedding vows, what matter if they secretly cheated on you the whole time? You'd die happy, unaware, no harm done. Not all errant beliefs are harmful. And that's where the problem with discussing religion with you lies. "But…" nothing. Everything after "But…" is a reality of this existence, and nothing you can do or say will take it away. As with other members of this board who so totally focus on one thing and one thing only, that thing is your bogey man, and the only thing against which you rail. Incessantly. But, take that thing away and all the harms and all the joys and all the pains and all the stuff that makes existence what it is will still exist. Focusing on one thing and saying, "Let's remove that, to make life better" is preposterous. It won't make life any better, it will just make life different. And the effort expended to remove that thing isn't worth the reward – one less thing to believe in, with all the harms remain untouched. Meaning? What is meaning? Is meaning absolute or does it vary from person to person?

Yeah - it was nice, wasn't it? Aside from the cannon fodder at the front end of the schedule, we haven't dominated a team like that in a long, long time.

Funny thing - I am a hardcore Lazlo's fan, but I do not like Fireworks. I've been to their current location twice and their former location several times, and it just didn't do it for me. I need to get to Venue and Carmellas. I've heard good things, but I've never been. I cook at home mostly now, and I get all balled up having to pay twice as much for food/wine that I can make at home for half the cost.

There's no need to apologize. It's a serious subject and it's affected a lot of people in a big way. We're cool.

If having Bo at the helm has proved nothing else to us, it's proven that NO OFFENSE is impervious to a proper defensive scheme. The Spread was so much the next great thing on offense that half of Div1A went to it - and Bo promptly shut it down in nearly every game he played against it. The Option was a hell of an offense, yet time after time after time we saw a team capable of shutting it down. The biggest flaw in the Option, as we saw demonstrated so well by Iowa in the Orange Bowl. For every offense you run there's a defense capable of shutting it down, just like for every defense you run there's an offense capable of exploiting it. Sometimes a team just out-executes a great offense. Returning to an Option-based offense wouldn't solve any problem Nebraska has now, it would just be a return to what we're used to. Just like on defense, we need a system we can execute and the personnel to do it. Once we have those, it won't matter what system we use, we'll score.

If we're going to approach catharsis, this is the moment. Belief in a nonexistent god doesn't harm someone? Oh really? What if you thought that God wanted you to die in a holy war against those that didn't believe in him, would that harm you? What if he wanted you to kill every male of a certain tribe, mutilate your flesh, or not take medicine when you're ill because it would be a sign of a lack of faith? Your over-simplification is so baselessly absurd that I can barely believe you've managed to formulate it into a sentence. If you tell people God's watching out for them in their suffering, that he ordained all events, that there'll be a final reckoning, etc., etc., etc., and you can't demonstrate anything of the kind, you are not speaking honestly. You think it's okay to make something up instead of seeing the world for what it is. This is not a respectable way to go about life in my view. Incidentally, why does God allow entire tribes to be murdered? Why does he allow famine, pestilence, genocide, and torture? Doesn't he have the power to stop it? What are you going to do when people start asking you these questions? You're a believer. You're the expert. I don't tell anyone there is a god. I don't tell anyone there isn't. I don't think anyone knows. And that's the truth, the only one that matters. If truth isn't your concern, our conversations are as pointless as your philosophy of meaninglessness. Ignoring your usual victim mentality and whining about ad hominem attacks , I think you're missing a point here. I'm not telling anyone anything about any god. I'm not proselytizing here, I'm discussing security blankets. It's been a while since I've described myself as Christian, and that description hasn't held true for me for some time. Your whole paragraph containing examples of the harms of belief in a nonexistent god is a contradiction. If the god is nonexistent, the harms you describe originate from the man who dreamt them up. You erroneously put forth that, in the absence of a god, these harms wouldn't occur. They would - they are human creations, and as long as we have humans, we'll have these harms. In the absence of a god excuse another excuse will be used, but the war will still happen, the genocide will still happen, the mutilation will still happen, and the refusal to take medicine will still happen. The god being nonexistent, you can't blame the harm the human does on that god. You have no monopoly on truth. Your head is in the sand every bit as much as those Theists you target. You continue to believe that life will have meaning if you simply speak Truth, if you stop lying to yourself and others - yet you refuse to face the truth that at its very basis existence is an accident, devoid of meaning, destined to end in nothing. You still seek meaning in your existence just like Theists, you just seek a different meaning. Good luck on your quest, but you'll never find your answer until you stop lying to yourself about the very basis of your search.

