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FB Update: Clemson Board of Trustees gives approval to football, Littlejohn projects
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FB Update: Clemson Board of Trustees gives approval to football, Littlejohn projects


Feb 6, 2015, 4:26 PM

Clemson Board of Trustees gives approval to football, Littlejohn projects

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Dont we still have an Architectural College at Clemson?


Feb 6, 2015, 4:30 PM

"The concept approval begins the process and allows for hiring an architect and further design of the new building.

Why do we need to hire someone? Make it a masters project and choose the best...

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https://as1.ftcdn.net/v2/jpg/00/81/16/28/1000_F_81162810_8TlZDomtVuVGlyqWL2I4HA7Wlqw7cr5a.jpg


No.


Feb 6, 2015, 4:47 PM

Who's going to take the liability and handle the engineers and builders? Even if the professors had the facilities to handle (design, execute and manage) such a project they wouldn't take the liability. That's not the end of the reason.

Laws governing a state funded institution doing private sector work forbid such action. State funded institutions can't compete with private institutions. It's not fair for a company to pay taxes and then have the benefactors of their tax dollars compete with them in business.

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Re: Dont we still have an Architectural College at Clemson?


Feb 8, 2015, 1:44 PM [ in reply to Dont we still have an Architectural College at Clemson? ]

Clemson has a nationally renown architecture program, but experience is pretty important in designing a building. Also, a general misconception, but designing the exterior of a building is very small part of designing a building.

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that and thousands of man-hours***


Feb 8, 2015, 1:55 PM



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Re: that and thousands of man-hours***


Feb 8, 2015, 2:08 PM

Might as well hire the mechanical and electrical engineers to do the MEP/FP and get your comp sci to do IT. Three credit hour lab a week should do it, haha!

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That's a giant price hike $30M to $63M


Feb 6, 2015, 5:56 PM

“Yeah, it’s grown a bit from our initial thought to now, but that’s a consequence of making sure this becomes the stopping point for the next 30 years.”

http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20150206/PC20/150209553/1032/clemson-moves-forward-on-62-million-football-operations-center-proposal

That's a pentagon-sized project budget creep.

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Obama's new budget is $1 trillion more than Bush's but the


Feb 6, 2015, 7:21 PM

one thing NOT going up is defense. That has actually been cut by Obama.

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null


National security is a psychological phenomena


Feb 6, 2015, 8:16 PM

and so is the concept of college football "competetiveness".

Does spending $2 Billion on a war plane that can't fly in the rain help you sleep better at night?

Does spending $40 Million on a West Zone project that, four years in, is already obsolete make you feel like a more competitive football program?

If yes, then you should also feel great about the sudden price hike from $30 Million to $63 Million for this facility, which will probably be outdated compared to Auburns new "football operations" campus. for which they were will probably be willing to spend $200 million to build, and on and on and on.

I'm sure it will be a great building, and will surely be nice for the staff not to have to cart the players down to practice anymore. Sure that is worth another $63 million, just like we need some new planes that cant fly in the heat.

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Whoaaaa Nelly! National defense is NOT psychological.


Feb 7, 2015, 6:56 AM

There are very real levels of defense spending that are required to maintain our military and plan for the future. Where that line gets drawn is the real debate.

For what it's worth, nearly every piece of hi-tech invented since the 1930s is either directly or indirectly related to NASA or defense spending. So there is a huge return on investment of those dollars. I'd privatize NASA with oversight held jointly by a small NASA administration and the Air Force. I'd solve all of our future problems via competitions like the X Prize.

But to your bigger point, I am not in favor of any spending that is not absolutely necessary. I'm a staunch fiscal conservative/libertarian. If it were up to me I'd roll back the government to pre-FDR days. The federal budget has more than doubled in less than 20 years. That's insane. Our current budget is $1 trillion more than the budget in 2006. That's insane too. I was simply making the observation that despite this explosion of spending the only thing being cut is the military. I'm definitely not pleased that certain plane & tank projects have been funded by Republicans against Pentagon wishes. And I'm d@mn sure not in favor of the billions being spent by the NSA & Homeland Security to violate my privacy & civil liberties in the name of terrorism.

I'd get rid of the TSA tomorrow and go back to how things operated before 9/11. I'd bring in security experts from El Al and run our airports like they do. Screw the PC crowd.

