Oy_the_Great

Watched the Barça game against Athletic yesterday, and they played awesome, as I expected/hoped. Ibra looking sturdy, Messi was wonderful of course and Bojan alert to the horrible passing from the defenders, hehe. http://www.footytube.com/video/barcelon ... ug23-21048 if you'd like to check the game yourself. Great website too btw. And I've got a question for any of you football-maniacs out there: if you could create your own dream team, the starting 11 and possibly also 7 subs, what would it look like? Given the facts that players would not have a problem with each other and would already know each other's playing style as if they have been playing together for a long time. Players would also not have a problem being on the bench and all of them were in excellent form. Here's mine: --------------------Torres-------------------- --------Kaká----------------------Messi------- ---------------------------------------------- ---------Fábregas--------------Xavi----------- --------------------Gerrard------------------- ---------------------------------------------- ---Clichy-----------------------------Alves--- ------------Piqué-----------Ferdinand--------- ------------------I.Casillas------------------ Subs: 1/ Buffon 2/ Tomas Vermaelen 3/ Glen Johnson 4/ Essien 5/ Iniesta 6/ Ronaldo 7/ Ibrahimovi? A balanced 4-3-3 with tons of class, can't go wrong unless they're called Madrid.

http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/4509/18p8.png Either the TV clock is (way) off, or he actually ran 18.8-19.0

3 years ago... That team is pretty much still together I believe. I can only think of Nesta who has retired. Actually, I agree with Pan here: Italy was at least one of the 2 best teams in the world 3 years ago (I thought France was better at the time), but in football, and in any sport, 3 yrs is a long time. Players like Zambrotta, Totti, Cannavaro, Toni, Gattuso, Camoranesi, Materazzi and this year even Buffon are really going downhill. The only 'oldie' that I still consider world class, is Pirlo. The same for France: several of their former core players are now approaching their last playing days and they are obviously not as good as they once were. If you've seen the games Italy played recently, you could notice how Zambrotta, who was renowned for his speed and both offensive as defensive qualities, is seriously lacking on all fronts these days. He gave away possession far too easily, could no longer keep up with the pace of younger players and generally failed to reach his old glory. And that goes for most of the Italian team. They should give their younger players a chance, because, -although Lippi disagrees here- they have quite a lot of talented youngsters. Giovinco is inspiring and could be a very useful creative force in the currently uncreative team (without Pirlo they wouldn't even spot a chance when the goal was empty). Then there's Balotelli, who might become a world class striker if he can control himself a little more, both on and off the pitch. Giuseppe Rossi and him together would be a very complementary pair of strikers. Then there's Santon, that wing back from Inter, who has proven he can compete with the very best this year. And De Rossi, Aquilani, Barzagli, Palombo, ... are all players with great qualities that can go on for at least 6 more years. I don't understand why Lippi, or their former coach (forgot his name) never tried them out after Italy kept struggling with over aged players. Oh, and my top 5 would currently look like this: 1/ Spain 2/ Brazil 3/ Argentina 4/ England 5/ Holland I wish I could add France to it, but Domenech is the worst thing that happened to France's international football since Zidane quit, and before that.

Haha, yeah, those were class bballer.

Haha. Hahaha. Funny man we have here. You mocking someone for having a different opinion just proves he's right. Besides, on what do you base your judgement of the French, or any other people as a matter of fact? Have you lived in France for a significant amount of time, and if yes, have you visited various places? Do you base your knowledge of Europe on the same newspaper and TV channel you probably consult every day, or have you actually been there and formed a non-biased opinion of our behaviour? You know why America gets all the hate? Because everyone else is sitting in a frikkin' armchair, watching America do all the dirty work while making sure to point out every little mistake (or lack there of) along the way. Iz not cool >_>. My god, that must be the answer to all of our problems. Let the Americans do all the dirty 'work' that we are too afraid of doing, even if almost none of it is an actual problem and definitely not when their 'help' is unwanted. I mean, if the US of A hadn't stopped Communism, we'd all be filthy commies by now, because 'Nam surely stopped those commie bastards. 40 years later there are only about 2 billion of them left and thanks to that the whole world knows our peaceful democracy now works. And let's not forget how helpful they were for all the people in Iraq the last couple of years. And how they used their power to at least try to stop other unfair conflicts like Gaza. Seriously, no country in the whole world needs any aid from us, powerful and (what we call) civilised nations. Except when they really call for it. The only humane solution to trouble like oppression is by showing those nations the benefits of ours, by trading with them, not by invading them and forcing our views and political systems upon them. If you believe you actually helped the Iraqi people, I suggest you ask a thousand American soldiers who were there themselves.

