The Daily Pulse, 02.23.05

Archive

Oh, f*ck…over a period of an hour and a half yesterday at work, I came down with every single symptom of the flu. At first, I thought I was having a depressive attack, but then my eyes started burning and I started running a fever. There was no way in hell that I wanted to tell my boss I wanted to go home because my “condition” was acting up on me, but the flu? Hey, cool; every one of the inspectors has it right now. So I called into work today as well and thus have time to finish this column at a leisurely pace instead of having to rush. So I’ve put on some coffee and I’m trying to find a way not to stay dizzy while seated. This’ll be fun…

…but not before I pat myself on the back a little. This week marks five years that I’ve been doing website columns, all the time on the Tuesday beat (not counting sabbaticals for moving and so forth). I’ve spanned the era from two Monday shows and a heated-up Thursday battleground to today’s monstrous situation. Most people thought I’d give up after a couple of months, joining the Legion of Dead IWC Columnists. Instead, I lasted. Four websites, a growing audience, a growing reputation for bluntness and candid honesty, and people admitting that I pushed the envelope of discourse about wrestling (and gave a green light for discussing other matters in wrestling columns). It’s been a great ride. If I were more of a Bowie fan than I already am, I’d call it quits after this week. But since I’m still read and wanted, I think I’ll stick around.

So I want to thank all of my readers out there whose mails have kept me going all this time. You’re the best, even when You’re A Moron. I’d also like to thank the very patient webmasters out there who have put up with me all of this time: Scott Keith, Don Becker, Ashish Pabari, Jonathan Widro (who didn’t think I was too much of a risk to bring to 411 after l’affaire Babs), and especially Luke Johnston, who gave me my first column at The Shooters. I would like to thank every one of my colleagues, but the list is far too long, and I’m sure I’d forget too many people. So I’d like to concentrate on three people: Rob T, who will always be my tag-team partner; Hyatte, who somehow got over our disagreement over Chicago versus Noo Yawk pizza (not to mention a very negative column I wrote about him) and has become valuable to my life; and Flea, who’s become my best friend in this biz and has somehow maintained a rational, calm discourse while we’ve talked politics.

Geez, first paying tribute to HST and then paying tribute to the people who keep me going. This week is a demonstration of why the pills work.

Now on to the fun stuff…

THE PIMP SECTION

Lucard keeps talking vampires, and you know you love it.

Gloomchen reflects on moving and hair metal.

Good releases from Misha this week.

Gordi continues his series on why psychology makes wrestling great. Although the quote in there that sounds like it’s from me isn’t. I punctuate things correctly.

Fothergill-Brown, like me, dissects No Way Out.

Hevia is sick of My Beautiful and Beloved, which I can understand, but is still on the “I Want To Fuck Victoria” beat.

Hatton is still enjoying Raw with his friends.

Rogers has a good list of the biggest black eyes in sports history. Unfortunately, it’s confined to the US, so no mention is made of soccer’s numerous black eyes over the years, from faking injury to Maradona totally ruining the credibility of refs single-handed by the “Hand Of God” goal.

Goldberg pays tribute to HST and talks college hoops.

Nguyen pimps me and has a great angry column on the nature of sports today.

Cameron concentrates on Canseco and his revelations, or is it bragging?

Batesmen, along with Wids and PK, are at the Toy Fair. He’s got the breaking news, though.

McCullar said my tribute to HST was “class”. Thank you.

THE ANTI-SPYWARE SECTION

Remember, this all started because the slugs at Enigma Software dared to advertise their piece of shit SpyHunter at 411 (one of the reasons why I decided to leave, honestly). 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 few months now.

(And as I understand it, there are some unscrupulous browser toolbar people trying to advertise here at the Pulse. Well, don’t click on that ad, whatever you do. We’ll still get the money from the impressions, and your system will stay safe.)

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 that site, SpyHunter. Slimeballs extraordinare, aren’t they? And in case you need more info about what flaming bags of shit they are, try here. Suzi’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.)

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 STRONGLY recommend that you visit here and update your version of Java.

Surprisingly, many people have asked me about the Microsoft Anti-Spyware Beta. I downloaded it and tried it, and it shockingly did a great job. Since it’s free, I’ll recommend it here.

