[Non-political] News that makes you Laugh/Cry/Both...

Istred · Post by **Istred** » Mon Feb 11, 2013 4:29 pm

Prak_Anima wrote:Wow. um, isn't the pope kind of expected to work until he dies?

Well, technically they can resign. It's just it almost never happens.

And... what fucking duties?

Making sure the bishops responsible for pedophile scandals can be shipped to Vatican for safekeeping?

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Feb 11, 2013 4:36 pm

I'm pretty sure that was ad hoc. The only pope-ly duties I can think of are standing on a balcony, and occasionally handing down edicts like "Harry Potter is/isn't satanic"

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Mon Feb 11, 2013 4:58 pm

There's also all kinds of policy decisions, such as, yes, deciding that if some priests are pedophiles then that's only the business of the Church and in no way the concern of anyone outside the Church hierarchy, like parents, police forces, and national governments.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Mon Feb 11, 2013 5:19 pm

Prak_Anima wrote:I'm pretty sure that was ad hoc. The only pope-ly duties I can think of are standing on a balcony, and occasionally handing down edicts like "Harry Potter is/isn't satanic"

The Pope the absolute ruler of Vatican City, which makes him the only absolute monarch left in Europe. Vatican City is a really small country that's inside another country, but it is legally sovereign and has all the rights associated with that and it employs a small army of Swiss mercenaries.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Feb 11, 2013 5:30 pm

Ah, right. That must be a fuck of a country to live in, given that it's a christian theocracy.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Mon Feb 11, 2013 6:02 pm

Prak_Anima wrote:Ah, right. That must be a fuck of a country to live in, given that it's a christian theology.

The country has a crime rate 1.33 per capita, meaning that there are 133 crimes for every 100 residents, but that's most because it has less than 500 residents and several million tourists, so at any given time the vast majority of people there are foreigners, most of whom have rented hotel rooms in another country.

Its problem isn't that's a theocracy, since most of its residents are priests. Its problem is all the tourists.

Istred · Post by **Istred** » Mon Feb 11, 2013 6:14 pm

hyzmarca wrote:Its problem isn't that's a theocracy, since most of its residents are priests. Its problem is all the tourists.

And if you'd want to live in it while not being a priest (let's pretend it's as easy as going to the UK or some other normal country) it would still be a fuck of a country to live in...

nockermensch · Post by **nockermensch** » Mon Feb 11, 2013 6:47 pm

MisterDee wrote:Apparently, we're getting a new pope.

Wonder what that will do for the housing market in Rome? After all, Nazi Inquisitor Ben's successor is supposed to destroy Rome.

The last pope by Malachy's prophecy is "Peter of Rome". And whenever this prophecy is invoked, somebody mentions that the last pope is "the black pope" (even if I cannot figure the source for this, it doesn't seem to be Malachy's proper).

Now this is one of the current favorites for Popetine's job, by gambling sites. Sometimes you can't make this shit up.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Fri Feb 15, 2013 10:28 am

http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/most-pe ... test-drive

When journalists have a story to tell, they don't let the facts get in their way.

Dude wanted a story about his battery-electric car running out of juice and needing a tow, so didn't put any in it, as he drove past charging stations with the car telling him he needs to stop here now to get a charge.

I mean, the thing has a 300 mile range that drops by 50+ miles when stopped overnight and takes over an hour to charge at the "fast charge" stations. Why lie when it has such real problems? ICE cars can easily have double that range which drops by nothing and refills in five minutes. "Expensive and quite inconvenient but gets you there in grand style" seems like a fine article.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Feb 15, 2013 12:14 pm

Tesla motors has also been having a fight with Top Gear, who made a show where the script had the car running out of juice so they just filmed people pushing a functional car around and implying that they had run out of power. The lawsuit has been going nowhere because Top Gear apparently classifies itself as an entertainment program that is not intended to provide real information.

