Jingus

This crowd was all over the map that night, though. Okay, cheering HHH over Cena wasn't that big a shock (especially given Cena's hallucinatory entrance with an ancient car and OVW guys dressed as gangsters and a live machine gun). But they still gave Cena a MUCH harsher reaction than anyone had prior to that. Furthermore, what the fuck was with cheering Mickie James over Trish Stratus? First time that ever happened, maybe only time. And then in other matches like Shawn vs Vince and Edge vs Foley they'd cheer and boo exactly as marks were supposed to. In the match in question, they cheered Rey when he was on offense against Orton, but they were clearly there to see Angle and he was easily the most popular guy on the show as far as they were concerned. ...this is all making me want to go back and watch that show again. Hopefully an unedited live PPV version where Mickie's, uh, let's say "kitty clawhold" remains intact.

I must admit, I'm hoping for a bit of role playing at the debate, with Sarah Palin as a cheerleader who can't hold her jaegerbombs and Joe Biden as a senior fraternity member with a pocketful of roofies and a footlong erection.

Well that was about the most polite knifefight I've ever seen. Lehrer tried to shape things his way early on, and kept trying to get the candidates to give specific answers to some questions ("what would you cut in the budget" was the big one). But they kinda kept ignoring him and going back to their standard talking points, so Jim just gave up and let them ramble. Pro-McCain: -He seemed more verbally confident. Obama stuttered quite a bit, especially when he would start on a new subject; McCain just calmly started with some opening pleasantries spoken at 3/4 speed while he thought ahead to frame what he was saying next. Obama sometimes sounded like an actor stalling while he was trying to remember his lines. -Even mentioning the idea of a spending freeze was pretty ballsy. Don't know if I'd necessarily agree with him on that one, kinda ominous how he apparently wanted to keep raising the budget for the military, but it still showed he's willing to take drastic maneuvers to stop the sprawl of big government. -Barack interrupted John way more than vice-versa, making him look kinda like an asshole at times. -McCain beat the shit out of Barry on the experience issue, pointing out how he's actually been there and seen that in all these places that Obama just talks theoretically about. Barrison's non-explanation of why he'd never been to Iraq was especially pretty fucking weak. Probama: -Way more interactive with his opponent. McCain mostly dully stared straight ahead the whole time, talked to the TV audience, and sometimes acted like he was alone on that stage. Obama frequently turned his body and talked to McCain, which was rarely reciprocated. Also, Obama would constantly point out parts where he agreed with McCain, and also instantly step up to counterattack any time John said something which Barold thought was fallacious. -The tax cut thing. Aside from the one example of how companies would jump to Ireland (?) to do business cuz of our high taxes, McCain seemed like he was actively running away from trying to explain his tax plan. Kept trying to hammer the government spending instead, even when the debate had clearly gone past that point, and kept dodging the question even when Obama kept directly pointing it out. -Obama would sometimes change his gameplan on the fly, whenever he became Interruptor McStepontoes he would come up with counterattacks that McCain sometimes wouldn't really address, John would just go on repeating what he'd already said. -McCain talked too much imho about how Obama wants us to lose the war in Iraq. He kinda obsessed over it, and kept returning to it even when they'd gone on to other subjects. Gave the impression of having a Bush-esque one track mind on the subject. Overall? Draw. Both men scored points, and some of the stuff claimed on each side will have to be factchecked afterwards (what exactly Kissinger said about meeting the Iranian president, for example). But I don't think either one of them came out of it with a significant advantage over the other.

You keep saying that overwhelming stupidity must be the only reason any non-wealthy person would vote Republican. Which is an extraordinarily hyperbolic statement. And the only point you keep using to back this up is the tax cut. Is it truly so impossible for you to understand that the tax cut just might not seem that important to some people? That they might consider other issues to be more vital than getting a couple extra bucks on their paycheck? Shit, I'm not even a fucking conservative, I'm just trying to explain to you a little bit of why they might believe what they believe. Some of you guys seem to regard the viewpoints of the Republicans the same as you would someone who claims that the sky is red or that 1 + 1 = 3. Since I'm not affiliated with either side, I try to do what I can to explain to each of them the things about their opponents which seem inexplicable. I do the same thing to the other side at the Pit, for example pointing out all the things I find mind-bogglingly awful about a certain Alaskan hockeymom. Yeah, sometimes I go off on weird tangents, cuz I'm a rambling scatterbrained motherfucker like that. But I don't understand this atmosphere of outright incomprehension and instinctive loathing which some of you have for the rightwingers. I'm not fond of them either, but, once again, saying the only reason why anyone poor would vote Republican must be because they're incredibly stupid? Dude, the world ain't that simple.