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. And only download those programs; don’t fall for the ads that are shown at various websites.

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. Since all it does is add Registry entries, it doesn’t eat up anything. Run the Blocklist Manager every couple of days to make sure that you keep up on the latest banned URLs.

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.

The Ravin’ Cajun asks me to recommend a good client-side spam filter for MS mail programs running under Windows. Now, this is something I don’t have experience with because my ISPs have always had good spam filtering, plus, I use Thunderbird, which handles the remainder quite nicely, thank you. Some readers wrote in and recommended SpamBayes, which is totally free and supposedly works very well, so I’ll add it on to the anti-annoyance list that we’re building up here.

Now that 1.0 has been released, I feel good in recommending Firefox as an alternative to IE. Go grab a copy and see what you’re missing.

FINAL REFLECTIONS ON NO WAY OUT

You do know that this column is filed in the Wrestling section? Well, sometimes I feel the need to include wrestling stories in it, and this is one of those times, since I finally finished downloading No Way Out on Tuesday morning and was able to watch most of it before I went to work that afternoon. However, I’ll save the screencaps for the Smackdown Short Form later this week.

The Bashams/Rey-Rey-Eddy Tag Titles match was so damn slow. It was painful to have to watch Rey-Rey and Eddy slow down in order to cater to the Bashams. I think Rey-Rey was also pained to have to participate in it. He was off his game a little except for his normal spots. It was also bizarre to hear Cole and Tazz pimp his Royal Rumble performance as Rey-Rey pulling out the toughness while the Bashams were pounding the shit out of him. I can’t argue with the decision, though, especially since I went forward in the Round Table and predicted the title change.

I’ll forego comments on the bullshit Diva competition. Any excuse for tits, huh, guys?

Jesus, did they make Jon Heidenreich look weak in his match against Booker. Booker actually had the majority of the offense, which Heidenreich couldn’t seem to respond to. The DQ ending didn’t help. Now that Heidenreich has been downgraded and humiliated by the face side of the roster, it’s just about time to turn him. Turning on Snitsky at WM? Could be the best move for Smackdown.

I hated the fact that the Cruiserweight “Battle Royal” turned out to be a Gauntlet Match instead. The only advantage to that is to provide face time for each cruiser as an individual wrestler. Some people would appreciate that, but I prefer utter mayhem instead. The problem with the match is it was booked to be either a spot-fest or a mat-based match (sometimes both at the same time), which doesn’t serve the cruisers well. This is why the X Division is so much superior to the WWE cruiser division. The booking in TNA knows how to balance everything in service to the wrestlers. As for the result, I don’t mind Chavito winning, and I don’t mind London running the gauntlet (I think the entire staff here is unanimous in the opinion that he should get off Epilepsy and on to Smackdown full-time), but the person who looked best in the match was Akio. He showed why he belongs as a regular on Smack
down, and why he should get the cruiser strap sometime soon. Nice job by Yang in this one.

UT/Reigns…your typical UT match, including a minimum amount of selling by UT in order to make his opponent look “threatening”. No further comment is necessary.

Cena/Angle was Match of the Night, but only by default. Angle did a LOT of carrying in that match, but credit to Cena for actually trying to wrestle. Still, Cena/High-Quality Speaker Boy is going to be butt-ugly, maybe the worst WM main event since UT/Sid at WM13. It’s going to be a pure brawl. Yes, some people like that sort of stuff, but after last year, we as fans are desiring pure wrestling in the main. Well, we’re not going to get it from either main, since Trip doesn’t wrestle anymore and Batista is still learning. WM this year is going to be about personality and SE in the mains, and that’s tragic compared to last year.

Well, that was the most…uh, unique exit from a steel cage that I’ve ever seen, but it still doesn’t change the fact that the whole match was designed for both TBS and High-Quality Speaker Boy to cover their weaknesses as wrestlers. Kudos to them for both blading to the extent that they did, but it doesn’t challenge the standard for steel cage matches, especially since AMW/XXX is still in our short-term memories.

In general, the show lived up (or down) to its standards as the most useless PPV of the year.

