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2019-2020 Season - Round 2 Update @Eco @Lucas @Teso dos Bichos @nudge @Storts @RandoEFC @Bluewolf @Dan @SchalkeUK @...Dan @CaaC (John) @DeadLinesman @Stick With Azeem @JOSHBRFC @Rucksackfranzose @Batard @Tommy @Michael @Stan @Mel81x @Viva la FCB @Pyfish

The way people talk up VAR as if it’s some computer programme rather than it being operated by a human being is comical. “VAR is a joke” and hilarious shouts like that make my weekend. If the officials running VAR for a particular game are underperforming, much like a referee, drop them but educate them while they’re absent from officiating a game via VAR, this is a new tool that’s been in place less than three months.

I don't like VAR as a concept for the reasons I've stated many times before. However the problem isn't with VAR now it's with the horribly incompetent officials that use it. No surprise as the standard of refereeing is at its lowest point I can remember that they also cannot make decisions accurately even with technology. Really you need an independent panel of qualified rule experts to take over the officiating of VAR

Have been playing Jade Empire as per @Dr. Gonzo's recommendation. Have really really enjoyed it so far - and I'm only in the Chapter Two haha. The story line, the setting, the music and the characters are superb. I also like the real time combat system a lot; definitely prefer it to the one used in KOTOR. Didn't expect that much depth from the game world; love how it's based on "oriental" mythology too.

I think I'm beginning to understand why I disagree with VAR referees so much. The other guy did matches in Australia and various Asian leagues, whenever I watch Asian football for international qualifiers I'm always thinking "lol where did they find these officials." And now I'm hearing of these inexperienced VAR refs and I've seen some VAR decisions and thought "lol where did they find these officials."

Whooooaaa if the UK ends up with anywhere near same shite system of healthcare as the US, that's not good news for anyone. American drug prices are an absolute fucking scam and the American pharmaceutical industry is so incredibly predatory. You couple that with private health insurance and the entire healthcare industry looks like an awful awful scam here. Here I get my health insurance through work, but I still have to pay a fraction of it out of my wages - I think I pay about 4% of my paycheck into my insurance. I have good coverage, but it still feels like a ripoff. And in the U.S., I think most people don't have their employers pay for their insurance (I think it's 51% have their own insurance) - for them the costs are higher because they're paying 100% of that bill. Right now even drug companies in the U.S. give preferential rates to Medicaid - their state run health system. For everyone else in the country, the rates are significantly higher for drug prices because they've negotiated with individual health insurance companies what the values of each drug costs. So @Stan is absolutely right, if the rate NHS pays for drugs is on the negotiating table, it is CRITICAL that the information about the pricing is made public. If drug prices in the UK get anywhere near what they are in the U.S. - the NHS is absolutely fucked. The austerity goons will point to how expensive it is to maintain the NHS after these new drug prices come into effect, and then all of a sudden there will be a huge push for the dismantling of the NHS and selling facilities to private caregivers. This is after a bus was driven around the city saying the money we pay to the EU will go towards the NHS - so this is a pretty big betrayal to Brexit voters who may have believed that load of shite, and surely by now must have come to terms with the fact that NHS would in fact probably be working with a smaller budget after Brexit than what as promised (although those people were fucking true). If we move to the U.S. model of healthcare, it's not going to be good for the working class - just like it's not for the working class in the United States (source: https://www.apexedi.com/medical-bills-the-leading-cause-of-bankruptcy-in-the-united-states/). It's also not good for business generally - there's lots of evidence that shows having a well working public health system (like NHS) means that employers don't need to provide expensive health insurance for their workers (because in a business perspective, a healthy workforce is a productive workforce - if you've got people that are constantly ill, that's people that you either need to replace, which costs money, or those workers are less productive because they're constantly ill, which costs money). And it's particularly bad for smaller businesses, as health insurance can be very costly - so that's a big chunk of capital that smaller businesses would be otherwise using to grow their businesses. So really two opposite ends that feel the biggest brunt of that... assuming that these pharmaceuticals are interested in having UK prices be closer to what they are in the US. And even if it doesn't come close to US prices and is just a minor increase, any price increase means a higher cost to maintain the NHS at it's current standards. As said above, the NHS should not and should never be a part of a trade deal with any nation. Especially not the one developed country with the predatory form of healthcare.

