Dr. Gonzo

Spurs are shite and so are we

We’ve been pretty poor lately, I’ve got basically no expectations. Especially with Spurs confirming the CL for us over the week.

Lib dems are just mild flavoured tories, like labour's become... but not quite as mild as labour. But them being popular is preferred to tories, even though I think they're really just more dishonest than your average tory.

Love seeing these results.

So is he a terrorist & a nonce, or just a nonce? Either way, lock him up.

If it was for the UCLA counter protest, I think it's a good thing to look into and question for sure. People should know if public figures and their wives are funding domestic terrorism.

With guns? No.

Is she donating the counter protest group that conducted the attack in UCLA? Because honestly, was a form of terrorism: unlawful use of violence & intimidation, against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims. Textbook definition. Probably won't hear it called "terrorism" though in the media though because it wasn't brown people doing it.

Are the other things really noteworthy though? Police wanting to keep journalists away from seeing them do things that aren't legal is pretty common in the US tbh. I guess the president of Harvard being stupid is fairly noteworthy. But then you take a look at what's happening at some of these big name universities in the US and it really begs the question "have these schools let their standards slip?" I think they have, honestly. These students can't even direct their ire at the right organisations to direct their ire at... they can't be that smart. There's no false equivalency, both sides have demonstrated they both have plenty of bad actors in their ranks that have no interest in really furthering any cause other than promoting division. I suppose it's a microcosm of the views of the leaders of the sides actually involved in the real conflict. And the students of US universities have also demonstrated that regardless of which side they're on, they're not really great at protesting in a way that's actually going to effect the change they want to see. Americans were less unruly during the protests over things that actually impacted the human rights of Americans: BLM & abortions. The passionate willingness for these people to fuck themselves over in the long run so that they can take a side in a conflict with two demonstrably evil sides half a world away is nothing short of insanity.

Then what are you saying? Because I've given an answer of why we talk about the extreme fringe group of people. And I'm not wrong, just days after the pro-Palestine extremists did something beyond the pale in NYC, pro-Israel extremists did something beyond the pale in LA. Otherwise, what else is there really to report on. "Students are protesting to get their universities to divest from companies that do business in Israel, universities say 'nah we're not going to do that'" - and that's basically the crux of the story there. I think it's a much bigger story when you've got increasingly violent outbursts happening over a divide in opinions over a conflict half a world a way where violence is the norm.

Because they're the ones actively making things unsafe and doing all that they can to drive people who feel passion for this conflict to keep escalating their rhetoric and actions in support of "their side" in the west. And honestly how do we want to define "fringe" because honestly I think protesting over their university's role in the Israel-Palestine conflict is just worthless performative activism. Especially if you look at some of these schools' academic calendars - they've got more important things to worry about than taking sides in a conflict between two sides with little regard for human rights. They've got a right to protest... but is it meaningful? Typically when people protest for things here, (the womans march, BLM, etc.) the location of the protests has been the federal building since the ire of protestors is directed at the federal government. I think if these protests were directed at the government trying to change policies and implement sanctions that can only be relieved if Israel refrains from committing war crimes and recognising the human rights of Palestinians... that's a worthwhile and meaningful protest. But this is kids trying to do something that in the grand scheme of things... hurts a company's shareholders for maybe a week or so... and in the process they're hurting each other, getting arrested, and probably fucking up their own grades because they want to take sides in a conflict between people who refuse to see the other as human. I think if you just ignore the radical weirdos and don't treat them as serious threats, they just spread their radical weirdness and then the threats become much worse. Look at the far right weirdos all around the world that weren't taken seriously for a long time in the US and look how much the right wing of the US has shifted to extreme views.

Ok fine, Frank Lampard

Jose Mourinho plz

I assume at your house every room is a wet room

We all know the reasons for the protests in the first place. I think these people delegitimise themselves with their own rhetoric, personally, rather than anything the media does. I'm sure there's a large part of the protestors that have good intentions and are far from being absolute cunts, but they're lost in the sea of the rest of the crowd tbh. But for a lot of people this is tribal passion that arises anytime anything flares up between these two, rather than any legitimate interest in standing up for the human rights of oppressed people or standing against radical extremists. And ultimately I think the impact of what these student protests end goals are (divesting from companies that have ties to the IDF... but are also companies like Microsoft) is minimal compared to if they were protesting against the Federal Government for turning a blind eye to Israeli war crimes and demanding the government step in to put restrictions on these companies. The impact of what they're calling for is some companies have their share price drop for a very, very, very brief moment in time... while these companies continue to do business with the people they don't want the companies to do business with... because surprise surprise - large companies don't give a shit about human rights when it comes to making money. The impact of actually calling for sanctions would be a lot more significant. But they can't even think to call for that. Again, what happened at UCLA wasn't from a minority of protestors. It was a coordinated effort of people who specifically went to protests at night to kick off violence. And then the police were very slow to react, putting the actual protestors (many of whom I don't even respect, let alone agree with) in harms way. I don't see how condemning violence aimed at protestors (many of whom I don't really have any time for) is delegitimising their civil unrest. The kids at UCLA were on public property that they're allowed to be on (and so were the violent zionists who attacked them) they had every right to have their right to protest protected. The police let down the kids that were protesting and weren't being violent. The officers that night should be investigated for their slow response, and anyone who was arrested for the violence shouldn't be treated with kid gloves by the justice system is my point.

