And yeah, USC isn’t gonna have a good season. When the smallest Div-IAA school (in football, there are smaller ones in hoops) got within one possession of winning, we can assume that Steve blew a frickin’ gasket. Wofford is actually my alma mater, so I laughed my ass off when I heard the final score. But I was a Gamecocks fan as a kid, and my dad went to Florida, so in Div-IA, I’m still pullin’ for USC.

Oh, and to be fully on-topic, when I saw that onside kick, it was obvious, even after about 2 liters of beer (I was at an Octoberfest thing, so yeah, they measure their beer in liters, not pints) that Oregon touched it after about 8 yards. Everybody around me must have been UT fans, though, because they were really happy to see the Sooners go down (or maybe they were just Ducks fans - who knows?)

I be aye that your preferred collegiate american football team sucks a big pink one.

And a ‘Cocks fan to boot? Figures. Spurrier AND the Dixie Chicks.

Incidentally, I accept full responsibility for initiating the political debate on this thread and offer my sincere apology, although it was fun while it lasted. Tim may be surprised, but I agree with him that this forum and all related smack talking should be about football.

So, Stealer, after getting by perennial powerhouse Wofford by a touchdown last week I can hardly wait to see how they fare at home this week against mighty Florida Atlantic….

And just to answer some questions before we get started:
I’ve only lived in the South or Texas.
I cook a mean steak.
Toby Keith still sucks.

GO COCKS!

Except for the bit where the Japanese were allied with the Germans, who at the time were a leading industrial power and whose military capacity and technology outstripped that of the other nations of the world. Whereas, frankly, The Terrorists are operating using out-dated Soviet technology that didn’t work that well to begin with. There’s a difference of degree here, frankly. Islamic Terrorists simply do not represent the same sort of threat as the Axis or the Soviets.

That includes modifying the Constitution and/or the articles of the Geneva Convention.

You know, the Cold War didn’t require that and I’m pretty sure a nuclear super power controlled by evil tyrants represents a greater threat than old Klashnikovs and dirty bombs. The USSR actually, you know, had the capacity to drop a fair number of nukes into the US. Sure, there was the mutually assured destruction angle, but anybody in the Middle East with nukes or capable of getting them (Iran, Pakistan, the Saudis, Syria) is also an evil tyrant with a pretty good hold on wanting to maintain power.

Ahmadinejad doesn’t actually have any power within the Iranian regime, and the Ayatolla is more interested in maintaining power and gaining advantage than anything else (like all kleptocrats). It’s plainly obvious that Ahmadinejad is getting used as part of a brinkmanship strategy (think Kennedy/Cuba/McNamara) that, sadly, seems to be working.

Is continued terrorist violence a problem? Yes, it presents a lot of difficulties, but it’s both foolish and counterproductive to blow that threat out of proportion. The actors with real power in the region do have an incentive for self-preservation, and know that if they were to, say, nuke Tel Aviv the entire region would be reduced to a boiling sea of glass. They don’t want that. All of this aside from Isreal being a useful distraction from their own mistreatment of their citizenry, and no good to any of the regimes if destroyed, same with the west more generally. If you destroy your scape goat, who do you blame when things don’t get better?

But, seriously, just how much of the kool-aid did you drink? Are they putting it in the water out there? Should I only eat imported corn to avoid any residue?

Just as “the idea of who constitutes a person has expanded somewhat over the centuries,” it is now time for US to expand OUR thoughts and adapt to what is happening around us. That includes modifying the Constitution and/or the articles of the Geneva Convention.

The war on terrorism is unlike any war previously fought on the planet and calls for us to respond in ways unlike we’ve ever responded previously.

The former mainly because of our zeal for the drug war and insisting on erradicating opium poppies which provide about all the income in the country without doing anything to prop up the local economy. The latter, well, it’s kind of hard to install democracy anywhere and I don’t think we’ve done a good job of dealing with local factors like three distinct groups that hate each other a lot. Plus the issue of Syria sending in “insurgents” and what not.

But when it comes to things the government does inside the US? We’re a nation of laws, dammit, and it is completely unconcionable for the government to start wantonly violating its mandate in the name of “security”.

But, I mean, the Constitution is TOTALLY about just ignoring it whenever a bunch of “camel jockeys”, as you’ve so eloquently called them, kill .00106667% of the population. I’m sure that was supposed to be in the articles somewhere, must’ve gotten covered up when Mason spilled the white-out, clumsy bastard.

Our founding fathers have worn themselves out spinning in their graves thanks to the likes of the ACLU et al. In their day a prison sentence was actually punishment and a deterrent from crime. Hell, your buddy Padilla likely would have been shot first before being held without trial, and nobody would have complained a bit.

I just realized your last name must be Leary and you’re obviously feeling the effects of the LSD.

Not even our founding fathers could have foreseen the pure evil that spawned the crimes committed on 9/11/01 and continues still to plot similar actions. Same with the participants of the Geneva Convention. Thank God we have an administration willing to do what’s right to protect the masses, even if those being protected are as ungrateful as you

English Translation: 9/11 changed everything. You ought to be grateful that we have an Executive so willing to violate the principles upon which the country was founded in order to, at best, minimally reduce the already miniscule probability that some of its citizens are killed by terrorists. If you question the methods or complain about the violations you’re an ingrate, a terrorist sympathizer, or a dupe. Get in line and remember that we have always been at war with Eurasia.

Not even our founding fathers could have foreseen the pure evil that spawned the crimes committed on 9/11/01 and continues still to plot similar actions. Same with the participants of the Geneva Convention. Thank God we have an administration willing to do what’s right to protect the masses, even if those being protected are as ungrateful as you.

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HAWKS!

That applies to military personnel or persons in the Militia who are in active service during a time of War or public danger, the framers seem to have neglected the “except civilians the Executive branch really doesn’t like” clause that Madison was always going on about.

I knew there was a reason I always liked Trapper John better.

Please, if you think a few thousand brown people living in caves presents some sort of existential threat to the West on the order of Soviet Russia or The Axis, well, you’re either intellectually dishonest or an idiot. But, you know, this thread is about football so getting into the whole “You’re a jingoistic moron/no, you’re a Terrorist-lover” argument is roughly akin to the worst aspects of a high school CX-Policy debate.

In Conclusion:
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO DUCKS!

PS: Country music is for inbreds.

Boring, yes, but full of some of the most genuine people you’ll ever encounter. People grounded in what’s real, and who enjoy entertainers of the same ilk, like Toby Keith. Because the air here so frequently smells of manure it’s very easy for us to identify a B.S.’er when we see/hear one, and I smell one here.

By the way, “the defining struggle of the 21st century” in these parts is the war against Islamo-Facism. You go fight your douchebags. God knows there are plenty of them in your neck of the woods. Meantime, us real folk will do whatever we can to keep the country safe and free so you and your kind can continue to express your opinions in forums like this one.