Jobber of the Week

If Jeff doesn't re-sign, then I expect him to be back by the Rumble and stick around on a short enough basis to collect a WM26 paycheck before disappearing again. He wouldn't be the first to pull that one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnbsvUpUsdw#t=05m20s Video isn't embedded in this post because it has to start at around the 60% mark and there's no way you can do that in an embed. British comedian goes off on a tear about US networks.

It was mediocre television for five episodes, the sixth was okay, and then it's back to bleh again. I really don't know why anyone would watch it if they didn't get sucked in early.

Democrats propose nearly $1 trillion in new spending on health care reform as a mere “down payment” for additional spending to come. The prime focus of their agenda is the establishment of a government-run health insurance plan, designed to “compete” against private health insurance. Uh, okay. Already, states and the federal government pay nearly However, independent analysis confirms that the government-run “option” would quickly become a de facto single-payer system. Actuaries at the Lewin Group estimated that nearly three in four Americans—119 million individuals—with employer-sponsored health insurance would lose their current coverage. Ooh, lowering business costs that allow for greater flexibility in pricing! These individuals would lose their coverage not because they made a voluntary choice to accept the government plan, but because their employers would save billions of dollars by ending their current coverage and dumping their employees into the government-run plan. They'll always have the individual market if they need it. Over time, the Democrat plan would result in a government-run health system. Those who like the health insurance they have now likely will not be able to keep it because their employers will stop providing coverage. Or they could, you know, buy individual coverage. Which was what the Republicans told the uninsured until UHC started polling well. In a government-run health care system, bureaucrats would exercise increasing control over all health care decision-making and would resort to rationing of care as the sole means to control skyrocketing costs. Or they could,buy private insurance individually to get care faster or get care approved when the government plan says no (because you know it sometimes will.) Ian Dobbin, a patient in Yorkshire, England, who faced a similar dilemma because a government bureaucrat refused to approve his life-saving cancer treatment. year, excluding fraudulent activity never detected. Gosh, if only the UK had a private system complimenting the public care to provide treatments the taxpayer run system doesn't want to afford. Sounds like the Democrats have a great plan, thanks Republicans for helping me figure this out!

This. Just this. In case you forget, some rap celebrity types failed to show at WM19 for a Cena bit and so they just had him run them down. The crowd was rocked, many drunken marks were concerned he might actually get legitimately shot at for this diss. Stadium heat doesn't come across well on TV, unfortunately, and the spot on Heat before anyone had really come out and many were still finding seats didn't help much.

Regarding all the Counter-Hate. "He busts his ass" "he puts on watchable matches and wrestles a lot, what's not to love?" etc etc etc It's not that Cena is a bad wrestler. When he's not just Five Moves of Dooming his way through, he can put on a good match. The thing is that the wrestling would be as good or as bad regardless of how it's presented. Cena from 2005 or so onwards has just been a living action figure. "Attitude" struck a tone with a lot of people by going out there and admitting that even good guys have their dark sides. This was deemed more true to life than the Hogan model, though Russoing it up with unbelievably stupid angles caused the final product to stop feeling at all "real" sometime in 1998. It's not about what his wrestling is like, it's that he's a flawless puritan being of good and that is BORING. Is this what you truly find interesting? Why not just buy wind-up action figures, wind them up, and them on a march toward each other and see which one falls over first? Just pretend that Cena is GI Joe, Edge is Cobra Commander, HBK is that doll you borrowed from your sister, Big Show is your old broken Megazord that can barely move, etc. I like characters to have a little depth. The most interesting Cena match in the past year on booking was Batista. There was a lot of word that Cena VS Batista had WM main event written on it. Why? Not because of any kind of long term booking or chemistry, but because even the guys with the book know that they're so highly protected that simply putting their crowd heat on the line might draw a buyrate. I want Cena around, I just want the higher-ups to stop playing it so damn safe with him. It doesn't help that we know from the old "spoken rap entrance" days that Cena can do so much more than what he's doing.

That's almost as good as , which is less funny but more enjoyable since it happened to the Habs, and fuck them.

