Jingus

So you're saying that the wishes of the few (rural voters) should be given equal if not greater attention than the wishes of the many (urban voters)? The whole idea behind the democratic system of government is that the majority rules, and whoever or whatever receives the most votes wins. The electoral college subverts that whole idea, and gives way too much power to a minority of people.

I've never understood the argument that going to a straight popular vote would hurt those in rural areas. Under such a system, every vote would be equal and identical to all the others, right? So what's the difference where you live? Personally, I do think the electoral college does have some good features, and shouldn't be dropped completely. I think we should do what Maine is already doing: split the electoral votes by the percentage of popular votes either candidate receives in that state.

I usually respond to that one with something along the lines of, "God doesn't want to take the nonexistant amount of time and effort it'd take for him to instant message my brain and explain himself? Well, fuck 'im."

I thought of using nukes to break up hurricanes. In theory, it would work; it's the only power humans possess that's stronger than mother nature. Of course, I thought of it when I was twelve, wrote a school paper on it, and ended it by saying the whole idea wouldn't work because of radioactivity and massive tidal waves produced by said nukes.

If Catholics aren't Christians, then are you saying that Christianity didn't really exist from Catholicism's rise to power until the time of Martin Luther? (And no, the Greek Orthodox doesn't count.) Also, I still don't see how one man has the right to tell another one what religion he does or doesn't belong to. You're presuming that I don't know anything about quantum physics or prehistoric science in general. It's true, I don't know all that much, but you didn't know that before calling me "uninformed". Certainly any true God and any true religious scripture would need to be infallible and could certainly call itself such, I'm not disputing that. The basis of reasoning and logical proofs is rationality. Honestly, I think that mathematics are the only thing in the universe that are infallible; one plus one always equals two, and there's really nothing else in the universe which always has the exact same outcome every single time given the same opening circumstances. How is rationality a bias, or circular reasoning? Aside from the possible argument that all humans are flawed and cannot possibly know or espouse real truth, I really don't see where you get this plot point. How is the lack of God "scientifically laughable"? I'd say the exact opposite is true. If anything, the vast majority of scientific evidence strongly disagrees with the Bible's version of the world. As to proving God false, no, I cannot. It's like telling you "There's an invisible flying pink unicorn in my room, prove it false!" The person making the supposition must first prove it true, and the debate moves on from there. (And I would very much enjoy reading a proof on how any other different god cannot exist.) That's my problem: God has been, shall we say, less than clear with me about what his ultimate goals are. Me? Clean and pure? Hardly. There's plenty of metaphorical (and in fact right now, literal) dirt under my fingernails. My point is, I don't think that I should be arbitrarily judged impure for a lot of the stuff that the Bible says I will be. Like whose holes I stick my dick into, for example. One would think that God has more important matters to attend to. So explain to me what I don't understand about it. God knows who will be saved or not ahead of time, being omnipotent; he either does or does not take action one way or another to change a soul's destination. Thus, God decides whether a person is saved or damned long before they even exist. Is that not correct? Of course my anger won't change a damn thing. I'm not a fool, I am aware of how little any one person really amounts to in this universe. I know my condemnation of God doesn't affect him one bit; but I still condemn him. It still doesn't change my feelings on the matter. To say otherwise would be lying about my own feelings. All true to an extent. But to complete this picture, God would have to be a parent that I've never once seen or heard, except for little notes that are passed to me every once in a while by other people claiming they were from my parent, and the notes wouldn't make a helluva lot of sense. Yes. Or he could've found a way to make humanity exist with choice but without suffering; with souls, but without misery. With happiness and without sorrow. A contradiction, yes, but I'm sure he could've managed. He's God, he can do anything, right? And I completely fail to see how there is no other way. There are infinite other ways. With an omnipotent being, the choices would never merely be A or B. If I'm predestined to do something, then I'm hardly "free" to do anything, by the very nature of the concept. Also, where'd this "sovereignty" and "trinity" stuff come from? Why the descent into ten-dollar preacher words all of the sudden? And what happens to all these souls damned before the miracle of Jesus? Does God just say, "Oops, I sent you to Earth too early, now BURN FOR IT!"? Firstly, definre what you mean by "sovereignty and cause" in this context. Secondly, I'm older than you, booger-head. If God didn't want them to go to Hell, why didn't he just, y'know, NOT SEND THEM THERE? Once again: he can do anything he wants, he's God! Now you're using the suffering of Christ as an example of the worst thing a person can go through? Jesus spent a few hours on a cross. A nasty way to die, yeah, but hardly the worst. Call me back when Jesus dies after spending decades paralyzed in bed from an agonizing brain tumor. It's about here that I'm glad you apologized after writing this. Me too. I hadn't gotten to it yet, but burning babies is actually one of the trademark points I make in these discussions.

