SL Xpress

My guess from context is this is a question posed to classes on a regular basis by aforementioned professor Hamilton when students debated the merits of various legal positions.

One of the great joys in life I receive is knowing Texas is paid money for every piece of official merchandise with an upside down Horns logo sold to an OU or A&M fan. I don't want to live in a world where that goes away.

While I agree, he wasn't a lone wolf. Plenty of shades of Robert McNamara in that one, IMO. I hate the way the US has handled Ukraine the whole way through, for the most part. A lot of empty promises and inferences of support. A lot of half assedness to prevent escalation. But always my biggest thought is however maddening the approach has been, the alternative would have been worse. And now the alternative is here. I feel like there was a golden opportunity to throw off a terrible yoke on Ukrainian society/culture that's loomed over them for hundreds of years, and now it feels like the window is closing. For me it's like watching Sauron win.

Thank you for the mention. I have a tough time with Terry as our head coach. He's recruiting well enough. I'll give him that. I follow the team, but it's tough for me to be excited about the program, and I don't really like it when I'm posting as a Debbie Downer all the time. I'm with you on Wulaw Horn and longhornmatt. I've disappeared for long stretches before. Hopefully longhornmatt makes a return appearance. I'm heading to Eugene this weekend to watch the Oregon Ducks men's basketball team take on Montana. I didn't even know they were playing. I arranged the trip to see my niece around the Nebraska Oregon volleyball game and the Maryland football game on Saturday and she tells me yesterday she can get us in for free (she interns with the athletic department while she plays lacrosse and earns her master's), so I said "why not?"

Well, mass production of almost anything. We don't make things, relatively speaking. It's an existential problem over the long term regarding our security, both militarily and economic. We don't even have the supply chain infrastructure to do so in many instances.

A mnemonic trick I've used to help remember people's names when first being introduced to them is asking them to spell it. Especially if it's a name that has multiple common spellings. Bob is a tough one, for example. But Shawn/Sean, Kathy/Cathy, etc. are good ones. It's amazing how important the spelling of one's name can be to people, especially when it has multiple spellings. The bad side of it is if you have some kind of extended conversation about the spelling of their name, and then 10 minutes later you still can't remember it. I also will often have extended conversations about people's names. Not always, but asking about their name's origins, if they know of any. Also, if they have a name with multiple common spellings, after they tell me which way their name is spelled, I regularly respond with, "the way it's supposed to be spelled."

I wrote out a long reply, but it all segues away from the original post in ways I'm not comfortable with. I'll just say I probably don't think there have been as many political misadventures as you do. The problem is we're an isolationist country at heart who found itself the most powerful nation on earth, run by elites who saw US intervention as important and necessary with a general population that doesn't really care about what happens in Canada and Mexico, much less anything farther away. The general voters didn't even really want to get directly involved in World War II until after Pearl Harbor. There are also a lot of fair criticisms of this country, just like there is with any organization that's extremely powerful. Being powerful means making mistakes, because there are things you can do that others can't, and there are things you choose not to do that you could have. That's not the issue with the powerless. But if a society lacks conviction, it becomes hard to do difficult things, regardless of whether it should or shouldn't be done. Part of what creates that conviction is a pride of identity. Currently it's challenging to teach about having a pride of identity, because there's an important focus on what we should not be proud of. It can be difficult for people to hold both concepts simultaneously. In any case, I love the original post. It's an important battle to talk about. Richard Pryor had a segment in his standup routine in the 70s (I tried to find it on youtube but couldn't) where he talked about the reason why Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor is they were only acquainted with laid back west coast Californian Americans. They didn't know about the Deep South Americans. He didn't mean it as a completely serious comment, and I'm not quoting it as one. I did think it was funny, even when as often was the case with Pryor there were multiple meanings behind it.

At some point it became culturally important to be seen as critical of America's past. I do believe if we whitewash and glorify everything, we can learn the wrong lessons. But when the heroism and bravery of those who came before us is allowed to be diminished and unacknowledged, we lose a sense of pride of who we are and where we came from. There's a healthy spectrum there somewhere. In my opinion as a society we've leaned way too far to the critical side of things. At least from my perspective.

I'm just not sure what the point of the democracy is if it ceases to exist. On some level it feels like actual survival should be an important metric. But maybe that's just me? I think the opposite argument can be made, too, btw. What's the point of surviving if it's some kind of dystopian serfdom. Maybe there's some kind of spectrum a society could exist on? Don't know where on the spectrum would be ideal, though. BTW, we all have inner primordial brain feedback mechanisms. I hesitate to call them ape brain because we didn't actually evolve from apes, but we all have a common ancestor.

You say that like it's a bad thing. I've seen us win plenty of games over the years we didn't deserve to win. I'm perfectly fine with every single one of them. It didn't happen here, but I would have been perfectly fine with it if it did.

You're right. I have missed your point. It would require some level of explanation from you to understand it. I'd be glad to read and respond if you care to make the effort to further explain yourself.

I feel like there's a natural conflict of being a completely open society and our national security. I'm not quite sure how we actually exist as a country over a long enough period of time without some kind of emphasis on our national security. I'm also not sure how we exist as a completely open society while also creating organizations dedicated to our national security. The two seem incongruent. Since I think humans at our core are genocidal maniacs, and whatever freedoms we experience as a collective society aren't worth much if we're wiped from the planet, I probably lean on the national security side a little more than someone with a different mindset. I also find the concept that every taxpayer/law abiding citizen has a right to all the knowledge available to the people responsible for our core elements of national security extremely naive. But I do acknowledge there's a natural tension. If someone is all in that we should be a completely open society, then it makes sense they'd have a problem with any secrets being kept. I don't agree with it, but it has a certain internal logic.

Texas has to win out and hope other teams lose some they shouldn't. The Big 12 might be a better conference in the top half than the SEC this year. Not a lot of tests in the rest of the schedule. Kentucky and Florida are both a little down. I like the potential of this conference long term. Last year it was really good, but there was a lot of drop off. I'm trying to compare how I feel about this team versus last year's squad at this time. I guess I'm just going to have to hope for the best and they turn on the jets in the post season after the sweet 16. The personnel is there. Backcourt passing and defense is a little suspect compared to the last year. Barnes really helped solidify things in the latter half of the season after she got her sea legs as a DS as opposed to the career libero she was coming in. My expectations for Skinner and Rutherford were too high entering the season. But Skinner in particular can turn it on at any point. I love Kahahawai's emergence. Singletary looks like another plug and play spectacular middle for MBU. The serving overall looks really good. l don't know. Lots of good teams out there. Texas just doesn't seem to be playing as well as some of the top teams, but again, I feel like I would have said that last year, and those last 3 postseason matches ended up being dominant victories.

I like being on this side of a late run. Much better. From 20-18 Georgia to a 25-20 set win. I'll take it.

I hope his wife doesn't divorce him over this.