DUCT TAPE, PLASTIC WRAP AND FEAR

[HoDo-Tech70]

...just to let you know, my whole office is laughing at that line.

Well, thanks to your office, I guess.

I can tell that spinoza is educated. In addition to his claim that he is a graduate of the University of Illinois, he is a very good speller. I have always noticed good spelling ever since I won the second grade spelling bee by correctly spelling the word "hippopotamus". This was THE highlight of my academic life so I feel a "kinship" to winners of the national spelling bee and to good spellers like spinoza.

You know the saying "it is never too late to teach an old DAWG a new trick". In friendly advice to a fellow good speller, I was just trying to help spinoza out by encouraging him to get just a little bit more education about computers. spinoza, although college educated, states he does not know how to "copy and paste" and is not familiar with Google. Amazingly he found and posts extensive political messages on a website designed primarily to discuss athletics of a great university with which he claims to have no affiliation.

Ok, Ok, I know that the real saying is "you CAN'T teach an old dog new tricks" but this old DAWG has learned a few new tricks. If spinoza became a DAWG fan he too might learn some new tricks. Basketball is a great way to become a DAWG fan. Refer to previous posts about how to log on the internet to watch the DAWGS. Just kidding you, spinoza, but I've been trying for years to get others hooked on basketball. I thought I would give it a try to get you hooked.

It is less than one hour until Dave Nitz starts the radio pregame show. Someone may want to share with spinoza how to log on to the radio feed in addition to the internet feed. The DAWGS tip it off against the NMSU Aggies at 8 p.m. CT so I've got to start getting my stats together. This old DAWG is off Paw-Litics for now. I'm heading back to my favorite section, Dunkin' DAWGS basketball.

GO DAWGS!! Beat the Aggies!!

[TYLERTECHSAS]

I seldom post on any board other than men’s basketball. However, I enjoy reading the Bulldawg Paw-Litics board. This thread has been my favorite Paw-Litics thread to date. I’m not sure that spinoza isn’t just pulling our leg*. However, for the purpose of this post, I will assume that he is as he says he is.

The thread starter posted by Spinoza about the attitude of FEAR was only barely discussed. Instead the thread seems to be centered on whether or not a ‘liberal’ who has no ties to our beloved university is allowed to discuss politics on this board. In regards to that issue, I have no objection if spinoza posts his thoughts on this board. After all, this is America - you know, free speech and all that.

A message to spinoza:

Like others, I would prefer that you know something about LOUISIANA TECH if you are going to continue to post on this site. The vast majority of posters on this site have some connection to the university.

Here is the official university website - www.latech.edu. Click on it and learn more about our great university. For information about athletics at LOUISIANA TECH, you can click on this website – www.latechsports.com.

As Champion110 said, you can view our basketball teams in action via the internet by following the links on www.wacsports.com. We play men’s and women’s games tonight and both will be available to you if you have a broadband (high speed internet) connection. Follow the directions given you by Saltydawg.

Spinoza, you are obviously educated and you keep up with political events. IMO, your internet experience would be greatly enhanced if you took a class at a local school or college and learned some basic computer skills such as “copy and paste” and “Google”.

I think you can learn about Google by yourself. Google is a search engine. See this website for information about search engines http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine.

For fun and some mental exercise, go to www.google.com and type in the words spinoza and little george and see how many hits you get. Follow the links to see how many websites contain these words. You can find hits on Google for just about anything. Try “googling”** political message board and you will get hits for sites where you may find more willing debaters than those you have found on this site.

*pulling our leg explained- http://www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/pull+someone's+leg.html

**googling – using a search engine such as www.google.com.

Funny stuff HoDo!

[arkansasbob]

i have avoided posting on this thread until now, but i can't see how anyone can believe what this guy says. he has owned a computer for 5 years and pretends to be up on current events, yet he claims he has never heard of google or air america? i don't mind someone with no Tech ties posting on this forum, but he should at least represent himself honestly. he's probably a 25-year-old 7th-year-senior at u of i. he obviously owns a thesaurus, but i wouldn't say that his posts neccessarily show him to be well educated. they are unneccessarily wordy, and his usage is often wrong (though the latter, i suppose, could be a product of the alcohol).

the other problem i have is that he has not shown himself to be interested in debate. he actually makes a good point every now and again (amidst the nonsense). but when i try to debate the specific points worth attention, he ignores and starts another thread with the latest angry-lib talking point.

having said all that, i really don't care if he stays or goes. who knows, maybe he'll eventually learn the proper use of a debate forum. but until then, i will choose to ignore him.

