Hogan Made Wrestling

I liked the explanation of the weapons system being a bio-weapon that they helped Juma develop, because it provided a credible answer to the question "What could Juma, a dictator in a little African country, have that they couldn't just acquire by themselves?". Amusingly enough, ever since season 2 the threats have gone nuke - bio-weapon - nuke - bio-weapon - nuke - bio-weapon (with other stuff thrown in of course).

That was the saddest I've felt during a scripted TV show in a long time, and I think it's because in a sense Bill Buchanan had become the moral center of the 24 universe. Bill pretty much ALWAYS did what he felt was the right thing to do, even if it meant bending the rules or unleashing Jack, but he just couldn't personally go as far as Jack could because his moral compass wasn't as completely demagnetized as Jack's.

I don't think it's nukes because it's apparently something that can be destroyed or made inoperable by Juma's men on the boat before it gets there. Plus if it were nukes why wouldn't Juma and his men just try to set them off themselves in DC?

The Democrats don't have to own anything. Republicans were in charge of the war when that went bad, so they got blamed. Republicans were in charge of economic policy when the economy went bad, so they got blamed. If things don't get better, the Democrats just need to claim "things are worse than we thought, we need more time to undo all the damage the Republicans did." They don't have to own anything, but the voters have entrusted the Democrats to fix the problems. Like one journalist noted, "Obama voted against the war, but he's inheriting the responsibility to end it." It's not about owning anything, it's about whose responsibility it is to fix it. And if things don't improve, we will reach the point where no one will want to hear about how it's the Republicans' fault. The way things are right now, Obama pretty much has enough votes in Congress and enough political capital right now to get things done. Blaming the Reps might work for a little while, but in the long run we need to see progress or things will get ugly. True to a certain extent. The only frustration is that, take the stimulus package for instance. The version that was signed into law is very different from the one originally proposed. Now, some would say "hey that's compromise" but others would say that the version signed into law is not enough and that in order to really help the economy, we needed the bill in it's original form. I can respect bi-partisanship on some level, but the last two elections kind of served as a mandate in my opinion that the american people were not happy with the economic polices that led to the current situation(among other things such as the war in iraq) and when it comes to things like economic policy, the fact is that both parties have a completely different philosophy on what makes the economy go. If the last two elections said anything, it was that the american people wanted a big change from the policies that were in place, and compromising on something as essential as the plan for economic recovery is not something the new majority should be willing to compromise on so much that it renders the bill a lot less effective if not completely useless. Of course with how poor republicans are polling overall, I also call into question why the Dems weren't willing to fight it out a little more to keep the original bill intact. The answer to that is Harry Reid is an absolutely terrible Senate majority leader who is completely spineless and cowers at the the mere threat of obstruction from the Republicans. Instead of actually forcing the Republicans to really filibuster a bill (by reading War and Peace on the Senate floor or something similar), he allows them to get away with procedural filibusters by calling for a cloture vote every time one is used.

What's bizarre is that a lot of Republicans seem to be happy with Limbaugh, Hannity, and Beck being made into the faces and de facto leaders of the party. It's like they don't even see how it's being done specifically the marginalize and neuter the real movers and shakers for the Republicans.

6 years, 54 million for DeAngelo Hall with 22.5 guaranteed?

No comments yet on tonight's episode? This season just keeps getting better and better, and next week's 2 hour episode looks completely off the hook. Also unlike last year where a mid-season 2 hour episode felt randomly thrown in, this seems like the perfect spot to have one. The previews almost give it the feel of a movie. The final scene with Tony and Jack was really intense and unnerving with a great atmosphere created just by the sunlight and the way they were sitting and flimed.

Personally I agree with Czech to a point. This awards year has been the worst since the ones with the first two LOTR movies in terms of online whining regarding the Oscars "snubbing" internet fanboy mark jerkoff movies. Now, I'm not saying The Dark Knight sucked or Heath Ledger was the worst winner ever, or anything even close to that. I thought it was a very good film and Ledger did an excellent job with his character, but both are getting overrated at this point and I'm tired of Ledger being the new Kurt Cobain. I was hoping Robert Downey Jr would win, and not just because it would have pissed off the TDK marks, but I really think he put in one of the best performances of the year, and did so in a challenging role that could easily have been a disaster and opened him up to all sorts of personal attacks.

Please let them get into an argument over religion.

Are people basing their choices on whether or not they personally liked the direction of the network, or whether it was a financially disastrous move? Because if it's the latter then some of the responses don't make any sense at all, such as "When CBS became the Crime Broadcasting System". While I personally don't like CBS's reliance on very derivative serial crime dramas, you can't argue it hasn't been a big reason for their financial success.

