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nittany ramModeratorNo reason to get on a ledge if the Rams don’t hire Shanahan…Plenty of good candidates out there..McVay is quickly rising on my wish list….Patricia has risen also…and I always remind myself it’s not only about the HC it’s about his staff.
Agreed. Patricia is now on my radar because he’s smart (aeronautical engineer), he pays attention to detail and he’s creative defensively sorta like Williams. Makes me think he could make use of a guy like Barron who isn’t a physical match for his position. If so, the Rams defense could sort of pick up where it left off instead of starting over.
I’m not a Belichick fan but he is one of the finest defensive minds in the history of the game and the guy knows how to coach. Gotta’ believe a smart guy like Patricia learned something from him.
Hire Turner as the OC and look out…here come the Rams… 😉
nittany ramModeratorDear Zooey,
Thanks for your continued support. We couldn’t do it without ya, Brah.
Love,
Pete
nittany ramModeratorYeah, I’ve been thinking about how lucky we are the Rams don’t have to go on the road this year in the playoffs.
I see your jubilation over Seattle’s playoff victory yesterday hasn’t tempered your sarcasm.
Nice.
nittany ramModeratorThere is no limit to what this Rams organization can screw up is there?
There are many reasons to curse the Rams organization but I think it’s a pretty safe bet that they aren’t responsible for the weather. 😉
nittany ramModeratorAnother article about Devos and the Christian Right:
Excerpt (There are several links within the article as well):
Education is arguably the most important front in the battle to bring the Kingdom of God to bear on contemporary culture. For the religious right, this means promoting alternatives to public schools including Christian schools, charter schools, and home schooling, with the longstanding goal of replacing the public education system with private Christian education. I wrote about the efforts back in a 2012 essay here on RD but those efforts date as far back as the 1960s and the work of R.J. Rushdoony.
Framed as “school choice,” vouchers, charter schools, and tuition tax credit plans serve this goal by shifting public funds toward religious schools with little to no accountability to the public. In Building God’s Kingdom: Inside the World of Christian Reconstruction I wrote about one such school in Florida that teaches creationism, dominionism, women’s submission, and so forth, with public money.
Opposition to public education for the religious right is rooted in a worldview in which education is solely the responsibility of families (and explicitly not the civil government), and in which there are no religiously neutral spheres of influence. There is no secular sphere that can function as a neutral space; only the Kingdom of God, and “the world” to be influenced by Christians for the Kingdom. (For our religion nerds this is Van Til and Kuyper, key architects of the Reformed tradition from which DeVos comes.) These views were popularized in the work of Rushdoony and the Christian Reconstructionists and became dominant in the religious right, which is not to say that everyone who holds them is a Christian Reconstructionist.
Religions Dispatches is typically very good when it comes to the intersection of public policy and religion. Very good reporting.
That’s a good article, Billy.
I don’t like the idea of vouchers for religious education. I don’t care for any voucher system, religious or not. In the 60s vouchers were used in the south to keep black kids from getting a good education. Public schools were shut down and the vouchers allowed access only to private segregated schools.
Paint it anyway you want but vouchers are exclusionary. If we want to improve the education of our students it has to be with everyone in mind. Not a select few. We have to improve public schools. A voucher system would just perpetuate the widening gap between the rich and the poor.
nittany ramModeratorHey, maybe my bet is safe!
I’m liking this Cook kid.
Sorry man but Cook had an 8.8 rating in the 1st half…I’ll be surprised if he isn’t benched for the 2nd half.
Looks like he has some skills that translate, but he’s a rookie and as we know those types of things happen to rooks
Raiders offense looking more and more like the Rams offense as the game progresses. Ahhh, rookie QBs. 😉
I’m glad Boras won’t be back but he wasn’t given a full toolbox when he was handed this fixer-upper project that is the Rams offense.
nittany ramModeratorThis isn’t about the pledge of allegiance or the Lord’s Prayer (although I’m opposed to students being asked to recite either in a public school…).
This is what it’s about…
Ms. DeVos is a chip off the old block. At a 2001 gathering of conservative Christian philanthropists, she singled out education reform as a way to “advance God’s kingdom.”
She wants to use education to forward the religious right’s agenda.
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This reply was modified 9 years, 2 months ago by
nittany ram.
nittany ramModeratorShove down their throat? Like the 10 commandments? Or a Christmas Party? Oh the horror!
No. Like teaching creationism in science class.
I’m sure that if your kid’s school was teaching that Christianity was wrong and was immersing them in Islam, you’d be fine with it.