[saltydawg]

...just to let you know, my whole office is laughing at that line.

sik-m, my view is that Spinoza is about 75 or 80 years old, what TT would call a "yellow-dog Democrat," and that while he has a very good education, computer skills are a lot more difficult for him as compared to a person who grew up with video games and computers.

[saltydawg]

America, Narcoleptic Pit Bull
Once the (tarnished) beacon of peace and democracy, now just another global flamethrower
- By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, February 24, 2006

I have never been in a grand melee. I have never been in a violent clash or in an angry mob scene or part of an anti-war protest that got completely out of hand and the police had to come in and throw tear gas and swing batons and drag screaming dreadlocked dudes away by their hair.

But I do remember my time on the childhood playground, the fights between boys (and even the scarier girls), where two or more of the single-digiters would, for reasons most likely having to do with the opposite sex or turf or licorice whips, decide to throw down and take to kicking and punching and squealing, and suddenly everyone would rush over and gather round for the mad entertainment, everyone cheering and stomping and some of the bystanders even starting fights themselves, and you could see their blood rise and their demons come out as their own innate sense of violence and rage steamed out their ears like fetid smoke.

It is, verily, the common analogy for our Bush-ravaged times. Violence, as we seem to forget in some sort of collective denial, begets violence. Intolerance breeds intolerance. And war begets war. It self-perpetuates, feeds on itself, sucking and teething on the blood and exploded limbs and the punctured hearts of the dead, growing in the soil of hate and ignorance and my-God-can-beat-up-your-God.

Go ahead, try it yourself. Launch a major war. Watch how the flies of death and rage and religious sanctimony swarm to your bloody hate pile in abject glee. Watch how every other war hawk/terrorist/dictator with a major bone to pick looks over at your nasty war and giggles like a Republican in a gun shop and jumps right in, how your enemies quickly join together in mutual recoil and take up arms in retaliation, how they all instigate or enflame their own battles in eager reflection of/deference to yours, as they feel that side of them that so desperately wants to find something, someone to hate, to beat down, to feel sanctimonious and righteous over, emerge like a pair of engorged horns from their head.

And then the real fun begins. Because then this latent hate turns back on us, right here at home. Then this dank feeling spreads like a disease, the culture shifts and coagulates and turns black to accommodate the new cancer, the taint seeps into the water supply, the collective flesh, the national mind-set. The national temper flares more easily, depression rates rise, self-medication becomes the national pastime. Laws become thick with paranoia and dread (the Patriot Act et al.), and everyone with any sense of history or spiritual love or pacifist leanings walks around looking like their dog just died.

Sound familiar? At this moment in American history, we are surrounded, infiltrated, soaked to the bone with warmongers and fear dealers and hate poppers. The GOP has been positively masterful in cultivating a culture of intolerance and disgust and Taliban-like fanaticism, instilling a brilliant kind of poisonous fear into middle 'Merka that equates gays with terrorists and terrorists with the Middle East and the Middle East with the Devil and the Devil with liberals and liberals with, well, gays. Isn't that clever?

As it goes with America, so it goes with the world. You want to know why there's vicious rioting and people dying across the world right now, from Iran to Pakistan, Libya to Nigeria, all in the name of a mediocre cartoon featuring Allah and a cute turban bomb? Why otherwise rational Muslims are protesting by the thousands from London to Cairo? Here's a hint: It has nothing to do with the cartoon. It has nothing to do with Muslims loathing Christianity, or even with the Islamic fundamentalists who teach their children to hate pretty much everyone (but especially America) from birth.

But it has a great deal to do with the world's foremost peace-keeping superpower becoming the world's foremost thug, turning into a self-righteous torture-happy God-monger and a grand perpetuator of war. It has much to do with the U.S.-led stoking of an already white-hot Middle East tinderbox via launching two brutal, unwinnable wars and fueling the fires of division and separation and rage. Once we were the great beacon of peace and diplomacy. But now the beacon has become bloody and malicious and hollow. It has become a brutal joke.

Are we to blame for all the eternal tension and raging religious hatreds in the Middle East? Of course not. Are we largely responsible for making them far, far worse than they were just five years ago by deciding, under Bush's pampered thumb, to become the planet's sanctimonious hell-bent Jesus-crazed bitch-slapper? Hell yes.

We are, right now, the biggest brute in the sandbox, taunting everyone to a fight and drawing the world more and more into our bilious screw-you, kill-'em-all attitude, even as we suffer cultural asthma and our national infrastructure crumbles and our hospitals fail and school systems collapse and our coffers are bled dry by the most corrupt and irresponsible federal administration in your lifetime.

