Dr. Gonzo

Me too, I dunno what it is though that's making me feel that way... but it definitely is a feeling I'm having.

Anyone else getting a feeling that the next Merseyside derby might get violent? Kinda sad to see, but I’m definitely picking up that kind of vibe

I'm not sure that's true. Blanket bans lead to black markets - strong regulations typically create an actual legal market, which people are more inclined to use than do business with criminals. Any ban on weapons/magazines isn't going to effectively change gun violence in the US - there's already so many guns out on the streets and the logistics of gun buyback programs in the US are so complicated it's just as unlikely as anything you could possibly imagine. In America you don't even need a license to get a gun - so yeah, they should be looking to actually try to regulate gun ownership. But I'm not sure they can require a license for gun ownership under their constitution. Driving a car requires a license because you don't have the right to drive a car - it's a privilege. In the US, gun ownership is a right that is considered basically the second most important national value only to free speech.

The family who threatened to shoot the protestors who didn't even attempt to get on their land?

Yeah, sure - that's a hell of a lot more regulation though than the US currently has though. I still think nobody needs an AK47 or AR15 when they're not in the military. Perhaps for the firearms enthusiasts who want to try out these killing tools (but not on people), they should allow them to be owned by gun clubs that people could join to get access to their firing ranges/cooler guns - and allow members to use the club's facilities/weapons. But then I think any gun registered to those gun clubs that gets used in any crime would ultimately make the gun club and those at the top liable for the wrongful death of any victims of that gun.

100% - it's something that should be a bigger issue in US national politics, but I think is really something that's more of an issue in border states... but really mostly in border communities rather than the states at large. It's not surprising there have been many instances of Mexican cartel members coming into the US COMPLETELY LEGALLY, getting guns quite easily, and then getting caught in Mexico trying to illegally cross the border with those guns they obtained in Mexico. Mexico can be a dangerous place if you're not careful because Cartels have serious control there... but the US making it so easy to get guns is a big part of why Mexico is so bloody dangerous in the first place (especially coupled with the US's war on drugs - which drugs are winning). But weirdly when border security does reach the national focus of politics, it's usually done in a way that border cities and towns seem to disagree with. Probably because they don't actually solve any of the actual issues they have to deal with and are more just targeted at people who don't live in those areas that are just scared of Mexicans (for reasons known only by themselves).

"It's natural for us to like the white refugees more than the brown ones who's lives we ruined with our own government's actions, so please keep those people in Iran and Pakistan while we also pretend to be upset about the horrific images we saw in Afghanistan that we're pretty much directly responsible for. Did I mention the Ukrainian refugees are Christian and not Muslim?" Twat.

I live near the Mexico border currently and I must say, I think that's one of the silliest things I've ever heard . The cartels coming in use tunnels and boats mostly, a lot of the illegal immigration done by land is mostly just migrants trying to get away from the gang violence in Mexico and South/Central America. Combatting drug trafficking creating crime in the US isn't going to be solved with AK47s and AR-15s in the hands of people that have no business owning them - organised crime thrives because drugs create a black market they control. So combating that crime would require doing more with US drug policy and taking control away from the cartels and gangs that run the market for drugs. But really it's a wholly separate issue from the constant mass shootings the US faces now. Most mass shootings have nothing to do with anyone needing to protect themselves - it's someone with a gun that's decided to go out and kill people. Guns by themselves make it easy to kill people, but assault rifles are designed to make it as easy as possible to kill as many people as someone can before they need to reload. Nobody needs one for protection unless they're in the military and are meant to be protecting something for military purposes. People buy them because they think assault rifles are cool or because they want to kill people.

