Winnbrad wrote:

I’d like for them to sign Wisniewski. Mid 20’s, great pass blocker, and he shouldn’t cost a fortune. It’d be nice to have a good center.

Agreed.

But it would be really great if they could sign both Wisniewski and Blalock.

And Barksdale.

Is there enough cap room remaining to sign those three?

Wait, and Britt?

Those four then.

Get those four signed and I will personally guarantee a playoff berth.

• This reply was modified 10 years, 1 month ago by nittany ram.

Zooey wrote:

A few of us were talking about Thomas 2 or 3 weeks ago. I think he’s been souring on the Rams for a while. He can’t talk to Kroenke, and he’s not liking the stadium/LA/move stuff, and he posted the day before Bradford’s trade that he had a source he trusted inside the building tell him there was nothing going on with Foles.

He isn’t happy.

JT’s emotional slant has been evident in his writing ever since the ‘moving to LA’ rumors became more than rumors.

He’s no Bernie but it’s getting to the point where you can tell when he is feeling slighted or has a personal stake in a subject.

zn wrote:

I say, look again.

The Eagles have one of the 2-3 best OLs in the league, and their sack percentage is low.

If you watch the plays again, it’s not that protection breaks down, it’s that Foles holds the ball. He takes too long to get plays off and has a slowish release on top of it.

Well, I’m not saying you’re wrong. I did see him hold the ball on some plays but it’s hard to know why he was holding the ball. Maybe no one was open so he was trying to extend the play. Watch the highlites against the Vikings again though. He did not get good protection in that game but he was able to feel the pressure and buy time with his legs. I did see him throw off his back foot which I didn’t like.

zn wrote:

wv wrote:
Foles isn’t a pressure quarterback

That’s my worry.

Best case – Foles overcomes his issues and develops into a consistent, solid to good QB.

Worst case – he’s a temporary place holder for the QB they draft this spring.

wv wrote:

There’s just somethin about Bradford
they didnt like.

I have only seen Foles stats. I’m
curious what kind of “leader” he is.
Cause i got a feeling the Rams
might want a different type of leader.
Just wild speculation of course.

Sam Bradford, an Eagle. Wow.

w
v

Yeah, I dunno. I can’t speak to whether Foles is a leader. The Eagles didn’t want him though. Sam certainly can run a spread offense…

I can see trading Bradford if you no longer think he’s your guy, but settling for Foles makes me gag. And why did it take Snisher so long to figure out Bradford wasn’t their guy? If they had figured that out a year ago or sooner they could have had better options for a replacement.

• This reply was modified 10 years, 1 month ago by nittany ram.
• This reply was modified 10 years, 1 month ago by zn.

So the Seahawks just improved their Superbowl-caliber team by adding Jimmy Graham.

Meanwhile, the always hapless Rams just traded their injured but talented QB for another injured QB with less upside.

Ok, I think a pattern is starting to materialize.

bnw wrote:

Weird thing is Russel Wilson probably does better when he is hurried.

Not according to PFF…
https://www.profootballfocus.com/blog/2014/12/27/seahawks-russell-under-pressure/

And women don’t buy the value of hurries especially if I’ve showered.

I couldn’t find any stats on that.

PA Ram wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>wv wrote:</div>
I couldn’t care less about that kind of thing myself.

Cause to me, the CIA “itself” is a murderous, secret, lowdown,
evil, monstrous organization-from-hell. So, i start
from ‘that’ premise…so, to me, every chief of the CIA
has been a criminal. I could go on…

Have a nice day

w
v
“Our present economic, social, and international agreements are based,
in large measure, upon organized lovelessness.”
Aldous Huxley

I’m not sure what that has to do with it but okay. To me, I find it unjust. They want to hang Snowden to the cross. Petraeus walks. That bothers me. I care about it.

But can I do anything about it?

No.

Yeah, that’s what immediately came to mind – Patraeus vs Snowden.

wv wrote:

@nwagoner: … Blalock also has a history of playing and playing well under the guidance of Rams offensive line coach Paul Boudreau. I’d tend to think the Rams will look for a younger option to fill their need at guard, but if they decide that an older veteran might serve as a solid placeholder, a guy like Blalock would make a lot of sense…
============================

Well as I’ve droned on and on about,
I think they will go overboard on the OLine.
I bet they stock up on it more than ever before.
Cause the entire season depends on it, and this
aint year One, or year Two, or year Three.
They know they have to win.

They onliest way they dont go nutz
on Veteran OLinemen and Draftees,
is if they really think they already
have some studs among the group of ‘unknowns’
that they have. But i am skeptical
about that group.

If I was the Rams GM Blalock would already be signed.

zn wrote:

And it’s good. The first section is about corn, and demystifies a lot of things. For example, those seeds that were developed to allow high yields of corn were (1) patented, and (2) designed so the corn that grows from them cannot produce viable seeds capable of growth. They also require massive amounts of fertilizer, which washes down the Mississippi and produces a huge dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. Plus of course, being so cheap (because it’s subsidized), corn gets fed to mass-produced cattle, which can’t digest corn properly…and the result is, corn-fed cattle is constantly on anti-biotics.

