d-d-d-dAz

...It's like every day I get a little reminder as to why Kurt Angle is the best thing in the world.

Slowish opener, though very good but that last 15 minutes was fucking amazing. I don't think i'd be overhyping him too much by calling Moffat God. Just a born genius.

 

Best dialogue?;

 

'River Song, you are doing your he's hot when he's being intelligent face'

 

'..this is my normal face'

 

'I know!'

Was the TNA Christian Cage compilation DVD any good...?!

I haven't seen much Beer Money, but Roode certainly looks the part. I'm not too sure about Fortune, though... as a group they're quite annoying and, again just from what i've seen, seem a bad fit for BM...

I'm a long time Buh Buh boy, though, and news of his current push got me running to the product faster than you could possibly imagine...

 

So far though, the reality is that Buh Buh, Angle and the occasional incoherent Flair promo are the shows only saving grace. They need to bring me some Bully Ray merch out, i'd buy that right up...

Will Challenge be showing Lockdown?!

 

I'm dipping my toes in the TNA pool, somewhat, and its pissing hard to get into that product; there is literally no easy entrance points. So, I want to give the PPV a chance...

Best thing ever;

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUIbCYXGz04...feature=related

'Deflorate' by The Black Dahlia Murder is a fucking monster of an album.

 

'The Human Romance' by Darkest Hour is pretty bloody special, too...

I'd already found it, after some frantic searching. I'm quite sad it's a joke.

I'm sorry, but this is a joke, right?!

 

...The last bit can't be true.

I'll ask it, then, and i'll be happy to answer any counter questions. What do you think socialism is?

Not the first time i've heard the 'rejecting socialism', guff.

 

To my mind, democracy and socialism are synonymous with the other and a 'bottom-up' revolution in the name of self-determination is as 'socialist' as can be. Communism and Socialism are not the same thing, for one, nor is democracy necessarily indicative of Western democracy.

 

As David alluded to, just because the Middle East is slowly but surely fighting for the right to determine their own path does not mean they are doing it in the image of the United States, or the United Kingdom. Western liberal democracy is overly consumed with the procedural side of political democracy, whilst having completely abandoned the root of democracy which is representation and the feeling at the pit of the stomach that you deserve better.

 

Another thing, socialism and/or socialists shouldn't reject a pluralistic political paradigm, they should reject hegemony of any kind; be that ideational hegemony (i.e. socialism as a political organising principle) or class hegemony or state hegemony on the international system. Hegemony creates hierachy which in turn necessitates inequality. I don't know why people, even some socialists, think the very existence of right-wing political views is abhorrent; the views might be, their existence is important.

 

/rant

It would seem, if nothing else, that Trips is going to be back in time for 'Mania. He's on the front of the new WWE mag smashing a WM sign with a sub-heading to the effect of 'HHH returns to smash wrestlemania'...

 

...I'd be mortified if Trips was to retire, but it'd make sense consider how many noises have been coming out about him loving pulling the strings from behind the cameras.

Big Daddy V did the greatest rolling heel kick in the history of the world.

 

Also, his look was great. He scared the shit out of me.

Considering the average Raw audience (notably different make-up to a ppv audience, especially RR or WM) how many people do you think will really get the enormity of a Sting appearance?

 

*EDIT; Also, if there is a generous portion of the audience expecting Sting then aren't they going to look stupid if its not, yet the fans start chanting 'WE WANT STING'. No one wins in that instance.

The thing is, they're not really pro-government protestors..they're more 'pro status-quo' protestors. They've been placated by Mubarak's statement and now want to go about earning money, lets not forget the protests have now gone beyond the tipping point and are began to have negative impact on the situations that brought about civil unrest in the first place.

 

One thing I would say is, though, is that I have been heartened by events in Tunisia, Egypt and even in the Yemen and Jordan. In the West, commentators band democracy about as a term synonymous with 'Western Liberal Democracy' which is a complete nonsense. 'Western liberal democracy' centers on the norms and institutions of 'our' democracy alone; i.e. a multi-faceted political system, timed political cycles, expectations of services and press etc. In fact, so consumed are we with the idea that 'democracy' assumes something of the political organising principles of a country that we forget that these norms and institutions are in fact borne out of the values of a democratic heart, rather than the antecedents of democracy.

 

Democracy is just a feeling, its in the hearts of Tunisian people pumping their fists in the air saying 'we deserve better', its in the hearts of Egyptian people doing much the same thing and its in Palestinian kids slinging rocks at Israeli walls. The settled will of the people doesn't have to result in the Western appropriation of democracy, and in fact when we stop making such assumptions and stop pushing a culturally neoimperialist agenda on unwilling systems and citizens, than the likelihood of a peaceful, democratic and agreeable solution increases tenfold...

Whilst I would, undoubtedly, go fucking bananas for Sting I am sure the match with The Undertaker would be arse...

With the greatest of respects to the spirit of dissent for which I hold such fondness, the protests do seem to have been a bit much considering the not-that-radical changes to the fee system...

 

I know that's grand heresy, but higher fees met with a higher threshold with which you start to pay back seems reasonable enough. Especially considering that there is a

I've had a funny, somewhat distasteful, feeling all week that Harrison is going to get lucky and catch Haye on the chin. I think I may have a bet, cause I ignored such instincts last week over Liverpool/Chelsea and am still bitter now...

I'm confused as to what you mean; That'd really only work in a directly comparable way; say John earns 10,000 a year and pays 1,000 in a tax, then Ted who earns 200,000 would pay 20,000. The problem is considering tax is more often worked out as pence in the pound, i.e percentages, and not as a per annum flat rate, your way would suggest that John pays 10p in the pound, and Ted pays

To give some balance to the Chris Huhne thing, he has said that he believes that as Green Taxes go up, personal taxes should go down by a similar proportion...

I'm sorry, but the 'they're all the same' is the biggest load of populist, ignorant tosh i've ever, ever heard.

 

I mean Iraq; income tax; NHS; macroeconomics; ID cards; control orders; criminal justice policy (note - positives and negatives listed). There's such a massive, massive ideological gulf between the coalition and the last government that the 'they're all the same' argument has no purchase beyond 'they all wear suits' and 'they're all well educated'.

First preference; Andy Burnham. Ideology, sort of, trumped expediency and I went for the person that I thought best spoke for normal working people, and who's idea of a National Care Service I am particularly passionate about.

 

Second preference; David Miliband. Third Way progressivism, kind of, went against him. Though, having read Giddens' work recently, it's actual manifestation in contemporary politics is much distorted from what I've read. Blair and Clinton's 'third way' politics is quite far removed from the actual literature. Ideas on 'time dollar' schemes and social capital are all quite favourable, and besides that, expediently speaking, he's probably the most likely to win an election.

 

Third preference; Ed Miliband. Initially my preferred pick, though increasingly shown to be hollow and quite vindictive. Not convincing, and seems to lack substance.

 

Fourth preference; Ed Balls. Another I liked to begin with, but became more and more disenchanted with him, and actually don't think he could ever win an election.

 

Didn't rank Diane Abbott, abhor the disingenuous, self-righteous git of a woman...

What Union are you in? ...Definitely Labour affiliated?

 

If so, you should have had your ballot paper already..

David Miliband.

 

He might be one of the furthest away from my personal ideology, but the whole point of party politics is getting in power and, form his ability to communicate and control a room suggests to me he's the only one who could win an election. Ed Miliband, though I do like him, couldn't win a raffle if he had the only ticket.

 

Andy Burnham usually does well in these things, but he seemed to not understand the shows format, and have a tantrum when he couldn't answer every question.