Wow, shocking! You mean the myth of Girona being a plucky, small underdog team, in no way tied to financial doping... might be bullshit? I never would have guessed that, they don't seem like the kind of people that would have 115 charges in another league. Fuck Girona, hopefully Spain is less corrupt than we are and throws the book at them.

That's not really free speech then if you're putting conditions on it. People should be allowed to protest and publicly voice their opinions without being violent idiots about things. What the anti-pro-Palestinian group did at UCLA wasn't really a protest - it was a coordinated attack. They fired fireworks into crowds of people and also used "bear mace" (which I think is just very strong pepperspray, but I'm not sure) on the pro-Palestinian protestors. It deserves condemnation. Especially when everyone involved is living safely in a country with no threat to themselves from Hamas, Hezbollah, or the IDF. There is legitimately no reason to bring the violence from this conflict to foreign shores by people so far removed from the conflict. And from two groups of people that largely can't even get the history of the region they're protesting about right. I don't think "protests always have a violent minority" really excuses the idiocy and vile propaganda spreading to justify shit like a group of kids in uni getting painful liquid sprayed into their eyes and having fireworks shot at them for making a public political display that these people who attacked them agreed with. The police not getting involved with what happened at UCLA quicker and standing by and watching that happen, is an absolute fucking joke tbh. I think it's a bit different to the kids in NYC at Columbia University getting raided by police for vandalising school property after they took over a building. At UCLA the victims were students, not a building.

Tbh I think it's only common sense if a condition to the suspended sentence is he goes and gets into some kind of therapy treatment for gambling addiction. He's already serving a ban for gambling and he went ahead and... gambled again. I think he's very lucky to not be banned again. I understand addiction is tricky, but I'm not sure we'd see the same sort of leniency if it was a drugs issue he was struggling with and testing positive for cocaine multiple times a season... and drugs don't put the integrity of the sport into question.

You're right though, Ozil and Sanchez at the time were massive signings. Ozil was one of the top 5 most expensive transfers that year - granted Gareth Bale's massive fee to Real Madrid probably made the fee look small though. Wenger was brilliant though with his scouting, he's also a pioneer of bringing modern sports science and nutrition to English football, and his tactics for the most part were excellent - he built strong and entertaining sides before being stuck in constant transition during that stadium loan financing edition. I actually thought it was a bit sad how Arsenal fans got pretty hostile with him in the end - although clearly it had gotten stale. All the managers you've listed in the original post are all legends imo. I think if you put any of them in charge of a good side, they'll probably win stuff with it. But if they all had to build squads on £100m in 2023, I think there'd be a bit of struggling all around to build a side that's truly competitive.

I mean if you account for inflation, is that actually true? Either way I think the right answer is one of those 2.

The seasons where Klopp’s spent the most he’s also had to sell to get money in, while trying to compete with clubs that don’t really have to worry about money. That’s a bit like Arsenal while more money was tied up in the stadium loans. Adjust Wenger’s prices for inflation and Arsenal aren’t the biggest spenders, but also weren’t small spenders. Ozil for example in 2013 (so before Neymar to PSG really brought prices of players to truly fucking mental levels), it was around the end of Wenger’s era - when they were in that constantly rebuilding phase. And that was £40m - within the top 5 most expensive signings made that season. I’m not saying either manager never spent a lot of money - they both clearly did. But they also sometimes had to work with financial constraints that I don’t think other managers could have done and gotten the same performance. So for that reason, if you’re picking a manager to do a job with a decent amount of money but not an absolutely obscene amount of money… out of the choices listed, I think it’s Wenger or Klopp.

By the same token the US pro-Palestinian protestors at Columbia University have been disgusting for their rhetoric and violence, the pro-Israel protestors that attacked the pro-Palestinian protestors at UCLA last night are also disgusting. Honestly, this sort of selective outrage for this conflict is infuriating to me. Oppression and conflict elsewhere in the world is routinely ignored... unless it's Israel-Palestine, in which case the world seems like it tears apart at the seems trying to lend support to one side or the other. I can't understand why so many people feel the need to take sides in such an ugly conflict.

Yeah either by remortgaging or with a HELOC like @Viva la FCB mentioned. I've never done either though.

Doing it early and doing whatever you're capable of doing yourself, so you don't have to pay someone, are good ways to save money while doing necessary maintenance on a house. I've learned so much shit working on my house fixing things that have gone wrong and the one time I couldn't figure out how to fix what I needed done, I was very fucking annoyed when I saw the bill.

Hopefully it's Dortmund v. Bayern Munich in the final.