As far as spending on athletics ... I posted many times in the past (different ID) that winning is not a product of money. If all it took were money to win then schools like Texas, OK State, Oregon, Michigan, Alabama, etc. would dominate and win every championship. They have billionaire donors and unlimited athletic budgets. Despite all their money Bama sucked before Saban, Michigan & Texas are in the toilet, and Ohio State was under achieving before Urban. I'm not saying money doesn't matter, because it does. You absolutely must have top flight facilities. But that doesn't mean you need to get caught up in a facilities arms race.

There are three keys to a successful program: coaching, facilities, & talent.

The biggest bang for your buck and the single most important piece of the puzzle is coaching. People that think we will never win in basketball are right. Why? Because we are not committed to winning. Don't get me wrong, Littlejohn is a dump and we desperately need to replace it. But a school like Clemson could spend $100 million on a new basketball complex and it would only have a limited impact. The only thing that is going to get Clemson in a Final Four and make us a relevant program is a great head coach, which is not that hard. If we simply spent an extra $1.5-$2 million per year we could get a great coach. That's peanuts compared to what we are spending on facilities. And don't forget, we just got a $7 million/year raise from ESPN and IPTAY is sitting on $40+ million dollars. Money is NOT our problem. We have the money. And we're about to spend a fortune on facilities. But none of that will make us a serious basket school. But $2 million/year would "IF" we were truly committed to winning. But we're not, which is why spending another penny on facilities is stupid. Why waste $63 million if you aren't willing to spend the $2 that really matters? And that $2 million would pay for itself because winning has a huge return on investment. But we won't spend that extra $2 million. What a crock!

Speaking of facilities, Oregon has the best facilities in the country, a very hip connection to Nike, and the best record in the country the past few years yet they don't recruit worth a d@mn. Their average class ranking over the past 5 years is barely inside the top 20. That's crazy. But then you realize they are geographically in a crappy location and win with a system that doesn't translate well to the NFL. But they have great coaching. Imagine if they were in the south. They would have top 5 recruiting classes every year.

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Re: Whoaaaa Nelly! National defense is NOT psychological.


Feb 7, 2015, 10:36 AM

I submit to you that security absolutely IS psychological and I think you might have inadvertently helped make my point. Good example of fear-based response was the Patriot Act which I think you would agree was unnecessary and a complete overreaction to the perceived threats of 9/11. At the same time Bush decided to create Department of Homeland Security to fold in intelligence gathering services like the NSA which has ushered in the current era of domestic spying and inherent disregard for your 4th Amendment rights.

You could throw Iraq in to the mix as well if you wish and the price of starting that war and it's cost in blood and coin continue to grow.

It's all fear-based decision making exacerbated by a mind set that is mired in group think, yet another kind of psychological phenomena.

An arms race is also fear-based, again psychology.

To your point about R&D and it's future benefit to the world, I would point out to you that the average spending on R&D is between 9 and 12% of the overall pentagon budget. The pentagon is unique because, unlike other agencies, it is also a customer of the products of R&D. So you are right that it makes sense to make this investment on technology, even though a significant amount of tech doesn't work as well as promised, such as the $2B B2. Then you look at a plane like the A10 warthog which was built in the 1970's, cost only $13M in 1994 dollars per plane and had an incredible 85% mission success rate.

In reality, most of the money we spend on military isn't R&D but goes overseas because we enjoy some political leverage operating a global police force.

Your perception of risk is all that matters. So in your mind, do you think you have a better chance of being killed by a suicide bomber, or in a car accident in the State of SC. So if you had to spend money on securing you from the risk of being killed by a suicide bomber, or from the bad roads or bad drivers in SC, which would you say makes more sense.

It's the same thing in college athletics. We can spend money on coaches and facilities til the cows come home, but that doesn't necessarily mean we will win. U Texas is a perfect example. The richest school by far in all of college football, and they've been miserable last several years.

As far as hiring only name coaches go, I have two names to prove you wrong on that point: Dabo Swinney and Danny Ford.

I think you reach a point where the ROI on coach salaries and facilities begin to level off, and for each school it is different. The ROI for Texas probably leveled off ten years ago.

But I think it makes the fans feel better, and the fans are the ones that are competitive, so the group think takes over and schools do it for their fan base and to feel like they are keeping up.

You have to wonder how far this insanity will go.

Wow, now I'm late, I've got to go. Look forward to reading your thoughts.

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One's sense of safety, fear, is psychological, but defense


Feb 8, 2015, 12:37 AM

is a very real thing. One of the few powers actually given to the federal government via the Constitution is defense, which takes money.

