mmmcounts

Please give as much of a reason and explanation for your choice as you can, or are willing to do.

I know it's a little bit of a process and definite results are slow in coming, but if you're interested in this and you have a verified source, can you pass it along to me please?

I'm assuming Rollins is technically a heel but really a double agent who is using the Authority and playing The Game- to that end, he will always fail to cash in on a babyface champion and will wait for a friend of Triple H to win it then shock everyone by taking it off of him. It works with his Clever Architect character. Who do you think it will be?

We knew going into these Finals that the Spurs' biggest advantage was their bench. We also have some history of LeBron James doing very poorly in hot arenas. So when the AC wasn't working properly in Game 1 of the NBA Finals (at the Spurs' arena, who are protecting home court) it wasn't a surprise that James was especially ineffective late, or that the Spurs closed the game outscoring the Heat 31-9. Motive is very clear, especially considering how the team with home court in the Finals has great odds (over 80%) of winning the title when they win game 1.

Is that enough to make you think the Spurs saw a huge opportunity and capitalized? And assuming the AC is working for game 2, what would you estimate the thermostat will be set at?

What I mean by that is some of the chatter about moving past what the Champions League is- instead of having a long playoff series, certain teams from lots of European leagues break away from their current leagues either permanently or semi-permanently so they can do a whole regular season against one another, qualify teams for global competitions, and leave it at that. So it would not be a playoff series- it would be a league in the same sense that any other league is a league, but this would be an all-over-Europe league that would generate billions and billions of dollars and break the meter used for measuring viewership of anything.

My question is this, to fans of football/soccer and especially anyone who has an interest in Champions League play. Would you prefer to see an all-Europe league modeled on the American football way of adding teams to the NFL (or any other American sports league), where the size of a city, marketability, and relative success of a program is what puts a team in and then they basically stay there every year without getting relegated? Or would you prefer to see a system of promotion and relegation, perhaps with a second tier of teams, also from all over Europe?

As far as I know, there's only one US Senator that has any immediate family serving in the military. What if there was an extremely targeted draft, just for immediate family of US Senators? (And the President of the United States/Commander in Chief, of course). All immediate family within a certain age range must serve at least two years including those who aren't quite at that age yet, with an eye on making sure a certain percentage see active duty and that the tendency to see multiple tours is on par with what the rest of the military is doing. I see a lot of upside, for example:

The Senate is typically supposed to declare war by vote, but there are provisions for the President to get something started on his own in an attacking-without-declaration-of-war type of capacity. Perhaps the Senate would do a more careful job of reining that in if they all have immediate family putting boots on the ground, and perhaps the President would make different decisions if he knew that his family members both now and those who aren't old enough to serve yet will have to live with personally live or die by those decisions.

Rape is completely out of control in the US military. Perhaps if Senators (and the President) had daughters in the service, something would be done. At the very least, anyone important to those powerful men and women would be relatively safe- and in turn anyone important to those people would be relatively safe. Some people safe is an improvement on no people safe.

There are some serious and intractable problems with the system that gets benefits to military veterans. Solutions have been hard to come by, and a lot of people fall through the cracks. Again, perhaps if the most powerful politicians in the US get some skin in the game, they'll get a little more creative and start to find solutions for everyone.

And finally, these types of politicians are supposed to be public servants, but the families they typically come from are generally not cut from that sort of cloth. Perhaps if the most powerful politicians in the US either came from military families or from families that are somewhat amenable to becoming military families, we would have more in the way of high quality public servants. I realize that there already are a few US Senators who have served with distinction, and they are great people and great leaders. And to that I say- that's kind of the point, how about we have more of that all the way around. The US military produces great leaders, there should be a better path between that sort of leadership and the highest levels of government.

Those are the benefits I can come up with. What does everybody else think- are there some downsides to consider? Are there any other benefits to doing this, even if it is very unlikely to actually happen?

Secretary of State John Kerry recently went through a series of reasonably successful talks with "Russia's top diplomat" over the Syria issue. What is the name of Russia's top diplomat, and what is his title? I'd like to look up a bit more information about him and his position, whoever he is and whatever that is.

We all know that we don't need new guns laws that are more restrictive, we just need to do a better job of enforcing existing gun laws that are perfectly good and already on the books.

We also understand that the ATF is not a legislative body; in fact, the NRA has far more to do with determining what laws are on the books.

The ATF does the other thing. It enforces those perfectly good laws, which is what the NRA wants, yes? After all, helping them do a good job helps ensure that new, more restrictive legislation fails to gain traction.

So how can the NRA help the ATF? What should it be doing to help, and how can that be accomplished?

So Curtis Axel (aka Michael McGillicutty) is the Intercontinental Champion, and Paul Heyman is his manager, holding his title at ringside and so forth. You can't help but see the parallel with CM Punk and his historic WWE championship run.

I took the liberty of looking up the top 5 longest IC championship reigns. Each of the top 5 happened in the 80's. I'm not suggesting that Curtis Axel should eclipse the Honkey Tonk Man- far from it. I'm not even suggesting that he should crack the top 5. But what if he was able to hang on to it for longer than anyone since the 80's?