In short, we make it more OK for the rest of the world to rage, despoil, hate. We set the tone. We're not merely tormenting unfriendly nations, we're actively messing with them, rigging their political systems and steamrolling their beliefs. We are, by way of toxic foreign policy and a mad rush to war and a leader who is about as world-wise and savvy as a trailer hitch, making the world a nastier place in which to live.

It's a far cry from even 10 years ago, when the nation was flush and the economy was healthy and the general feeling was buzzingly positive and every channel and radio station and news headline didn't feature frothing religious bonk-jobs screaming about exposed nipples and evil gays and the need for more media censorship. Do you remember how it felt then?

Oh sure, the GOP demonized Bill Clinton like no president in history. Funny thing was, their bank accounts were flush, too. The economic boom was on. The nation was at peace. There seemed to be far fewer dangerous, oppressive socioeconomic woes, militant media crackdowns, deflections, scandals, redirections, misprisions, outright lies. We enjoyed something resembling, dare I say, balance.

No more. Now, a complete reversal. Now, we are the world's unstable, drooling pit bull, lying and torturing and wiretapping our way to "victory." And no, our downturn is not the fault of Sept. 11. It is not the fault of terrorism. But it is almost directly a result of our reaction to terrorism, BushCo's leveraging of the most heartbreaking event in our recent history and turning it into a vile excuse to burn all bridges and turn our playground into a hostile war-thick free-for-all.

It is far from over. We have, by many accounts, helped set the stage for a perfect storm of perpetual war and even more explosive hate. But until this dark BushCo cloud begins to lift, much of the world will only look to us the way a battered wife looks at her violently alcoholic husband. And haven't we had just about enough of that?

[Spinoza]

This board has never ceased to amaze me......

I concluded my last post here with a presumed certainty that it would produce an avalanche of HONEST LTU sentiment against my ever darkening this site again with my often unconventional and at times seemingly irreverent thoughts.

You cannot imagine my surprise when only one of "the regulars" here gave me a resounding "thumbs down"...... While all the other alleged "conservatives" either offered vague at best replies (2)...... Or indicated an "olive branch" willingness to tolerate my liberal nonsense beyond the easily understood confines of any personal, political and philosophical preference.

ME THINKS...... That perhaps many of the seeming "conservatives" who dominate this board are a bit more politically "moderate" and philosophically introspective than some of their random posts appear to imply.

[Spinoza]

I seldom post on any board other than men’s basketball. However, I enjoy reading the Bulldawg Paw-Litics board. This thread has been my favorite Paw-Litics thread to date. I’m not sure that spinoza isn’t just pulling our leg*. However, for the purpose of this post, I will assume that he is as he says he is.

The thread starter posted by Spinoza about the attitude of FEAR was only barely discussed. Instead the thread seems to be centered on whether or not a ‘liberal’ who has no ties to our beloved university is allowed to discuss politics on this board. In regards to that issue, I have no objection if spinoza posts his thoughts on this board. After all, this is America - you know, free speech and all that.

A message to spinoza:

Like others, I would prefer that you know something about LOUISIANA TECH if you are going to continue to post on this site. The vast majority of posters on this site have some connection to the university.

Here is the official university website - www.latech.edu. Click on it and learn more about our great university. For information about athletics at LOUISIANA TECH, you can click on this website – www.latechsports.com.

As Champion110 said, you can view our basketball teams in action via the internet by following the links on www.wacsports.com. We play men’s and women’s games tonight and both will be available to you if you have a broadband (high speed internet) connection. Follow the directions given you by Saltydawg.

Spinoza, you are obviously educated and you keep up with political events. IMO, your internet experience would be greatly enhanced if you took a class at a local school or college and learned some basic computer skills such as “copy and paste” and “Google”.

I think you can learn about Google by yourself. Google is a search engine. See this website for information about search engines http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine.

For fun and some mental exercise, go to www.google.com and type in the words spinoza and little george and see how many hits you get. Follow the links to see how many websites contain these words. You can find hits on Google for just about anything. Try “googling”** political message board and you will get hits for sites where you may find more willing debaters than those you have found on this site.

*pulling our leg explained- http://www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/pull+someone's+leg.html

**googling – using a search engine such as www.google.com.

Thank you for your kindness and effort......

I tried www.google.com with "Spinoza and little george"...... After skimming through several hundred of the 563,000 pieces of data that it produced...... I gave up.