I agree we went wayyyy over board after 9/11. I established that when I talked about the TSA & civil liberties. Without a doubt creating the DHS was smart and the right thing to do. We had too many disparate law enforcement, intelligence, & security organizations not sharing information and cooperating. Beyond that, however, things went way too far.

Short of a nuclear incident terrorists can only kill in small quantities in America. And they tend to focus on very high profile targets in cities like NY, DC, and possibly Chicago, LA, Boston, Philly, etc. Therefore, the odds of being a victim of terrorism in America are extremely small. As such, I think few people are scared or fearful of terrorist attacks. The real damage, the real consequences of terrorism on American soil is indeed psychological in so much as it harms our image internationally. It makes us look weak and as if the terrorists are smarter. Of course, neither is true, but that is the perception. 9/11 and other events happened here because we are such an open society and historically allowed immense civil liberties.

Iraq, group think, and the arms race are all worthy topics, but trying not to get too deep in the weeds here. Regarding R&D, the big picture is worth infinitely more to society than the initial inputs. You grossly under estimate the value of each dollar. Defense contractors spend billions of their own profits on R&D when competing for defense contacts. From there prototypes are developed and even if Company A doesn't win the defense contract they have created new innovations that get developed for the consumer market. Microwave ovens, computers, the internet, CDs/DVDs and anything with a laser, cell phones, cable & satellite TV, night vision for boats & hunters, GPS, and virtually all of our modern conveniences & technologies are derived directly or indirectly from NASA & DOD spending.

The B2 worked, it was simply incredibly complex and expensive. I have a manufacturer's model of an A-10 and an F-16. A family friend flew A-10s and later F-16s and he gave them to me years ago. I also have a spent dummy shell for the A-10s Gatling gun. It's one of my favorite planes. The only reason the A-10s were more or less phased out is politics. Despite the fact that the A-10 was incredibly effective the Army didn't want to depend on the Air Force for close air support for ground troops. But the Army is not suppose to fund nor operate fixed winged aircraft so they developed the Apache and other hi-tech choppers. None of which are as effective or reliable as the A-10. But that's politics.

The odds of being killed by a terrorist in America are near zero. You'd need a scientific calculator to compute it and I don't have my HP-17B handy. But let's say 5/year (If Obama classified events correctly) out of 320 million people. What's that, 0.00000000000003%. LOL! The overwhelming majority of auto accidents are caused by the disparity of speed on the road, bad weather, and driver error. So no amounted of wasted money nor government regulation will ever solve or prevent most accidents.

Regarding money and college athletics, I already covered that, but you are wrong about a few things. Like everything in life there is the law of supply & demand, including athletics. In the world of sports, the supply of bankable winning coaches, regardless of sport, is incredibly small and those coaches command top dollar. And they tend to only go where there is a commitment to win, which means tons of money spent on facilities & support. Those coaches will always be in high demand and push salaries higher & higher with second & third tier coaches' salaries rising proportionally behind them. Clemson, however, has historically been shy about hiring proven commodities. It has also limited our success. If there is one sport at Clemson that could benefit most from a big name coach, or more accurately a proven coach, it's basketball. We should have gone after Bobby Knight. I was on here years ago advocating for us to hire Gregg Marshall. I still think he is the guy we need to get.

As far as Ford and Dabo go. Ford - totally different era when he was hired. Dabo - I think he still has a lot to prove. We are winning the games we should win and should have won under Bowden, but his record is terrible versus teams that finish the season ranked. We still have not taken the next step. And need I remind you, Dabo is not a good hands on coach. He's done what he has done with great coordinators. Until just recently Clemson refused to open the checkbook for facilities nor salaries. No one is knocking on our door wanting to hire Dabo. We are certainly on the right track and seem to be very close. The next three years will determine if Dabo is the next Ford or a slightly better Tommy Bowden.

As far as ROI and facilities, fans, etc. all you have to do is look how quickly Clemson fell apart when we fired Ford and stopped trying to be competitive. We sucked for decades and are only now just starting to truly recover, but we aren't there yet and it has cost us dearly (factually & figuratively). There is NOTHING about our journey that is perception nor psychological. We went from national title contender to sucking bad in a bad conference in only a handful of years. Our suffering has been REAL!! And to say only the fans are competitive is nonsense. There are 10s of thousands of colleges in America, but only about 100 that take athletics seriously. Based on their athletic budgets and actions the schools and their administrators are competitive as well. That was my biggest grip under Barker. It was clear we didn't want to be competitive under his leadership, but he gave athletic success lip service. I said he should come out and come clean and tell how he truly felt about athletics, but he wouldn't because he wanted fans to have hope because he wanted the money. And he knew there would be a revolt and he would have been run out of town on a rail.