TORCH THIS

Hyatte put this up at his blog and told me it was mine if I wanted it, since I was the bigger fan of HST. Well, I’ll take it. What Hyatte put up was Uncle Brucie Mitchell’s HST tribute/confession. Since Uncle Brucie is one of the worst hacks to work for a “major” Internet website, he deserves all the criticism he can get. So let’s break him down…

Careful readers over the years know my favorite writer sat on the National Affairs Desk. This Mojo format was stolen directly from Dr. Thompson, who used to take his first impression notes for a story and send an early version immediately via fax – called the Mojo Wire – to his impatient, furious editors. It was raw and immediate, the beginning of Gonzo journalism, everything stripped to the bone truth.

So Uncle Brucie admitted he stole directly from HST and did it on a continual basis, and did it badly. This is in direct contrast to myself and Hyatte, who were simply influenced by HST and took our own spins on what he did. Okay, I have to admit that I stole from HST, but only once, in “Fear and Loathing From Houston”. I felt that Wrestlemania 17 needed the full treatment after Vince’s fire-sale purchase of WCW. I even changed brands of beer during the column to emphasize the semi-gonzo nature of the column (which I wrote in one sitting). But enough confession and disclaimer. Let’s see what else he wrote.

I also stole opening columns with quotes from him.

Bullshit, bitch. You stole it from me. I’ve been doing it for five years now. But he won’t admit that, because the Torch doesn’t admit that any other website exists.

I tried to steal his honesty. I could never steal his talent. I didn’t want to steal the drugs.

But the drugs are the best part of it. I’ve done columns when looped on prescription drugs, and let me assure you that it was fun. And it was nice of him to admit that he has no talent.

An admitted degenerate gambler and sports writer, Thompson once wrote that he moonlighted during his Army days by working for the Florida wrestling promotion, churning out press releases that passed off a “fish-eyed Samoan” (Thompson’s one time best friend was his “Samoan” attorney) as a Japanese champion.

So he understood the wrestling business, too.

Not only does he not have anything remotely resembling the talent of HST, but he also got his facts wrong. HST was in the Air Force, not the Army. The only thing the two share are AAFES running the PXes. The “fish-eyed Samoan”, HST admitted, was a Hispanic wrestler, and it was common practice in those days to promote Mexicans and Puerto Ricans as coming from somewhere more exotic. The “three-hundred pound Samoan attorney” in Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas was also Mexican. As usual, you can’t count on Uncle Brucie to get the facts right, which is a common complaint among people who actually read his bullshit.

That’s all of his comments as per HST, and I printed them verbatim. For someone who admitted and diagrammed how his columns were produced, Uncle Brucie couldn’t even steal HST’s style. That’s goddamn sad.

What a f*cking hack.

BENDING OVER BACKWARDS

From Bloomberg:

Prince Charles can legally marry Camilla Parker Bowles in a civil ceremony, the U.K.’s most senior judge said, following claims that members of the royal family could only have church weddings.

Civil weddings were introduced in the U.K. in 1836 with a provision that members of the royal family couldn’t marry in that way. Lord Chancellor Charles Falconer today said the couple can marry in a civil ceremony because of laws passed since then, including the European Convention of Human Rights, which make it illegal to discriminate against Charles’ right to marry on the grounds that he is a member of the royal family.

“The government is satisfied that it is lawful for the Prince of Wales and Mrs. Parker Bowles, like everyone else, to marry in a civil ceremony,” Falconer said today in a written statement to Parliament. “Different views have been taken in the past, but we consider these were over-cautious.”

The monarch of the U.K. is also the Supreme Governor of the Church of England. The church in 2003 passed a motion to allow divorced people to remarry in church only in “exceptional circumstances.” Charles and Parker Bowles are both divorced, and the heir to the British throne has admitted to committing adultery with Camilla while both were still married.

The couple will marry in the town hall, or Guildhall, of Windsor, west of London, on April 8, and the wedding will be followed by a service of dedication presided over by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, who heads the Anglican Church.

