Jobber of the Week

I don't remember blaming the CIA. I don't remember anyone else blaming the CIA but I do remember a lot of heat being placed on Tenet. I remember thinking and probably posting that Tenet is one of the few guys left from the Clinton years, and speculating on the odds that the buck is passed to him. I remember thinking about how the U.N. didn't see this "evidence" as being strong enough to invade Iraq. In fact, I remember when that was going on thinking how sad it must have been to be Colin Powell, and try to sell all this bullshit to them. The people that did believe the reports were, of course, the Bush administration. The buck stops with them. I don't remember saying Bush reacted to 9/11 for Daddy Bush. I said that was the only logical conclusion I could understand as to why he would want to go into Iraq from day one, which is, as each of these guys come forward, a common picture. Well, there was the last 'OMG DISGRUNTLED FORMER STAFFER' guy who said something to this effect, and now this guy says it was what was on Bush's mind on 9/12. I don't know, how many Republican administrations does a guy have to work for before he's credible and not a Democratic puppet?

He caught the guy doing it, and he's rotting in jail. That's not effective?

C:/Program Files/Maxis/SimCity4 Delete. Reinstall.

What does this have to do with clean water?

Does that somehow explain a stupid motive or something?

Uh, what? A good number of terrorist plots were foiled in those years. The media didn't cover them as much, though, and the ones that did hit tended to be against us.

I don't know how it contridicts anything. Sensing the 9/11 warning signs, including papers that showed up after the attack. Intelligence agencies fail. Coming up with legitimate proof of WMDs. Intelligence agencies fail. I think we can take the "boobs in borrowed suits" answer on both cases, the question here is whether the second one happened because of pressure from the White House to eagerly get into Iraq no matter how thin the evidence. More and more reports are gathering together that Dubya had his heart completely set on going into Iraq from the first minute after he took the oath. I'm not exactly sure why, as the only thing I can come up with is to extract revenge over the Daddy assassination plans, but that would be the stupidest rationale for the use of the United States military in.... Well, ever.

They'd be so underground they never heard of themselves.

As do I. Which is why I wind up wearing earplugs in more and more places. Concerts, wrestling shows (although the big stadium shows are better because the sound is less loud if you're sitting far away), movies (been wearing them here for years), even various rides at Disneyland are a lot louder than they are in 1994, something I confirmed with other visitors, and I remember in my last trip reminding myself to bring plugs next time.

Let us paraphrase....

Nobody seems to be able to answer the question about why this guy should be supported for what he said. I mean, sure, he said it, fine. But I don't understand why we have to give him a standing ovation for it. He's thinking a little backwards though. The gay guys are leaving more women for him. The lesbians, well, they aren't.

Hamas does want to kill Jews and is a terrorist organization. I just said that. I don't agree with your vast majority comment but I don't have any statistics on how many Palestinians have been aiding Hamas. But I'm sure if it was true, there'd be a whole lot less of them alive today than there are now.

So, how high up does an anti-terrorist dude have to be before you'll actually believe what he says? And if he wanted a sandwich on whole wheat at the CIA cafeteria, and one day someone served it on rye and he wanted his money back, does that make him disgruntled?

While I think that Hamas definitely qualifies as a terrorist organization, I don't think that all the Palestinians want to kill all the Jews. Having basic things like clean water is a good way to make them happier.

Not really. Most voters don't listen to the partisan bickering, only the people like us do. They get the gist about the endorsements and say "yeah, whatever" and vote what they want to anyway. The only way the other side has even been able to react is to try and put the burden of proof on Kerry, which any idiot would know could cause him to jepordize a country's relations with the United States. That's all there is to it.

I'm sure someone will also step up and simply take over anything he was doing. But still, it's good to see this guy go down regardless.

Wow, it really.... Looks like the last one.

Good lord, do you think a foreign leader, if there is one or more, would want Kerry to name them? I mean, that immediately puts a huge strain on their relations with America's current administration.

Hey guys, George H.W. Bush left Saddam in power, what a horrible President. Oh wait...

And what did I say?

