michaelimagnus

I would trade down to the 15-18, it almost guarantees an additional 2nd. I'll take the prospect of having 5 picks in the 1st 3 rounds and get solid depth with 2 starters this year, with the prospect of 2 starters next year and one guy who doesn't pan. This team has 4 or 5 major holes, not 1 big one that can change a game. If the coaches are good they will put them into a system for them to excel hence the 2 immediate starters and 2 guys that could fit the system. I would go OL first pick (Justice, who might be there 15-18), then a CB or a DT 2nd round, with an additional OL or DT pick for my other 2nd rounder. I'll take that any day of the week over a big gamer in the 8th spot who is expensive, and only fills one hole (potentially). Basically I would have traded Vick for Tomlinson and Brees over Vick.

JP Losman is 25 yrs old Alex Smith is 21 years old Does anyone really think Smith will be as bad as Losman in 4 years or as green? People forget how old Losman is and when you compare him to several QBs he's already closer to the age of Tom Brady than to Smith. Smith can be good, Losman is already older than most QBs who are out of their first year in the league, and Smith is younger than most QBs after their first year. In 2 years Smith will be 23 and Losman 27, and yet Smith could still be better than Losman in 4 years and be his current age now. I'm not saying Smith is good, but he has far more potential on a worse team, although this year both our teams will be equally as bad more or less.

Being I've done this for the past few years I can give you a fairly qualified answer. If you want to keep your house and don't feel adventurous find a fixed rate as low as you can at www.lendingtree.com and keep that loan unless the rates go way down again. They will compete for your rate and tell them you want it fixed. You will probably find a rate cheaper than 8.5. At least you will know know what the payment is going to be and if the rates go higher in 5 years you are safe. If you want a lower payment go for the cheap low fixed rate, knowing that in 5 years the rates might be higher and you might be screwed. All refinances have closing costs associated with them and the lowest closing costs are a funding company called Ditech. Ditech does have low rates as well, and the lowest closing costs. If you ever sell your house go cheapest now because paying your loan in a bigger payment is not smart as most equity is built by appreciation rather than paying off a mortgage. If you plan on keeping it find a great fixed rate and have lenders give you competitive quotes. Tell them what the other one is offering to see if they can beat your last quote if you fill out an application at lendingtree.com (I've done this myself and worked great), and then work out a plan to make half the mortgage payment 2 weeks early to accelerate your mortgage (it shaves off 7-9 years). Good luck P.S I'm the adventurous type that buys and sells so I go cheapest payment and flip property. I would recommend going fixed the life of the loan, not in 5 yr spurts

I don't have the time, nor requisite energy to explain things to many of you who simply want to attack without thought, knowledge, or logical explanations for your position. My reasoning for not going crazy with much of the horrible logic is basically that many of your responses are non sequitors, have very little relevance to the topic, and they certainly are not posed with a desire to learn more but to criticize the little you know and simply waste my time. I only plan one day off a week from my business and if you think that the time I do have is going to spent replying to non-sense your simply wasting my time as well as your own. Some of you remind me of my brother who plays video games hooked up to the internet talking to invisible friends through the medium of a screen thinking if they spend enough time on it some type of prize is awaiting them. Here's a solution to your dilemma: get a life. Who knows you might do something productive with your life and actually be a benefit to society and others. I hate to tell you this, but there is more to life than message boards. I may read them every so often, but I will not waste my life answering to all the pettiness or reading all the responses. If you think you will post some great response to illustrate some type of hypocrisy or judgementalism here's another clue: learn what the words mean that you are using and realize that Our Lord was judgemental and so am I. Our Lord said not to judge, but that was the intention of the individual, not their actions or their malice, of which He said, "Judge not according to the appearance, but judge just judgment." (John 7: 24) Don't quote Jesus Christ on "Judge not lest ye be judged" without realizing that we are supposed to judge justly, to the point of calling people "a brood of vipers... how will you flee the wrath of hell." If you want to ask me legit questions and know my position, fine, and I will answer, but if you think I'm going to get into a match of wits with sarcasm as your means of communicating and half-brained responses than you are blowing hot water through your nose. I have a life, a good business, I enjoy learning and helping others. That is why you will not see my posting much for the rest of the week (hint: I'm trying to be more than a leech on a message board and deal with real people) As a new friend just reminded me: Illegitimi Non Carborundum (thanks Beausox) Oh and Darin, when you finally think of something intelligent to say formulate it with proof and explain your own position of what you believe and how you practice it without playing the role of the Devil's Advocate. At this point you are only playing a mindless Devil.

