WWE Smackdown Short Form 07.08.04

Archive

Sorry about the delay.  The torrent was going slowly, so I decided to haul SD off of Usenet instead and had to wait for parts to come through (slow news server on my ISP).  But the Short Form, etc., is here.

This week’s theme, obviously, is “taking it up the ass”.  The CIA is doing so right now courtesy of the Senate Intelligence Committee describing in detail how it conspired with the Junta to lie to the American public about Iraq (and the Junta still believes that Americans support this bullshit military action).  Ken Lay not only is taking it up the ass, but will be soon courtesy of residence in a federal penitentiary (if he gets Club Fed, there’s no justice in this here land).  And we, the WWE audience, is taking it up the ass every time we sit down to watch Smackdown and watch the E roll around like a dog in its own ordure, happy as a clam to be smelling like shit and not caring who the odor offends.  But we’ll discuss that in a moment.  First, of course, the anti-spyware tirade for the day.  Rumor has it that a certain popular writer here at 411 actually clicked on one of those ads instead of following the links I present, and now his system is hosed.  I won’t mention any names, but he must have been “high” to actually click on “it” instead of listening to me like he should have been doing.  Maybe if I called myself Tammy Sytch, this wouldn’t have happened…

ENOUGH CLUES FOR YOU OR DO I HAVE TO SPELL IT OUT?

Remember, this all started because the slugs at Enigma Software dared to advertise their piece of shit SpyHunter here at 411.  So I’m responding every single column with proper anti-spyware information.  And guess what?  People are actually taking this to heart.  They’re asking me for help if they’re infested, or they’re writing me telling me that their browsing experience is less annoying thanks to the stuff I’ve been putting up here three times a week for a couple months now.

Big, big Kudos to the guys at the Spyware Warrior Forum for pointing out to everyone the extent of criminal activity participated in by Enigma Software, makers of the bane of advertising on this site, SpyHunter.  Slimeballs extraordinare, aren’t they?  And in case you need more info about what flaming bags of shit they are, try hereSuzi’s Blog has a great list of other flaming bags of shit that promote anti-spyware programs that are spyware themselves.  Consult it if you have questions.

(On a side note, those SpyHunter ads started over at Reality News Online, and BFM, a contributor there, spotted them.  He told the webmaster, gave him those links that I cited above, the webmaster read them, the blood drained out of his face, and he contacted his ad provider.  No more ads for Enigma products on RNO, thank you.  So guess what?  If you provide the info, there are sites who will listen.)

One of the leading vectors for spyware is so-called free programs that contain this shit in order to “pay the bills”.  No one deserves that kind of treatment.  If you’ve got a question about whether or not a certain program contains spyware, head over here.  It’s a nice alphabetized list of programs that do contain spyware and should be avoided at all costs.

Here’s a list of the programs you really need to help you get rid of menaces, and, more importantly, prevent them from occurring in the first place:

Spybot and AdAware.  The ONLY two spyware removal tools to trust.  Do NOT buy any spyware removal tools, because none of them work better than these two, and all of them except these two are suspect.

SpywareBlaster.  Will nuke thousands of different potentially malicious ActiveX controls, and now has the ability to prevent a number of non-ActiveX methods of installing spyware for people who use Mozilla/Firefox.

SpywareGuard.  From Javacool, like SpywareBlaster.  It’s a real-time scanner for spyware.  A decent first line of defense.

IE-SpyAd.  Throws numerous ad-related URLs into IE’s Restricted Zone, where they won’t display or affect your system.  Bookmark this one, since it’s the only one that doesn’t have an in-program update.

A few people have recommended also installing the Sun Java Virtual Machine, since it’s Windows’ buggy, half-assed implementation of the JVM that allows a lot of spyware to install (less so within the past month and a half than before).  I’ve resisted putting it here because of a couple things:  1) The MS JVM was removed in XP SP1a due to the Sun court case and replaced with a Sun JVM, and I’m not sure how many people have actually patched.  2) The link above is an automatic download, and that does scare some people.  Don’t worry, it’s perfectly safe.  I wouldn’t have put it here if it wasn’t.  But I STRONGLY recommend that you visit here and update your version of Java.

So many people have asked about a free anti-virus program that I’m also going to recommend AVG.  Totally free, and works really, really well, as well as commercial anti-virus programs.  Frequent database updates, good heuristic detection, everything you want in an anti-virus package.