It’s all one big mess.

Sounds like an interesting book. I may have to read it. I could not find anything that supports the idea that GMO corn requires more fertilizer than any other corn, but I have no doubt that excessive amounts of fertilizer is being used. A lot less fertilizer would be required if crops were rotated but because corn is so profitable, risk free and subsidized, crop rotations do not happen. But this isn’t a GMO thing, this is a ‘disregard what’s best for the environment to increase profits thing’.

Keep in mind through all of this I am no fan of Monsanto or of the huge agribusiness corporations. I have mixed feelings about being able to patent these crops. Afterall, Monsanto didn’t invent the genes they are inserting into these crops’ genomes. They were around long before Monsanto existed. They are just stealing them from existing organisms. However, the processes involved in identifying the gene, isolating it, figuring out the proper place to put it, inserting it, etc. and then doing all the testing to make sure it’s safe and doing what you want it to do must be time-consuming and expensive. And the result is a variety of corn that is unique. In that sense I can understand them being allowed to patent the corn, but like I said, I have mixed feelings about it.

As far as the nongerminating seeds go, Monsanto placed a terminator gene in their GMOs. Now, they may have done this in response to the concern that GMO crops could lead to a lack of genetic diversity because they could spread to neighboring non-GMO fields. This makes the GMO pollen nonviable and it won’t produce a seed. In reality that just may be a convenient maneuver to force farmers to buy seeds every year but farmers have had to buy seeds every year for hybrids since they came on the scene in the early 20th century so it’s nothing new for them.

But, my main point in this thread that there is nothing inherently evil about GMOs although the companies that control them may follow the same ‘profits above everything’ mantra that all other major corporations follow. But GMOs themselves are a good thing and the available data would back that up.

bnw wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>nittany ram wrote:</div>
The true path is unknown to you?

Are you not of the body?

If the body is a slavish devotion to swirls masquerading as horns on a helmet then no. In fact I am sworn to cleanse the helmet born of the graffiti insult of an obviously bored Rams player wanting a career in fashion design. Down with the body.

You will be absorbed.

zn wrote:

Nittany, have you read The Omnivore’s Dilemma?

No I haven’t. It was written by Pollan, right?

A few thoughts…

Well I’m all for having the debate. Let’s have it. The vaccination debate is finally happening and perhaps it’s way past time that it happens for GMOs.

About monocultures. This method of farming existed long before GMOs came on the scene. It’s driven by economics. In places like Iowa corn is typically planted because it produces a higher yield with a smaller risk than other crops. So it’s planted over and over again with little crop rotation. But this didn’t happen as a result of GMOs. It was already happening and GMO corn was just thrown into the mix.

My take away from that video is that Pollan seems like a thoughtful and reasonable guy but he still doesn’t understand the science. Granted he says he isn’t convinced that GMOs represent a health hazard but he also doesn’t seem to see the benefits. He dismisses the environmental benefits out of hand. To me that’s not something to be glossed over. It’s estimated that there will be 10 billion people on this planet by 2050. We need a way to drastically improve crop yields if we are to save any of the remaining wild areas on the earth, or risk it being all plowed under. Improved farming methods can only take you so far. At some point you need to improve the crop itself. Put it this way, if GMOs are harmful then we better figure out a way to make them not so because our future depends on them.

BTW, my interest in GMOs is limited and has little to do with food production anyway. It has more to do with disease eradicaton and saving wild species. See examples of this in the links below…

http://scienceblogs.com/erv/2014/12/20/gmo-trees-saving-the-american-chestnut-tree/

http://scienceblogs.com/erv/2014/12/09/gmo-hiv-still-helping-kids/

wv wrote:

But I’ll say this — I would put the ‘burden of proof’ on
the GMO Corporations to PROVE its safe. I would
not put the burden on the consumers.

True. And as the article says, GMO foods are the most highly tested food there is.

I’d also make the GMO Corps stop fighting honest,
open and accurate Labeling of their products.
Why are they fighting that? Let consumers have
a choice and decide for themselves.

Here’s my problem with that. Then all food has to be labled GMO. That’s even true for so-called organic food because it’s all been genetically modified. It’s been modified through artificial selection. And the unavoidable byproduct of life is genetic modification. It’s going to happen whether it occurs naturally or artificially. Someone might say, “but that isn’t the same” but any geneticist will tell you that “yes indeed, it is the same”.

Personally, like i say, I doubt if there is a problem
with most GMO food. But i do think, sooner or later
there will be a problem. Just a guess though.

Well, I don’t think there will be but that’s why all this stuff is tested so thoroughly.

One of the things i’d discuss with that Pro-GMO-writer
is — he makes it seem like this is a debate about “science”.
But there is no “pure food science,”
there’s only science-mixed-with-mega-Corporations.
And the Corporations have a long record
of lying about…um….everything.

True, but the safety of GMO foods has been verified by plenty of independent laboratories as well.

• This reply was modified 10 years, 2 months ago by nittany ram.