i say let's get back to the flame wars from the Elian days. now THOSE were some flame wars!
Or the Westerfield(?) trial, the one where the creepy old engineer got convicted for molesting and killing the daughter of a bunch swingers in San Diego -- those threads were daily weenie roasts.
The Elian flame wars may have been pretty hot, but there was no topic like Terri Schiavo to generate thread hijackings IMHO. The "H-score" averaged 2 to 5 for EVERY thread on FR for a couple of months.