I really don't want to get in a sarcastic battle with anyone. I'm just annoyed that I as a Catholic can be called a lemming for following organized religion, and yet if you are a secular humanist who follows Science Daily as a dogmatic institution you have more faith than I do in Jesus Christ. You have to believe time makes life (creationism is evil, and non-sensical although life can come from non-life, and greater beings can from lesser beings without thought or rational), all theories are facts, and the thought that God could reveal supernatural truth for our good is only for the blind and unreasonable. I go to Mass and Church for God's honor and glory. Some do it out of habit, others out of respect for their family; others go for the glory of God, the good of their soul and the souls of others. I go because I believe that Jesus Christ was God made man who died for our sins and hence I, a creature, must love Him back and do what I can to love others and most importantly God. I believe that truth unifies and error divides and hence God made one Church for salvation. I recognize not everyone is not part of this Church but if someone ernestly desires the truth God will help lead that person to salvation from where they are. I am fully cognizant that people may be greedy, immoral, and not true to their faith. Can I blame the faith? Not anymore than I can blame this country for its corruption and I make this logical division from the people from those who make mistakes. If anyone wants to know why people should go to Church it's simple: God wants honor since He is the Creator and we as His creation owe honor to our Creator for our well-being. God wants us to partake in His intimate life of the sacraments given for our good and perfection.

Wasn't trying to be sarcastic. I guess intellectual acuity in Alaska is running thin these days. For someone who calls me confused over nothing, and then pokes around with insults hoping to get some kind of diatribe from me you're wasting your time. If you think you are half the intellect you think you are I recommend spending more time reading something useful for a change than reading your own sarcasm. Who knows you might do some self-realization that anyone who spends their life posting 18,000 times + might not have a life to begin with. I know what the word means quite well thanks for asking. I've never seen anyone put down others views without putting your own on paper for others to critique clearly and definitively. Look how you played the political season of critiques. You fit a mold of finding chinks (at least in your own mind) in others' armor while not exposing yourself for criticism with what you really stand for. You critique positions more than you stand for things. If you want an example look in this thread. Self-realization might be more than you bargained for. Or so you believe standing aloft so many posts of one-liners. Look in the mirror, or maybe you haven't moved from it yet. I tolerate the person, not the stupidity, which apparently is your specialty.

May I add that anyone who calls himself a "crap throwing monkey" shows their own disposition of intelligence.

Dude, definition of theory is not equvalent to a fact. The recent imposition of the scientific community to impose theory as fact is constantly attempted. This attempt to persuade anyone that if you make enough excuses why something is almost a fact it must a fact is pseudo-intellectual activity. So much for science being impartial when imposing itself. Facts are unmistakeable principles. The fact that heliocentrism is still theory means it's not a fact, and no amount of excuses under the guise of nuance or parlance is sufficient to make a theory a fact. I'm a heliocentrist, but I would like to remind you that there are a group of scientists that are becoming geocentrists based on several different angles that show conclusively that it is only a theory. In the book The Biggest Bangs: The Mystery of Gamma-Ray Bursts, Jonathan I. Katz, professor of physics at Washington University, states in his chapter titled, The Copernican Dilemma: In 1975, astrophysicist J. P Varshni stunned astronomers with his evidence that earth was in the center of the universe. Varshni writes: Astronomist Fred Holye, a heliocentrist had this to say: See? No proof, just theory, although highly probable. I know a guy who will give you $1,000 if you can prove that heliocentrism is a fact. I don't agree with his geocentrist position at all, but he puts his money where his mouth is. Maybe you should go for his $1,000 challenge and show him it's just parlance.

Galileo wasn't convicted of heresy because he believed the world went around the sun. He was convicted of heresy because he said the Bible was wrong on account that the earth went around the sun. He wasn't tortured, beaten, or thrown into exile, but he was ordered to do the recitation once a week for three years of the penitential psalms, which he had already been doing anyway and voluntarily continued to do afterwards, a practice that would take only fifteen minutes per week. He admitted that he was wrong for what he did, namely, to start a rebellion by writing in the vernacular to incite the crowd without going through the normal means of scientific critiques of peer review. Strangely, Galileo's theory of the earth going around the sun was found to be incorrect on his basis of discovery by tides of the sea which are not based on the sun, but lunar cycles. If you want to know more about the subject look up the word/name Copernicus and see how his discovery (not Galileo's) was that the world went around the sun. He never ventured to say the Bible was errant on that account and was made a Cardinal for his scientific discovery which was lauded by the Church. Lest we also forget heliocentrism is still theory, not fact.

How did he re-do his game? I don't follow the game all that much, but that comment interests me.

I said I was the smartest man on the whole marble? Oh that's right, only nebulous Alaskans can make such wise comments. I'm far more qualified than someone who makes himself a sage on a Buffalo Bills message board. I'll leave that honor to you.

