BloodyTaco

A_Ron_Hubbard said:

That was something else to see live. Jim and I were watching it together, and Jim looked away from the screen for 3 seconds and the fight was literally over. I was heavily rooting against Askren (I don't know enough about Masdival to be for or against him, but Askren's whole attitude after the bullshit win he got last time was enough for me to seethe), and rarely have I felt such a gratified sense of schadenfreude. It was briefly cut with a bit of worry the guy was going to be a vegatable, but holy moly, what an incredible KO. It was all planned, too.  

Honestly, the last two cards (238 and 239) have been really fun to watch. Jim and I are thinking of doing a monthly MMA discussion / round up around the main UFC events. We'd start off woefully under-informed on the state of affairs, but I feel like I'm already catching on quick, and it might be fun.

If you watch any of Ben’s interviews after the fact  he basically admits that he deserved it. He turned me into a fan based on how he’s handling it. If you do decide to an MMA discussion I’d be happy to offer insight! (I watch pretty much every event.)

cdrive said:

So Masdival was catching smoke about celebrating, but his response is perfect and I kinda have to agree with him. Askren talking about his ethnicity, his religion, his wife, his kids....that is like ALL the No-No's.  

“Man, there’s not too many people that I’ve disliked,” Masvidal said. “I have over 50 pro fights and he’s one of them. He talked about my manhood, he talked about my culture, my ethnicity – where do we draw – why do certain people get to do stuff online? So you can do anything – everything is cool to say before a fight, you’re allowed to do or say whatever you want – like other fighters are now doing talking about people’s religion, wife, even kids – that’s cool?

“But after a fight I’m not allowed to showboat and rub it in your face so you and guys like you can see that ‘Maybe I don’t talk so much sh*t because when I cross one of these real mother f*ckers they’re gonna make me pay for it man, they’re gonna embarrass the sh*t out of me.’ And it’s not over for Ben either, he still has to deal with me – if I see him at Whole Foods, Ima still slap that dude up, because I don’t like him.”

Ben didn't talk about his religion, wife or kids. That was Conor crossing the with Khabib. For some reason Jorge rolled that into his beef with Ben. Honestly Jorge is a huge hypocrite here because he does all kinds of shit talking. He has many times questioned the manhood of other fighters. Not to mention he is best friends with Colby Covington who, if you didn’t know, regularly crosses lines to promote himself.

I hope Masvidal gets the the title shot against Usman, so he can get smushed.

(That was an amazing knockout tho)

A_Ron_Hubbard said:

It will be interesting to see what would happen should China become the new entertainment superpower and we can see what they think of North Atlantic slave trade, Manifest Destiny, the American response to the AIDS crisis, our involvement in various worldwide financial meltdowns, our various military adventures around the world, there are so many interesting topics to choose from. Hopefully if they do the AIDS crisis, they'll cast Reagan as Nigerian woman, because the director thought she was the best fit for the role. As long as they source 90% of what they shoot from contemporary sources (with 10% "sexed up" to play better in Beijing, of course) I'm sure the response will be level headed and rational. BTW, how many lives were lost to the cover-up and disinformation campaign around AIDS, anybody know that number off hand?

I understand your point, but I don't think this a fair comparison. A good comparison would be if a Chinese company hired Canadian actors to portray how American politicians made the decision to place Japanese Americans in internment camps. That's an entirely different scenario from what you laid out where a black woman plays Reagan.

We need to keep in mind how much effort was put in by the makers of this show to be at least somewhat accurate. The OP seems to be implying some sort of malicious intent in the decision not to cast actors from former soviet countries. 

I have no problem with Daenerys going mad. I have a problem with how they did it. Foreshadowing is not the same as character development. You can’t just have everyone around Dany talk about the Targaryen madness and then have her do cruel irrational things after building her up as someone who can be short tempered and willing to deny mercy to her enemies, but at the same time has a very strong sense of justice, is compassionate and kind and puts the people first always. One thing that annoys me a lot too about this version of the “Mad Queen” is that it’s so incredibly vague and shallow. Okay she’s mad which means in our modern medical terms that she has a mental disorder, but which one??
Since Aerys and Viserys are based on characters in the books, their “madness” makes sense from a psychological point of view: King Aerys obviously was schizophrenic, he heard voices, confused reality and fantasy and thought if he burned everyone he’d turn into a dragon. I think Viserys being narcissistic speaks for itself (“I am the dragon! I want my crown!” selling his own sister to get an army etc). They could have let Dany be her father’s daughter and develop schizophrenia. In the books I believe it is quite possible that she becomes schizophrenic since in one of her most recent chapters she hears voices. But in the show, they didn’t go with that, so schizophrenia is off the table for show Dany. For show Dany, I could have imagined her “madness” to be choleric, meaning that she loses her temper when being (in her eyes) provoked and doing cruel and irrational things out of anger. I would have accepted to see her burn the city to the ground after Cersei had Missandei killed in front of her eyes. Releasing her anger without thinking in the most terrible manner. But that’s not what happened either. She just went nuts unprovoked and killed innocent people without even trying to go after the person she was really angry at.