Regarding this question .... "You have to wonder how far this insanity will go." ..... As long as we operate in the black and our athletics are successful and continue to generate a positive image for Clemson then everything is fine.

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Re: One's sense of safety, fear, is psychological, but defense


Feb 8, 2015, 11:55 AM

I think you got it half right. Security risks can be calculated mathematically, it is our perception and our response to the threat that are subjective and therefore prone to irrational logic and draconian policies like the patriotic act.

This guy writes about it much more clearly than I ever will, might be worth a read for you:

https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2008/01/the_psychology_of_se.html

But security is also a feeling, based not on probabilities and mathematical calculations, but on your psychological reactions to both risks and countermeasures. You might feel terribly afraid of terrorism, or you might feel like it's not something worth worrying about. You might feel safer when you see people taking their shoes off at airport metal detectors, or you might not. You might feel that you're at high risk of burglary, medium risk of murder, and low risk of identity theft. And your neighbor, in the exact same situation, might feel that he's at high risk of identity theft, medium risk of burglary, and low risk of murder.

Or, more generally, you can be secure even though you don't feel secure. And you can feel secure even though you're not. The feeling and reality of security are certainly related to each other, but they're just as certainly not the same as each other. We'd probably be better off if we had two different words for them.



virtually all of our modern conveniences & technologies are derived directly or indirectly from NASA & DOD spending.

Bit of an exaggeration, classic symptom of group think.

The overwhelming majority of auto accidents are caused by the disparity of speed on the road, bad weather, and driver error. So no amounted of wasted money nor government regulation will ever solve or prevent most accidents.

This statement is just not true. Great example of a much hated, but very effective risk mitigation strategy are seat belt laws, a low cost government regulation which have cut traffic fatalities in half. Bad roads are not

http://www.cdc.gov/Motorvehiclesafety/seatbelts/facts.html

Road maintenance and safety policies are not a good place for the libertarian dogma, and it is the primary reason why our roads are some of the the worst in the country. It's taken prominent business leaders to shame SC poltical leadership into finally addressing it.

I appreciate your desire to have the highest standards for our coaches, but you should give credit where crediti is due. Clemson wouldn't be in the position it is in today without Coach Swinney. Don't think Lane Kiffin would have been a suitable replacement for Bowden, as many were suggesting back in 2008. Every coaching hire is a gamble, no matter what their pedigree.

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Not sure why you keep flogging a dead horse I have


Feb 9, 2015, 2:29 AM

repeatedly written that the risk of terrorist attack on US soil is infinitesimal and any such fears are irrational.Furthermore, that the over reach by the government in response to 9/11 and the subsequent loss of civil liberties is unacceptable. What else do you want me to say? You're preaching to the choir.



Regarding "virtually all" how about I change that to "overwhelming majority"? Was I using a bit of hyperbole? Yes. But not much. Virtually every bit of hi-tech in your house, car, office, and on your boat is either directly or indirectly tied to defense spending. I'm typing this on a laptop laying on my bed via WiFi and coaxial and fiber optic cable on a web forum via the internet that uses amazing networking and server technology. Every bit of tech used that is allowing us to have this debate, except the electricity, is directly tied to defense spending. Name 3 pieces of tech that effects your daily life not directly or indirectly tied to defense spending.

Regarding group think, man, you're wading into the deep weeds on that one. I wrote a paper on group think in grad school. Group think is a serious problem in decision making, but my comments about tech were my own and are in no way tied to group think nor is my use of hyperbole, which again is debatable and splitting hairs/semantics.



Regarding highway safety and accidents, again, getting in the tall weeds my friend. You need to work on your reading comprehension. I wrote that the government can't prevent accidents and you gave me a link to seat belt laws. Seat belts don't prevent auto accidents. They help prevent and decrease injuries and deaths related to accidents. You're confusing cause and effect. Furthermore, many studies have tied seat belts and air bags to increased rates of accidents among certain demographics because they promote a false sense of security which allows for higher speeds and greater risks taken while driving.



As far as road conditions in SC (and by proxy nation wide) again, you're getting off track. When one gets a drivers license you are taught to adjust your driving to the conditions. Posted speed limits are meant to represent the MAXIMUM speed given ALL conditions. Conditions mean weather, quality of the road, a driver's level of experience and health, and the road worthiness of the car, especially size, tire quality, and condition of the brakes. Again, most car accidents are preventable and tied to the driver.

