The Unknown Poster

I dismiss the shoot down theory. Most people who think it was shot down theorize that there is a cover-up because whomever shot it down, doesnt want to admit it. The most likely country responsible for the shoot down would be Malaysia or the U.S. Problem is, we've shot down commercial passenger jets before. The Soviets did it (and yeah, they liked about it for awhile) and the U.S. did it not that long ago and admitted they did it in error. It was a grevious error. In this case, if a mechanical failure resulted in an incommunicative passenger plane invading U.S. airspace, I dont think the U.S. would cover up a "justified" shoot down. If the plane was shot down, I would say it had to be the Chinese. And even then, I'm not convinced they'd do it, lie about it and actually put so much heat on the Malaysians for how they've handled the investigation. If anything, I'd sit back and breath a sigh of relief that everyone blames the Malaysians as I quietly go about my business not admitting I shot the plane down. The Hijack theory has to be considered unlikely because in almost every case, a group responsible would want to take credit. The exception might be a hijacking for some nefarious later purpose but that just seems to fantastic of an idea at this point. Another theory is that the pilots *did* take the aircraft. This dove-tails to how the investigation has been handled. The early rampant speculation was on the pilots, including their homes being searched. The fact the Captain had a pretty sophisticated flight simulator in his home was either nefarious or normal depending on who you asked. Reports were info from the flight simulator was being analyzed but I dont believe anything more has come about that. The Malaysians told the Chinese they had communication between the Pilots and Air Traffic Control that they would never release, then a week later released innocent sounding communication. Are they holding something back? Some people think the Captain was a radical. Alledgedly he supported an anti-government leader who was jailed for several years shortly before this flight. He apparently attended that "trial". Some speculate that he informed Malaysian officials of his plan while in the cock pit. This would explain his odd flight path that seemed to purposely try to avoid radar detection. The problem with this is, if the Captain was suicidal, why flight all that way to simply ditch in the ocean when he could have done so at any point earlier in the flight? And again, the lack of debris would indicate that the plane is NOT where they think it is or it was ditched by intelligent design and sunk in one piece. Personally I come back to one piece of "confirmed" info that doesnt get much play - that a second plane contacted MH370 after it lost contact and received a response. I recall that info being that they were not able to make out the initial response. That has since been altered to state they heard "mumbling and static". To me thats the key. It means one of two things: 1) a fight in the cockpit (unlikely) 2) a massive mechanical failure that incapacitated the pilots. That would not account for an intelligently inputed flight path but Im not sure that really happened anyway. if the pilots had alternative flight paths pre-programmed (in the event of emergencies), they might have triggered the flight path in the immediate aftermath of an onboard incident or the damage was so massive it caused the computer to trigger an alternative flight path.

Good post. Im taking into account a full year of Kane-Scheif-Wheeler and extrapolating some very impressive numbers.

Odd. In the story, Buono says he didnt give Jyles a "ton of money" when he signed the contract, which implies to me he gave him *some* money. So did Jyles take the signing bonus cash with no intention of reporting?

to get 80 points you need to be healthy an entire year and score every game, one slump and that's all shot to hell. Guys who cracked 80 points this past season include Crosby, Getzlaf, Giroux, Seguin, Perry, Kessel, Hall. Wheeler is not in that company when it comes to offence. Yes he is. No he isn't Yes he is. Not Crosby but Wheeler is in the category of guys that can score a point per game. Without looking up the stat (Im too lazy), Wheeler was scoring at that pace for X amount of the season. He had a slow start. Had he not had a slow start, he scores 80 *this* season. Now ofcourse, if I learn to skate, get into shape and practice my shot then I guess Im an NHL calibre player. Everything is subjective. But Wheeler has the skill and talent to score 80 points.