Yeah, this is what I want my kid to learn…
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This reply was modified 9 years, 2 months ago by nittany ram.
nittany ramModeratorIf Shanahan goes to Denver, I’ll be depressed. There is no one that is as good as him out there to hire in my mind. McBVey I feel needs another couple of years. I would not trade picks for Sean Payton. If we lose out on the Shanahans, then it is a bad start for the new year for our Rams, meaning, real coaches don’t want to coach here. Jeff Fisher screwed the Rams organization for a long time.
Why would you say real coaches don’t want to coach the Rams? Kroenke has deep pockets and is willing to spend a lot of scrilla on the head coach and his staff. He’s also known to be patient (some would say too patient) with his head coach. Throw in a fairly talented roster, a new stadium and the LA climate and I’d say the Rams job is a pretty attractive position.
nittany ramModeratorIt’s terrible when a educational system tries to shove its religious beliefs down my kid’s throat. Secular education is not why American schools may be failing. The countries with the highest achieving students get a secular education too.
nittany ramModerator<span class=”d4pbbc-font-color” style=”color: blue”>Cook is starting and I liked Cook. btw, stupid electricity was off last night. I just had to say that.</span>
If I recall, what hurt Cook in the draft was his attitude, not his ability.
nittany ramModeratorGetting a 3 to 5 inch snowfall here in Connecticut today. Nice, light, fluffy snow (it is currently 20 Deg F and will stay well below freezing all day).
Don’t get me wrong; I don’t like shoveling it or driving in it, but it truly defines winter for me as it blankets the house and yard. And we can just stay in and enjoy it all weekend.
Days like today are a big reason why I’ll never leave the New England. I may move a bit farther north (VT, western MA or ME), but, for many reasons, New England will always be home.
I think southern NE has been getting more snow than northern NE the last few years. I live in Bennington, VT and the big storms have missed us for the most part. They’ve been tracking to the south and east of us. A year or so ago my friend who lives outside of Boston had 65″ of snow in his front yard at one point while I only had about 5″ in mine. The big storm from last week that was supposed to dump 12″ of snow here only left about 3″ and that melted away within a day or so. Right now there is an inch of snow from a light shower two nights ago and that’s about it.
nittany ramModeratorI think I would prefer to keep him and the rest of the defensive coaches.
January 7, 2017 at 12:28 pm in reply to: informal poll–do you think KD/LS & SK can hire the right coach #62546nittany ramModeratorI wonder if the right coach is available to hire.
nittany ramModeratori like wade phillips as the new dc.
But he’s a 3/4 guy. Rams really don’t have 3/4 personnel.
I wonder what will happen with Barron. At his size can he play LB in another DC’s system? Also the Rams safeties aren’t cover guys and may not fit another DC’s scheme. I’m afraid a new DC could mean a rebuild for the defense.
nittany ramModeratorThey can have him.
January 6, 2017 at 7:05 pm in reply to: When can we conclude that dark matter does not exist? #62523nittany ramModeratorUsing the same logic evident here, I have a question:
Can we conclude that God does not exist?
In short? No. Proving a negative can be problematic. If I say:”There are no elephants in my backyard” that would be easy enough to confirm, but if I say:”There are no fleas in my backyard” that becomes nearly impossible to prove and that’s sorta the thing we’re dealing with when we say there is no God. I can only prove there are no fleas by painstakingly examining every square inch of my yard. As I cover more and more ground without finding a flea then it becomes more and more likely that a flea isn’t present. But there will always be a place for the flea to hide so I will likely never be able to say with ABSOLUTE certainty that no flea exists. The same is true for God. As science answers more and more questions the likelihood of God may become less and less but it’s a big universe and given how God is defined, it will always be possible for ‘him’ to hide from our sight.
On the other hand there’s no way to prove God exists and from a scientific standpoint there’s no evidence to suggest ‘he’ does.
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Appreciate the response, Nittany.
But in my view, the complexity of everything observable (or not even detectable, like the dark matter and dark energy you started this thread with) just seems to point to a source of origin and design for me. Something with intellect.
Thanks for sharing with me.
To me what appears to be design is really the product of 15.6 billion years of random chance and selective pressures. But however we arrived where we are now, at least we get to watch the Rams.
January 6, 2017 at 4:19 pm in reply to: When can we conclude that dark matter does not exist? #62514nittany ramModeratorUsing the same logic evident here, I have a question:
Can we conclude that God does not exist?
