kimmy

Jack Layton is an American? Or do you mean your local NDP candidate is an American? -k

I used to watch football with dad every Sunday morning. A lot of women like watching men fight, Oleg. There's something about a display of masculine prowess that gets a woman's wheels turning. She loves knowing that her guy can take care of business, whether it's punching out some jerk or replacing the burned out alternator in her car or even just whipping ass at the pool table or baseball diamond. As a champion of old-fashioned manliness, I think you'd completely get it. -k

Unsanctioned no-rules bouts wouldn't have ever achieved mainstream status regardless of how big a venue was available. -k

Somebody who needs to be bribed to vote should just stay home. There's three kinds of people who don't vote: People who don't know. People who don't care. People who don't like any of the options. Would our democracy be greatly enhanced by getting more of that sort of person out to the polls? I don't see it. -k

I suppose the fighters might get fired up by the cries of "Bingo!" -k

Perhaps they believed he had been rehabilitated. -k

No athletics commission is going to sanction unlimited-time bouts. Had they stayed as they were, they'd have remained a circus side-show of dubious individuals fighting on Indian reservations. -k

A real socially conservative party won't win anything in Canada. Pulling the Conservative party to the right, or starting a far-right alternative, is just going to guarantee Liberal victories for a long time. -k

Most UFC fans now understand good ground work... which is why so many people were booing during the Johnson-Hardy fight. Most fans recognize when a guy is dogging it. And Johnson was dogging it. Conserving energy, doing a bare minimum of work to avoid getting stood up... and he was still gassed by the end of the 3rd round. -k

The rise of Reform was never really fueled by a desire for small-c conservatism, as much as some would like to imagine otherwise. The wholesale changeover from PC to Reform in western Canada was driven by the intense feeling of betrayal that westerners felt toward the PCs. That was the real message of Reform. The "right" now knows that if they take these seats for granted again, the west will smack the shit out of them like they did to the old PCs. -k

er.... great idea for a thread. -k

Michael Ignatieff talked about tougher environmental regulations for new projects. Jack Layton wants a moratorium until the environmental footprint of the oilsands is better managed. Those aren't the same thing at all. A moratorium on new projects doesn't mean a new project can proceed once it passes an environmental assessment. A moratorium on new projects means no new projects until the moratorium is lifted. I searched the NDP website for specifics about their oilsands plan, and there's literally nothing there about it. However, they've talked about an oilsands moratorium in the past and the moratorium was going to be predicated on greenhouse gas emissions dropping below some threshold that Jack felt was acceptable. So... might as well be permanent. So, basically the plan is that we're going to shut down new development and send thousands of tradesmen and laborers back wherever they came from to look for work, but maybe someday a wind-farm will show up in their area and need some construction help for a few months or something. Meanwhile we're going to pump a billion dollars into research and development in vote-rich urban ridings with established technology industries (meaning Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa, and maybe Victoria). That's it in a nutshell, right? Funny, he had time to mention it earlier that day before he left Ottawa... -k

Here is an article where the chairman of the broadcast consortium talks about the decision to exclude May. He says they are sticking to their guns and will not reconsider allowing May to participate. As somebody who'd like the debate to be meaningful, I'm extremely happy to hear it. The more people participating, the less likely that anything worthwhile happens at the debate. Probably the ideal situation for the Conservatives would be if the Greens were included, as well as the Marxist-Lenonists, Christian Heritage, Marijuana Party, Rhinoceros Party, Waffle Party, and any other party. That would almost guarantee that nothing informative would happen during the debate. The more people involved, the less time is available for anybody to present an argument or make their case to the Canadian people. That would be great for the Conservatives, but a loss for the other parties and a loss for the voters as well. -k

Aren't you the guy who campaigned to the mods to make "Mr Dithers" a bannable offense and been tattling on people for nicknames you don't care for ever since? Have I got you confused with somebody else? I apologize if I have. Maybe I should just start spamming the board with threads cut-and-pasted from random anti-Liberal websites and forums, just to see how fast you two guys change your tune. There are plenty of anti-Harper threads here on the forum, and I haven't complained about any of them, except for these two. So it's just plain stupid for you to try and spin this like I'm just complaining because somebody posted a thread against Harper. I'm complaining because this is spam. I've got a long and well-proven history of intelligent discussions with people I don't agree with. It's pretty laughable that I'm being called out by a guy who's proven that he's incapable of contributing anything more than "SUNTV LOLOL NEP LOLOLOL TICATS KEITH MOON!!!" -k