I love mysteries and cospiracy theories and this disappearing jet is consuming me. Ill propose two theories (a mainstream one and a crazy one). What I think happened is: A catastrophic mechanical failure. It's an incredible coincedence that this occured at the exact moment of hand off between the two air traffic control points. This failure impacted communications and caused a loss of pressure. This would seem to indicate a fire and/or explosion. The pilot did exactly what he would do - he turned towards an area he knew had an airport he could land at. And he immediately dropped altitude to account for the lack of cabin pressure. (alternately, if there was a fire but no cabin breach, its possible the pilot would drop altitude with the idea he could vent the smoke). As the plane flew along, the pilots were unable to communicate due to the failure and were eventually overcome by either smoke or hypoxia. Another plane contacted MH370 to request they contact the Vietnam air traffic control aprox. ten minutes after the transponder signal was lost and received a reply that sounded like mumbling and static (indicating to me the pilots were suffering injury or hypoxia). The plane continued to fly as a "ghost plane" until running out of fuel and crashing in the Indian Ocean. My wild theory: "Something" happened involving the pilots. I generally reject the hijacking scenario because to take a plane without any communication from the pilots would mean it happened very, very quickly and I dont see that happening in this day and age with cockpit security etc. We do know these pilots were prone to having "guests" in the cockpit but for a hijacker to board the plane with that intent, he's hoping that the Pilots leave the cockpit unsecure and thats just a big chance to take for a hijacker. That would indicate the pilot was in on whatever happened. The points in favour of this being an intentional act: - The incredible timing of this happening at the moment after the pilots sign off from one air traffic control location and right before communicating with the next. This creates a scenario where both control areas assume the plane is talking to the other (apparently it does happen that a pilot 'forgets' to check in when he's supposed to) - The transponder was turned off. Either a mechanical failure did this or the pilot did it. - The plane apparently travelled a flightpath that indicated intelligent control for sometime after loss of contact - The plan flew in a manner to avoid radar and skirt between countries (this is important if you're trying to avoid being shot down or persued because if you're very close to a boarder and clearly a passenger jet, you might be forgiven for crossing into airspace if one country assumes you're from the other) - The has been zero debris. One could argue that area of the Indian Ocean could easily carry debris away quickly. But the fact they have seen so much junk and debris *not* connected to MH370 indicates that this area of the Ocean would be ideal for collecting debris and if the plane crashed *something* would be found. - If the plane is in the Indian Ocean, the lack of debris is indicative of a controlled ditching. Its virtually impossible (it would be a miracle) for the plane to ditch in one piece on it's own after running out of fuel. Pilots are trained for ocean ditching (how to time the ocean swells etc) and the plane was designed to be able to ditch. Even with training, its very difficult to successfully ditch in the Ocean without crashing. If the plane ditched successfully, it *had* to be done by the pilots. If so, why was no communication attempted? Why did no one escape in life rafts? If its a controlled ditch, that would explain the lack of debris (ie. the plan sunk and is sitting on the bottom of the ocean in one piece). - The co-pilots cell phone attempted to connect to a cell tower around the time of last contact. Was he trying to communicate due to a failure destroying on-board communications? Was he trying to report a hi-jacking? Was the attempt by the cell phone to make contact simply the result of a phone being left on and repeatedly seaching for a cell signal on it's own? We know cells are not allowed to be on in the cockpit but we also know these pilots have broken cockpit rules before (and could simply have forgotten). - The so-called "Pings" that were heard. None of the emergency locators seemed to function. There are 4 of them that are supposed to send a signal upon impact or water contact. However, they are not shielded and a particularly catastrophic crash could destroy them before they sent a signal. They are also not able to function under water and could have been destroyed by water before being able to send a signal (the 4 on the Air France flight also did not function). The Chinese indicated they heard a Ping. This story was later burried and apparently, the Chinese actually heard themselves. The two pings that were heard were reportedly 200-300 miles apart. This indicates a massive crash with debris spread about which belies the fact there has been no debris. The coincedence of these Pings is that it occured just as the life of the batteries was winding down and then stopped (which is the perfect "clue" if you're trying to convince the world the plane is in the Indian Ocean). - The fact NO military seems to have picked up this plane on radar is puzzling and alarming. If the plane suffered a mechanical failure and was a "ghost plane", how could it avoid radar contact? If the flight was intelligently operated with the intent to avoid radar, how is this still possible? It wasnt a stealth bomber. - 20+ people on board were future-tech weapons designers for an American firm that had recently completed a project. - One passenger reportedly sent a photo and text message a day after the plane went missing stating the plane had been hijacked by military and that he was being held captive on Diego Garcia, a US military base in the area. EDITED to add: - The Malaysian government told the Chinese they had communication between the pilots and Air Traffic Control that would never be allowed to go public. A week later, they released a transcript that showed nothing unusual. What are they hiding? Their preliminary report to the UN was sealed when no reports of that nature are ever sealed from the public. - If the plane was hijacked or taken for a ride by the pilots, why did none of the passengers call or message family? This lends credence to the massive mechnical failure likelyhood. I saw a cool story on CNN that showed it was possible to retrieve cell phone information after it had been under water for a period of time. This is important because if something happened on board and passengers were able to take pics/video or try to send messages but didnt have a signal, that information would be stored on their phones and could be retrieved later. Where the heck is MH370?