"Socialist's Sanctuary" sounds kinda political, too.

If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times, and I'll say it again: I'm against any electoral system that allows the candidate who gets fewer individual votes from the people to still win the election. This has happened FOUR TIMES already.

"Schindler's List" made more money than Oscar Schindler did. Now THAT'S some fine war profiteering.

My sources for what? You're claiming that Kerry says that a vote for GW is a vote for the draft, and I want to know when and where he said that, plain and simple.

I wasn't arguing whether or not the UN was in the right; just over whether Bush really had the clearence he was supposed to in order to send in the troops. It was a gamble, and one that came back to bite us in the ass. Saddam Hussein was an evil man who needed to be taken out of power; everyone knew that. But the evidence for actual WMDs at the present time was pretty damn shaky, and I really wish our leaders hadn't picked that as one of our main justifications. Once again though, the claim was made that Iraq was involved in something they weren't. Poor Muslim states? Afghanistan, to name a big one. It wasn't Bush's FAULT; it was nobody's fault but the terrorists themselves. I'm just saying that claiming that electing Kerry would bring on another similar attack is a logical disconnect. For the first claim, sources please? For the second, what could "the wrong vote" mean except for not voting for Bush, i.e., voting for Kerry? I doubt that Cheney was thinking of Ralph Nader when he said that.

Well, that brings a story to mind. I know a guy who works for Pro Wrestling Iron, and he passed along one of the stories one of the vets told him. Apparently, one big reason why Kawada wasn't taken along in the NOAH defection was a nasty little trick he had: whenever he was pissed off for some reason, doing a job he didn't want to do or whatever, Kawada would do his damndest to actually knock out his opponent in the ring, and then "apologize" for it once he got to the back. Hell, even Dr. Death bitched about Kawada being too stiff. (That's all I'm saying on the subject, I don't want this to turn into another "Taue's chokeslam" type flamefest.) Yeah, some "horribly fake punches" can bring down a match. Austin's wussy punches always bugged me during his last few years, for example. But it's completely possible to have great looking strikes in a match that never even touch the other guy. Bobby Eaton is one example; when I had the honor of working with him a few times, he hit me with some shots that looked like they were knocking my jaw off; I hardly felt a thing.

Hey, the second reporter CHANGED THE QUOTE! The original: The NEW-N-IMPROVED-LOL version: That's some lame bullshit "journalism" right there. (And oh yeah: "King of Prussia, PA". WOW.)

It's not just the average fans, though; its more the smart marks than anything. Like the guys who'll claim that Kawada is the greatest wrestler of his time, and simply ignore the fact that he's obviously kicking guys right in the face way too hard.

Since the first ladies rarely do anything important, my history teachers rarely told me anything about them. No, FDR didn't have to put up with that. In fact, FDR had reporters LYING FOR HIM about his complete inability to walk. It was a different time. No, he didn't. Somebody else asked him a question about the draft at a press conference, and he answered "I can't say" and then changed the subject. Hardly "playing the card". Scared? I don't know if Osama's "scared" of anything. He's too fanatical. But he's smart enough to know that Saddam would've gutted him like a fish if he tried operating an international terrorist organization out of Iraq without Saddam's express permission (which he was less than likely to give, being a control freak).

In theory, if they wanted to hold one, they'd be within their rights. Of course it would never happen, as you said, but that's more a case of the USA's staggeringly powerful military keeping them in check than anything else. It got us the real-world equivalent of a heel jumping us with a sneak attack. France: really, who cares? They're just pissed that they haven't had a decent military campaign since Napoleon. Russia: probably worried to death about the thousands and thousands of miles of common borders they share with terrorist countries. Unlike us, they don't have a whole ocean between them and the bad guys. Besides, they've got more than enough of their own problems to take care of now. Some students walking around your college proves... what? We don't need to "make friends" with them. We already have. Two words: Saudi Arabia. When did I ever say we should leave them alone? Never, that's when. And yes, there are terrorists there; whole packs of them came into the country after the fall of Saddam. I doubt Osama would've used Iraq for anything, given Saddam's tendency to hunt down and kill EVERYONE in his country who he even slightly disagrees with. Of course, if you'd actually tried to read the article, you would've seen that Kerry NEVER said or even implied that Bush would bring back the draft. So... you're saying that no incumbent could possibly win in this situation, and ergo Bush won't be reelected? And who is Jane Jefferson?