Good Will Hunting reference:

The kind of people who would do something like this would do it regardless of inspiration; he could have easily mimicked another movie, or a video game, or even past figures (i.e. a serial killer or historical figure). Extremely violent video games and movies don't make it difficult for people to discern fantasy over reality, they are a mere source of fantasy. If they weren't there, these kinds of people would find some other source of fantasy. It's true they'd find another way of feeding their fantasy, but it doesn't have to result into the same mess it did now. I am pretty convinced that the depression of this guy would result into him committing suicide instead of killing so many others if violence wasn't so often portrayed as 'cool', as it is in all action B-movies. I'm not talking about the Dark Knight though; I'm talking about the triviality of murder and other violence. I find all the apathetic reactions in this very thread evidence enough that society lost some basic values concerning respect for another person's life. Perhaps those apathetic reactions are because we get numbed by all the horrible news we get every day. But I think that a lot of violence is somehow justified by the criminals because they've seen and heard so much of it that they lower their 'natural common sense barriers' that would stop them from committing a crime. Of course their are nutters always, but I doubt this guy is: I think he's just very very depressed, sick with life and probably blames society for it. He didn't have a psychiatric past anyway. So that's why I wonder if the same thing would happen if violence wouldn't be in the media, in films and in games so often. And don't get me wrong, I don't mean to forbid all violence, because it's part of human nature, but toning down the extremes* wouldn't be bad IMHO. *=with extremes I mean: Games that make you slice throats of children in a peaceful village, punching the mothers and grandparents to death first (saw some very disturbing footage of such a game earlier this week) Films that make it seem as if killing someone is cool and needs no real motive. Also extremely violent films like Saw or all other movies that make it seem that torture can be cool and satisfying (even though the majority of all people are sane enough to find it disgusting) It's of course idiotic to go any further: boys will always like to play with toy soldiers, but that's because boys like to prove themselves. Those toy soldiers could just as easily be toy dinosaurs. It doesn't 'lower the barrier' like I said before.

That completely justifies the subject of this article then.

Just single neutrons, seperated from protons + electrons. It doesn't occur in nature, but neither does lots of stuff that could be suggested. Actually, the phase a star is in right before it becomes a black hole is a huge mass of neutrons: all electrons will have been compressed with the protons to form neutrons. The density of the star is immense, so big that eventually it becomes a black hole. And AFAIK, you don't want to get close to a black hole for funsies.

I would have agreed with the redundancy of these threads concerning those killings, or any tragedies for that matter, but when it happens close to you, you'll feel different about it. Besides, if you don't like discussing the horror of it, be mature and discuss the nature of this killing: is it not surreal that the killer was dressed up as the Joker from the dark knight, acted exactly the same towards the cops after he got caught and doesn't seem to give a crap? I find it pretty nauseating that some people can't separate fiction from reality. Makes me wonder whether extremely violent video games and movies should be allowed still.

Since I'm feeling upside down by this tragedy, I'll repost my question in this thread:

I just realised there is already a thread about this, sorry mods, I rarely ever visit TIF any more and didn't bother checking it. Perhaps this thread could serve as a discussion about the influence of the media on tragedies like these.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/24/world ... lgium.html I know that a lot of these violent killings occur all around the world, from disturbed teens shooting randomly at school to targeted assassinations, but this one struck me, not just because it's in Belgium, 10 miles from where I live, but because it's truly absurd.The article I posted is only the summary of what happened: Eyewitnesses told the press they saw a young man dressed up with white make-up, black eye shade and red hair, covered in blood riding a bicycle. He got arrested, ridiculed the cops, acted bizarre and kept laughing out loud. The children and adults in the day care that survived are so badly mutilated that the plastic surgeon concluded he must have had an axe, not only a knife. And yes, they found an axe later on in his backpack. Does this ring a bell to anyone? I'm shocked to realise this heartless murderer based his alter ego on the Joker from the last Batman film. edit: a man working in the day care that tried to stop him just died from his wounds. PS: this is NOT a sensationalist thread about another massacre; my point is that many of these killings seem to be infused by other similar killings, films and video games. I used to be very sceptic towards the accusations of the entertainment business of giving lunatics ideas, but I don't think you can doubt about that any more now. This particular case being more than evidence enough.