Brock would sell PPV's for curiosity alone. If MMA was such that it was an option for a guy like Brock when he was 20, there is no telling how good he could have been. As it was, with limited cross training, he was pretty darn good. I always found that he really hated getting hit and when he got hit, he reacted poorly.

I dont think Brock will go back. But you can't under-estimate his desire. He's driven by two things: money and pride. And he will sacrifice one for the other. He hates how his UFC career ended and was very sick and unable to train the way he wanted. He's much better now and I think thats what drives him a bit. But theres little upside. He makes a lot of money now to work very limited dates with virtually no injury risk.

Yes, but Spike wanted to air TUF immediately following RAW using the highest rated cable show audience as a lead-in. Vince had veto rights and had to agree. He didnt feel UFC was competition to WWE and allowed TUF to air after his show. Shane McMahon tried desperately to convince Vince to buy UFC at one point. WWE has used submissions for many decades. The tap out was directly as a result of the popularity of UFC though. Although I do agree, some submissions look terrible to an audience that is more educated to them.

from hockeybuzz On the heels of the wholesale change in Washington on the weekend, the Carolina Hurricanes have scheduled a noon press conference Monday to announce that Jim Rutherford will be stepping down and that current VP of Hockey Operations Ron Francis will take over as general manager. Rutherford has been with the club since 1994, has a minority ownership stake in the Hurricanes and a long time association with owner Peter Karmanos, which makes it likely that he will remain as Team President. Carolina is a club that could be at the center of sweeping changes this summer and Francis could be the agent of that change. Current coach Kirk Muller’s job may be in peril after not making the playoffs the last two seasons, the big trade for Jordan Staal with Pittsburgh did not have the desired effect of improving the team's depth up front and franchise fixtures Cam Ward and Eric Staal, who were centerpieces of the club’s championship in 2006, have grown stagnant in Raleigh and may be on the market at the upcoming NHL Draft. TSN's Bob McKenzie is reporting that Flames President Brian Burke has completed his long search for a replacement for Jay Feaster and will hire Coyotes Asst GM Brad Treliving as Calgary's new GM. ***I had heard many good things said about Brad Treliving over the past few years. At one point, there were rumours that his dad Jim Treliving (of Dragon's Den fame) was involved in a potential ownership group in Glendale. Im sure Brad is thrilled to get his dream job in Alberta. Im sure Boston Pizza and Mr Lube will be happy to become game-day sponsors and if current Flames ownership wants added investors, might Papa Jim be interested?

A thread for all playoff discussions.\ So Im out last night and the Ducks/Stars game is on but Im not paying much attention to it. I see the score is 4-2 but for some reason I thought it was the 3rd period winding down (I guess it was the 2nd). So awhile later, people in the bar cheer and I look up at the game and I shrug and say to the person I was with 'must be a replay, not sure why anyone is getting excited'. Ofcourse, I was wrong and the Ducks mounted the come from behind victory. Personally, Im cheering for an all Water Fowl Final. Ducks vs Pens. But for the purposes of my pool, I need the Avs to go all the way.

to get 80 points you need to be healthy an entire year and score every game, one slump and that's all shot to hell. Guys who cracked 80 points this past season include Crosby, Getzlaf, Giroux, Seguin, Perry, Kessel, Hall. Wheeler is not in that company when it comes to offence. Yes he is.