Everyone's had their say on how to fix the WWE. Now damnit, it's my turn. Overexposure: Let's take a look at how many hours of wrestling programming there is in a week from the WWE, assuming your markets get all their programming: Pay Per View (3 hours) Raw (2 hours) SmackDown (2 hours) Sunday Night Heat (1 hour) Velocity (1 hour) Confidential (1 hour) AfterBurn (30 minutes) BottomLine (30 minutes) So the average cable/satellite customer gets 7-8 hours of WWE programming delivered to them each week, week in, week out, all year long. As much as 11 if that person buys a pay per view. That's simply way too much, and annihilates people's interest by flooding the market. Back in early 1999, you only had Raw. When I was a mark, when Tuesday or Wednesday came around, life was hell, because I was like a drug addict begging for another fix of Raw is War. These days, even though I'm more cynical, the things I treasure from markdom are coming and going (i.e. Mick Foley, heel Rock run in 2003, etc) and I often forget that Raw is on until 15-30 minutes after it starts. "Oh, crap. Damn, guess I'll watch it. Really don't want to stop what I'm doing, though.") This is counterproductive for WWE. The amount of programming ought to be cut by about 50% and PPVs reduced to a more respectable number, such as 5 a year. Way too much dependance on angles The other problem for the company is that they fail to deliver what fans would expect of any recreational sport, fixed or not. I mentioned this in another thread, but I was reading through a Best Of collection of The Onion's parody news reporting, and one issue's Local News had a story titled "Cage Match Settles Nothing." The report was a bunch of imaginary fans offended and shocked that a cage match was booked in a way that nobody won and both competitors still claimed to be better than the other. At this point, the WWE is complimenting angles with matches instead of complimenting matches with angles. You may like brawling, technical mat wrestling, high-flyers, or guys who bump themselves up like crazy, but chances are you don't watch pro wrestling for the interviews, promos, or alternative uses of ATVs and Monster Trucks. No crappy match has ever been salvaged as watchable because of it's buildup, but there has been many decent matches ruined by crappy buildup. Almost no one in WWE puts priority on what really counts. They need to stop running 6-12 angles at a time and simply focus on a few. Unfortunately, splitting the programming between two leagues has actually ADDED to the number of angles, promos, interviews, ambushes, or scenes of someone wrecking a guitar/motorcycle/lowrider/limo/mink coat/whatever. Many, many people are now being increasingly employed to contribute nothing but to provide extraneous crap to a match. While I respect the performer for typically beind honest to fans, what did hiring Paul Bearer accomplish? What's he even doing here in this managerial role that couldn't be done by one of the "divas" they already have that have no wrestling talent, yet oddly are being booked in DUD-level "matches"? At least she would give more heat. That begs the question, is Bearer somehow giving the Undertaker any heat in the first place? The character seems over enough that no manager is really required. Nobody is watching in hopes of seeing crappy matches that serve no purpose but to shill a PPV. Nobody is watching for authority figures, managers, or for head shaving. If we had less PPVs, they could spend more time putting good matches on TV and more time promoting a PPV in a slower, more logical fashion. Heck, in the early era (think 60s/70s here), you tuned in on any particular evening and only got one long match by guys who know typically knew what they were doing. A couple 30-45 minute matches in a week, especially if you're going to keep both Raw and Smackdown, would not hurt the viewership at all. Lack of a blowoff, World Series/Super Bowl/Whatever event And no, don't give me WrestleMania. It is no longer a special event. This became no more evident to me than the night after WrestleMania XX, which had been hyped up all year as some sort of even of monstrous proportions. As my father watched HHH act like a baby and throw water bottles around, he mentioned that even though he generally doesn't watch wrestling beyond the occasional T&A event, if they had some sort of blowoff event that he'd watch it. I mentioned they had one just last night, and he responded, "No, that's not right. This guy is out here throwing a fit and yelling about how he's going to get the title back and it's only been, what, twenty-four hours?" And then it hits me. I don't care about football, but I watch the NFL. I don't care about hockey, but I imagine I'd watch the final game for the Stanley Cup if I knew it was on. I don't really enjoy baseball that much, but like any warm-blooded human with a heart, I enjoy seeing the Yankees go down in flames at the crucial moment. This show never stops, it just keeps going. And rarely is there any finality, at the expense of the storyline that the pilots steering the ship are concerned are so very important. If you had a fed start in January, and then go on until November, and move it towards a big blowoff PPV in November where people go over their opponents clean and everything is resolved, and then go totally off-air until next January, you'd have several things. You'd provide viewers time to stop and recharge their batteries. You'd provide the talent with the chance to do the same thing (and don't tell me the constant shows and moving around hasn't been effecting match quality.) And most importantly, you'd have a reliable program with appeal to "outsiders" who are curious to see how it all ends. What's currently happening: Instead, Vince McMahon is choosing to increase the amount of PPVs again, run a string of bullshit matches on last week's SmackDown, and spend an hour with "matches" that involve people like Stacy Kiebler or are a complete abomination such as Lesnar-Goldberg. As the old adage goes, the marquee says wrestling. There's no laws that say that wrestling can't adapt to a slower, less-crazy, less-oversaturated method. Especially since one company effectively *IS* pro wrestling for the forseeable future. Instead, the company is going full-tilt ahead for short-term gains, which will kill it in the long term. And nothing can be done unless Vince either retires, falls victim in a particularly nasty accident, or wakes up. People tend to think that the only people who care pure and simple about wrestling regardless of kayfabe and angles are the hardcore fans. And that the casual fans are the ones who want a constant soap opera that feeds on itself. I think it's about time someone consider these roles are quite possibly reversed. Before the company falls in on itself like a giant fad with an NYSE listing.

If he wants to come back for the big money, the big money is at the top.

Uh, in that WM movie thing last week, Angle said he'd be a lot more relieved fighting a guy like HHH than Brock. It had little to do with what you mentioned, it had a lot to do with him being green and stiff. No, but if the guy doesn't want to put effort in his work because he doesn't enjoy it, or someone is selling more tickets than he is, or whatever, then I don't want him wasting my time. Agree with this. I was bitching when he and Angle were getting their asses kicked by the friggin' Big Show. When he stereo chokeslammed both guys in one match, I almost spit my drink on the floor to shout ramblings about how two months ago these guys were supposedly the toughest in the company and now they're getting beaten up at the same time by Big Show. Is it hypocritical to nearly mock something on your way out ("actually hated pro wreslting", "wanted to be in a 'real sport'", etc) and then come back? And expect his top spot back? I don't remmeber talking about wanting more for less and whatever. I simply said that multiple reports, not just one, clue in that he's in the process of burning his bridges yet hopes he can mend them if things don't work out. Actually, I saw it as a ballsy move, and I thought it might send a message to Vince regarding the whole "Building a guy up and then squashing him to Taker" thing, but then he said he doesn't like it but might go back to it for the right price and it immediately smacks of another Goldberg in the making.

I think they learned a lesson from Feburary's PPV, where security insisted on taking so much umbrellas, food, etc, that the building was seen as mostly empty when they went on the air.

That one family trademarked "Let's Roll."