Whether it objectively has or not is irrelevant, as long as some kind of arguement can be made that it has. You can always find some kind of numbers or statistics to back up your claim, no matter how ludicrous the claim may be. And some people will believe the claim, for a variety of reasons. Maybe they agree with your reasoning. Maybe you just happened to catch their ear at the right time. Maybe it's one of those cases where it's a claim they'd never heard before, but kinda makes sense once it's been proposed to them. There's all kinds of ways to manipulate people into believing propaganda, and doesn't require them to be so stupid that they can't properly dress or feed themselves, which seems to be how you view the poor Republican demographic. Which leads to the next point: Politicians lie? Commercials about elections lie? Next you'll be telling me the Easter Bunny isn't real. But seriously, both sides lie. People generally expect politicians to be full of shit, although they do expect the other side's politicians to be somewhat more full of shit than their own. Thus, they tend to automatically dismiss the opposing party's claims as falsehoods because they trust them less than their home team. A Democrat ad says something questionable? Damn those lying liberals! A Republican ad does the same? They might find it fishy, but they'll get over it, cuz they're already on that side. And clearly her religious beliefs are strong enough that she thinks that's more important that whatever small gain she might get from the tax break. Does that make her retarded? Especially since to believe this, you have to believe that some invisible wizard in the sky just said the magic words and POOF the earth was built in seven days, and if she's a good girl then after she dies she'll go up and live with the wizard in the sky forever and ever. Once someone's willing to put their faith in that, you wait until they vote Republican to call them naive? Yes, because naturally all of the folks at "my" board are just my automatons whom I've programmed to strictly follow my beliefs in every single way, in strict lockstep with my own political worldview. Why, they were even sitting on the hill with me at Gore's campaign headquarters rally in 2000.

Why do you keep harping on this income tax cut thing? It's not like if Obama is voted there will be giant zeppelins floating over the projects, throwing out stacks of hundred dollar bills to the impoverished masses. The tax cuts involve a relatively small amount of money. I forget the exact numbers, if someone could provide 'em it would be helpful, but we're talking a single-digit decrease in the percentage of income tax, if that much. For poor people, getting a raise of one more dollar per hour might mean more money than this cut will. Not to mention that this still doesn't change a thing in terms of paying other taxes; state income tax, sales tax, gas tax, all unaffected. The income tax cut is a drop in the bucket. It is not that huge a deal. And, as I pointed out earlier, there are independent reasons why some people might not even want it in the first place. Why do you seem to be insisting that it's more important than the cumulative effect of every other issue at stake in this election combined?

What if they don't agree with the tax cuts? Maybe they think Obama's trying to bribe them into voting for him. Maybe they're those types who think paying taxes is a patriotic duty. Maybe they think trickle-down economics is the way to go. There are all kinds of theoretical reasons why someone who isn't rich might still prefer the Republican model. You're being overly simplistic here by insisting that just voting against a tax cut for yourself automatically means you're some brainwashed bumpkin. Plus, like you brought up, there's a million other factors they might believe which could, in their judgement, be more important to them than whatever spare change they'd get back from the cuts.

Dude, the entire purpose of a debate is that you go into it hoping to further your understanding of the world by exposing yourself to a contrasting viewpoint. If you go in with an attitude of "my opinions are objectively correct and everyone who believes otherwise is factually wrong and therefore 'tarded", no, you won't ever understand why the people on the other side act the way they do.

No, going WHY IZ EVERYONE BUT ME SO STOOPID is remarkably condescending.

Yeah, but that's outsourcing, which is an entirely different problem. (And in theory you could also argue that Dubai imports a lot of American goods and puts some of the money back.) Spending the money overseas is an entirely different thing that spending it on frivolous stuff in America, because the money from the latter does get shunted back into our economy.

Still, it's not like the money which is spent on luxuries just vanishes from the economy, never to be seen again. That's the little grain of truth inside trickle-down economics; the money spent by the rich on anything goes back into the pool. What about those who sell the luxuries? Their companies have employees whose salaries need paying too. I agree that laying off a bunch of your workforce in order to pay for new marble floors and CEO bonuses is a horribly unethical thing, but you're acting like companies take their profits and bury them in the back yard so that they'll never see daylight again.