Another program that I’d like to add here is a little tough to work with for noobs if it goes buggy (you need to know a little something about your Networking settings in order to debug if something should go wrong).  Protowall is a supplement to your firewall or NAT system.  It hooks directly into XP’s networking system to block any and all traffic that comes from URLs on a list maintained by the program (all protocols, not just TCP/UDP).  It’s mainly designed for anti-P2P purposes (which will appeal to a great many of my readers), but it contains lists to block spyware and ads.  Its blocklist can easily be updated using its supplementary program, Blocklist Manager.  I have Protowall running and a Blocklist Manager icon on my desktop, and I use Blocklist Manager to update the blocklist every couple of days.  You will have problems getting to some sites unless you shut down Protowall temporarily, like ESPN or Sports Illustrated, but it does have a tray icon you can right-click and shut down in a few seconds.  It’s the third layer of anti-ad material for me, with IE-SpyAd and AdSubtract running alongside it.  Warning, though:  it only works with XP.  I’d recommend its predecessor, Peer Guardian, for other MS OSes, but it isn’t being developed anymore, and there were still bugs in it when development stopped.  You can get Protowall and the Blocklist Manager (which will also work with Peer Guardian) at Bluetack’s site.

Of course, only download them from the links provided above.

With AdAware and Spybot, check for updates using their internal update function at least once a week.  Run them at least once a week or whenever you think you might have problems.  Remember, the new version of Spybot has browser protection capabilities, so have that run at startup and leave it running.  Check for updates to SpywareBlaster once a week.  It only needs to be run once initially in order to establish protection.  Then, after it downloads updates, just click on the line that says “Enable Protection For All Unprotected Items” and kill it.  It doesn’t need to be active.  For IE-SpyAd, bookmark the site and check for updates twice a week, since it has no kind of internal updater.  Run the Blocklist Manager every couple of days to make sure that you keep up on the latest banned URLs.  Since all it does is add Registry entries, it doesn’t eat up anything.

If you’re having trouble with spyware or a browser hijacker, or think that you do, head over to the SpywareInfo Forums, where the pros there can help you diagnose and get rid of stuff.  I was promoted to Full Helper status there and ended up joining ASAP, the Alliance of Security Analysis Professionals.  Look for their symbol, which I’m not going to try to link to anymore because someone at the other end keeps munging it.

THE SHORT FORM

Match Results:

Rob Van Dam over the Rejection of Erection (Pinfall, split-legged moonsault):  Proof positive, if any was needed, that a spot artist cannot carry a guy who still needs to be carried after four years in the bigs.  There was a reason why everyone thought that O’Haire was the golden boy of that team.  The reason is that O’Haire can actually wrestle, while Jindrak…has a great body.  Boring started, only relieved by Dupree on color commentary.  The guy’s incredible on the mic for someone his age.  Best to ignore and move on.

Paul London and the former Greasy Little Twink over Buh Buh Ray and D-Von Dudley, Tag Title Match (Pinfall, Kidman pins Buh Buh Ray, Shooting Star Press, New Tag Champions):  Do the only times the Dudz get energized about a match is when they’re preparing to drop the titles?  We’ve seen enough evidence in the past to show that it’s true (at least in heel mode; in face mode, they’re always amped up a bit).  Shockingly good match, but to be expected, because, like the rest of the IWC, I’m in love with Paul London.  It’s great to see him wear gold.  It’s even better to see him sell that knee throughout the match.  Someone hasn’t lost the ability to do that properly.

El Gran Luchador over High-Quality Speaker Boy (COR):  Can’t they set up the cage match any other way?  You know, like with promos or something?  Do we need shit like this on our screens?  I think not.  As Melchor says, Heil Bradshaw.

Chavito, Jamie Noble, and Akio over Rey-Rey, Spike Dudley, and Scotty Go Potty, Trios Match (Pinfall, Noble pins Dudley, Tiger Driver):  Nice little trios match, I have to admit, but TNA’s spoiled us for this sort of action with the X Division.  However, it was great to see the Yung Dragons teaming up again.  Let’s make it permanent, shall we?

John Cena over Booker T, US Title Match (DQ, Luther-ference):  Pretty much exactly what you’d expect from those two in a main-event free TV match.  We’ve seen better, we’ve seen worse.  Negligible would be the perfect word to describe the whole situation, I guess, since the whole match, especially the commentary, played into the Angle/Cena situation moreso than any threat that Booker may have posed.

Angle Developments:

LONG PANTS!:  Thank God Buh Buh Ray got rid of the goddamn shorts.  I already mentioned a number of times that nightmare I had back during the Wisconsin Era about waking up one morning and finding him sitting on my toilet when I went to take a shower.  Those shorts were an incredible distraction during any Dudz match.  There is a supreme being, and somehow, he got through Buh Buh Ray’s and the wardrobe people’s skulls that him wearing shorts Isn’t A Good Thing.