It wasn't realistically possible to live off the land during that era - centuries of unsustainable fur trade had severely reduced everything except perhaps the fish. In fact, some populations (beaver and white tail deer) are more plentiful today than they were in the 19th century. The reserve system was put into place with the promise that the natives would be taught how to farm - but they weren't. Not only were they not properly taught, they were not given the proper implements. Thus the system of handouts began... Macdonald thought he could 'starve them out.' When that didn't work, they tried residential schools to assimilate them. It was a mess in the 19th century and it's still a mess today. The reserves and the treaties never made any sense whatsoever. The intentions of the government that created them were unethical at best. Absolutely. And you know what, I'm tired of apologizing for it. Its time for us to settle debts and move on together. Aboriginal people have no more right to the "land" then anyone else. Its not the 1800's. We should live up to our committments 100% and find a better way forward.

To live like the rest of us & maybe have to contribute to society. Oops, sorry. Racist comment. So the government buys them all houses in the city? Is that how it works? They certainly won't have money from selling their reserve homes if we are abolishing reserves. Ahhh, so maybe we just move them into the city but don't pay for their homes? I've always said the people of Canada could use more homeless citizens. And thats part of the issue right? Thats why this requires a major, generational solution. Its why it isnt easy. Its why you can walk downtown to any shelter or any hole-in-the-wall craphole bar and tell me the majority of the people in those locations? Where's the culture there? When there is spring flooding and thousands of aboriginals are air-lifted into Winnipeg hotels, what happens? You get a business like Air Canada not wanting to be downtown anymore but no one is allowed to talk about that because it's racist. We need a solution that likely requires MORE financial investment in the short term and a lot more real effort on the parts of all stakeholders. But it HAS to be generational. It has to be helping people that want the help and giving them a way to help themselves while slowly removing the "safety net" of the Reserve. Think about this. Go into any prison. The justice system is racist because there are more aboriginals in prison then any other ethnicity. Racist right? There are real reasons for it. If you could snap your fingers and remove every single criminal who suffers from FASD, the jails would look empty. FASD is 100% preventable, has a HUGE impact on the aborigional population and the MAJORITY of people in prison suffer from some level of it. And last I heard, the province only invested something like $10,000 into FASD education. If the government decided to eliminate FASD and invested the money to do so, they'd recoup that investment many times over in subsequent generations. That's just ONE part of a needed solution.

Spike bought Bellator and part of their loyalty to TNA even though it sucks is that they thought a wrestling/MMA package would help both. But its been pretty dismal. If there is any truth to the rumours of Viacom considering an offer to WWE for their programming, part of that appeal to them might be using WWE to lead-in to Bellator. I assume WWE will stay with NBCUniversal but what Viacom does with wrestling will be very interesting. We are already past the point where they *should* have had an announcement concerning re-upping TNA. TNA knows this and hired a big PR firm to, among other things, handle TV negotiations. Its possible Viacom has an offer in to WWE and is waiting to see if they win the WWE sweepstakes or not and once NBCU matches, Viacom might go back to TNA. But Spike has put so much money into trying to get TNA over to no avail that I wonder if they would just get out of the wrestling business. There was a thought they'd do a "Bellator" deal and buy TNA themselves. The benefit to Viacom in that scenario would be unlimited access to cheap original programming that they wouldnt 'really' have to pay for since they'd own it. That is why Sinclair Broadcasting bought the money-losing Ring of Honor promotion and are slowly growing it across their network. Jeff Jarrett, who still owns part of TNA, quit when efforts to buy the promotion with Toby Keith fell through (because Dixie's daddy insisted she stay on). JJ has a no-compete which disallows him negotiating with Spike but one question that was raised was, if Spike chooses to walk away from TNA, does that allow JJ to negotiate with them. JJ would have connections there but its not like TNA was pulling better ratings when JJ was running the show (though they did draw better PPV buys). I have little faith in JJ's new promotion which has a terrible name and has thus far been terrible in marketing itself but if Toby keith is on-board, thats a potential game change as his net-worth and entertainment connections would give Vince a woody.

