Lurker > red sox 777

It's a minority of this site. But coupled with the Zelda fanboy vote, it's a majority.

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Link

Many people will feel insulted by such a low, dirty, attempt to dethone the champion. Combined with the Christian conservative vote and the Zelda fanboy vote, that will propel Link well over 50%.

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Lincoln only won 39% of the popular vote in 1860. Even when only the Northern states were voting in 1864, he still only got 55%. And he's supposed to beat Link? Link would put 85% easy on opposition like Douglas and McClellan.

Note: Lincoln did win a plurality of the popular vote in 1860 because the opposition split up and ran 3 candidates. But had there been a single Democrat running against him, Lincoln would in all probability still have lost the popular vote close to 60/40, certainly more than 55/45, and still won the electoral vote. I think that's one of the reasons the South raged so hard at his election- he did not even try to win votes in the South, his campaign strategy was to win all the Northern states, which would give him a majority in the EC without a single southern vote.

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I still take Link. The South should support Link en masse. And honestly, Link probably wins the North too.

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Please don't.

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I have doubts that Batman would be the strongest fictional character who hasn't appeared yet. I'd pick Link, feel pretty good about it, and cheer really hard for Link. But Link's chances of winning such a contest are below 50%.

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Very few people (Smuffin) actually call liberals communists. I was joking in the freedom/equality topic, because I think that question is fairly good test of whether Smuffin would say you are a communist. For most people, "liberal" is enough of a smear already!

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Interesting, the DSV now has higher average vote intake than the ASV (using the time periods defined in the chart). My guess is using an ASV of 3-8 PM, it would probably still be higher than the DSV, but not by much. And in another year, that may be gone too.

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SFF in this match and a bandwagon next round both seem fairly likely to me. This will be the farthest Pokemon has ever gotten in a contest.

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Nothing to write about

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Link and Samus are having tea at Hyrule Castle.

Link: So, Samus, what is the news from abroad?
Samus: Sir, Mario is duplicating your victories from last year. Last round he defeated Sonic copying your strategy from last year, and our latest reports are that he is dismantling Megaman X using your ingenius method from last year.
Link: .........indeed? How fast is he pulling off these victories?
Samus: He's clocking in at just about the same speed you showed last year. Of course, sir, you were showing off and toying with your opponents, I know that.
Link: .........the same speed as me........very well, Samus, I've got work to do. This tea is over.

~A deserted parking lot in the worst slums of Midgar at night~

Red: I really don't think we should be here at night.
Blue: He'll show up, don't worry.
Red: What if he kidnaps us, or kills us?

Green: I am arrived.
Blue: Do you have the secret weapon?
Green: Yes, I do. Keep it inside this platinum pokeball until it is time. Do you understand?
Red: Yes.
Green: Good.

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Yes, MMX has always appeared to resist Nintendo SFF pretty well. He's had a bunch of matches with Mario and Link, and never gotten himself embarrassed yet.

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The best is yet to come (Cloud > Link baby)

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Squall just won a close match, cheer up!

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And I must say I'm impressed by Mario/Bowser. If this finishes at 67%, that'll be twice in a row they've "matched" Link from last year.

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I wonder how many of our perfects will take Trainers over Mario, and how many take Cloud over Link.

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Going down now.

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Mario nearing the doubling- impressive.

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Half on MMX/Zero

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#25 Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (Nintendo Objections Conference) (24-5, 9-2) – 15 (51.72%)
#5 Super Mario 64 (Nintendo Objections Conference) (25-4, 10-1) – 14 (48.28%)

Ha! I told you Phoenix Wright was strong!

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First of all I would like to make it clear that this topic is based on the actions of the entire Republican field as a whole. Never in my lifetime have they done even half as much damage to their image among the swing voters as they have this season. They have literally already lost this election before the primary is even held.

That shows they are confident they will win the general election. The economy is so bad that Obama can't win, so the Republicans feel they can get away with running far to the right to win the nomination.

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It's obvious that the optimal solution isn't at either extreme. That's why this question exists: to make you think about if you had to choose one, which it would be.

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Let's see who on this board is a Communist.

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Does Link even have a romantic relationship with Zelda? I mean, other than from merely being THE ONE LINK.

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Who would Link's partner even be? He has Malon, Ruto, Saria, and Zelda from OOT alone.

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It was too big to publish in one volume I think. Tolkein always insisted it was one book, just in 3 volumes.

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One book, Tolkein explicitly said so.