zoogies, I think a healthy dose of pessimism is good for us right now. I think looking at the guys we have it's easy to get excited for what's to come. It's easy to get too excited, and that leads to unrealistic expectations, and that's when coaches catch more heat than they should, and the whole situation sours. I was just thinking the other day about how difficult it would be to face a D Line composed of our second string. You could line up Josh Williams, Terrance Moore, Thad Randle and Jason Ankrah and field a heck of a good D Line. With the secondary we're supposed to have, this would be a formidable unit. But those are the backups, and we're starting guys "better" than this - Allen, Steinkuhler, Crick and Stache. That's a unit deserving of a top five ranking, nationally, and could prove better than that come season's end. We have the guys available to pound an O Line all game long, and still be ready to pound like hell come the fourth quarter. They'll be rested and ready to go because of depth, and depending on how many three-and-outs we get this year, these guys could be fresh all season long. It's a scary thought.

You must remember that this is the same organization that employs Dennis Dodd. That alone ruins any credibility they might have.

Calm down. Read what I wrote again. I meant nothing by it. We're cool.

The Big 12 won't be around long enough to worry about grabbing other teams.

I have no idea what you're saying here. Show me where I've said this. Tilting at windmills again. Your giant is religion, so of course it's the most dangerous thing, and what you focus on. But reality doesn't support your personal angst. Reality says that humans conflict. You agree with this, so all you have to do is take that next step and let go of whatever personal angst you have against religion and see reality. See the windmill for what it really is. When you're ready to do that, you'll be amazed at how peaceful life can be. Congratulations. You've had a sh**ty life. Welcome to humanity. This doesn't, however, give a monopoly on suffering, nor make you any more an expert on it than anyone else. Where am I lying to anyone? I'm saying humans conflict, humans suffer, and whatever means they can find to assuage that suffering, who are you to tell them to stop? Belief in a nonexistent god doesn't harm someone. You telling them that there's no god, there's no security blanket, doesn't help in the least. It compounds their misery by taking away the one thing they hold on to. And the arrogance is that you'd do it thinking you're doing them a favor in the midst of their suffering. +1 internet tough guy points for you, I suppose. Your sh**ty life gives you license to sh#t on the next guy. You're not looking for truth, you're vindictive. Of course it isn't about use for you - if the thing you hate has a use, you minimize it. You have some personal axe to grind against religion and anyone or anything you perceive to be Theist-based stirs your anger. I show you how pointless your crusade is and you reply yeah, but religion is bad. Blah, blah, blah. It's bad, you're bad, I'm bad, humans are bad. Welcome to reality. Welcome to the improper use of a thing by a human. What an amazing discovery you've made.

This is why I compared this conversation to a discussion with SOCAL. To you there is no god. Therefore you must admit that these things you decry about religion are human-based. Being human-based, it is clear that were there no religion there would still be conflicts. Sure, 9/11's roots are in religion. The same cannot be said of WWI or WWII, Korea or Vietnam. You are so focused on religion that you fail to see the obvious - humans conflict. So there would be 3,000 people alive today and we wouldn't be fighting in Afghanistan, etc, etc. What solace does that give to the tens of millions who died in the other major conflicts of the last 100 years? What solace does that give to the tens of millions Stalin killed in his own backyard? It's just another side of the same coin - human conflict. You are also choosing to turn your eye from the tens of millions of people who receive food, clothing, shelter, asylum, health care and sundry other succoring actions from religious charities. If you're going to remove the bad religion has done you remove the good as well. Or you can, again, realize that charity is a human trait, not inherently religious, and see that charities would exist with or without religion. Either way, your aim is misplaced. Security blankets are for whomever needs them. Go do some missionary work in Africa and tell me those people running from rape and war don't need security blankets. What an arrogant statement.

So this is the windmill at which you choose to tilt, and come hell or high water you'll do your darnedest to eliminate religion in the world. How utterly wasteful, when you already know that in the absence of that religion a different excuse for all the wrongs you list will crop up. And then you'll tilt at that windmill, all the while not realizing (or being too afraid to face) that the bogeyman is inside you already, inside me, inside everyone, and you're never ever going to get rid of it until you get rid of humans. All your philosophizing boils down to a simple axe to grind with Christianity. That's why these conversations with you are as pointless as discussing government with SOCAL. To him government is a monopoly on coercion and violence. To you, religion is a great evil man inflicts on himself. Doesn't matter which side the coin falls on, it's a pointless argument.