In short? No. Proving a negative can be problematic. If I say:”There are no elephants in my backyard” that would be easy enough to confirm, but if I say:”There are no fleas in my backyard” that becomes nearly impossible to prove and that’s sorta the thing we’re dealing with when we say there is no God. I can only prove there are no fleas by painstakingly examining every square inch of my yard. As I cover more and more ground without finding a flea then it becomes more and more likely that a flea isn’t present. But there will always be a place for the flea to hide so I will likely never be able to say with ABSOLUTE certainty that no flea exists. The same is true for God. As science answers more and more questions the likelihood of God may become less and less but it’s a big universe and given how God is defined, it will always be possible for ‘him’ to hide from our sight.
On the other hand there’s no way to prove God exists and from a scientific standpoint there’s no evidence to suggest ‘he’ does.
January 6, 2017 at 3:56 pm in reply to: When can we conclude that dark matter does not exist? #62513nittany ramModeratorGood stuff Ag!
Hear, hear. Ag has posted some awesome articles in this thread.
January 6, 2017 at 9:45 am in reply to: When can we conclude that dark matter does not exist? #62480nittany ramModeratorI appreciate the comments above.
For me, the evidence for a creating force is obvious in the way so much of nature “fits together.” In other words, nature itself would not exist unless millions of small functions came together at once, that is were designed to fit together. That does not prove anything, but for me it is enough explanation.
I can see that. I felt that way about the universe once I rejected Christianity too. Was “agnostic” about the existence of the Divine, but could never return to a belief in a “personal god” who interceded on our behalf. Too much evil in the world. Too much suffering. Too much inequality, etc. etc. And, far too little rhyme or reason for one person’s journey versus another’s.
So, basically, “deism” seemed to work for me, more or less. At least for another decade or so. But then reading more about evolution, and the way the universe formed, I no longer really saw the need for even “the god of the philosophers,” Spinoza’s god, Jefferson’s, etc. Nature really didn’t need a guiding hand. Evolution took care of that. Plus, the argument that “Well, this all had to come from somewhere. It couldn’t have come from nothing, so there must be a god.” Well, then, where did that god come from, if not nothing?
Infinite regress, etc. etc.
Interesting subject. Way back in the day, it was made even better with a little help from Nature.
;>)
Happy New Year, NMR.
If there is evil, is there not good? What determines our sense of evil and good if our existence is really just a random event? If everything is random, there shouldn’t be an evil or good. It just “is.”
And a grand and wonderful New Year to you Billy.
Well, there really isn’t evil and good. There are events, behaviors, people, etc that we as a society might classify as evil or good based on our perspective at that moment in history. But good and evil are in the eye of the beholder and change over time. An over simplistic example would be that burning a witch was once considered good. Now, not so much.
Nittany, that’s well said. Basically what I was going after, but in far fewer words than my own attempt . . . and the board likely thanks you for that difference.
;>)
Speaking of witches. I’m including them in my new novel, but more as a way to throw the reader off the scent. A temporary distraction of sorts, and to help make larger points about “witch hunts” in general.
Really interesting book: The Witches: Salem, 1692. It took some time to get used to her style in this one, which was different from two other books I’ve read by her — on Franklin and Cleopatra. Both very good, too.
Your response was much more thorough than mine. The term ‘evil’ often has a religious connotation to it. Something is evil because it was ordained by a diety to be so. That’s what I was responding to. Whereas, to me, it is simply a term that’s been inconsistently applied to all sorts of things throughout history.
January 6, 2017 at 8:45 am in reply to: When can we conclude that dark matter does not exist? #62477nittany ramModeratorI appreciate the comments above.
For me, the evidence for a creating force is obvious in the way so much of nature “fits together.” In other words, nature itself would not exist unless millions of small functions came together at once, that is were designed to fit together. That does not prove anything, but for me it is enough explanation.
I can see that. I felt that way about the universe once I rejected Christianity too. Was “agnostic” about the existence of the Divine, but could never return to a belief in a “personal god” who interceded on our behalf. Too much evil in the world. Too much suffering. Too much inequality, etc. etc. And, far too little rhyme or reason for one person’s journey versus another’s.
So, basically, “deism” seemed to work for me, more or less. At least for another decade or so. But then reading more about evolution, and the way the universe formed, I no longer really saw the need for even “the god of the philosophers,” Spinoza’s god, Jefferson’s, etc. Nature really didn’t need a guiding hand. Evolution took care of that. Plus, the argument that “Well, this all had to come from somewhere. It couldn’t have come from nothing, so there must be a god.” Well, then, where did that god come from, if not nothing?
Infinite regress, etc. etc.