SPIKE put Ultimate Fighter on TV after RAW. They needed Vince's okay to do so. The wrestling lead-in is what made TUF a success and turned many of those RAW fans into UFC fans. Had Vince veto'ed TUF being on after RAW, there is a good chance that SPIKE doesnt get behind it as much and the ratings arent there. I also would not under-estimate the appeal of Ken Shamrock to WWE fans. And ofcourse, Brock Lesnar brought a lot of wrestling fans to UFC too. He also had the benefit of being an "outsider" in the sense the hardcore UFC fans hated him because he was a "WWE guy" coming in and immediately dominating while the "fly by night" fans came to watch him clobber 'real' fighters. UFC is very cognizant of not doing anything that looks fake or scripted and yet their best guys at selling fights and drawing money are guys that either came from wrestling or love wrestling and "get" the point of a promo to draw money. Dana might have made Brock apologize for his "get on top of my wife" promo, but that was pure gold solidifying him as a heel. There was talk of Paul Heyman working with UFC fighters on how to cut promos but they are so concerned about being fake. Jim Ross would likely be a great UFC announcer too, but again, I think there is that fear of doing anything that makes UFC look or sound like WWE (Although I believe Ross recently met with White). UFC runs so many shows because it still makes money to do so. I think their issue is less over-saturation and more a lack of superstars. Thats why there was talk last year of Brock going back. It would have been almost unthinkable for Brock to work WWE and UFC at the same time, but I have no doubt Dana would have taken him back under that scenario because he knows three Brock fights would do unbelievable business (Vince, on the other hand, would likely not let Brock do it, even though he wanted Brock to work WrestleMania when he was under a UFC contract and Dana veto'ed it - Vince also called Dana and pitched that they work together at a Wrestlemania in either a worked match or a real fight, Dana's choice).

The edgy adult period made wwe more money than any other time, allowed it to go public and turned a wealthy Vince McMahon into a billionaire. But providing content for adults doesn't have to mean blood and nudity (although a blood ban is silly either way). Just good writing. UFC owes much of its success to wwe's willingness to promote it. And while many fans did become UFC fans I don't believe that the adults went to UFC and the kids stayed with wwe. When wwe bought wcw most wcw fans stopped watching wrestling. That was a huge blow. People like what they like.

We shall see. Remember this thread a year from now and we'll see if he was a 70 point player or an 80 point player!

*maybe* when HHH takes over we might trend towards more adult programming but I doubt it. WWE is such a huge business now, being public, that they are unlikely to ever go back to the days where they openly courted controversy. And to be honest, they dont have to. As much as I like some blood and nudity with my wrestling, good story-telling is good story-telling whether its Rated G or Rated R.

Yes. The culture of the reserve is very different from "tradition". Born and raised in a city, going to a public school, getting a job, paying taxes - none of that precludes any person of any colour or enthicity from exploring/embracing a culture of their choice.

The man definitely was not good with money And couldn't really compete holding a show in a smaller venue once a month... Paul had two problems: terrible with money. and ECW was its own worst enemy. The more popular it became, the more expensive it was to run. He took guys that the big two (WWE and WCW) didnt want (or in some cases a guy was leaving one, had a no compete that didnt include ECW) and drew with them and then they got offered big money deals to leave. Steve Austin started what would become his Stone Cold character in ECW. Rick Rude was there for awhile. Raven turned his ECW run into a big money deal. Paul took a chance on guys like Eddie, Sabu, RVD, Lynn, Rey Rey (and a host of Luchas). The fact he convinced Vince to secretly bankroll him is nothing short of a miracle. Rumour has it, Shane McMahon was a big fan of ECW and pushed his father to go more "adult".

Without doing any research, Wheeler was a point a player guy from....some point in the season (december?). He was juggled around too, due to injuries. Kane-Scheif-Wheeler has the chance to make Wheeler an 80 point guy. Some guys score in bunches so it doesnt matter but he was a point per game guy long enough that if he doesn't have his typical slow start, he's an 80 point guy.