What's this? GREEN energy!? NOT IN MY BACKYARD!~

Energy Environmentalists VS Conservation Environmentalists... FIGHT! http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/mar/2...om-desert-land/ Considering the shape California is in financially, not building solar panels for some turtles that are available all over the desert and throughout Southern Nevada (we have statues of the damn things at the base our major freeway interchange), this is stupid.

"Traditionally, the U.S. president and secretary of state release statements for Nowruz." --USA TODAY Iran's leaders responded with a "bah humbug", but it probably didn't help that Israel tried the same tactic.

That means you need more NPR and BBC.

That the street is gone from his character is the problem, if you ask me. Cena is only over because he has very good heels to work with, because without it he'd turn into a 2001-2002 Rock. He's had that character turn where all the unique shit about him is basically sold out: the gimmick wardrobe (throwback jerseys, Rock's flashy shirts, whatever) are thrown out for WWE Shopzone shit now available at the counter in the lobby. The catchphrase list is devastated. Our character goes from being an anti-hero to a role model. The problem is, childrens' entertainment sucks if you're old. There's a reason Sesame Street has Oscar the Grouch: Because if the whole show was nothing but saccharine and goodness, adults would hate it.

I hate to reply to a month-old post, but I gotta fight ignorance... http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/12/gre...tion/index.html There's somethings Democrats and Republicans fundamentally disagree on. How they thought you could fit a conservative commerce department into a liberal administration is beyond me. Commerce is one of the most important-sounding, low-priority jobs around. It sure as fuck isn't Treasury. Running Commerce, your job is basically to make sure that 12 inches equals a foot for ten years. It's not terribly interesting, and Gregg left probably because the mothership called him back home, and the mothership probably called him back home because they wanted to saturate the media with more bad news. "He can't get any traction on stimulus! And now this happens! At the same time! This is doomsday for Hulk Ho- I mean, Barack Obama!"

Socialism in it's true form includes state ownership of industry and almost no wealth inequality. What is constantly shot at here as "socialism" is Social Democracy. We are so married to Reagan that "the government does something" is now considered socialism. To be fair, most of these sales are being done now under the assumption that the "Assault Weapons" Ban is going to be reinstated. However, when you read the news and see "sales of guns have multiplied since the appearance of Barack Obama on the campaign trail," you can't help but tease the thought that it's the nation's racists arming themselves to the teeth.

I think when you refer to Chicago floor traders as part of a majority you're a douche to begin with.

Jindal's response reminded me of the showdown in Canadian parliament last year; where the Liberals responded with a grainy, extreme close-up, YouTube webcam looking video of Stephane Dion delivered five minutes late in response to a well-produced video of Stephen Harper sitting at a desk and smiling and calling anyone who voted Bloc a nation traitor but looking good while doing so. That awful vid was the breaking point that ended Dion as leader, and I suppose we'll stop hearing about what a "star" Jindal is now.

The NWA basically begged rednecks to watch. For one thing, the bible belt was effectively their territory. For another thing, they basically wrote stories to appeal to rednecks. I mean, Ric Flair was supposed to be the Snake Oil Salesman From The Big City who smiles and melts the heart of lasses (whose name was usually only one word long or a bad pun) from the good ol' boys with bad teeth they were dating beforehand. Who do you think saw Dusty Rhodes as a hero, anyway? Almost every good guy was Clean Cut American White Bread with varying degrees of the trailer park in their blood. Steamboat and Sting were more the exception. And that was pretty much the end, you look way back in the 80s, and NWA is very trailer trash. Meanwhile, the WWF actually was big city entertainment. You don't get much more big city than Madison Square Garden, yeah? But all the characters were horrible cartoon quality gimmicks and the show was going for a Saturday Morning demographic. What's funny about the trailer park stuff is that the workrate was actually much better than the Greatest Show On Earth stuff that Vince was putting on, so they couldn't get into the WWF. NWA was actually putting on a much more convincing athletic performance than Hogan VS The World, so they'd watch NWA. Even if it was about whether Precious would stay with Billy Joe or leave him for that fancy boy who went to college. So there you have your two stereotypical wrestling markets: Rednecks, and children. Of course, the WWF went on to scare all the children's parents away, and WCW dragged nearly the whole WWF down south to job out their own talent to Hogan & Friends and thus lost the rednecks. Meanwhile, in Canada, they preferred a product with believable participants and a high quality workrate, so of course their feds would not last long at all. Vince quickly bought out Tunney in Toronto and Hart in Calgary, turning the country into simply another region.