IIRC, Mania 22 was in Chicago. In that one, the crowd maniacally cheered for Angle, even to the point of booing Rey Misterio and clearly preferring Kurt in that match. Wasn't he a heel then? Angle's turned so damn many times I have difficulty remembering.

It turned a profit. Made its budget back, plus 5 mil extra. And that was just in domestic box office grosses, so with foreign and DVD they did okay. Meanwhile, Disaster Movie and everything Uwe Boll ever did lost money in the US, yet it hasn't stopped those tards from quickly jumping to their next project.

Still give it a shot anyway. Way better than it should've been. But I haven't heard about any plans for any followup, so I dunno.

WHAT?!?! No way. I keep forgetting these new ventures even exist. I really need to get some of 'em.

"Blindly believing"? Dude publicly admitted he did it.

Actually agree with that one. A movie with Kevin Costner as a millionare who moonlights as a serial killer? And Demi Moore as the detective trying to catch him? Should've been auto-suck, but turned out shockingly good. I think the difference here is that Cook was just playing a supporting role; when he's the lead guy, it tends to be crap. I'm pleasantly surprised with the American moviegoing public this summer. Shit that deserved to fail did indeed fail, while the quality pictures mostly did better than expected. Dare I hope that people in general are becoming the tiniest bit more discriminating about what they wanna pay to watch?

I wish everyone would drop the "troopergate" thing already. The trooper in question, Mike Wooten, was apparently a real piece of shit who should've been fired. He made death threats, he tazed an 11-year-old kid, shoved his wife around, drank alcohol while driving his police cruiser, and committed various minor offenses. Why should this asshole have kept his job? I strongly disagree with Sarah Palin on, oh, 80% of the issues, but this ain't one of them. This guy should not have been wearing a gun and a badge, and anyone who tried to cover for him should've been punished too.

I never collected autographs or posters or toys or anything like that. Never saw the point. Aside from my tape collection, I only had one other little odd thing: I'd sometimes collect little pieces of broken tables that someone had gone through. No idea why, it just seemed kinda cool. "This one's from Doug Gilbert in Nashville, this one was Abyss in Atlanta, this one was Necro Butcher in Evansville", so forth n' so on. I stopped doing it once I got In Da Biz and eventually lost all of 'em, but at one point I had like a dozen little jagged pieces of plywood from various tables shattered by the force of a human body crashing into it.

I don't think I've ever been to a wedding which offered free drinks. Hell, for that matter, most of them had no alcohol whatsoever. Freakin' teetotalers infesting my family. I'd almost rather have a bunch of drunks, at least they wouldn't be so uptight and boring.

Let the heathen spill them On the dusty ground; God will make them pay For each sperm that can't be found! Is it time for our annual abortion argument which never solves anything already? And aren't condoms' reliability rate about the same 97-99% as SSP is claiming for his method? Much better at preventing the spread of STDs of course, but if you're in a situation where you don't have to worry about that...

My main thought is wondering how all those blank spots work, the ones where the user information should be. Especially since Agnes is still here, so I don't get how you just get a big empty space where you should at least get the dude's name like in all the other posts. When was this, after Backlash 02 I think?

Come on, all WWE guys fly on like a dozen planes every week. Why would Jeff, boarding his one millionth domestic flight, suddenly forget what you should and shouldn't try to bring through security? That being said, unless you get real unlucky and somehow get subjected to a strip search or something, I don't see how the hell you could possibly fail to sneak something through the Nashville airport. I was there a few weeks back, and security was a joke considering this is a Post 9-11 World and all.

ARGH. You see, shit like this is why I try to stay as pessimistic as possible about TNA. They did something cool at the last show? Guaranteed to fuck it up on the next one. At least poor Roxxi is FINALLY getting a push. Kinda. Maybe. So, what about that "no man-on-woman violence" rule? Ain't any women in this match for Jackie to pair off with. Though I'd imagine she didn't do much. Such a nice company to stick her back in the ring just a couple days after getting all her front teeth knocked out.

Didn't link to anything of the kind, it was some fluffpiece news report about Chicago residents being stressed out. I me some MsChif, and you're telling me her day-job alter ego might be that of a brainy science chick? HAWT. EDIT: all I ever post in this folder is "your links failed me again, DAMN YOU CHEEZY", isn't it? Wow. I am a dick.