Bray is a take-off on Waylon Mercy who was himself a take off on Robert De Niro's Max Cady from Cape Fear. Dont get me wrong, I like him. he had some excellent matches with the Sheild. I just havent seen him in a "defining" match yet (maybe because he's working with Cena). I think the fans are into Luke Harper and he has a chance to get pushed. He has great facials. Its almost difficult to believe that Bray and Bo Dallas are brothers and their father is IRS (and their mother is Barry Windham's sister). Barry Windham, by the way, was one of the truly great under-rated performers of his era. I could watch Windham (and Arn Anderson) matches all day. I was hoping they'd clean up Bryan's look by now. When he turned on the Wyatt's, it would have been a good time for them to cut his hair and beard so he didnt look like them. When he feuded with HHH, a good heel move would have been HHH shaving him. Apparently Brie loves the hobo look otherwise Im sure they would have pushed for a cleaner look for the wedding.

We need to settle treaties and put them to rest. Period. And im sorry, any deal that provides anything "in perpetuity" should be breached. I'd argue any government of the day that made a bad deal under the circumstances of which they could never have predicted how the world would look right now cant be held up as valid now. Im not saying screw anyone. If we owe land, provide land or money. If we owe money, provide it. You live in this country, pay taxes. But we have to stop the cycle of povity and welfare state. if it takes ten years, so be it. If it takes 50 years so be it. Many of the aboriginal leadership arent really helping their people. Its political. Its money. propose that the fed provide funding directly to reserve members, by-passing leadership - see how that flies. Hint: it wont. Im all for embracing your culture. But until there is an end to the divide between aborigionals and "whites", things arent going to change.

Paul was *this close* to returning to SPIKE in the form of running TNA. But he wanted final say on the direction of things and Dixie Carter, Wrestling Expert, wouldnt give it to him. Paul knew that no matter what he did, having Dixie over-ruling him and having people undermining him to Dixie would lead to his downfall. As slick as TNA looks, ECW was far more successful. When they were on TNN, they drew a similar rating as TNA but on Friday nights with ZERO promotion from the network. Their PPV numbers far exeeded TNA (TNA stopped doing PPV's because they were such a money loser). And yet the crazy part is, ECW was losing money and was secretly bankrolled by Vince for quite some time (allowing WWE to secure the trademarks once Paul put it into bankruptcy). Im not completely sold on Bray Wyatt yet. I actually felt his promo delivery was very poor at first. He spoke too fast. He's getting better. His work is "okay", also getting better. But his character is tremendous and unique and HHH is giving him the time and the push to get over. Ofcourse, he should have won at WrestleMania and the booking leading to a cage match is silly. If they actually had the guts to use Bray to turn Cena, I'd be happy but I dont see it happening. I actually thought they would sign the Briscoes to be Bray's backup but Im glad they've given Harper & whatshisname time to develop. Whatshisname is pretty limited but Luke Harper is great. its points in favour of signing guys with indy experience and points in favour of guys having input into their own stuff (Bray chose his music and writes his own promos).

We could get very detailed here but in an effort to keep it simple, I strongly believe the reserve system is irreperably broken. Not all reserves ofcourse. But why would anyone want to live in the middle of nowhere without running or clean water, where they own nothing, where they are intimidated into voting for a "council" made up of buddies that directly influence who does what and rewards or punishes support? Going to some reserves, you see broken down homes. You see homes with holes in the walls, broken everything. The residents dont have any sense of pride in some of these homes. They dont own them. You see residents who look lost and hopeless. Addiction runs rampant. Suicides are well above average. We have a system where taxpayers provide funding for a group of people and that money is given to "elders" or a "council" in many cases with little oversight. We have created our own welfare state. The plight of aboriginals in general is never going to change under these conditions. What we need a longterm solution, a generational solution that weans "reserves" off of federal financial support. Its not assimilation for aboriginals to live in non-reserve communities. Every ethnicity and culture can exist in Canada and practice their believes. I've never been to a reserve and thought "what a wonderful culture experience this is." Its not. When I was in my early 20's, hanging out and dating several aboriginal girls around the same age, they all said the same thing - they hates the reserve, had to leave, would rather move to Winnipeg at 18 and "struggle" to make ends meet while going to school etc. Staying on the reserve was no life. On the flip side, one of those girls, her dad owned a business on the reserve so he had a lot of money. She still didnt want to be there. She had lived there for a couple of years because she got engaged and was provided housing. But in the end, the negatives to being their vastly outweighed the benefits of being given housing etc. Decisions based on race are frowned upon..unless its aboriginals. Then everything is race-based. Its wrong. We're all Canadians.