Suggestions for what to eat? That depends on what kind of pizza you like, and they have about a dozen varieties. "The Local" is standard American pizza fare. You can also make your own, so it's as you like. They don't take cards for purchases under $5, so if you're just going for a slice and a soda, you'd better have cash. If you get the combo with a salad just be aware that the salad they serve is slightly better than the salad you would expect to get in a 1980's era Eastern European gulag. But the pizza is swell. Be sure to give them a fake, funny name when you order - they like reading them off over the intercom when your slice is done. But don't use D'Artagnan - they have trouble with D'Artagnan. When you pick up your slice, be sure to ask for parmesan cheese. They shred it fresh and it's free.

This, apparently, is a hard thing for many people to wrap their brains around. The NFL is a business. The NCAA is becoming more business-like every day.

Irrelevant to whom? Aren't you relevant to yourself, your friends and family? This entire self-debasing monologue might be correct in an objective sense but the objective isn't what we concern ourselves with in our lives for the most part. The fact is humanity is a social species and even if your work doesn't stick out during your lifetime, the lives you touch and the things you do are a part of a causal chain that will ring out throughout eternity. The same is true for you as it is for a prominent person like Barack Obama. Right now you are affecting me by having this conversation. I'm thinking, interacting. I'm not doing something else I might be doing if we weren't having this conversation. This will set in motion a chain of events I can't foresee, but on a more macro scale delivering milk, keeping our society running, could very well be the actions that allows us collectively to find a way to live forever, or come to an understanding of the universe, or at least enjoy ourselves a little while longer. You should be concerned with the objective. If you're not, you're wasting your time. Everything you say, think and do is pointless. Your joys, your fears, your loves, your losses, whatever, is without merit or moment. It means nothing, aside from your immediate existence, and frankly, nobody but you cares. Your grandiose "causal chain" makes a nice story, but bottom line, nothing anyone does amounts to anything. Live forever? The universe won't live forever, my friend. And even if you did live forever, what would you do with forever? How does it benefit you to live forever? Knowledge is finite, and at some point you'll know everything, you'll have done everything, and you'll have thought of everything. Then what? This is something you see as beneficial? I see this as hell. What a waste of existence. Next to no difference between people? Really? No two lives are ever the same. No two stories are ever the same. No two pieces of music are ever the same. Even if someone could live a life fundamentally different (whatever that means) from someone else, what would this life look like, and why would it be desirable? Again, we're a social species. We derive a good share of our experience of happiness from the collective, from commonality. It's in our genes and the nurturing communities most of us grow up in. Words like 'irrelevant' or 'no difference' are both wrong and unimportant to the discussion. No, those words are entirely the discussion. You want life to have meaning, but it doesn't. It's an accident - complex carbons formed more complex molecules, growing ever more complex, until it evolved into life. That life evolved further, and then there was us. The rest is just details. Your life has meaning to you, but not to me. Not to the guy down the street. Just last week we had a member of our board die. We all felt saddened, but has your life changed because of his death? How many tears did you shed? How much sleep did you lose because of his death? He was a father, a husband and (apparently) a good guy. But you didn't mourn him, and his passing doesn't affect you in any meaningful way. Tell me again how relevant he was to you, when you haven't thought about him until I brought him up at the beginning of this paragraph? The difference will be that I employed rationality, not faith, as a way of experiencing the world. Unlike faith, which can't discover, can't grow, can't change, or learn, or progress, science and reason can. They can fundamentally alter the way human beings experience life: the duration of it through medicine, the comfort of it through technology, the wonder of it through science, the beauty of it through art and literature. What has religion or believing in the unsupported ever done for us that we couldn't do for ourselves? It hasn't made us happy. It hasn't made us moral. It hasn't taught us anything we couldn't have discovered on our own. Neither does Linus' blanket, but that's not the point of Linus' blanket. You seem to think that for religion to be useful it must meet all ends, be all things to all people. To use Mr. Harris' line again, Where else in our discourse as human beings is that sort of thing acceptable? To what other thing do we apply such a litmus test?