Roads conditions in SC are fine on most primary roads, which are repaved on a regular rotational bases. Most people forget that most of our heavily traveled roads in the lowcountry have heavier than usual truck traffic due to the port, which causes them to need repaired faster than would normally be expected. And SC, again especially in the lowcountry, has higher than expected traffic due to tourism. I drive a lot and I always see roads being repaved or widened to handle the insane growth here in SC.

Maintaining roads and infrastructure takes a tremendous amount of money. Money we should have thanks to gas taxes, but the highway fund has been used as a piggy bank for big government spending for decades. Conservatives have tried multiple times to get gas taxes and highway funds earmarked exclusively for roads and infrastructure, as initially intended, but Dems and some establishment Pubs are having none of that. Dems esp love eating the candy then blaming Pubs for poor infrastructure. They get away with it because the liberal media runs interference for the left.

I have no idea why you drag libertarians into the debate. SC has never had a libertarian governor nor has there ever been a libertarian elected to the SC state house. At least not to my knowledge. Haley certainly has strong libertarian leanings, which I applaud, but you, like most, misunderstand libertarians. We are not anti-government, we are anti big government and anti centralized government. Regarding gas taxes, they are a perfectly libertarian concept.

Obviously we need infrastructure. From a purely libertarian view the private sector would fund infrastructure, not the government. Historically speaking that was the case. NY, Chicago, Boston, and other old cities were built with private funds. Subways and street cars were privately owned and operated as were the railroads. America was built on the backs of libertarians, on the backs of those that owned and ran the private sector and believed in self reliance. The first highways were privately funded also. Progressives changed all that in the name of income inequality and redistribution of wealth. In the name of fairness. We see the same thing today, but it's the internet and technology rather than railroads, cars, and oil. We are now hearing how the internet needs to be taken over by the government and the left is stirring the pot once again with calls for equality and fairness and the need to "fix" income inequality via income redistribution. That was a failed policy in the past and it will be a big fat fail today.

Unfortunately, progressives socialized infrastructure and that is never going to change, but from a libertarian view a gas tax is the best alternative, esp if we could ever get it earmarked exclusively for infrastructure as it was originally intended. Let those using the roads most pay for them. And I applaud Haley for raising the gas tax in SC and lowering the state income tax. SC has one of the lowest gas taxes, but some of the highest income taxes. Great idea IMO. Let truckers, tourists, and those passing through on I-95 & 75 pay a larger share. Great compromise. It should result in a net savings for SC residents. Heavy drivers might break even, but most heavy drivers I know have company cars or expense accounts. Those folks will come out pretty in this deal.



Finally, Dabo has done some great things and we are no longer under achieving and Clemsoning. We are definitely moving in the right direction, but anyone objective would admit we still have some issues that need addressed before Dabo can be seen as another Ford. I was not in favor of hiring Dabo and in many ways he has greatly exceeded my expectations and I applaud him for that. But strictly speaking wins and losses we are about where I expected if he proved to be successful. I predicted that on the field we would be marginally better than TB and win the games we should win. And that is exactly what he has done. Although he has failed regarding SC until this year. Something TB excelled at. We out-talent them, but until this year Dabo was out coached. It took a SC collapse for us to win. Otherwise, Dabo has done well.

Spurrier's days are numbered and Dabo is trending up, so things look great. The future is bright. But the next three or four years are going to make or break Dabo's legacy. If Dabo doesn't win a couple of ACC titles and make the four team playoffs at least once, then there is no way he can be seriously compared to Ford and it will be obvious that he has reached his ceiling. Great coaches don't need 10 years to make a huge impact and win at the highest level. Frank Beamer is the only real comparison. It took him years and the VT admin was patient. He did finally take VT to the top, but they couldn't win a championship nor maintain that level of play. I'm now a Dabo fan and supporter and as a Clemson alum I'm pulling for us to win it all. I hate losing more than I love winning. IMO if he can't get it done within the next four years he'll be another Beamer and any comparisons to Ford will be ridiculous.

Regarding others, seriously? Outside of Clemson hiring Dabo was laughed at. And while Chad and Venables are hot commodities, no one is asking to interview Dabo. Nobody with even an ounce of credibility was calling for Lane Kiffin. Don't be ridiculous. To say we are only where we are thanks to Dabo is equally as ridiculous. Who is exaggerating and succumbing to TNET group think now?