And there are chicks who think they're bad-ass because they watched UFC Unleashed with their boyfriend a few times. Or some chick who thinks she's a kickboxer because she does cardio kickboxing. Get a bit of liquor into people and it's surprising what sort of ideas they get in their heads. I do see quite a few young men wearing MMA-style shirts around, and I'd be very surprised if many of them have any actual training. I suspect that they just want to identify with it because that's what they perceive as a symbol of some kind of male warrior type mentality. I suspect that before MMA was a big deal, the same guys would picked something else as a symbol of the masculinity they wish to identify with. Guys who can't skate wearing hockey jerseys, guys who've never served wearing military-style gear, guys who've only played touch football wearing football jerseys, things like that. To me it's part of the sameness that MMA is at risk of turning into, that generic recipe for success that involves using takedowns and top control to get a decision on the judges scorecards. If MMA continues to go that direction I'll quit watching (and probably lots of others will too). Johnson was able to employ that recipe to his advantage, and good for him, but bad for the spectators and bad for the sport. I don't believe UFC has any formal rankings. If you saw rankings, it was compiled by fans, and if it had Hardy at #1 it was probably pretty old. The UFC's rankings exist inside Joe Silva's head, and are probably based on some combination of winning streak, wins over quality opponents, and "buzz". Jake Shields was still fighting in Strikeforce at the time. Condit had just arrived in UFC at the time, and lost his debut fight to Martin Kampmann. Jon Fitch had fought GSP just a year earlier and was beaten so badly that out of respect for Mrs Fitch and the little Fitches I don't think there should be a rematch. They literally ran out of people for GSP to fight; he'd beaten everybody worth fighting in the division at the time, and Hardy was on a considerable winning streak, including a win over a guy they'd tagged as a possible #1 contender in Mike Swick. I think for now Dana has said that Strikeforce will continue to operate as an independent promotion. Who knows how long that'll last. I have also not seen very many womens' matches. Most of those I have seen have been lopsided affairs involving Gina Carano or Cyborg Santos that left me thinking that womens' MMA has a long way to go in terms of the calibre of competition and the level of skills. I've often found myself thinking I could do just as well as the fighters I'm watching. One fighter you might like is Shayna Baszler, who uses almost exclusively submission grappling techniques. You can probably find videos of her around. -k

It's not an environmental assessment, it's a moratorium on new projects. Something he's been talking about for years. By the way, what's this about using the money to train people for renewable energy research? Are the unemployed tradesmen going to be designing solar panels and hydrogen fuel cells with Jack's help? And why didn't he bring any of this up when he was tourstopping with Linda Duncan a week ago? -k

And I find it funny that the guy with the itchiest "Report button" trigger-finger on the whole forum is complaining that somebody else is pointing out that the forum has rules. -k {"Go ahead... make my day. Say 'Count Igula' one more time, I dare ya." -Dirty Shakey Callahan}

This forum has a long standing rule against cut-and-pasting web-pages or posts from other forums. If you're capable of producing some original thought, have at it. -k

Read the forum rules, sporty. -k

Any thing you'd like to cross-post for us today? -k

Yay! More cross-posted material! Where'd you cut and past this one from, Grimsby? -k

Roads... firemen... ambulance drivers... subsidized childcare... As Bert and Ernie would say, one of these things is not like the others. -k

Figured about as much. Let's face it: this thread isn't an attempt to create a discussion, it's a chain-letter that's been cross-posted all over the internet. Normally this would be a clear violation of the forum rules, but in this case I think an exception should be made because it's sourced to Flo Goldberg, PhD~~!. -k

Ok, this is a great start. Do you have anything to actually say about them? -k

"Desole! We do not 'ave de capacity to transmit de Newfonlan power to de Etas Unis. But maybe if de Federal gobermin' give us de large money it take to upgrade de Quebec grid, maybe we 'elp de Newfie export de Churchill electricity for de very modest fee..." -k