User profile: JohnF

C is for cookie, that's good enough for me.

Diogenes,

Amen to that, brother.

Giving it your best effort and losing is no disgrace. Jerry Tarkanian won a lot of games, granted. Rollie Massimino did not, but wins and losses are only half the job on the college level. At least they should be.

Running a program that reflects well on the university is the other half. Prior to hiring Massimino, UNLV was disgraced by having a coach who flaunted NCAA rules at every turn. Can anyone say Lloyd Daniels? Do people remember players lounging around in hot tubs with convicted felons?

Anyone who holds a UNLV degree had that degree devalued by the shenanigans in the basketball program. The university was, and was going to remain, a national academic joke as long as it allowed the basketball coach to run the show.

Give me Lon Kruger and players like Rene Rougeau any day. We don't win as much as we did when Tarkanian was here, but we do win and we win with class. The team that represents our university is one that makes us justifiably proud.

"This would all be funny and stimulating for state political observers -- if only we didn't live here."

Precisely what I was thinking.

fremmasmind,

This has nothing to do with the way you feel about illegal immigrants; it has everything to do with the rule of law.

This editorial clearly draws a distinction between "citizens" and the "whole number of persons." Nowhere does it suggest we treat illegal immigrants as citizens, nowhere does it suggest that illegal immigrants be granted the right to vote or to be exempt from our laws.

Census takers are not required by the consitution to count citizens only; they are required to count the "whole number of persons." Prior to the Civil War slaves were not citizens, nor were Native Americans, yet they were counted as part of the census.

The constitution does not specify that the people being counted be citizens. What Senators Vitter and Bennett would have us do is override the constitution by act of Congress.

The law does not allow this. If Senators Vitter and Bennett want this to be the law of the land they will first need to amend the constitution.

For the benefit of SgtRock:

If you go to the Rasmussen web site you will see the big banner ad for Aetna right at the top of the page. If, however, you go to other lass biased sources,

http://www.pollingreport.com/health.htm

you will find the following:

NBC News/Wall Street Journal found that 72% of the American public thought that the choice of a public option in competition with private plans was either "extremely important" or "quite important."

CNN found 61% supported a public option.

ABC News/Washington POst found support at 57%.

The Kaiser Family Foundation found support at 57%.

CBS News found support at 62%.

ISOS/McClatchy found that 53% thought a public plan is necessary.

Quinnipiac found that support for a public option stood at 61%.

Last I checked, all those numbers meant "over half." Barack Obama also received more than 50% of the vote, and during the campaign he told us health care reform was his #1 priority. Health care reform is why we put him in the White House and it's why we elected such a large majority of Democrats nationwide.

The Republicans and blue dog Democrats who are blocking this are clearly standing in the way of the will of the people.

Joe Lieberman was blunt about it. He said he was standing up for the interests of his constituents, and then defined his constituents as the large insurance companies headquartered in Hartford.