If you didn't like the beginning, let's just say that you'll probably hate the end. The stuff with the Beast is generally thought to be the best part of the season.

Gotta love the media. Exactly how the fuck does Kerry answering "I can't tell you" to someone who ASKED HIM about the draft get turned into "KERRY SAYS BUSH WILL REINSTATE DRAFT"?

Hey, if you really wanted to affect the outcome of the primaries, just do it the old fashioned way: identity theft.

A few of my own points: 1. As much as I hate the town itself with burning passion, Memphis has put out some damn good wrestling over the years. Almost everyone either started out there or went through there when they were still young and green, and it improved them a lot. (Thus leading to a running joke in the business about how Tony Falk somehow had everyone's first match one way or another, whether it was Austin, Jarrett, Rock, Angle, or even James Storm.) 2. Memphis has also put out some really shitty wrestling over the years. Once the crowds started slowly dying out throughout the 90s, they turned to a lot of stupid shit to try to keep people's attention. The constant revolving door bookers didn't help matters there either. 3. Russo was involved with TNA from the very beginning, even to the point of supplying the name "TNA". Russo and Jarrett are close friends, and have been so for years. (Not to mention having Russo's former writing assistant Ed Ferrera as a commentator from the very first show.) Russo was hanging out at the shows even back before they moved to the Asylum. Come on, with Russo hanging around and being friends with so many people involved, how can you think that stuff like the Johnsons wasn't his idea?

Yes, by the books, it was an illegal invasion. One can debate whether the law was right; I personally think Saddam should've been taken out a LONG time ago. But it was done against the wishes of the largest governing body in the world. Heh, good reference. So you're saying the "left" wanted to just assign blame, and not actually do anything to prevent further attacks? That the liberals WANT more terrorist actions? Clearly you can see that's not a logical statement. What, you mean Osama Bin Ladin? One problem: heels, by definition, are the BAD GUYS. They're the evil ones who always lose in the end. Personally, I'd rather not have my country be a heel. Yeah, they MIGHT turn up in Syria, but it's looking less and less likely every day. I think Bush's single biggest mistake in office was leaning so heavily on the WMDs justification for going to war. Funny how there are a lot more terrorists in Iraq now than there used to be. Al-Qaeda was never a great friend of Iraq; Saddam was too secular and materialistic for their tastes. No, World War II was not an "illegal war", in great part because Congress actually DECLARED WAR, something which hasn't been done once since then despite all of America's various military activities around the world in the past sixty years. Yeah... because we're rich. If you notice, religious wars tend to only start in dirt-poor nations without a great deal of centralized government or social services. Actually, Canada is part of the British Commonwealth. You're thinking of Quebec. (And it's been trying to secede from the rest of the country for years now.) I disliked Cheney implying that voting for Kerry was tantamount to asking for another 9/11 for two reasons. #1: it's simple fear-mongering and our Vice President really should be above using such base propaganda; and #2: it's funny that it would be ANOTHER 9/11, since the first one happened during the term of the guy Kerry is running against.

. . . ...aw, dammit, okay, I'll do it too: Buffy: 1. 5 2. 2 3. 6 4. 3 5. 4 6. 7 7. 1 Angel: 1. 5 2. 4 3. 2 4. 1 5. 3

"Hey Paul, we got a great idea! After the match, Kurt will come back with... wait for it... a tranquilizer gun, and he'll shoot you and knock you out!" "Uh, Vince, how can we fake me getting shot with a dart?" "Don't worry Paul, you'll hardly even feel it. Then Kurt will shave your head." Seriously, how do you work shooting someone with a goddamn dart gun?

I noticed that myself. "crackhead jews", heh, what wit. (Especially since the majority of studio executives aren't Jewish, and the majority of people in Hollywood aren't terribly religious no matter what race they belong to.)

I'm sorry I got so worked up in that last mega-post, it's been a while since I last debated religion and I got more worked up than I should've. I'll be back in a little while with some more responses and questions.

Previously banned poster Chris "Jubuki" Coey.