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 sebster wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
Yes, she fits in well with Alan Grayson, Rush Limbaugh, Alan West, Michelle Malkin, etc etc etc.

I'm pretty sure Alan West is genuinely crazy.

At the very minimum, I would say he is the only person named that actually truly believes what comes out of his own mouth. I mean, you look at Bill Maher, Ann Coulter, you know it's a schtick.

Well the fans can understand the point of a game of football.

Its quite an indictment that the football crowd's collective understanding exceeds that of a political pundit.

 Grey Templar wrote:
I don't get soccer.

Its insanely boring to watch. Nothing ever happens. You play hours to maybe score one goal and win. And it can end in a tie.

Sure, there is action, but its pointless action. It almost never amounts to anything, just passing the ball back and forth while making feeble attempts at scoring which might occasionally succeed.


And you've got entire countries who eat it up? People got nothing actually interesting to watch obviously.

I too am mystified that people who grew up with a game from a young age would love that game, and not treat it with passionless disinterest like I do. Why it is even more bizarre that people don't recognise the objective superiority of the games I grew up watching.

 Grey Templar wrote:
I don't get soccer.

Its insanely boring to watch. Nothing ever happens. You play hours to maybe score one goal and win. And it can end in a tie.

Sure, there is action, but its pointless action. It almost never amounts to anything, just passing the ball back and forth while making feeble attempts at scoring which might occasionally succeed.


And you've got entire countries who eat it up? People got nothing actually interesting to watch obviously.

I think you need to actually watch it - it also involves rolling around on the ground apparently dying when someone comes within 10 cm of you (thats 4 inches in Ann Coulter world)

 Ouze wrote:
At the very minimum, I would say he is the only person named that actually truly believes what comes out of his own mouth. I mean, you look at Bill Maher, Ann Coulter, you know it's a schtick.

Yeah, I think so.

I mean, I think Bill Maher certainly believes he is as clever as he says he is, but other than that it's just saying whatever will score ratings.

 sebster wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
I don't get soccer.

Its insanely boring to watch. Nothing ever happens. You play hours to maybe score one goal and win. And it can end in a tie.

Sure, there is action, but its pointless action. It almost never amounts to anything, just passing the ball back and forth while making feeble attempts at scoring which might occasionally succeed.


And you've got entire countries who eat it up? People got nothing actually interesting to watch obviously.

I too am mystified that people who grew up with a game from a young age would love that game, and not treat it with passionless disinterest like I do. Why it is even more bizarre that people don't recognise the objective superiority of the games I grew up watching.

I agree it's why I try and get people on this forum to watch rugby League occasionally, I actually think they would like the game though.

The tangent to the metric system was interesting. Who honestly is going to defend the Imperial system against the metric system? That's daft.

I don't particularly like any sports (I like the shooting sports, if that counts, and fishing); but am very fond of the metric system, and not just saying that as a way to segue in a pulp fiction quote and/or gif.

I don't know that fishing is a sport, I consider it a relaxation activity, one of only two where you end up with fingers that smell of sea food.

 sebster wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
I don't get soccer.

Its insanely boring to watch. Nothing ever happens. You play hours to maybe score one goal and win. And it can end in a tie.

Sure, there is action, but its pointless action. It almost never amounts to anything, just passing the ball back and forth while making feeble attempts at scoring which might occasionally succeed.


And you've got entire countries who eat it up? People got nothing actually interesting to watch obviously.

I too am mystified that people who grew up with a game from a young age would love that game, and not treat it with passionless disinterest like I do. Why it is even more bizarre that people don't recognise the objective superiority of the games I grew up watching.

Its not that people like it, its that the game ever caught on as a spectator sport watched by millions. It just doesn't lend itself well to watching it IMO.

And I actually don't watch much sport period. I watch the Super Bowl and thats pretty much it. I've gone to 2 of my College's Football games.

Soccer in particular just sticks out as being a poor spectator sport game to me, one who generally doesn't like watching sports. It strikes me as being particularly poor for it.

I enjoy playing sports, but watching isn't really my thing.

Bullockist wrote:
I agree it's why I try and get people on this forum to watch rugby League occasionally, I actually think they would like the game though.

Okay, while my general rule is 'every game is fine and people will mostly love the ones they grew up playing and watching and somehow not realise that's what everyone else is doing'... but I have an exception for rugby league. That game is terrible.

I get really tense watching football , really tense if I'm watching a team I love. It's the knowledge that at any time the game can change. I expect that i will die at 50 of a heart attack watching Sydney FC play.

What's weird is it's my 2nd favourite ball sport and I don't get tense at all watching my favourite. I can totally understand why it caught on as a spectator sport.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Its not that people like it, its that the game ever caught on as a spectator sport watched by millions. It just doesn't lend itself well to watching it IMO.

Yeah, and as I already explained that's how it works when it's a sport you didn't grow up with, didn't build up a passion for.

I'm not a huge fan of soccer either, but I grew up watching Aussie Rules and playing and watching Hockey*, so of course they're the games I love. I don't see how mysterious it can be that other people would love the game they grew up watching and playing.