I’m a follower of the royalty groups on Usenet, since that’s where most of the good scandals are coming from (e.g. Prince Harry’s Nazi outfit at a party). There’s a lot of pissed-off royalty watchers on there who are condemning Chas’ marriage to Godzilla as being a horrible, horrible thing that could mean the end of the monarchy in Great Britain. They’ve condemned the civil ceremony as being unlawful, citing various sources (including the 1836 law). The big block in the marriage so far is that Andrew Park-Your-Balls is still alive, thus disqualifying Godzilla from a church marriage. Thus the civil ceremony and blessing afterward.

(What Lord Chancellor Falconer doesn’t mention is the total, unmitigated hypocrisy surrounding the 1836 law. It was passed during the reign of William IV, who admittedly didn’t marry until Queen Adelaide, thirty years his junior, in an effort to sire an heir to the throne; they didn’t succeed, having six stillborn children. However, William was sexually active before his marriage, just like Chas and Godzilla. He had eleven illegitimate children, ten of them by his regular mistress Dorthea Bland, whom he would have married, but was blocked from doing so by the Royal Marriages Act, passed in the 1770s. At least Chas didn’t produce any offspring by Godzilla, although the antics of Tom Parker-Bowles in re drugs perfectly suits the Windsors.)

This is a “bend over and take it” move to bullshit the British public and the royalists, not to mention a green light to have Chas be able to marry the woman he’s been f*cking for over thirty years. They were perfectly satisfied with the status quo until the Queen Mother croaked, which eliminated the biggest negative vote among the Royal Family (at least the old boozer was consistent, considering her abominable treatment of the Duchess of Windsor). The Duchess of Cornwall bullshit is a sop to the legion of Diana fans out there who can’t stand anyone else being Princess of Wales (which Godzilla would be according to common law). And as for the Princess Consort title after Chas reaches the throne, you know he’ll make her Queen when mumsy and dadsy are both in their graves.

Considering their love of equines, the horseshit surrounding this ceremony is only appropriate.

OH, THIS IS ALL WE NEEDED

From Reuters:

The Palestinian prime minister failed to win approval for his new cabinet for the third successive day Wednesday in a deepening crisis with lawmakers demanding more reformers and fewer Yasser Arafat loyalists.

The political infighting put growing pressure on Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie to step down and could complicate plans by President Mahmoud Abbas to overhaul the corruption-plagued Palestinian Authority as he pursues peace efforts with Israel.

Parliamentary speaker Rahwi Fattouh said a vote on the cabinet would be postponed until Thursday or Saturday — the third delay this week — after Qurie was unable to muster a majority despite adding more new faces to his lineup.

“It’s a big mess and we hope to sort it out,” Qurie told Reuters as he left his home for talks aimed at a compromise.

Qurie, an Arafat appointee who could never convince the veteran leader to enact widely demanded reforms, would have to resign if his cabinet fails to win parliamentary approval.

The death of Arafat, the Palestinians’ nationalist icon, has left his Old Guard ministers more vulnerable to challenges from reform-minded lawmakers reflecting widespread public frustration with government waste and corruption.

Abbas and a younger generation of pro-reform legislators in his dominant Fatah movement had tried in recent weeks to persuade Qurie to include more technocrats and other newcomers.

A new government is key to Abbas’s bid to clean up the Palestinian Authority and merge a dozen often competing security services to deal more effectively with anti-Israel militants — steps demanded by the United States and other big donors.

Qurie’s initial cabinet presented Monday contained only four new faces, prompting a near rebellion by lawmakers who want to sweep away the corruption-tainted vestiges of Arafat’s era.

He pledged Tuesday to add more professional appointees, but many lawmakers said it did not go far enough.

Like we in the world needed an unstable Palestine. Oh, this is f*cking brilliant. They’re trying to work both sides of the street as usual, attempting to satisfy the reform-minded faction and the loyal-to-Arafat guys, and attempting to control the militants at the same time. This is a juggling act that would defy the guy who spun plates all the time on the Ed Sullivan Show.

So what do they need to do? Create a government full of hard-ass reformers who will come down on the militants like a ton of bricks. Of course, it didn’t help that Abbas decided last week to unfreeze assets belonging to Hamas, which’ll be the first target under any scenario of a stable government. But if the “donors” decide to come down on the gummint, that means that Hamas will have money and the government won’t, which will destabilize the peace with Israel.