Role Model:  Is High-Quality Speaker Boy looking to the Junta for role models for his promos?  The self-delusion, the near-senile level of self-deception that he’s actually popular among some segment of the population…okay, he’s channeling Mad Dog at the very least.  I think he also said that Iraq had a connection to al-Qaeda too, so it fits.

Kayfabe Maintenance:  During the backstage scene of London and Kidman returning, there was something very interesting.  The Ten-Buck Tramp was one of the first people you see, but all of her congratulations were concentrated on London instead of on her off-screen-but-not-involved-on-screen husband.  WWE is very careful about preserving Wilson’s value as a fantasy object, and this was a wonderful example of that.  Hey, Haley’s on hiatus, so someone has to do The Little Things.

Was It Rehearsed?:  I can somehow imagine Heyman saying the “please, please, take pity on my soul and I’ll cross your path no more” line once before.  To Vince, right after he declared bankruptcy for ECW.

And this time, I’ll try something different for a mailbag.  Just a few large letters, two of them from Nicknamed Regulars (who get highest priority in these here columns) and the other on a now-familiar subject…

A MODEST PROPOSAL

This week’s first injection of unwanted political content into the Smackdown Short Form comes not courtesy of me, but of Big Daddy, who says:

The bottom line: Tom Ridge calls a press conference to say that al-Qaeda is possibly planning terror attacks aimed at disrupting the elections.  He goes on to further state that there’s no evidence that lets us know when, where or how the attacks will happen. Ridge said they have “a certain sense of anticipation or expectation” of attack.

You mean terrorists are gonna do terroristy things? Wow! Thank God Homeland Security called a press conference to let us know that! Next thing you know, they’ll be calling another to let us know that – based on the fact that he’s done it before and is likely to do it again – Barry Bonds may hit another home run before the end of the season, but they aren’t sure exactly when, where or how it will happen.

Look, rather than disrupt the elections, al-Queda can cause mass chaos simply by making a very large monetary donation to the Bush reelection campaign, and then call up one of those old-school pitbull journalists that just love f*cking with people and leak the story. Get Osama’s Swiss banker brother to funnel a few mill into the GOP coffers and make a few phone calls. Imagine Mike Wallace in his heyday showing up at 1600 Pennsylvania with a camera crew and just chewing his way through anyone trying to bar his entrance to get to the truth. That, my friend, would do more to rid the Middle East of its biggest problem – namely Dubbya – than all the suicide bombers put together.


Well said, Kurt, quite well said.  Personally, I’d love to see it.  Just as long as Mike Wallace was wearing that trench coat that he always used to wear when doing the ambush interviews.  It made it seem so much dirtier than it actually was.  But he’s in his 80s now and can’t even put the damn thing on.  Someone should, though.  I’m thinking Regis, just to f*ck with everyone’s heads.

THE BESTIALITY WITH TWO BACKS

It’s the Line Of Thought That Won’t Die.  Personally, nothing I’ve put in recently has engendered the audience response and enthusiasm that bestiality stereotypes has.  The best of the bunch this week comes from Steve Merredew, a proud Canadian (where the Francophones follow their phonic bretheren and f*ck cows, while the Anglophones…well, they f*ck cows too, but only in the Western provinces), who mentions a piece in the press which fits in with the whole thing:

Just a semi-regular reader here, dropping in a little contribution for that ongoing ethnic stereotyping item you’ve been running where you accuse various nationalities of varying degrees of so, so wrong animal love.  I was reading the Globe & Mail (the “classier” of Canada’s national newspapers), and on the back page of the front section, they have a column called ‘Social Studies’, which is a “daily miscellany of information”, both useful and otherwise.  They have a semi-regular feature where they pull “news” items and match them up with one of the 7 deadly sins, and Thursday, one of the sins featured was Pride.  Here’s the excerpt:

“Last month, a beauty contest for goats in western Croatia was won by an animal called Lucy.  Her owner, Ivan Perko, said: ‘I always knew she was the most beautiful goat in the world'”.

I shit you not.  Anyway, keep up the insightful and fearless commentary, and I, for one, am glad to see that your columns have become a bit less scathing and hateful, and a bit more humorous.


Blame the drugs for that little change in attitude.  Every time I’m on something, I get humorous and puckish rather than bitter and angry, although I try to maintain the latter two as much as possible.

But this does lead us to a question.  We already have the Greeks down as goat-f*ckers.  Do we extend this to the rest of the Balkans?  I don’t see a problem with Macedonia or Montenegro, and now Croatia, a country whose most notable achievments were giving us Toni Kukoc and Serious Sam, has to join them with this article.  But how far do you go?  Do you include Serbia and Bosnia in the mix?  Slovenia is definitely out; I see the Slovenes as being more of the horse-f*cking type.  Where do we draw the line with a human’s love for their goat herd?  Please, write in and tell me your feel on this, especially those of you who are from the Balkans and presumably either f*ck goats or not.