*Field hockey to you Americans.

 sebster wrote:

Bullockist wrote:
I agree it's why I try and get people on this forum to watch rugby League occasionally, I actually think they would like the game though.

Okay, while my general rule is 'every game is fine and people will mostly love the ones they grew up playing and watching and somehow not realise that's what everyone else is doing'... but I have an exception for rugby league. That game is terrible.

DIE !
It is the toughest game around and feth me, it's just awesome. If I find out you like aerial ping pong I will have to get your post printed on to a scarf ,find you and strangle you with it. Goddamn it sebster that comment is almost an auto Ignore list offence

the scarf is at the printers!

 Grey Templar wrote:
No, stuff happens in baseball.

Soccer is literally no more action filled than a couple guys passing a ball back and forth between themselves. Except there is a bunch of guys instead of just 2.

About as much stuff happens in Soccer as happens in Baseball.

It's not at all uncommon for baseball games to end 1-0 or close to that after hours of play.

 sebster wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
At the very minimum, I would say he is the only person named that actually truly believes what comes out of his own mouth. I mean, you look at Bill Maher, Ann Coulter, you know it's a schtick.

Yeah, I think so.

I mean, I think Bill Maher certainly believes he is as clever as he says he is, but other than that it's just saying whatever will score ratings.

Maher's entire sense of self and existence is based on his own sense of how clever he thinks he is. I think if he realized he wasn't the smartest guy in every room he walked into he would literally die from the whiplash.

 Grey Templar wrote:
No, stuff happens in baseball.

Soccer is literally no more action filled than a couple guys passing a ball back and forth between themselves. Except there is a bunch of guys instead of just 2.

While I am do defender of soccer, I will say that it is more action than 99.9% of any baseball game (which is barely a team sport anyway).

Everyone knows nothing screams "IN YOUR FACE SPORTS EXCITEMENT!!!" like watching a 0-0 baseball game late in 14th inning.

Bullockist wrote:
DIE !
It is the toughest game around and feth me, it's just awesome. If I find out you like aerial ping pong I will have to get your post printed on to a scarf ,find you and strangle you with it. Goddamn it sebster that comment is almost an auto Ignore list offence

the scarf is at the printers!

I understand that for rugby league players it might be the toughest game around, but for all the rest of us counting to six over and over again stopped being a challenge a long time ago

I don't even know what the scarf thing is about, but yeah, Aussie Rules fan here. Well, sort of, I'm a bit disillusioned with the game, what with all the special treatment handed to Sydney, the AFL's attempts to help Essendon cover up their drugs scandal, and the standard of umpiring slowly slipping back to the bad old Victorian days. But the game itself, if the AFL would stop fething with it, well it's that perfect balance between speed and hardness.

I've never understood the aerial ping pong thing, by the way. I mean, in Union they actually will spend long periods of time with fullbacks kicking it between each other, but you use that term to describe AFL, where you're always kicking to a contest, and that's only if you don't have a player open.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ahtman wrote:
Maher's entire sense of self and existence is based on his own sense of how clever he thinks he is. I think if he realized he wasn't the smartest guy in every room he walked into he would literally die from the whiplash.

Pretty much yeah. It's a shame, because he can actually think of some decent one liners from time to time. It's just a shame that those lines are surrounded by lazy liberal politics and that damn ego.

I enjoy soccer. I also enjoy the obvious trollbait that is this column. Both are entertaining in their own way.

Though I do agree with her about men and women playing together = not a real sport.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
No, stuff happens in baseball.

Soccer is literally no more action filled than a couple guys passing a ball back and forth between themselves. Except there is a bunch of guys instead of just 2.

While I am do defender of soccer, I will say that it is more action than 99.9% of any baseball game (which is barely a team sport anyway).

Everyone knows nothing screams "IN YOUR FACE SPORTS EXCITEMENT!!!" like watching a 0-0 baseball game late in 14th inning.

I'm not going to throw rocks at anyone for PLAYING soccer. Makes perfect sense. Seems like a good way to burn off a lot of energy, and we all know how much chicks dig violence (or simulated violence), so there's that. But it goes right in the barrel with baseball when it comes to watching it as a spectator sport.

I'd be willing to play a game of soccer, but I think I'd rather have a root canal than watch another game of soccer. (No, for real. At least with invasive and painful dental surgery I'm relieving myself of future pain--if I spend the time to actually WATCH a soccer game, I've lost an hour or more off my life that gained me nothing and can never be gotten back.)

 Jimsolo wrote:
I'm not going to throw rocks at anyone for PLAYING soccer. Makes perfect sense. Seems like a good way to burn off a lot of energy, and we all know how much chicks dig violence (or simulated violence), so there's that. But it goes right in the barrel with baseball when it comes to watching it as a spectator sport.

I'd be willing to play a game of soccer, but I think I'd rather have a root canal than watch another game of soccer. (No, for real. At least with invasive and painful dental surgery I'm relieving myself of future pain--if I spend the time to actually WATCH a soccer game, I've lost an hour or more off my life that gained me nothing and can never be gotten back.)

You guys are nuts. Soccer is like hockey slowed down. It's not quite as good, but still good.

