Nightwing

What part of that really talked about rigging an election?

I have to ask: Were you born this way, or to have to really try to be this retarded?

I'm sure Ron is really popular with the South Koreans.

Better understanding? I'm not sure a full and immediate pull-out from Iraq is the best thing. We do need to leave, but the whole 'immediacy' issue really sort of worries me. That, and pretty much spitting in the face of our allies by leaving NATO and the UN. Less so with the UN, but his entire policy seems to isolationist.

But I thought we wanted change! If Paul's ideas aren't change, I dunno what is. Is it too hard to put on the "Good" qualifier to "Change"? How about "Positive"? Personally, I'd say he's up there with Dukakis in just ignoring the primaries like Dukakis did the first few weeks of the General Election. I mean, he needs to do SOMETHING right now to show people he's alive. Right now I don't think he's in the Top 5 in the Republican Primaries.

Well, let's face it: If people knew that Ron Paul was anything CLOSE to a legitimate candidate for the Presidency, do you really think he'd have no campaign contributions from corporations?

They can be hacked very easily. The question was actually "Is there any proof", not how easily they are hacked.

William Jennings Bryan wanted bimetallism. McKinley wanted the gold standard in the 1896 election. Bryan gave the whole Cross of Gold speech...gold wasn't a good thing in that speech. I know my history. It's just simpler to say "Gold Standard" today because we aren't running on it. Has a better ring to it. Isn't Ron a bimetallist (Silver Standard) guy, anyways? So technically the comparison does hold up, even though I simplified the platform.

Dear God. Candidates receiving CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS? FROM MAJOR CORPORATIONS? Jesus. It's already too late.

Nacroleptic Jumper: GOLD STANDARD, people. GOLD. FUCKING. STANDARD. No amount of conspiratorial bullshit can divert my attention from the fact that he's basically running William Jennings Bryan's campaign a hundred and ten years later. And allow me to express my disappointment for my own state. It's sad to see McCain go down like that, but frankly his campaign here was insanely lackluster. Romney has name recognition with the older demographics here (But unfortunately not as the guy who completely fucked Detroit during the riots... or maybe they do. It's always hard to tell around here...), and he had been showing commercials for a few months now. The problem that I didn't realize at the time is that Romney is the figure the Democrats WANT to go up against, not McCain. Last time Democrats turned out for McCain, it was a big "Fuck you!" to John Engler, the governor on the way out at the time, who had managed to go up against the weakest Democrats of all time (Wolpe and Fieger) and continue to stay in office. Without that motivation and lacking a decent campaign, McCain set himself up for a loss here. I'm also disappointed in the Democrats. I honestly think they are going to regret basically giving Michigan a backhand when it comes to the General Election. The Republicans aren't running GW this time, and this isn't the same state they used to know. Without giving Michigan any heed, I can see the state swinging towards a Republican Candidate this election.

Sweet Jesus no. It's easily in my bottom five for raping the entire story. Read the Watchmen Movie thread for more on that one.

Mine own list... 5) Batman 4) Spider-Man 2 3) Superman 2) Superman 2 1) Batman Begins Perhaps we should create a "General Comic Book Movie" Thread to discuss such things?

Eh, I'd say it lacks the cohesion and character depth that Spider-Man 2 had. X-Men is another hard movie concept because there are so damn many of them, all with their own little side-stories, you end up ignoring or dishonoring some characters to look at others (Wolverine and Rogue compared to Cyclops or Storm, for example). It was certainly a great movie, but I'm not sure that even makes my Top 5 of Best Superhero movies.

I'm not sure how much of the character you're describing (The cancer victim) translates to the big screen. Sandman worked well because he had some depth, but didn't need to support an entire movie on his back like Venom would have to. He had Harry and the Symbiote to occupy some of the time. And don't stand up? The first one was good (Not great), but I still think the second movie was one of the best superhero movies ever. A great blend of action, storyline, and character development. Sure, it had a goofy and unrealistic moments, but it worked well enough for the entire thing.

But that doesn't mean they are right, either. Would the second movie have been better with the Symbiote and/or Venom? Frankly, no. The third movie was the movie to start the setup in. Doc Ock, judging by how absolutely fantastic it was, deserved a movie of his own. Adding the Symbiote would have messed the whole "doubting his powers and place in the world" subplot, as well as the whole Mary Jane part of the movie. I can't see how adding the setup for Venom in that movie would have done any good. The third movie needs a secondary villain so Peter can deal with Harry, who really needed more screen-time. Sandman was a great choice: A somewhat sympathetic villain that could be easily fit into the movie. Playing the Symbiote with Peter's legitimate anger at the villain, to me, was a great way to go. It's also a great time to introduce Brock (Who I thought was a perfectly fine character in the movie) and have Peter ruin him and be a complete dick while he's with the Symbiote. Actually, I think of Green Goblin and Doc Ock before him. Both are, arguably, better villains than Venom ever was and more integral to who Parker is as a character. Especially when it comes to both Goblins. At the cost of a better second movie, and I'm really not convinced that Venom is the "End All, Be All" Spider-Man villain. I'm not sure that he'd translate nearly as well as most fans think: He really doesn't have depth when he's playing the villain, and there isn't much to go from there. Green Goblin (Both of them), Doc Ock, and even Sandman have more depth and more freedom to actually tell a story than Venom does. From the small part he played in the third movie, Sandman was a lot more interesting than Venom normally is when he's up against Spidey. Yeah, I agree on both points here. Had it ended there after a good Sandman fight along with more Harry, the movie would have been a lot better.