Frankly there were 5 or 6 legit names that were popular at the time as replacements for TB. Each was more than capable of not only doing what Dabo has done, but more as they had already proven themselves. My choice, and probably the most popular choice, was Patterson. And at that time there was a very good chance we could have gotten him from TCU. He has done more at TCU than Dabo has here and there is no reason to think he couldn't & wouldn't have done better at Clemson.

We did not need to be rebuilt. We needed focus & direction, consistency, and toughness - mental & physical. IMO the guy that has done the most to change the culture at Clemson and is most responsible for where we are today is Venables. Dabo is great as the face of the program and an amazing recruiter, but in terms of on the field performance there is a very good argument to be made that Venables is the man to thank.

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gary patterson has been at tcu since '98. not sure how many


Feb 9, 2015, 7:05 AM

coaching changes have taken place since then or since tb walked out the door, but it's pretty obvious patterson wasn't going anywhere, much less clemson from fort worth.

texas & tamu in his backyard have made changes since tb left.

guess who's still at tcu after changing conferences 3 times & suffering through two down seasons in big12ish competition?

gary patterson was not coming to clemson.

oh, and blue_caddy, neither was mike leach; thank gawd.




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sorry ole chap, we are just bobbin and weavin


Feb 9, 2015, 11:12 AM [ in reply to Not sure why you keep flogging a dead horse I have ]

around the same dead animal, trying to whittle this down to the nub I guess.

Name 3 pieces of tech that effects your daily life not directly or indirectly tied to defense spending.

This is such a ludicrous question. In your world view, the wheel would be tied to defense spending. Arthur C. Clarke is often credited with envisioning the modern satellite communications, but I guess he will get no credit either, since he wasn't employed by DARPA at the time. And what about Orville and Wilbur? Couple of tinkerers from Dayton OH who didn't get a fat check from the military or from JP Morgan. They just outworked and out-innovated Langley who was working with a $70,000 grant from the War Department.

So regarding our discussion about military tech, I'm pleased to see that I've at least managed to bid you down from "virtually all" to an "overwhelming majority".

Other than the hardware itself, the three things you need the most to communicate with me via this message board were not invented by Pentagon money, but were specified and implemented by Tim Berners Lee and CERN: HTTP, HTML and URI. http://webfoundation.org/about/vision/history-of-the-web/

America was built on the backs of libertarians, on the backs of those that owned and ran the private sector and believed in self reliance.

What a load of bs. With this statement, you are basically spitting on the people who lost their lives or at least risked life doing the real labor. A great book by Stephen Ambrose, "Nothing Like It In The World" tells the story of the construction and finance of the transcontinental railroad. After reading it, I somehow came away with a different impression about who actually built this piece of infrastructure. Same thing with the Panama Canal. Didn't see JP Morgan out there getting his hands dirty, risking malarial infection, to dig this canal. Just because you write the checks, doesn't mean you should be deified as a saint. In most cases, they were exceptionally gifted criminals whose ability to buy and sell politicians allowed them to further their own ambition by exploiting everything around them. Your statement is founded in a crap piece of ideological skulduggery that is floating through sewage in a ###### canoe.

Cheers.

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And there it is. Your true colors revealed ...........


Feb 10, 2015, 3:42 AM

very disappointing. I was enjoying an intellectual conversation/debate, but you were slowly painting yourself into a corner and starting to show your ideological bias. You tried to label me as some libertarian nut. You also accused me of gross exaggerations. The wheels were clearly starting to come off the track, but you completely jumped the shark on your last post.

I gave you a very simple challenge. If my comments were so exaggerated & egregious then it should be very easy to prove me wrong. All you had to do was name 3 common hi-tech consumer products with no connection to defense spending. Your response? The typical liberal tactics: ad hominem attacks, avoidance, distraction, and trying to assert the moral high ground.

The wheel? Really? Now who is exaggerating!!

You wrote .... So regarding our discussion about military tech, I'm pleased to see that I've at least managed to bid you down from "virtually all" to an "overwhelming majority".

If you think I'm doing far more than talking semantics or splitting hairs why not shut me up? Why not simply accept my challenge and name 3 things? If I'm wrong and you are right you should be able to name not only 3 things, but a dozen things. Why make this personal? Why get snarky & ugly? This is what happens when you paint yourself in a corner and can't admit you are wrong.

Let me help you out.