The actual specs on the Tesla are annoying enough, I have no idea why journalists and pseudo-journalists insist on exaggerating them for effect. Well, because Top Gear might is essentially a paid mouth piece of Exxon, but I don't know why others do it.

-Username17

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Fri Feb 15, 2013 1:26 pm

IF Top Gear actually provides really usefull information, it's usually a coincidence, to be fair . . .
Still not a nice thing to do.

And Tesla should demand NYT write an apology/correction . .

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Fri Feb 15, 2013 3:14 pm

Meteor slams into Russian. It apparently exploded, injuring more than 950 people.

Funny that this should happen the same day that asteroid 2012 da14 is supposed to whiz by the Earth...

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Fri Feb 15, 2013 4:36 pm

it's probably a smaller one that was taken of it's course by the bigger one.
or a fragment of the bigger one that broke away from the main chunk.

PoliteNewb · Post by **PoliteNewb** » Sat Feb 16, 2013 2:15 am

So apparently the Iron Sheik is not happy about the dropping of wrestling from the Olympic Games.

From the rest of his twitter page, he seems like a douchebag, but I have to admit I found a lot of his ranting about the Olympics to be pretty funny.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sat Feb 16, 2013 2:56 am

I am almost certain that is in character for the '80s heel character, the Iron Sheik, and not the personal views of the dude who plays/played that role. This isn't like when Randy Orton posted on a forum to explain to fans what his problem with MISTEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEER KENNEDY... KENNEDY was. This is more like when Matt Hardy was signed back onto WWE and tweeted comments that no, he totally wasn't with them, and how much he hates Edge. It's all in-character.

Note that it's by "the Iron Sheik", not Hossein Khosrow Ali Vaziri - just as all tweets by the characters of Supernatural, even if their actors are the ones typing on the keyboards, are all in-character.

That said, it seems weird that they'd drop wrestling. I don't really care, because real wrestling is fucking boring, you actually do need the high-flying moves, the chair-shots, the costumes, the story lines and the pyrotechnics. But it's still odd. Though if they can drop more and more sports, maybe they'll end the Olympics altogether one day?

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Feb 16, 2013 5:51 am

I personally think that they should either add more sex-based stuff to the Olympics (hey, the athletes are all fucking each other already), or replace them with American Gladiators style obstacle course battle stuff. Just... actually interesting. Less pro wrestling with pads, and more MMA in a death-trap studded obstacle field.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sat Feb 16, 2013 10:34 am

I was going to say "or just go whole-hog and actually make it pro wrestling", but then I remembered there actually is something that does that already. You know, pro-wrestling. Although if they kept Vince Russo out of it, and didn't let the Kliq have booking powers, it could work out pretty well.

That said, I saw some recent women's amateur wrestling videos on the Internet the other day, and it was pretty impre- oh wait, that was just lesbian porn, never mind.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Feb 16, 2013 10:46 am

I think I know what you're talking about. I wouldn't mind that being the new form of Olympic wrestling.

Of course there's talk of adding Pole Dancing, which I'm actually in favour of, since it's at least as athletic as figure skating...

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Sat Feb 16, 2013 10:55 am

I would like to see Pole Dancing as an Olympic event. That would be heaps more interesting than badminton.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sat Feb 16, 2013 2:24 pm

Beach volleyball is a pretty good sport to watch.

Anyway, apparently the reason for dropping wrestling is that the rules are too complex and don't really make sense, to the point where the players sometimes don't know why they're getting points.

So basically, it's AD&D. Oh, burn!

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Sat Feb 16, 2013 4:33 pm

The decision to drop wrestling is really disgusting. The IOC is just nakedly corrupt. Wrestling is a sport older than the olympics itself and has a very broad spread of countries competing. This is a sport where US, Russia, and Iran all come together to participate in.

Really, fuck the IOC, this news makes me want to put on a mouse mask and cut them down with a longsword

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Sat Feb 16, 2013 7:30 pm

Koumei wrote:Beach volleyball is a pretty good sport to watch.