Sometimes you have to ignore the fans and do the movie right rather than just cater to the loudest group out there. I can understand where Raimi comes from when he doesn't want Venom in there: Spidey is best when you steep the character in some level of reality and . The whole Symbiote thing is cool... but it's hard to do in a quick, movie format. Each time you explain it, it always sounds a bit more ridiculous than it did before, and it takes you away from "New York City" level reality of Spidey. It's hard to bring it into the movie in a non-contrived way, which is something that the Spidey movies had been really good at so far (Doc's arms, Osbourne's madness, etc etc...). A moon rock in the park? Ugh. Plus, I have problems with the 1-Dimensional character that he is as a Spider-Man villain. On his own, he's better, but as a Spidey Villain he really doesn't interest me. But you can't just DEMAND Venom in the middle of the process when the script is already written (And frankly, it seemed to be a good script already). You're trusting them to make a good movie, and they can't do that when a bunch of people who are removed from the project are demanding things from them (Similar to, say, Batman fans demanding the Joker play a part in Batman Begins). They should have said "No, we'll get to it" and done the movie. This is especially true with Venom, for the purposes of his odd origin alone, needs to be set up and then have a movie to himself. He shouldn't have been in this movie no matter what the fans said, because his own background demands him have 1) A relationship to Parker previous his transformation 2) Parker to have the Symbiote, and 3) Parker give up the Symbiote after he learns what it does to him. The fact of the matter is this lies just as much on the fans who demanded Venom in the middle of the process as much as it does Raimi himself. He did the best with what the fans were asking from him, and I can't fault him much for the muddled picture that came out. It just goes to show that people making these films should stick to honoring the character their own way, and not let the fans mess up the process.

I'm not too keen on DC stuff so please somebody correct me if I'm wrong. Didn't this "mind-erasing" thing also happen in The Flash comics? I seem to recall that everybody knew that Wally West was the Flash but in some storyline something happened and suddenly everybody forgot or something of the like? If this is true then I don't see much reason to bitch about this since it already happened and to my knowledge nobody complained that time. Well, you are comparing two very different things. Wally's retcon was more a 'soft-retcon' than anything: It really wasn't tied into anything big, and the biggest effect was to change something which was relatively recent (his unborn children dying). Overall, it didn't change anything that was intrinsically linked to his character: At the end of the day, he was still the same guy, and it didn't have a huge effect on continuity overall. Peter's retcon is the hardest type of retcon you could get. We are essentially erasing 20+ years of continuity, eliminating one of the most essential relationships he has, negating things like "The Other" (Return of Webshooters, remember?), HARRY OSBORN IS ALIVE AGAIN... All of it is a drastic shock to the entire character concept. It's really not comparable.

R Is he going to switch parties to the Democrats? I get the feeling that the "real" change that people want is just the Republicans out of control of the white house. *COUGHCOUGHLOOKATTHEPOLLSSMITTYALREADYPOSTEDCOUGH*

Well, CNN has called New Hampshire for McCain, with only 12% of the precincts reporting. Meanwhile, Obama and Clinton are in a knife fight for the top spot, with Clinton holding a small lead. The most amazing part of all this is the ridiculous turnout on the Democratic side. Obama and Clinton are in the 13-14,000 range, while McCain is only at 8,100. Man.

5 for Tiger Stadium.

On this point I have to disagree. He's always been on the outside of the Republican Party (Maybe not on his voting record, but internal politics of the party seem determined to marginalize him), and his incredible image job (People just like him, even a lot of Democrats I know who spit at Republicans) have really held fast despite 7 years of Bush. Yes, he does stand up for unpopular things, but that's part of his image: He stands up for what's right, not what's popular. Plus, he's been disagreeing with how the war itself has been run for quite a while, especially on things like torture. People are caught up in Obama now, but McCain's the closest thing in the election to a proven candidate. He's got the experience and (most importantly at the moment) the distance from the party establishment to really take flight in the General Election. Edwards' success on the General Election side baffles me. I guess he's more charismatic than I thought. Perhaps it's just because I look at him like he's a Southern Geoffry Fieger... And I do agree a little with Still Fly about Obama, but not Hillary. I don't think Hillary is going to come back: At this point, her whole campaign, which essentially crowned her the nominee long before the Primary Process, is falling apart because it overestimated her own appeal and the message is no longer just attacking GW, but actual change on both sides of the aisle.. I don't think she's ever had a real fight in her political career where she was doing the fighting and not for someone else, but I suppose that's what happens when you go to New York to get yourself elected. Obama is probably much weaker than we think under the microscope, but he has time to shore up things. I'm not sure how he'll do against a strong Republican candidate like McCain, but right now he seems to be a lock for the nomination. I also have to wonder how much missing out on Michigan is going to hurt the Democrats. Sure, it's a Democratic state normally, but John McCain is fairly popular here and he's easily the strongest opponent against the Dems. Without people like Edwards and Obama to draw people away from the Republican Primary (Which is an open one, by the way), you might see a larger McCain victory there than you would get normally.

Really, I'm just waiting for him to announce that he'll be running alongside William Jennings Bryan. The weird following he has really makes no sense to me. But hey, it looks like most Republican voters seem to get it (and thankfully see through Romney), so I suppose it's okay. I'm actually pumped for an election where I'll actually have two legit choices instead of one... or more recently, none.

1997. Red Wings. Flyers. Game 4.

You have to hope that some other candidate will pick up on the hilarious "I'm the candidate of change... I've been producing change for 35 years." contradiction.

Well, it is Scarborough.