I then tried Spinoza/little george message boards...... With only 55,500 selections to choose from and found nothing with equal effort.

I then tried "political message boards key words spinoza and little george"...... This produced only 87 references but only 40 items listed. I checked them all and found no lead to the other Spinoza.

I would sincerely like to sneak up on the other Spinoza and play some possibly amusing word games with him...... But I seriously doubt that I'll ever find him without savvy computer assistance and Duckbillplatty (for some reason) is not inclined to point me in any direction. ANY IDEAS?

Anyway...... I thank you for your effort to assist me in moving directly from the 19th century into the 21st century...... And I shall keep trying (between cold cases of beer) to learn a bit more before I "meet my maker" with long list of serious questions.

BTW...... I now know that "google" is pretty much the same as typing in something in the horizontal white space next to "address" at the top of my computer screen.

I have yet to figure out, however, why there are always thousands to hundreds of thousands of references that have absolutely nothing to do with what I am trying to research.

Perhaps I am just a bull in a computer shop...... But I still find it easier in most instances and more productive to simply turn to my own bookshelves or my public library whenever I wish to research a particular subject.

But suspecting that I must be in error...... I shall keep trying!

[HoDo-Tech70]

So spinoza, how 'bout dem DAWGS!!!

www.latech.edu
www.latechsports.com

Did you follow the links and learn about our great university?

[arkansasbob]

This board has never ceased to amaze me......

I concluded my last post here with a presumed certainty that it would produce an avalanche of HONEST LTU sentiment against my ever darkening this site again with my often unconventional and at times seemingly irreverent thoughts.

You cannot imagine my surprise when only one of "the regulars" here gave me a resounding "thumbs down"...... While all the other alleged "conservatives" either offered vague at best replies (2)...... Or indicated an "olive branch" willingness to tolerate my liberal nonsense beyond the easily understood confines of any personal, political and philosophical preference.

ME THINKS...... That perhaps many of the seeming "conservatives" who dominate this board are a bit more politically "moderate" and philosophically introspective than some of their random posts appear to imply.

this post reveals a lot. apparently, spinny thinks someone must come close to agreeing with someone else in order to tolerate the other's opinion being shared. MEthinks, perhaps, this is because that is the way he feels about conservative opinion.

in america, we are garanteed freedom of speach. message boards are one of the many wonderful manafestations of that freedom. regardless of whatever steriotypes you have about "conservatives," we like freedom; and most of us would never try to suppress it.

as for philosophical introspection, i think i showed my fondness for it when i responded to your second post. i welcome intellectual debate and hope you will join in the debate at some point in a manner that shows at least some measure of respect for others on this board. until such a time, i will choose to ignore (i know i promised that earlier in this thread, but i mean it this time ).

[Spinoza]

You guys know that if he was posting from a conservative viewpoint, you would be fine with him staying.

I will make a different proposal. I say that Spinoza should watch a Tech basketball game from the WAC site and IF he is able to report back some information that proves he watched it, we should ask him to stay. He doesn't have to get "in depth", since he may not be a basketball fan, but he has to prove that he watched it.

Afterall, if he becomes a Tech fan, that is a GREAT thing! We may turn all that passion he has into sports.

Or there is always the other side of every University coin......

Last year the University of Illinois had a very successful basketball season. Despite my personal lack of interest in the ability of any individual to toss a ball through a hoop or outrun some other person by some hundreth of a second and so forth...... I know that this type of Illini passion greatly excited many of my fellow alumni.

But is it not a comment on our society that the TOP sports teams produced by our collective systems of higher education are RANKED and touted each week...... But nary a word of any academic achievement is ever routinely even mentioned by our fourth estate or lauded with anything approaching something close to equal enthusiasm by the general alumni of any university?

I'll bet my last bottle of cold beer that LTU has more than its share of academic accomplishments, significant awards and notable alumni who have done more than their part to make this planet more than an relatively insignificant orb in an immense universe.

If there is some avenue through which I could learn about this facet of LTU...... I'd be more than willing to do so.

Sadly...... The University of Illinois has not even a dirt path (that I know of) that leads in this direction.

[champion110]

Or there is always the other side of every University coin......

Last year the University of Illinois had a very successful basketball season. Despite my personal lack of interest in the ability of any individual to toss a ball through a hoop or outrun some other person by some hundreth of a second and so forth...... I know that this type of Illini passion greatly excited many of my fellow alumni.

But is it not a comment on our society that the TOP sports teams produced by our collective systems of higher education are RANKED and touted each week...... But nary a word of any academic achievement is ever routinely even mentioned by our fourth estate or lauded with anything approaching something close to equal enthusiasm by the general alumni of any university?