It would be an interesting development in the storyline. CM Punk is the ultimate Paul Heyman guy, but Axel is supposed to bring some kind of additional tension and interest to that whole relationship. I'm thinking, on his own, he doesn't bring much. With the IC title around his waist, there's a little something. And if he can hold on to it long enough for it to start to mean something- well, to me, that seems like the right direction to take this portion of the storyline.

So you think it's worth it to follow through with this and take Axel a lot further down this road? Or should WWE just scrap this storyline and discontinue the affiliation between Axel and Punk/Heyman?

Instead of Amazon or Overstock or a brick/mortar store that has an online hookup, how likely would you be to shop online through a direct buy thing? Like Amway, if you've heard of that. Also, why or why not?

I have some bigger bills that I need changed for smaller, and the place I bank at isn't an option right now. I've already found out that if I go into a random bank asking for change, they'll ask if I bank there and I say no. Then I don't get change. Where else can I easily change large bills for small?

Fatwah. When reward money is offered for the murder of a particular individual who is offensive to Islam in some way.

Are some Muslims opposed to this and/or embarrassed by it? Or is everyone pretty much ok with it?

If you're ok with it, know that I am not and will never be. But if you'd like to tell me why you and it should escape criticism, I could maybe look at that.

And if you're not ok with it (and also a Muslim), do you think there's anything that can be done about it?

Starts with an H, I think. Rumored to give bad luck if you take something from there, like a brick. What's it called? Anyone ever heard of it? I think it was partially destroyed, but there's a couple of parts that are still there. That's all I know about it, except a general idea that there was some history of gruesome deaths or murders or something. I'd like to look into it more. Anyone know anything?

I'm not talking about a difference in teaching. This is a cultural thing.

Some Muslims are on Facebook and other social networking sites, where they post hundreds of pictures of themselves and others and so forth. Other Muslims politely avoid having their picture taken at all, and of course there's a select few who manage to do so a little less politely and in a way that makes the news. But for the most part, they'll just politely avoid it.

Where does this come from? Why is there such a difference between those types of people, and are there other cultural differences or clear distinctions in the way they practice Islam that generally go along with these differences in picture-taking habits?

Also- bonus question- when a Muslim who's against pictures sees the Muslims who allow themselves to be photographed hundreds of different ways, what do they think/say/do about that situation? Do they tend to think "Hey, look at those Muslims doing this, I guess we're different in some ways and this practice isn't uniform across all of Islam"? Or do they tend to think "I am the true and right Muslim, and these are just bad Muslims"?

They join the MWC just in time to see Utah and TCU get into an AQ situation. Let's say Boise dominates the MWC but hasn't reached a similar agreement. Would independent status allow them to improve their overall RPI while continuing to win a ton? Seems like that would put them in a better interim position than if they play a bunch of games against schools like Wyoming and UNLV.

Comparing the prospect of another year in a non AQ to a small independent run, I see a lot of upside to independence as the next step- until they get the AQ deal they want. Is there any downside? Any reason why independence would be a poor choice? And do you think they would be able to improve their RPI, or is that a bad guess?

My initial thoughts are to get him in a feud with Jerry Lawler. Their relative size is comparable and so are their current places on the card, plus it's easy to place Brodus in a stable with enemies of Lawler.

Are there any other options that look good? I'm usually not such a huge fan of announcers spending a lot of time in the ring, so that is a bit of a drawback for me. Although Jerry vs. Brodus makes more sense than Jerry vs. a lot of other guys.

Are there any other big guys that look like good candidates for Brodus? Maybe Mason Ryan, or one of the football players? I wish we could see him get into it with Masters or Koslov, but that won't happen.

Those are my thoughts so far. What's everyone else thinking?

I can't help but notice that Muslims on YA have far different criteria for flagging things as compared to anyone else. What are your general criteria? The reason I ask is because I just had a question deleted that I thought was totally fine, and I watched a couple other ones go away just now too. I have a feeling that at least one of the people responsible for the specific deletions is bound to read this question, so instead of flagging it and having it deleted, how about you read it and respond?

Couple of questions on this point: Do you expect non-Muslims to add the (pbuh) tag every time we mention Mohammed's name? Do you feel disrespected if we don't use it and decide to have questions deleted on that basis?

Do you feel that the Ramadan section is one where non-Muslims should not be asking questions about Islam or Mohammed? Is this simply a situation where you want to claim this section as your own, protect it, and moderate it in a way that's different from all other sections of YA?

Do you have any general advice to non-Muslims who might want to ask questions of Muslims? Does that advice go beyond "Don't ask it here, we won't let you"?

Can anyone give me a general idea of what you're looking for when you have questions deleted in this section? Especially if you make it happen on a regular basis, and especially if you're responsible for deleting some of the recent questions about Mohammed. Peace be upon him, in case that's what you want to see.

Woodchipper.

Put a vampire through that. Or a werewolf. Maybe a zombie. Anything in that general category.

Would that work? Chip the monster into tiny pieces and that's it, right? Think that would do the trick?

I don't really keep up that well with this area of fiction. Is that covered in any of the "character profiles" in some way? Like if you're looking for different ways to kill a certain fictional beastie, would a chipper generally work on anything? Most things? Some things?