PCM

It's a fact that I am speculating.

But it's more fun and more interesting to report on public speculation than it is to report the facts.

I'll bet that was a pet fish.

Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Make it stop!!! One of my favorite songs, first ruined by Blue Swede and then massacred by David Hasselhoff.

That works well, too.

With apologies to Hall and Oates, I think this is what mikejm is saying:

Dang. You're right. I was thinking that Manilow had a hand in writing that song. But like a good neighbor, you were there like State Farm to set me straight. Like McDonalds, you gave me a break today. Good work.

As did UND at the time the NCAA put its policy into effect. The last official act of the Spirit Lake tribal council on the issue occurred back in late 1999 when the council passed a resolution in support of UND. It hasn't changed or rescinded that resolution, despite NCAA pressure to do so. Based on that fact, the NCAA could just as easily have given UND an exemption.

I only see the red X in the original post. EDIT: Now, for some reason, I can see both animations.

Is this the GIF you intended to post?

Why? Is it just because Barry wants to teach the world to sing in perfrect harmony?

I don't pretend to know what the NCAA knew about those tribes. I can only go by what NCAA officials said about the FSU situation when they were very specifically asked about it during the news teleconference at which the nickname policy was announced. That is not correct. I've read that there's a Ute tribe in Colorado that opposes Utah's use of the Utes nickname. I know that Chippewa tribes in North Dakota and Minnesota have passed resolutions against UND's use of the Sioux name and have long been opposed in general to the practice of using Indian nicknames, mascots and imagery by sports teams. Am I supposed to assume that these tribes, while being opposed to UND in particular and Indian nicknames in general, had no problem with Central Michigan's use of the Chippewa nickname? How is it that I know these things but the NCAA doesn't? After all, we are repeatedly told that the NCAA spent four or five years investigating and researching this issue before enacting its policy. The problem isn't with what the NCAA knew or didn't know. It's that from the very beginning, the association selectively used and based its decisions on information that supported what Myles Brand and Walter Harrison wanted to do while excluding all evidence and information that contradicted what they believed or assumed to be true. That's the arbitrary and capricious part of UND's lawsuit. In the case of the Oklahoma Seminole tribe, there's one member of the tribal council who's been very active in the movement to ban American Indian nicknames from sports. The NCAA simply assumed that he spoke for the entire tribe. But guess what? He didn't, and the tribal council was only to happy to disabuse the NCAA of that notion. After the Oklahoma tribe sent the clear message that it supported FSU, the NCAA did a complete 180 and decided that the support for FSU by the Florida Seminole tribe had to be respected. That brings me back to your original statement that started this urination competition: You can hold whatever opinion you want, but the facts, the time line and the evidence don't support your opinion as to why the FSU Seminoles received an NCAA exemption. Had the NCAA insisted on keeping FSU on its list despite the official approval and strong support the university received from both Seminole tribes, the association would have looked like an arrogant bully for telling the tribes that they didn't know what was best for them. The namesake exemption was created as a face-saving move to rescue the NCAA from the public relations disaster created by the executive committee when it enacted a policy based on sloppy research, selective information and faulty assumptions. The FSU situation served to magnify everything wrong with the manner in which the NCAA implemented the policy. Brand and company knew that the faster they put FSU behind them, the more likely they'd be to salvage something from the policy. And they were right. No, it wasn't a "happy coincidence." The NCAA clearly believed that as long as at least one Seminole tribe anywhere in the nation stood behind its policy, the association was justified in applying that policy to FSU, no matter what the Florida Seminoles thought about it. Again, that is clearly stated during the news teleconference to announce the policy. It is not merely my opinion.

It isn't always. Grand Forks has consistently been below the national average in gas prices. There have been times when the prices here have been significantly below the surrounding region. For some reason, people seem to forget about those times.

Not really. All that was required for other schools to get exempted from the policy was approval from a namesake tribe in the same state. UND has that now. There were no conditions placed on where the tribe was located in relation to the school, the size of the tribe or how other tribes in other states viewed the issue. The NCAA has simply created a different standard for UND, and that's part of the reason why the state of North Dakota is suing the NCAA. Nope. FSU got the exemption because the NCAA simply assumed that the Oklahoma Seminole tribal council was opposed to the tribe's name being used. That was the NCAA's stated reason for initially ignoring the wishes of the Florida tribe. When the Oklahoma tribe overwhelmingly and officially supported FSU, the NCAA created the namesake exemption out of thin air, suddenly recognizing that approval from the Florida Seminole tribe mattered after all. The word "Sioux" is widely used in geographical names and business names, some of which are non-Indian businesses. Nobody owns the word "Sioux," which isn't even a word from the Siouan language. Kupchella has made the point all along that nobody can claim ownership of words in the public domain. That won't happen because the Spirit Lake tribe no longer refers to itself as the Spirit Lake Sioux.

The Sioux tribe nearest to UND has given its permission. That should be enough. The size of the tribe or which namesake tribe in a state gave its permission wasn't a requirement for any other school. Why should it be for UND?

Here's a link to the story. EDIT: It's interesting that a month ago, Johnson said he'd be back for his 12th season after signing a new two-year contract extension.

I don't know about other times, but Hakstol was the one who made the decision about whether the team would wear the black Nike Swift jerseys.

All the research on the black Nike Swift jerseys that I did for the USCHO story had to be good for something.

Dec. 29 - First game at Dartmouth Jan. 26 - First game at Minnesota Feb. 24 - Second game at Denver March 16 - Final Five against SCSU March 24 - NCAA against Michigan March 25 - NCAA against Minnesota April 5 - Frozen Four against Boston College

Way to go Jason!

Also not true.

No.