AND TO CLOSE, AN EDITORIAL FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE AISLE

Obviously, enthusiasm for John Edwards as VP-apparent isn’t universal.  Take my fascist bud John King, whom I decided to give equal time to on this critical issue:

For God’s sake Eric when I see the two of them together all I can see is a mental picture of a staid Brahmin Bostonian taking his overeager Cocker Spaniel for a walk. You’re such a connoisseur of Warner Brothers films, here’s the analogy I draw from this ticket: how long before the “Flush the Two Johns” bumper stickers” come out? The cartoon with the English Bulldog (Spike?) and the little dog yapping away at his heels going “Now Now Now” and getting the backhand. Kerry selecting Edwards was a sign of desperation because Lurch knew HE wasn’t bringing any oomph to the campaign.

True, Kerry is relatively charisma-free.  But this is the Year of Serious Politics, and he’s the type of serious guy the Demos need.  Edwards is there to provide the glamour, and there’s no problem with that.  Kerry just needs to stay on message, and the message is that, in 2000, a bunch of criminals were appointed to the White House, and now it’s time to correct that error.

Its interesting that all these pundits that slagged W for having NO gravitas in 2000 are all silent over Edwards’ less than sterling credentials in any area other than the ability to bring in trial lawyer $$$$. So the message to the blacks and the labor unions: FUCK YOU, SHUT UP and VOTE FOR US, cause you got nowhere else to go. Nice way to do business. The lawyers have officially taken over the Democratic party. Of course here in PA Kerry is still losing by about 6-8 points, and naming a med-mal lawyer to the #2 slot is only going to hurt him due to the running battle with the lottery system of jury awards for hangnails brought by guys like Edwards that is forcing docs to leave the state in record numbers. My dads cardiologist just left for Virginia because his malpractice $$$ doubled and he has never been sued.  So don’t get to comfortable with the Breck Girl being untouchable, he is going to get tied to the spiraling costs of medicine because of lawsuits that force docs out of business and malpractice to go up.

Fleabag and I were talking about that on Thursday night, and I told him that all of the polls are saying that the trial lawyer stuff is irrelevant.  Besides, the lawyers took over the party in ’92, and that worked out pretty well for everyone, including conservatives, who got to make a lot of money before the Junta pissed it away completely.

Remember Edwards isn’t even running for reelection in North Carolina because he knows he wouldn’t even get reelected this year, so how does he even
deliver his own damn state? And remember when there is a blank slate like Edwards, EVERYBODY gets to draw on it. The Republicans are going to say that
he was not the first choice and they are running a commercial with McCain already (what you bet he is the new Sec. Of State WHEN Bush gets reelected
and Powell bails?) implying that Edwards is at best second best.


Do you really think that Dubbaya wanted Mad Dog as first choice?  He would have bled himself white to have had McCain as his second, except that Rove and his moral low-lifes took that option away from him courtesy of the South Carolina Smear Job.  With the way clear, the money men could install Mad Dog in there to watch over the boy and see that he didn’t f*ck things up too badly for Halliburton and the Carlyle Group.  The wounds are still there for McCain.  He won’t take SecState under a Junta the Second because of that, but he just might under the Kerry Administration.

John Edwards doesn’t even have as much experience as my fellow Hoosier Dan Quayle.

But at least Edwards can spell words correctly.

Bottom line Eric: Edwards was brought in for lawyer cash,

I’ll give you that.  I don’t see tort reform going over any time soon with either party, really.

to attract voters Kerry had NO hope of reaching with his morose style, and because anyone else would have overshadowed him because he is such a wet blanket.

Again, agreed.  But I’ve supported him from before the start because I knew two years ago that this race would need a serious politician to conduct.  No more f*cking dog and pony shows like with Gore.  It takes a serious politician to take advantage of the opportunities given, and an unpopular overseas conflict, an economy still in the doldrums, and a veep that’s about to get his ass hauled into court to answer some questions about what Enron knew and when they knew it are some big openings.

If he had nominated Hillary, she would have Vince Fostered him and took over anyway.

If he’d gone for Hitlary, I would have stayed away from the polls this year, I think.

Hope you feel better. Take a Clarinex.

I am feeling better, and I wish my medicine cabinet was that well-stocked.  OTC Claritin-D did the trick, along with some cold medication to relieve the other symptoms.

That’s almost it for me this week.  I’ve already done my Round Table bit, and that’ll be up Saturday courtesy of Ol’ Fingers himself, Matthew Michaels, who’s filling in for the vacationing PK this time on PPV duty.  Until that time, enjoy what you’re watching.  God knows I’m not.