Read that one VAR official this weekend was a bloke that’s never reffed a Premier League game but has only refereed NINE Football League games ever. That’s farcical.

Cheers, even better. Much prefer the user face on Netflix.

I think the worst thing about VAR is now fans don’t have to deal with one idiot referee that doesn’t know what the fuck is going on. They’ve got to deal with 2 idiots now - and the one of the idiots gets to defy reasonable expectations of competence by getting to watch a replay to make the wrong decision

Not sure about NEtflix even so we have it. But I saw it on Amazon Prime.

There’s literally nothing in my post that’s incorrect. It’s been in place and live three months in the Premier League and nowhere did I suggest they made things up as recently as three months ago.

3 months They will have been setting this shit up for years before it was actually implemented. They didn't just start making things up 3 months ago.

After watching the Rugby World Cup VAR is just a pathetic attempt at copying the TMO. Just copy it completely and mic the ref, that way we can all comprehend the decision and the on field ref can refer incidents he’s unsure of with the opportunity to rewatch it. if players start swearing just fine them they will soon stop.

See Everton tried to save Bury, despite the two despicable Manc clubs being far closer. Everton are the Liverpudlian club.

A lad who my mother works with goes to Mexico every year and seems more and more eager to go again whenever he comes back, I'm not sure where exactly but will have to ask him. It seems like a much more common holiday destination these days for Europeans than it used to be, especially Cancun. It has to be said though, that Mexico is huge and you don't actually realise this when looking at a map. Massive country really, so there are plenty of options there. If I was to ever venture to the USA, then the Westcoast would certainly be more appealing than any other part. New York would also be an option due to it being a relitevely short flight compared to the other destinations. It'd be a good starting point since the longest flight I've done is about 4.5 hours. It would also offer the opportunity to kill 2 birds with 1 stone and visit Toronto while there, considering how it's only a short flight away.

I know why you're laughing at that so I would never say you're a bad person for doing so as I have laughed at other things of a similar ilk to this over the past three years. Not just on the radio but also in my everyday life... I've got a number of anecdotes on the streets, especially on public transport that would either make you laugh in hysterics or cringe at what this country has become. But I'm not going to tell them because they're useless to what I and many others want to achieve, infact it works the other way and makes those that continue to lie to themselves hold firmer and in some cases become even more radicalised. Because there is absolutely NOT ONE SINGLE POSITIVE for leaving the EU. This is FACT! Not one! It's all negative and worse, ranging from bad to disastrous depending which field. This with ANY form of Brexit with obviously No Deal being utter chaos but thankfully most of our Parliament by a decent margin aren't that cuntish. Back to that lady... Don't you feel sorry for her? Don't you feel like wishing the wankers that over the years have made her feel this way should rot in prison for filling her with lies and deception? Even when James O'Brien was calmly trying to make her see where she was making a fool of herself with her main point (because the other ones like the Fish and Chips are just plain idiotic) on Wetherspoons, she wasn't actually disagreeing with James even though she did actually say she was. It was worse than that... She couldn't UNDERSTAND what he was saying. Honestly, SHE COULD NOT UNDERSTAND what James O'Brien was infact saying. There was a block in her mind which has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with age that would not let her process the simplicity of what he was telling her and that my friend is called CONDITIONING which comes from methods akin to grooming. Indeed nobody shut her in a room and drilled this rhetorical doctrine into her... She was made to feel it has come from freely available information (freely as far as the price of a newspaper) from whatever medium. James O'Brien could've gone on forever and even made it a private conversation so as to not subject her to public ridicule (remember she was the one that called in) and it wouldn't have made a blind bit of difference. It's over for her in that sense, she cannot change and I would go so far as to say that if eventually we do leave and things become a lot worse, she will continue to think it's a price worth paying, a price worth paying for what? That's the question! WHAT!

@SirBalon quoting and agreeing with his own post is the greatest evidence yet that this thread is becoming the echo-chamber that @Fairy In Boots calls it .