There'd need to be a federal standard, rather than relying on states to police themselves locally. The issue with Chicago is while Illinois has really strict gun laws, there's states like Indiana next door that have some of the lightest restrictions on gun ownership in the US. So if you're a criminal that wants a gun quickly in Illinois, you've just got to have the patience to drive far enough if you REALLY want a gun you're not going to get in the state you're in. And then you just need to drive it back. Gun control in the US leaves so much open to the individual states and to an extent, I think that's alright and is the right idea... but there needs to be a higher baseline standard of gun regulation in a country where mass shootings are so common and where it's so easy for people that shouldn't have access to guns to get guns.

I don't understand what arming teachers would do... other than result in some teacher that has finally snapped after dealing with these little shits all day pulling out the gun and blasting some kids. The police in the US are armed... there was even a heavy police presence at the school where the shooting was. What happened with all of these armed police? They were too scared to actually act when there was an active shooter. They sat around the car park scratching their arses, harassing the concerned parents of children stuck in the school with the gunmen, and waited for Border Patrol (for some reason) to turn up and deal with it. What the fuck is an untrained teacher going to do? Also are the guns going to be secure? If it's not secure, there's the risk of kids getting those guns that should be held by teachers and shooting other people. If it is secure, that takes away from the possible response time a teacher would have if a gunman stormed into their classroom. And again... it's an untrained teacher. Not a military trained sniper. Not even a poorly trained police officer. If those cops with assault rifles and body armour were too fucking scared to respond to an active shooter... what on earth would ANYBODY expect some random teacher to do in that situation? Aside from demented people, who obviously should not be able to get guns... there's just too many guns in the US that don't really serve the purpose gun owners claim they need. Why does anyone need an AR-15 or an AK-47 other than for killing people? Not hunters - they're not good weapons for hunting. Not people who "want to defend their families," something like a shotgun would probably do just fine for that - effective at defense, needs less ammo, easier to aim, easier to clean, less likely to jam, etc. Assault weapons are designed to just make killing people as easy as possible for combat. Your average everyday arsehole off the street doesn't need an AK-47 to protect themselves, they don't need it to hunt, the only real reason to have one is to kill people. There's no reason why these weapons should be able to be purchased by ordinary people, they belong in the hands of military troops and specially trained police.

I don’t think that’s legal? They might have an agreement though that if Newcastle go after any more staff they’ll have to pay an additional fee, though.

New level of respect for Rangnick. Turns up halfway through the season and gets United to essentially announce they’re giving up on trying to do well this season but it’s alright he’s going to be a consultant. Spends months pissing off the players and fans. Collects his paycheck and leaves. Waste of time and money, should have kept the Norwegian Garth Southgate wannabe or Carrick all season. And they Glazers are giving themselves an £11m dividend despite United having serious losses last season

See and some people think sportswashing doesn’t work

I can’t the delete the @Danny for some reason - sorry for the notification. But… I also wouldn’t listen to this guy and would want him binned off too. How many managers has he “helped” now with his analysis as United have gotten worse. Extend the guys contract though

Didn't he appoint himself manager at Fizzy Drink Leipzig? I think he'd only been out of management for a season or so by the time you'd asked him to take over. Tbh, I dunno anything about Paul Brant or how long he's been at the role - but if he was there during the Solsjaker time (or before)... I'm not sure I necessarily blame Rangnick for disregarding his opinion. Not sure he's been the greatest analyst. Having said that, relying on someone watching the match on TV rather than listening someone at the stadium who's meant to aiding the interpreting of a match for the manager is appallingly bad. If he didn't trust Brant and he didn't get his man in, United should have worked for them to bring in a mutually agreeable person to take that head analyst role. In hindsight it's clear he wasn't a good appointment, I think there's a pretty big step up in stature and expectation from one of the fizzy pop sides to Man Utd... even a shit Man Utd that looks far from the heights the fans got used to in the last few decades. Regardless of whether he was a massive influence on Klopp, Tuchel, etc... it was pretty clear United's squad was not cut out to play that sort of football. I still think the players are a far bigger issue than any manager, tbh. When you've got enough players like Pogba and Maguire that act like they should be treated as world class because they are at United because of huge transfer fees and are on huge wages... rather than their actual performances... it's a problem for any club. No player should be acting like their move to another club is a kudos for how good they are (and I really believe Maguire thinks he plays for United because he is world class and deserves to play for United) - especially at a club that actually has any aspirations of being good.