That's the perennial understand of the word religion and the philology of the word bears this defintion from it's use in Greek and Roman culture. Yup, that's what I'm saying, and it's a fact. Hospitals were non-existant in most parts of the world, and the few that were established during the Dark Ages were destroyed by barbarian sacking until their restoration and founding new ones cared by religious orders of monks and nuns. There increase in western civilization was almost solely their work. The Catholic Church gave rise to many religious orders given solely to the task of hospital labor out of love of God, and certainly not for money as monks and nuns took vows of poverty. In this country read the life of Mother Francis Cabrini and what she did to help immigrants. Universities are solely a Catholic invention in western civilization, and the only mention of them in antiquity were some schools in Athens and Alexandria which did not survive with the fall of Greece, and they were built only for aristocracy. The foundations where in Salerno and in Paris. The Dominicans of Paris started universities as well as the scholastic thought. Even the development of law, tribunals, etc. were a carry over from Roman law which disappeared with the Roman empire, only to be re-instituted with Canon law. Many inventions were born in the womb of Christendom. Goutenberg, the founder of the printing press, wanted to print Bibles. Mendel was a monk who wanted to split peas and get to the atomic nature of things. The furthering of astronomy and the inventions of pendulums, microscopes, barometers, etc. all came from Catholic Jesuits. While this may not be the culmination and fullness of science and technology you do not see parallel advances in the eastern world of Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, etc. without an accompanying Christian over-view.

How do I know? Because you referred to your experience in the Bible belt as your criteria for judgement. That's a very small sample to chose one's criteria if they make the judgement that religion is about money and lemmingism in your case. Please tell me all about your knowledge of Catholicism before you declare competance in this discussion as a valid opinion. It is not wrong to assume that making a judgement without enough background in a certain sphere is incorrect and ignorant. Would you tell a doctor that all medicine is about is stealing money from insurance companies and not taking care of patients and misdiagnose them to get larger coffers? No, because you aren't experienced in medicine to tell a doctor what to say or do. That's not an opinion, it's an error. Being that I studied to be a priest among good men who gave their lives to God in a way that would pale in comparison to anyone that I know because they dedicate their lives to it and in a way that no one in their right mind would do solely on how they feel, I can tell you from experience that it's not an opinion, you are in error. You are on the train for calling people like me a lemming and if you don't like being shown your lack of knowledge please exit stage left -Snaggle Puss The Bible-belt is called that because it refers to protestants who believe in sola scriptura (only the Bible). If you do not understand the nuance of what you are saying when you refer to the Bible belt I recommend you stay away from such statements such as: I hope that makes sense to you. It's called deductive logic, and as I said all men are religious. As I clarified earlier I should have said non-denominational. To agree with AD that all people who adhere to an organized religion is a lemming and then further your diatribe only shows your animosity towards organized religion. I've never seen anyone who is religiously fervent use such terms, agree that we are lemmings and then claim my ignorance not to know your position. You seem to be distraught that you were called out on the floor for your support of calling people lemmings. As I pointed out before, the use of the term Bible belt refers to the Protestants of the south, mostly of the Southern Baptist variety. If you want more info go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_Belt It should bug you that you think you have an opinion of a religion you don't know much about, you don't know what you have alluded to when referring to the Bible belt and have the audacity to call me out on the floor, and you think we are lemmings while remaining ignorant of the subject material in question. Being that I have personally given 6 years of my life knowing the Church from the inside out, spending time in Rome, being in a multitude of seminaries, monasteries, dicasteries, not to mention spending my entire life as a Catholic I am exceptionally qualified to speak on the subject material. As it was once said: "The problem with the ignorant is that they are ignorant of their ignorance." -Mortimer Smith

I meant to say non-denominational curmudgeon. We all make typos, look at the way you spelled curmudgeon. See? It's pretty easy to do.

Why is it that when someone gets their own experience with a limited number a people you claim you know what you are talking about? You've met the people I've mentioned that are good solid Catholics devoted to the poor and helping people? Care to name their communities? I don't want names, just some communities you've seen. No, rather you want to tell me about Protestants in the Bible belt. In case you haven't noticed look at the title of the thread and realize the subject material that's up for discussion. Who am I to claim that non-religious curmudgeons protest things they don't understand? Simple, look at your response, look at the title of the thread and show me how your response is has any relation to objective sphere of conversation. I talk on the objective level of what things we are and the discussion in play. You are discussing your relationship with Bible belt Protestants. If that offends you and you think that's hypocritical speaking the truth is an act of charity as long as I'm not degrading you there is nothing wrong in what I said. Being that my experience has seen the whole gambit of people who claim a Christian denomination and their objective beliefs I know far better than yourself what those beliefs are and how good people live that life.