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Sora gonna win the SNV by more than the ASV. But too little too late.

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Squall's still got a pretty good lead, and only 3 hours to go. Looks like Sora's done. Good show, Squall.

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Based on Squall/Sora 2008 R3, Sora/Riku win with 50.68%.
Based on Squall/Sora 2008 R2, Sora/Riku win with 50.56%.

Gotta leave for about 5 hours now, hopefully I'll return to an exciting match. Also, the last 30 minutes demonstrates how many people still have not figured out the concept of variance. That 46 vote cut was no more noteworthy than the miniscule cuts Sora was getting earlier.

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Yeah, this is the ASV right now so it should be concerning that Sora's not making much progress yet, but the important thing is to look at hourly numbers and not individual updates. Individual updates have very high variance, hourly numbers are fairly reliable.

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Sora's already at 52.5% in California and it's not the ASV here yet, so he'll probably get stronger as the match goes on.

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I've called big comebacks that everyone else was dismissive of at least once a contest since 2009, and this contest will be no exception.

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Patience, friends.

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....Implying it may be over in Sora's? >_>;

Possibly. As I said, I have never seen a direct projection be off by more than 1% from 15 hours into the match. Half a percent is fairly rare. And we have 1 projection showing a 51% win for Sora, the other showing a 50.7% win for Sora. It has been 3 years since those matches took place, and I don't want to call a match against the character with a 1500 vote lead in a contest with such low votals as this one, but I'd say it's looking pretty bleak right now for Squall.

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Crono/Vincent (both of them) predicts a boring Squall win. Magus/Sandbag is better, and predicts a close match I think in Sora's favor, but still not as good for Sora as Squall/Sora. Yesmar mentioned earlier that that match had one of the biggest ASV swings of all time, and it's true.

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Against Dante, Sora's day vote allowed him to finish only 1% higher than his lowest overnight percentage. This is over; lower votals and the younger CoD crowd bailing on the site have resulted in a diminished ASV. Majora barely overcame 1500 against FFX in a match with almost double the votals and some Zelda rallying.

As strange as that may have seemed, the projection based on Dante/Riku actually predicted that very well. This match certainly is not over in Squall's favor.

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[This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]

Sora/Squall R2 2008 gives us......Sora/Riku win with 50.68%. Better for Squall, but not much better, and the fact that the 2 projections are close is a bad sign for him, because it indicates neither of those matches had anomalous trends.

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Based on Squall/Sora 2008 R3, Sora wins with 51.04%. That would give him a win of around 1000 votes.

I've never seen the actual results differ from the projection by more than 1% this late into the match (15 hours), so it's looking real bad for Squall. He better hope the ASV really has weakened a lot.

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Pokemon?

Historically, I don't think it's been quite up there with the big 3. That's probably the 4th most fearsome ASV I guess.

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Last time they met, Sora cut 1486 votes off of Squall's lead from the peak, in a match where they combined for about 45k votes.

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3 PM is when the ASV really starts......2:30 to 3 is just transition zone.

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Kingdom Hearts has a strong SNV, yes. They'll keep on gaining through to the end of the poll, only there's very few votes coming in at the end.

Also to the person who said Sora isn't Link: Sora's ASV is much better than Link's. KH, Halo, and Smash have the 3 strongest ASVs in the contest.

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1517 lead at 2:30 as we shift to the ASV. It's a shame I'm not going to online all afternoon, because we are about to see some fireworks. Hopefully when I get back this evening Squall will be defending a small lead as Sora continues to make gains in the transition from ASV to SNV.

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Uhh, how exactly does the 5th Amendment apply to marriages?

Spouses cannot be forced to testify against each other. No idea where this comes from, but I'd guess the English Common Law.

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Better the Supreme Court than Congress or executives. I'm not convinced dictatorship by the Supreme Court would be a bad thing, as far as quality of life goes. Obviously a bad thing in theory, but compared to our current representatives.......Congress and legislatures are the ones who pass idiotic laws like minimum sentencing laws.

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Conservatives win because they don't compromise. Unlike liberals (or at least the ones in Congress) who sell themselves short all the time.

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Or if you're in favor of removing all government recognition of marriage (including state recognition, I would hope) that would mean that naturally anyone, religious or not, could say they are "married" and the argument would be a non-issue?

It would be up to the free market. So, a hotel that gave discounts to married couples on their honeymoon might recognize only church marriages, for example. Legally, there would be no difference whether someone claimed to be married or not.

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FFVII has fallen pretty hard, but so has Link.

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