The cost of a company to produce X is not a flat rate plus a certain amount for profit. Many factors go into the price of things and taxes are simply one. Competition is another, cutting costs is another, and so on. What's optimally profitable is to sell a product in a country where no other company can sell that product, but people still do business here anyway. We'll print more. Helicopter Ben and all of that.

I imagine if they go to Canada it would be the Olympic Stadium of Montreal. (Provided it can be cleaned up and the roof doesn't fall down) It would also line up with Shawn Michaels' retirement, pretty much ensuring that he goes out with a shit-ton of heat.

Since I went back to the San Fran area, I can finally see Fox Business since it wasn't available in Vegas during the time I had cable. Basically, it's just a second channel of Fox News. I really tried to take it seriously as a business channel, even as one spouting off a lot of opinion (especially since CNBC just had that soapbox guy linked to in the economy thread), but when I head "coming up next, Ann Coulter" I had to turn it off. What the fuck does she know about economics?

In the days (and works) of Shakespeare, people were becoming parents at around 14 or so. If you were old enough to rub one out with any kind of substantive results, you were old enough to be a parent. But goddamn that boy looks like he's 9.

I'm so glad I mostly just watch foreign news anymore, so I don't have to hear about this bitch. CNN is such a trash heap these days (especially when you have Rick Sanchez just playing YouTube videos and reading Twitter replies aloud). I'm glad that the BBC, VOA, France24, a lesser extent the CBC, and on and on know there are a lot more important things going on in this world than this woman or the lady screaming at the airport.

Crimson, it would save you a lot of keystrokes if you just wrote this for every post: Because that's really all you have to say. The Pit is almost doing the same thing, though at least they're arguing the political ramifications of it: Always starting off from a perspective that "keynesian economics don't work" is some proven fact, and then yelling and moaning about how wrong everything is from that perspective. Last week everyone was complaining about the spending. This coming week there will be much complaining and yelling about taxing. spend spend spend tax tax tax It's almost like... *gasp* It's like Obama.... Is a liberal... Who is taxing, and spending!

Is pro wrestling so cheap that it can cheapen a movie about pro wrestling? Rourke makes more sense than any other celebrity fight they've had at WM. At least they can point to what he did in the movie and say he has some experience. It's better than Jay Leno or whoever the hell else WCW had step in for the first time and pummel guys over the years.

I dunno. As a person who lived in Vegas for three years and relied on mass transit to get around, there's a reason all the tourist sites are basically plopped along one road. You wouldn't want to go too far off the Strip in either direction, Boyd is small and off in the suburbs. I see only two options for them there: 1) A WrestleMania 2 style setup between MGM Grand (numerous WCW PPVs, a 14,000-ish seat building ripping off MSG) and Mandalay Bay (slightly smaller than that, usually hosts concerts and used to host boxing matches before they all went to MGM Grand after they merged.) Maybe throw in the T&M (their usual venue on UNLV) if you really need to. 2) Rent the NASCAR track and modify the fuck out of it for a wrestling show. The oval is pretty huge (Wikipedia lists a capacity of 142,000 but I think that's basically if you packed the stands and the circuit itself) and, if you cut off the edges to put backstage stuff and other needed facilities you could make a pretty good wrestling venue out of it if you were willing to spend the money to do so. Mass transit frequently runs special event routes there and would happily play along, and you're right next to Nellis AFB so arranging a fly-over wouldn't be hard. If this was their plan, they should have done it this year instead of going to Houston because the room rates are cheap and the city is desperate for tourism. If they did the #2 option this year, they could have even gotten a blimp to show up and fly around overhead since a newly-opening casino is using it to draw interest.