1958 - Eisenhower created ARPA/DARPA - Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

1961/62 - MIT professors funded by DARPA create the theory of packet switching & networking. And thus the internet was born.
http://www.internetsociety.org/internet/what-internet/history-internet/brief-history-internet

Surely you do not deny that the internet was originally called the ARPAnet, which would later be referred to as the internet, and finally the world wide web.

HTTP et al were created as part of developing the internet for commercial purposes and allowing the "internet for dummies" by way of web browsers. First Mosaic, then Netscape, and now Firefox, IE, Google Chrome, Safari, etc. The creation and use of HTTP protocols and web browsers is akin to the widespread transformation of micro-computers by way of the GUI and Windows. They allowed dummies to use computes without having to know DOS and complex commands.

You completely misunderstand the original purpose of DARPA. DARPA's original mission was to fund and direct a broad range of cutting edge scientific research. To be out front pushing innovation. Most of that was done by funding university research projects. In fact, DARPA's original mission was so broad they funded projects with no immediate or obvious military applications. But it was still DOD money.

You sound as out of touch as Obama when you say the internet wasn't a product of defense spending. ARPANET = internet just as the I in ISIL = Islam. Yet Odumber is on TV saying ISIL has no connection to Islam. That's a special kind of stupid on display by Obama. I know his lame ideological propaganda driven agenda, but what's yours?

I really loved your comments about those that imagine things long before they are created. Because everyone knows all you have to do is imagine something and *poof* it's real, right? Da Vinci imagined the submarine and died in 1519. The Hunley was launched in 1863 (thanks to military funding). That's a difference of 344 years. At least da Vinci had the rough draft of what could be considered a partial patent application. But a drawing is light years away from overcoming all the material & engineering hurdles necessary to actually make something that works in the real world.

I guess in your world view we should give Jules Verne the patent for the Atlas V rocket and the Nobel Prize since he imagined man walking on the moon.

Finally, your last paragraph really took nonsense & hyperbole to another level. Typical liberal reaction by trying to achieve some false sense of moral superiority. An attempt to take the moral high ground.

Sadly, such attempts are based on flawed logic. You're acting like the loons that want to rename Tillman. People on the left love making spurious moral arguments without addressing the context. They love revisionist history and retroactively applying today's morality to yesterday's situations, which is ridiculous.

I didn't spit in anyone's face. I understand the moral & economic implications. The railroads and the Panama Canal were built with paid labor. Most of the labor that built the railroads was Chinese, Irish, & black. People that even in the north and out west couldn't find work. I'm pretty sure any paycheck is better than no check and there was no shortage of people willing to work. They knew what the job entailed and what the wages were, but wanted the jobs anyway. It couldn't have been that bad because the Mormon church got contracts for Mormons to have exclusive rights to those jobs in Utah.

This is how the world works. People dream up worthy endeavors and mass labor is used to bring those ideas to life. Would you feel better if the railroads were built via slave labor like the pyramids? Maybe we should be a communist nation because everyone knows communist countries have superior human rights and never exploit labor, right?

Another thing people like you get wrong is you love judging others. You're attacking me like I did these things. Where did I call anyone a saint? I made no moral judgments - good or bad. I simply provided historical fact. I try to avoid value judgments because it's not my place and I wasn't alive back then. It was a different world, a different America. I don't need to judge and belittle people from the past to feel good about myself in the present. I'd like to think I would have paid people more and treated people better had I run a company a hundred years ago, but there is no way to know. Neither do you. We are using modern sensibilities to try and predict how we would have behaved then, which is impossible.

America absolutely positively was built by people, industrialists, not the government. Almost every one of them was born poor, but they worked hard and had ambition. The History Channel did a great series titled "The Men Who Built America". It can be watched on Netflix. Early in their lives they worked their azzes off and did risk their lives. Later in life others provided the hands on, but make no mistake these men took huge gambles and risked everything they owned. They weren't like these internet billionaires today that don't risk their own money and get filthy rich overnight via stock IPO's. Billionaires & millionaires at companies that don't even have revenues much less turn a profit. Very few have a product that even benefits society in any real or tangible way. And don't think these folks aren't buying votes, favors, and influence. In my book these guys today are way worse than the men who built this country.

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your response reminded me of a Mark Twain quote


Feb 10, 2015, 4:03 PM

"get the facts first, and then distort them as you please."

My apologies if I seemed a bit lathered up, but the last topic is incendiary for me.