Maybe the Palestinians can ask for advice from Israel. They have experience dealing with unstable coalitions in attempting to form an actual working government.

AND SPEAKING OF UNSTABLE GOVERNMENTS (IN A DIFFERENT SENSE THAN PALESTINE)…

Again from Reuters:

The European Union Wednesday cautiously echoed President Bush’s concerns that Russia is backsliding on democratic standards.

But the 25-nation bloc’s executive played down complaints about Russia that Baltic nations had raised with Bush, saying the three countries’ policy toward Moscow was no different from that of the EU, which they joined last year.

On both days of his visit to Brussels this week, Bush voiced concern about the state of democracy in Russia, setting the stage for a possibly difficult face-to-face meeting with President Vladimir Putin in Slovakia Thursday.

Going public with a message he has been passing along in private, Bush called on Russia to renew its commitment to democracy and the rule of law and also questioned whether the country had an independent free press.

“We have always been mentioning in our contacts with President Putin and the Russian authorities our concerns about Chechnya and human rights, our attachment to democracy and freedom of the press,” European Commission spokeswoman Francoise Le Bail told a news briefing.

“The EU position on this has been always extremely consistent and not very different from what was expressed by President Bush yesterday,” she added.

Le Bail noted that Moscow and the EU, Russia’s biggest single trading partner, had so far failed to agree on a new cooperation policy.

She referred in particular to external security issues, which includes Russian activities in various flashpoints like separatist Chechnya and which Brussels says must be an integral part of the accord.

Russia has resisted references in the pact to democratic principles, human rights, the idea of a common neighborhood and cooperation over tension in regions Moscow sees as its backyard.

Western and Russian civil rights campaigners accuse Putin of restricting democracy by abolishing the election of provincial governors, pursuing a legal vendetta against the Yukos oil company and tightening the Kremlin’s grip on the media.

Bush said he would carry to Putin a particular message of concern from Baltic states, which were until 1991 integral parts of the Soviet Union and are now members of both NATO and the EU.

He did not specify which of the Baltic trio — Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania — had approached him, but diplomats said Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga had told Bush Russia should denounce its Soviet past.

Vike-Freiberga has joined other world leaders in accepting an invitation from Putin to attend celebrations in Moscow on May 9 commemorating the 60th anniversary of Nazi Germany’s defeat.

But she provoked Moscow’s ire by issuing a statement saying the fall of the Nazis did not result in the liberation of Latvia, and instead the Baltic states were “subject to another brutal occupation by another foreign, totalitarian empire.”

Le Bail sidestepped a question on the Baltics’ concerns, and said the EU was talking with one voice toward Russia.

“The EU position toward Russia is determined with the agreement of the Baltic states,” she said.

So, in other words, Russia is becoming totalitarian and has bad relations with its neighbors. And this is different from Russia’s history in what way? The long line of Romanovs have a long list of stupid wars behind them; admittedly, they were occasionally victorious. That wasn’t the case in the Crimean War, which was a major black eye to the Russian military, and the 1904 war with Japan, which led directly to a revolution the next year. Czar Alexander I entered into a modus vivendi with Napoleon, even joining his trade sphere, a few years before Napoleon stupidly decided to backstab Russia.

And their domestic policy in re revolts hasn’t been any better. The Chechnya situation is a microcosm repeat of the 1920 Civil War, which the Communists somehow won after having their backs to the wall. So Putin is following a long tradition of Russian autocracy and f*cking up both external and internal relations. And we’re suprised about this?

Jesus, get realistic. At least they’re not going to war this time.

A CONTRADICTION

Yet again from Reuters:

U.S. consumer prices inched up 0.1 percent in January as energy prices tumbled for the second straight month, according to a report on Wednesday that helped soothe recent anxiety about inflation.

If energy prices are tumbling, why are my bills from Westar Energy still eye-popping? Oh, yeah, someone has to pay for the defense of Westar executives in their mini-Enron. God, I want to move out of this place ASAP. I don’t feel like subsidizing corruption. Except in Chicago, where I’m use to it.

I’m gonna close this one off here, because I need to take a nap to try to get over this flu. Until the Smackdown Short Form, I’ll bid you adieu.