Interesting subject. Way back in the day, it was made even better with a little help from Nature.
;>)
Happy New Year, NMR.
If there is evil, is there not good? What determines our sense of evil and good if our existence is really just a random event? If everything is random, there shouldn’t be an evil or good. It just “is.”
And a grand and wonderful New Year to you Billy.
Well, there really isn’t evil and good. There are events, behaviors, people, etc that we as a society might classify as evil or good based on our perspective at that moment in history. But good and evil are in the eye of the beholder and change over time. An over simplistic example would be that burning a witch was once considered good. Now, not so much.
January 6, 2017 at 7:02 am in reply to: When can we conclude that dark matter does not exist? #62462nittany ramModeratorThe problem is that three decades of searching have not been able to produce any direct detection of dark matter particles.
Well they haven’t detected a particle yet, but they have other, very reliable, but more indirect evidence it does exist. THAT evidence does not go away just because they have not added new evidence in the form of detecting a particle.
From the wiki.
Although dark matter has not been directly observed, its existence and properties are inferred from its gravitational effects such as the motions of visible matter, gravitational lensing, its influence on the universe’s large-scale structure, and its effects in the cosmic microwave background.
Well, I don’t know much about dark matter but I know you and Ag are interested in it so I thought this article might drum up some discussion.
I don’t necessarily disagree with you but to play devil’s advocate, the author addresses the circumstantial evidence for its existence in the comments section:
I agree with many of the commenters that there is other circumstantial evidence for dark matter other than spiral galaxy velocities. This is why scientists have granted it provisional existence status. But at some point there will have to be some positive evidence for it to be conclusive.
It’s kind of like the Higgs particle recently (and the neutrino earlier). It was believed to exist because of strong circumstantial evidence. But the positive detection was the clincher. If efforts to detect it had continued to be thwarted, at some point its existence would have been called into question, like with phlogiston a few centuries ago.Could the indirect evidence that is currently used to support the dark matter hypothesis be caused by something else? Astronomers were mathematically predicting the movement of planets with a great degree of accuracy long before dark matter was hypothesized. How were they able to this without taking the effect of its gravitational forces into consideration?
nittany ramModeratorHey Billy. Good luck with the writing but I hope you find some time for us. We miss you. At the very least you’re a welcome distraction from PA’s constant yammering about his dentures.
nittany ramModeratorYeah, it’s not an exceptional group to pick from. There’s no one I know well enough or who has a track record that gives me confidence that they would likely turn the team around. Still liking Shanahan the best.
nittany ramModerator<chanting> Come back, Dak. Come back, Dak. Come back, Dak…
nittany ramModeratorYou lose when you play not to lose.
Does that mean you win when you play not to win?
Maybe that’s the answer. The Rams are trying too hard.
nittany ramModeratorPenn State got too conservative. You lose when you play not to lose.
nittany ramModeratorWhy not do a combo, sign a free agent LT, and draft a late round guy to groom for the LT position, we could draft Jordan Morgan of The Kutztown University. Just saying. You never can go wrong with going with a player from KU ya know. Plus, someone on this board graduated from there as well. Just saying.
I don’t know, Jack. I don’t think Kutztown is much of a football school. When I was going to Lock Haven, Kutztown didn’t beat us nearly as bad as the rest of the PSAC did. I think I’d prefer a tackle from Shippensburg or Slippery Rock. Gawd, they used to pound us.
nittany ramModeratorRapoport: Rams might not want to pay a hefty price for Sean Payton.
Payton’s had three consecutive years of 7-9 bull shit. Am I the only one bothered by that?
nittany ramModeratorI’m not confident in Demoff, either, but I’m not confident in anybody. I don’t know how to hire the right head coach. Demoff is in a better position to know what the team needs than anybody else is.
It comes to this:
1. What went wrong?
2. How do we fix it?The talent didn’t just disappear overnight. There is talent on the team. (Britt had a very quiet career year, btw. Over 1,000 yards. That isn’t nothing).
Anyway. I have my theory: The Move Was Too Damn Distracting.
Now, Demoff is presumably in communication with all the coaches, and Snead, and has a better grasp of what the team needs than anyone else. I would be looking for a coach that did his homework. Knew the Rams’ problems, and had a plan for how to go forward with the pieces the Rams have, and acquire the other parts he would need to make it work.
And go USC.
Penn State will make USC look like the Rams.
Wait, sorry. That was terribly unsportsmanlike of me. I’m sure Penn State will demolish USC but they won’t make them look as bad as the Rams. There is no place where that sort of talk is acceptable and I do apologize.
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