Lynx up above had this quote from Mr. Murphy, who was Northwestern's athletics director & will now become President of the Packers: "I don’t think there is anything wrong with being competitive and striving to win," Murphy said in a 2003 interview with Pro Football Weekly. "But in the process of doing it, you have to make sure you aren’t sacrificing your academic standards and ignoring the educational opportunities for your students."

Does it surprise anyone that the boss of a Division I athletics program would say that? I'd probably have to go back to the days of pre-death penalty SMU & the like to get the powers that be to admit to how it really is.

If someone could get a legit quote from one of these guys saying: 'The university basically exists to provide support to the football team', now that would be something.

Reading about people who feel compelled to give good hard earned money to people thay think don't give a shit. Up above RoonieRoo commented: 'Now I just mail them gift cards and put not more than 2 seconds thought into it. They don't care, why should I burn my energy on them if they don't give a fig back.'

I'll tell you that if I thought the person didn't give a shit about the gift (giftcard/item/cash) I gave them, then that person gets no more gifts. They at least have to convincingly pretend to like it.

I did like Allie's comments on page 2 or 3. I thought she had some excellent points, both about reading & gift giving.

I would get Tiffany a book (or nothing).

JBinMo had this quote regarding what Mr. Paul should have said to Sen. McCain; 'that had we not involved ourselfs in WWI there probably would not have been a WWII, and Hitler would probably never have come to power.'

Maybe you haven't studied history at all, could be cause you've not reached World History in HS yet, but if the U.S. had not entered WW I, the reason Hitler would probably have not came to power, is that the German Empire would have won that war & would have ended up ruling all of Europe West of the Elbe (it would be funny watching our current Pres. trying to BS or intimidate Kaiser Wilhelm V, ruler of 350 million Europeans).

Personally, I think Mr. Paul made the right decision not to hit the Senator with the above zinger.

Erjavec mentioned that he/she lives right now in Qatar. Is the name pronouced like the name of a type of ship, i.e. 'kut-ter', or is it like this: 'Cat-tar' or 'Cat-ar'?

Personally, I think the 'Cat-tar/Cat-ar' one sounds better.

on Mr. Knieval: He used to attempt his jumps on harley-style (or actual Harleys) motorcycles that were completely unsuited to what he was trying to do with them (jump lots of stuff). He was a crazy dude.

I wonder if Awful Knaufel is still alive?

I have read the trilogy (and enjoyed it) & I will certainly see the movie. I was wondering if either of you could answer questions I have regarding the 'daemons' that characters in Lyra's reality all seem to have:

a) Do daemons have mass?

b) Are they complete reproductions of the animal forms they have? i.e. have internal muscles/organs as the 'real' animals have.

c) Can they consume food? Do they excrete?

d) They seemingly are as intelligent as their human companion. Can they make audible speech that someone who is not their companion can hear?

e) If an animal species becomes extinct, can a daemon still use it as its 'avatar form'?

My current computer (at work) will not allow me to frequent the fan boards in Yahoo where the super-obsessed-with-Pullmanites could answer all these questions (and 914 I hadn't thought of), so I was wondering what you two thought. Thanks!

for anwering my questions. My own answers are about the same as yours, re daemons.

Another one I just thought of: For those daemons who assume the shape of a small creature (such as a bug of some kind), if you squish it, is it dead or does it pop back like a cartoon creature? Or could the daemon be much more robust than a real bug & therefore would be much, much harder to sqish than a real bug?

I loved the books, but wish Mr. Pullman had put some sort of appendix in there that would explain/flesh out certain concepts (sort of like Mr. Tolkien did).

Putting a link to a Freeper article in Salon is like citing 'My Pet Goat' in your doctoral disertation on Animal Husbandry.

You can do better.

Since you excerpted the story from a non-wacko news source, I read it (while munching on a nice tin can).

It seems the alimony owed is for the surviving son (still under crazy mother's custody, although he must be under somone else's custody while she does the jail stay). I would think that her parental rights could/should get terminated (help me out AKASmith, if you kick child #1 to death & go to jail, that should not help you retain custody of child #2?).

Now, if the father's rights had already been terminated (woman had sole custody), he won't get that child #2 back & he'll still owe some child support to whoever becomes the custodial parent of child #2.

I can certainly see that the father of the dead child doesn't want to give jack shit to the woman who murdered his child.

Baah.

leftychris, I did misread the article. I agree the money being discussed was for alimony. Seems unfair to make him pay.

If he has to, I would think he could file a wrongful death suit against the woman (on behalf of dead son) & get it all back. Quite a hassle, though, to do that.

If he wants honest criticism, then give it to him. He's a grown man. It might either get him to write better or get him to stop.