I'll bet my last bottle of cold beer that LTU has more than its share of academic accomplishments, significant awards and notable alumni who have done more than their part to make this planet more than an relatively insignificant orb in an immense universe.

If there is some avenue through which I could learn about this facet of LTU...... I'd be more than willing to do so.

Sadly...... The University of Illinois has not even a dirt path (that I know of) that leads in this direction.

Spinoza,
Just do a search on the Internet for "Nano Technology". Louisiana Tech is the leader in this new and exciting field.

We do talk about academics from time to time on here, but the original purpose of this particular message board is sports. The politics section of it is just a nice diversion for some of us.

Even though, I am considered a liberal on this board and am very proud of being a Democrat, I get along very well with the conservatives/fundamentalists on here. That is because we have a common passion about Tech.

I have enjoyed some of your posts, and I still contend that most are more upset that you fall on the other side of their political beliefs than the fact that you are not a Tech fan. HOWEVER, do a little research about Louisiana Tech and you will stand a better chance of your messages, at least, not being dismissed before being read. :icon_wink

[duckbillplatty]

ME THINKS...... That perhaps many of the seeming "conservatives" who dominate this board are a bit more politically "moderate" and philosophically introspective than some of their random posts appear to imply.

Political conservatism is not mutually exclusive to an interest in political debate.

This post is much less about you right now than when it started. This has turned into a debate on whether or not a person with no affiliation to Louisiana Tech should be allowed to post here. Specifically if that lack of affiliation can expose a flamer*.

* Not the homosexual kind, but someone who comes onto a messageboard and acts like a Spinoza. For more information see here: http://www.amasci.com/weird/flamer.html

[Spinoza]

this post reveals a lot. apparently, spinny thinks someone must come close to agreeing with someone else in order to tolerate the other's opinion being shared. MEthinks, perhaps, this is because that is the way he feels about conservative opinion.

in america, we are garanteed freedom of speach. message boards are one of the many wonderful manafestations of that freedom. regardless of whatever steriotypes you have about "conservatives," we like freedom; and most of us would never try to suppress it.

as for philosophical introspection, i think i showed my fondness for it when i responded to your second post. i welcome intellectual debate and hope you will join in the debate at some point in a manner that shows at least some measure of respect for others on this board. until such a time, i will choose to ignore (i know i promised that earlier in this thread, but i mean it this time ).

My word to you as one gentleman to another gentleman!

The next time you start a new thread...... I promise you that I shall post a reply that directly addresses whatever issue you opt to discuss...... To the best of my ability.

And if I have no knowledge or opinion regarding your selected subject...... I shall so say and await the next opportunity to engage in an honest exchange of thought..

Fair enough?

I am more than willing to try to begin anew and see where any such effort leads.

[Spinoza]

What I hope will be my last post on this thread......

Is a direct and very simple appeal to Duckbillplatty.

Would you PLEASE tell me how to connect to the message board where the Spinoza (whom you have referred to here) posted the messages that you cited on this thread.

While I realize that you have no known reason to be even remotely fond of me on any personal level...... And while I clearly understand that you owe me absolutely nothing......

I fail to see how such a small effort on your part could harm you in any way or inconvience you for more than a casual keyboard moment.

I truly would appeciate having this information...... And on a possible "bright side" for many of the regulars here who share something akin to what appears to be your opinion regarding my seeming intrusion into this forum...... Please consider the reality that I have neither the time, the ability nor the inclination (as yet) to post my liberal drivel in more than one milieu at a time.

If this other message board that you have found offers even some modicum of honest debate...... And has no particular Alma Mater affiliation......

This board could be rid of me in an instant with nary a tiny first amendment qualm that might ever find reflection in any LTU shaving mirror.

[arkansasbob]

My word to you as one gentleman to another gentleman!

The next time you start a new thread...... I promise you that I shall post a reply that directly addresses whatever issue you opt to discuss...... To the best of my ability.

And if I have no knowledge or opinion regarding your selected subject...... I shall so say and await the next opportunity to engage in an honest exchange of thought..

Fair enough?

I am more than willing to try to begin anew and see where any such effort leads.

i appreciate the offer. i don't start many threads, but i do weigh in on the debate in other threads quite a bit. my point was that on more than one occasion, i have replied specifically to arguments you have made. rather than debate, or back up your position with facts and logic, you chose to start a new thread with your newest set of angry-left talking points. so i will abstain in the future from adressing your commentary because there is obviously no point.