Maddison's too creative for Southgate to understand how to use imo. Man needs workhorses for his simplistic tactics.

I don't have a kid but I asked some friends here who do... and only one of them has automatically locking doors at their kids' school. Tbh, I'm not surprised though. Education funding has schools running on pretty light budgets in the US - automatic locking doors I imagine would have many schools having to cut funding elsewhere. And frankly, locking doors are only a minor solution to the problem in America. There's all of these mass shootings constantly in a country where people insist they have a "right" to weaponry and where guns outnumber people - of course there's more shootings in the US than anywhere else in the world... there's more guns than anywhere else in the world. I can't imagine what it would take for the US to enact some serious gun control that actually works at stopping all of these mass killings. But given this is now the second time in a decade where very young children were murdered at their schools, and nothing really happened the first time around, I just can't imagine what kind of tragedy it would take for American lawmakers to remove their heads from their arses and actually do something to stop it.

The American right is pro-life right up until the baby comes out the womb. After that, they don't really give a shit about what happens to the baby - weirdly.

Spurs announced investors putting more money in for convertible shares - not their transfer budget.

Fabinho back in training and Thiago expected to train with the first team tomorrow!

It's not really their budget though - some of it is going to go to investing in other areas of the club, rather than just transfer fees. And in any case, it's not like they could keep the information private. It's not a loan to the club, it's the main shareholder putting in that money in exchange for convertible series A shares in Spurs (additional issued shares of a different class of share to "ordinary shares" that can either be converted to ordinary shares or another class of shares). These series A shares probably have additional voting rights that ordinary shares don't have. You can see on here: https://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/the-club/investor-relations/shareholder-information/ Tottenham are quite transparent about their ownership - ENIC owns 85.5% of the club, 14.5% are owned by others, probably a few percentage of the shares are owned by one or two banks or venture capital groups. This sort of capital injection for convertible shares would require shareholder approval & additional investment from investors needs to be reported and there's likely share dilution going on to keep the ownership ratios the same - so that information's going to be 1.) documented in shareholder meeting minutes that venture capital groups and banks will need to have listed (if you invest in a venture capital group that's got shares in Spurs, they'll be pretty keen to tell you one of their investments is getting other investors to put money in); 2.) be reported to relevant football authorities as a capital injection of cash from investors. Making an official statement is just good PR from Spurs. They've got a good record with being transparent and this keeps that up, it's good PR for fans who have been frustrated that billionaire owners didn't even put more money in while a new stadium was built and the first team stagnated even though they'd done something they'd never done in their history before - make it to the CL final. And the transparency is a good thing for other minority investors - it lets them know and trust they've made an investment the majority owners want to get a higher return on.

I think he wants to stay but I can't blame him for wanting to get the most money possible - he'll be 32 when his contract is up, one last big payday for him seems reasonable. He's already solidified himself as a LFC legend (and a league legend being top scorer 3 times - only Henry's done it more with 4) - I hope he ends his career with us and maybe now that PSG are keeping Mbappe for at least 3 more years, I don't think there's another club that can offer him quite what we can in a footballing sense.

Rashford’s been rubbish this season though, deservedly lost his place imo. I also can’t imagine Southgate understanding how to use a false 9

Tbf I haven't seen a player go from that bad to this good in one season before like that. I've seen players take a while to settle, but nothing quite so extreme as looking nothing like the player I thought we were signing... to getting the Thiago I thought we'd be getting last year. I wonder how it would have been after his really bright start had Richarlison not decided to try to remove his shins from his body, because I don't think he'd have looked as bad as he did when he came back from injury into that totally disjoint side.