It's ironic that you refer to Paul Krugman as an "asshat" and then reference something as factually bankrupt as the Laffer curve.

Drill Baby Drill!!! Also, I wonder how the residents of these states are going to take losing out on job-creation money so that their governors can make a political point and suck up to their party machine in anticipation of a run for national office in 2010 or 2012.

Definitely agree on all the Apocalypse love here. His storylines in the cartoon were always the most compelling and epic, with Beyond Good and Evil being probably the high point of the series. The voice actor was absolutely perfectly cast, and his lines were so awesomely pretentious and self-important. "I am the shores of eternity, crash upon me and be broken!"

"No one believed in us but ourselves, everyone was sure we were going to lose!" and all other variations, which has become a synonym for "we won the game!"

Pete Carroll ripping on Sanchez at his farewell press conference was embarrassing and a total bitch move.

Florida, Oklahoma, and Texas look like the favorites again next year, especially since it sounds like Mark Sanchez will declare for the NFL draft (which would be a smart move on his part, since he will probably the 2nd QB picked after Stafford goes, and next year will be absolutely loaded with Bradford and McCoy).

I am so glad the NFL has a playoff to ensure that the best teams get to meet in the Super Bowl!

There are some interesting games on that schedule. I would say the top 5 of interest (for me at least) are (no particular order): Virginia Tech vs. Alabama USC at Ohio State Utah at Oregon Oklahoma vs. BYU Georgia at Oklahoma State Oregon certainly put together a tough OOC schedule for next season (Utah, Boise State, Purdue). I'll be impressed if we can get through that undefeated.

There's actually been an issue with that sort of thing here in Portland, since our downtown is patrolled by a bunch of rent-a-cops that the city hires to issue "citizens' arrests" and who regularly deal, sometimes brutally, with the homeless folks in town. Lately, there's been a few people here who have video documentation of those sorts of things and the PPD isn't too happy about them... Probably because during one of our many, many protests/demonstrations, some people were inside the protest videotaping the police officers to make sure they were doing okay, and they ended up pepper spraying a baby, among other nonsense. Some of those are on Youtube, also. There's even a few independent watchdog groups set up. I know this is the one for Portland. I'm guessing this one is the one for Oakland. The cops down here in Eugene are the absolute worst, they get their jollies off busting out tazers to zap dumb college protest kids who don't really know their rights. What's especially pathetic is that the police force here, when they aren't busy giving out parking tickets (their primary raison d'etre), is basically just a glorified party patrol. My neighbors have had their car window smashed in and their apartment broken into (while they were inside) by some homeless drunk, and both times they called the cops and no one showed up (even though they claimed to be sending someone). But if the cops get wind of a situation where they can make some coin through MIP citations, they descend on it like the four horsemen of the apocalypse. A few weeks ago they broke up a party (which was guilty of an absolutely heinous crime - having kegs at a location where they weren't registered!), and started cuffing people and busting down doors. Their rationale was that the household acting in a "hostile manner" towards them - because they forced them to get a warrant to enter the premises. It's good to know that the police regard exercising ones constitutional rights as being "hostile" towards them.

At this point I have to cheer for the Cardinals in the NFC over my #2 (Eagles) and #3 (Giants) most hated teams in the NFL. As far as the AFC goes I know a lot more obnoxious Chargers and Steelers fans than Ravens ones, so even in spite of Marvin I am cheering for them. If I had to pick between them though, I'd go with the Chargers because I am way less sick of any players on their team than I am of Big Ben.

Man does the NFL ever suck right now. I can't believe I'm actually reduced to rooting for the Ravens to win the Super Bowl.

This part simply isn't true, and it's a big reason why USC has no business being in the discussion for #1. Sure, they "beat everyone in their path" if by that you mean they won all their remaining games, but it was not "just like Florida" because there were multiple games where they really didn't look all that impressive, against largely weaker competition than what Florida faced (Oregon being a notable exception). The wins over Arizona and Cal were not especially impressive, largely due to their inconsistent offense, and the Stanford game was close for a lot longer than it should have been (although to be fair they won comfortably). Florida put up consistently better results against stronger opponents.

You'd think Tebow's performance tonight was right up there with Vince Young the way the announcers were talking about him.

It somehow slipped my mind to mention it last night, and I was surprised no one else did. I was looking down at the screen reading TSM when my girlfriend shrieked "look at that mullet!" and I looked up to find Mullet Man going hog wild on the TV. Texas trailer park trash in all its glory.

This is becoming THE cliche interview in all of sports. I have almost no doubt that regardless of who wins on Thursday, someone is going to pull out the "We were disrespected, no one believed in us but ourselves!" crap.