The stories about the men who in some folks' opinion "built this country" often don't include the experience of my great-grandfather and namesake, who had his once-thriving tool and dye operation burned to the ground by thugs working for John Rockefeller in the 1930's. He helped raise my mom and she watched him lose everything he'd worked to build because Standard Oil could do whatever they wanted in WV at that time and get away with it. Rockefeller's vision was simple. Complete and utter dominance of the oil market, and he spared no expense to ruin everyone in his path until he had a controlling monopoly.

Typically, the history also doesn't say much about people like my grandfather Harold who in order to help his family survive went to work in a shady coal mine when he was 14 because there was an agriculture depression at the time. He and his brothers didn't complain, they just did what they had to do to help the family survive and the mining companies exploited their situation in every way possible. He ended up having his hand severed and had to quit. The 1920's coal industry in WV back then was a truly nasty, ugly business. But people who couldn't farm had no where else to turn. You may have heard of the Matewan Massacre in Mingo County.

So yeah, my disdain for the so-called "builders of this country" runs deep. They don't deserve the credit that is so often heaped upon them.

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What happened to your family still happens today. We don't


Feb 10, 2015, 5:06 PM

have capitalism, we have crony capitalism. Yes, it sucks, but it's still light years better than any other system. It's why I'm a libertarian. There should be no subsidies, no favoritism, only a level playing field. And while I hate what happened to your family, those men do deserve the credit they get, Sadly we live in a time where people are trying to take that credit away. They were not perfect people, but then no one is. The truth is, those were ruthless times and that's often how all business and politics worked back then. Things are still dog eat dog, just in different ways. At last those guys created jobs and built something real and tangible. These folks today are getting rich off free cheap money due to hyper-liquidity policies where the money is being sucked out of our pockets and via the printing press. They have no risk and if they fail the middle class gets hit again to bail them out.

No apologies necessary. Obviously there was a bug up your #### for some reason and I'm a big boy that knows how to push back without getting too personal. lol. No worries!

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Re: And there it is. Your true colors revealed ...........


Feb 10, 2015, 4:07 PM [ in reply to And there it is. Your true colors revealed ........... ]

I know you havent had posting privs for a while but this is the wrong board.

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Re: Whoaaaa Nelly! National defense is NOT psychological.


Feb 7, 2015, 6:03 PM [ in reply to Whoaaaa Nelly! National defense is NOT psychological. ]

Greatest response of all time.

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Re: Obama's new budget is $1 trillion more than Bush's but the


Feb 7, 2015, 9:04 AM [ in reply to Obama's new budget is $1 trillion more than Bush's but the ]

Based on how ridiculous our defense spending is now, your statement is a joke.

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I covered a lot of territory. Exactly which part are you


Feb 7, 2015, 11:53 AM

having problems with?

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null


As a percentage of GDP/GNP defense spending is the lowest


Feb 7, 2015, 3:36 PM [ in reply to Re: Obama's new budget is $1 trillion more than Bush's but the ]

since just before WWII started.

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Still costs less than Oregon's


Feb 9, 2015, 11:04 AM [ in reply to That's a giant price hike $30M to $63M ]

and it's bigger

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What will the football facilities built as part of West


Feb 6, 2015, 7:28 PM

Zone be used for after we build this new facility? Who will use those offices?

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Re: What will the football facilities built as part of West


Feb 7, 2015, 10:21 AM

http://www.tigernet.com/story/football/New-football-facility-shows-Clemson-winning-arms-race-13515

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With all his success, his highest salary was $25,000 a year. The president of the university, Dr. R. F. Poole, feared that professors who earned less would be upset. "He called me up and said that he didn't want me to tell anybody what I made," Howard once said. "I said: 'Doc, you don't have to worry. I'm as ashamed as you are of what you pay me.' " - Frank Howard Obituary, New York Times, 01/27/1996


Thanks. I saw it. It wasn't posted when I asked my question.


Feb 8, 2015, 12:43 AM

Hood should have addressed that in his original story.

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Re: FB Update: Clemson Board of Trustees gives approval to football, Littlejohn projects


Feb 7, 2015, 7:06 AM

For every $5 iptay spends on sports stuff, they should be required to give $1 for dorms. Dabo hates the slum dorms.

Just my 2 cents.

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Re: FB Update: Clemson Board of Trustees gives approval to football, Littlejohn projects


Feb 8, 2015, 3:15 PM

Glad we are willing to spend the money to take the football program to the next level.

But this building design is UGLY!

Let's have a building that epitomizes football in the south. This building looks like it belongs in Berlin - not Clemson.

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