 Seaward wrote:
Though I do agree with her about men and women playing together = not a real sport.

S'funny, I think that any sport where men and women DON'T compete against one another suffers for it. (Which is pretty much every sport.) Seems pretty ludicrous to try to claim that men and women are just as good as one another but then segregate them at sporting events. I seem to recall that we had a Supreme Court case that decided that separate would always be inherently unequal.

 Jimsolo wrote:
S'funny, I think that any sport where men and women DON'T compete against one another suffers for it. (Which is pretty much every sport.) Seems pretty ludicrous to try to claim that men and women are just as good as one another but then segregate them at sporting events. I seem to recall that we had a Supreme Court case that decided that separate would always be inherently unequal.

Really? You want to put females in the NFL and the NHL? You really want to see some 19 year-old girl get Kronwalled?

And I don't try to claim that men and women are as good as each other at everything. I'm not an idiot.

 Seaward wrote:

 Jimsolo wrote:
S'funny, I think that any sport where men and women DON'T compete against one another suffers for it. (Which is pretty much every sport.) Seems pretty ludicrous to try to claim that men and women are just as good as one another but then segregate them at sporting events. I seem to recall that we had a Supreme Court case that decided that separate would always be inherently unequal.

Really? You want to put females in the NFL and the NHL? You really want to see some 19 year-old girl get Kronwalled?

And I don't try to claim that men and women are as good as each other at everything. I'm not an idiot.

Yes! If a 19 year old boy is allowed to do it, then why not a 19 year old girl? If you're going to compete at a professional level, I don't think it's unreasonable to have both sets of professionals at the SAME level. If you don't, you wind up with one league that is regarded as the professional level of the sport, and a second league where players are told that they are inherently inferior.

People once said that players from the negro leagues shouldn't play baseball because it wouldn't be fair to them. People also once said that black boxers wouldn't be able to compete against white boxers. When given the opportunity to compete at the same level as everyone else, these notions proved to be groundless. You let women compete on the same level as men, and they will not only survive, they will dominate at least as much as their male counterparts.

When we say that women can't compete with men, the implication is that they're too delicate. It's absurdly sexist, and is a form of discrimination that just astounds me in this day and age.

If there's a 19 year old girl able to compete with this;



Let them.

 Jimsolo wrote:
You let women compete on the same level as men, and they will not only survive, they will dominate at least as much as their male counterparts.

We know that's not the case, though, from individual sports. Unless you're suggesting that female sprinters/swimmers/etc. are just lazier. The fastest 100m dash ever run by a female doesn't even make it into the men's top 25.

When we say that women can't compete with men, the implication is that they're too delicate. It's absurdly sexist, and is a form of discrimination that just astounds me in this day and age.

It acknowledges the reality that men and women are built differently. The genders are not identical. Wishing won't make it so.

 Seaward wrote:

Really? You want to put females in the NFL and the NHL? You really want to see some 19 year-old girl get Kronwalled?

And I don't try to claim that men and women are as good as each other at everything. I'm not an idiot.

1. Yes, yes I do, that way I can get my slapstick style funnies and sport all at the same time.

2. Are women as good as men at being idiots?

We know that's not the case, though, from individual sports. Unless you're suggesting that female sprinters/swimmers/etc. are just lazier. The fastest 100m dash ever run by a female doesn't even make it into the men's top 25.

It's also worth pointing out that the time difference in run times only grows larger the longer the run. The difference between top men and top women in 1500m is a minute, while the difference between the 100m is around 1 second (meaning that 15x the distance results in 60x time difference).

I'm all for sex equality, but equal opportunity doesn't mean equal success, especially not in a field dominated by physical prowess like Football. There are certainly some women out there able to compete in that world, but we shouldn't pretend there's an abundance of them or that they'll make the cut against male competitors.

When we say that women can't compete with men, the implication is that they're too delicate. It's absurdly sexist, and is a form of discrimination that just astounds me in this day and age.

It acknowledges the reality that men and women are built differently. The genders are not identical. Wishing won't make it so.

Don't have to be identical. Sports like baseball and football have a broad range of roles, and the performance ability of the athletes also covers a broad spectrum. No one is going to try to claim that female athletes, trained at the same level as male athletes, would not still fall within this spectrum.

Racist and sexist policies throughout history have shielded themselves with the excuse of "it's just biological fact." It isn't a defense, it's an excuse.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 LordofHats wrote:
I'm all for sex equality, but equal opportunity doesn't mean equal success

It doesn't have to. There are certainly many other professions that see a certain degree of gender disparity, where one gender will outperform the other. But with very few exceptions (almost none that I can think of) we don't segregate or restrict those by gender.

 Jimsolo wrote:
Don't have to be identical. Sports like baseball and football have a broad range of roles, and the performance ability of the athletes also covers a broad spectrum. No one is going to try to claim that female athletes, trained at the same level as male athletes, would not still fall within this spectrum.

Racist and sexist policies throughout history have shielded themselves with the excuse of "it's just biological fact." It isn't a defense, it's an excuse.

Well, you've changed my mind.

I'm off to have an MMA match with fiancee. I'll need your personal details so my lawyer can call you as a witness for the defense.