Anyway, apparently the reason for dropping wrestling is that the rules are too complex and don't really make sense, to the point where the players sometimes don't know why they're getting points.

So basically, it's AD&D. Oh, burn!

They could always simplify the rules by removing points and having victory by determined solely by a simple 3-count shoulder-pin, like in professional wrestling.

It would be pretty easy to make Olympic wrestling interesting again.

1 round, single fall, 10 minute time limit.
Victory conditions are as follows:
Pinfall (Opponent's shoulders and pinned to the mat for 3 seconds)
TKO (Opponent is medically unable to continue fighting)
Tap-Out (Opponent in submission hold surrenders due to unbearable pain)
Count Out (Opponent is knocked out of the ring and is unable to return within a ten count)
Disqualification (Opponent is disqualified for using an illegal maneuver)

Disqualification conditions are as follows:
Using foreign objects
Attacks to the genitals, including strikes below the belt and a genital locks.
Using a maneuver that is likely to cause serious head and/or spinal injury (this includes pile drivers and power bombs).
Intentional bone-breaking and muscle-tearing. (Obviously, submission holds can result in accidental bone breaking and muscle tearing, intent is to be determined by the referee.)
Compressing the airway or the blood vessels in the neck. (It doesn't take that much pressure to crush someone larynx, and blood chokes can easily result in accidental death.

If the match goes the fill time limit without a winner, then it's simply declared a draw and both move on to the next round, or neither. Or if you've got an overall points system instead of an elimination tournament, points don't change hands.

Indeed, having an overall points system for the tournament and having matches by decided by a single fall, instead of having a single-elimination tournament with matches decided by points, would probably work better.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Feb 16, 2013 9:06 pm

Are you somehow not aware that "professional wrestling" is fake, and that real wrestling is based on grappling and prohibits "strikes" of any kind, because such strikes would fucking hurt people?

I mean, are you the kind of complete idiot who thinks a "powerbomb" is more dangerous than just having someone smash their fist into your face over and over?

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Feb 16, 2013 9:15 pm

I think he's saying "make the rules the same as professional wrestling pretends to play by, but make them actual rules, rather than Whose Line point style meaningless things"

Shiritai · Post by **Shiritai** » Sat Feb 16, 2013 9:25 pm

hyzmarca wrote: They could always simplify the rules by removing points and having victory by determined solely by a simple 3-count shoulder-pin, like in professional wrestling.

It would be pretty easy to make Olympic wrestling interesting again.

1 round, single fall, 10 minute time limit.
Victory conditions are as follows:
Pinfall (Opponent's shoulders and pinned to the mat for 3 seconds)
TKO (Opponent is medically unable to continue fighting)
Tap-Out (Opponent in submission hold surrenders due to unbearable pain)
Count Out (Opponent is knocked out of the ring and is unable to return within a ten count)
Disqualification (Opponent is disqualified for using an illegal maneuver)

Disqualification conditions are as follows:
Using foreign objects
Attacks to the genitals, including strikes below the belt and a genital locks.
Using a maneuver that is likely to cause serious head and/or spinal injury (this includes pile drivers and power bombs).
Intentional bone-breaking and muscle-tearing. (Obviously, submission holds can result in accidental bone breaking and muscle tearing, intent is to be determined by the referee.)
Compressing the airway or the blood vessels in the neck. (It doesn't take that much pressure to crush someone larynx, and blood chokes can easily result in accidental death.

And how is this different from standard MMA rules?

hyzmarca wrote: Compressing the airway or the blood vessels in the neck. (It doesn't take that much pressure to crush someone larynx, and blood chokes can easily result in accidental death.

Oh, this... Yeah, blood chokes are a hell of a lot safer than head blows, and I've *never* heard of a blood choke resulting in death in any sort of supervised match. There's a reason colleges are fine with student BJJ clubs, but not with stuff like full-contact Muay Thai.

Edit: Citation! (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3572335) Take home message: Don't get choked out by the LAPD.