Dr. Gonzo

at least I can admit when I was wrong. He looks a completely different player this season tbf. Was probably tough for him looking great, getting that injury from that dirty blueshite twat, and then coming back into a Liverpool team ravaged by injury and trying to pick up form. Especially in that period where Henderson and Fabinho were both at CB (or injured). Night and day compared to this season where he's just looked excellent the whole way through.

I think it's risky to rush a player into a final based on fitness, even with 5 subs. If he has to come off straight away, that can fuck up any momentum that can be built before he has to come off (which is I guess only a bad thing if we've got the positive momentum, which you could argue if Thiago's not playing well because he's not fit we probably wouldn't have). If he has a bad half because he's carrying the injury still - like Kewell v AC Milan - it could ultimately lead to Madrid having a massive advantage while he's on the pitch; and while it might be solvable with a substitution... we don't have Stevie G anymore so I'm not sure it's worth the risk potentially having Madrid being able to outrun our midfield if he's not fit enough. Because I think that's really one of the bigger advantages we have in the match against Real Madrid. They've got loads of class players with probably the best and most experience in the tournament and can play poorly and still manage to score great goals. We've got loads of class players but I think we need everyone ready to put in the shift of all shifts against Madrid in a final - so a player carrying a knock might be too risky. I'm a bit nervous with Thiago and Fabinho both potentially being rushed back to fitness and both of them hoping to start in the final for that reason tbh.

He did it after the last tournament he was involved in, I think. I think Abraham's the best striker to back up Kane for us. He's had a great year at Roma and... well, look at his goalscoring record. He's not the best striker in the world and there are certainly some flaws in his game... but he gets on the end of chances and he puts them away. I think the lads in Italy deserve maybe more of a chance for England than some of the other players in the squad in their positions. Tomori, imo, should be playing alongside Stones for the time being. Maguire's been in absolute dogshit form... Tomori's been an absolute beast for AC Milan and was a HUGE part for why they won the Serie A. To me that makes him seem like a better choice for a starter than Maguire, Coady, or Guehi. And Abraham's really the only "main striker" we've got if Kane goes down.

Yeah but the conversation with him would’ve been about 5 minutes long Even the low end of his potential wages would have Michael Edwards slamming the phone down. He’s extended his contract with PSG and started talking about his dream to go to Real Madrid again and now talking about other big clubs he could have moved to… he’s definitely trying to keep transfer sagas alive. I don’t blame him, he’s at PSG after all and already has taken advantage of their desperation.

I think it’s bollocks - he’s just working on keeping himself linked with clubs all around Europe for his next contract extension.

Thank fuck that shithead isn't anywhere near power anymore. But America's never going to go back to the politics of the 90s. People are so polarised and the bar for what's considered acceptable from a president has been dropped so low you'd break your back trying to limbo under it.

Wouldn’t his doc be removed from YouTube for copyright violations? Unless you mean from his channel…

Wtf is monkeypox

I don't really believe that independent media stuff because it's attributing Putin's escalation of the situation in Ukraine to Biden. The Ukraine situation appears to have been Putin believing that the US and West would simply appease Russia and allow them to hold Donbas. Let's not forget Ukraine-Russia tensions have been high since 2014 when Russia first invaded their country and annexed part of it. They've got a huge supply of grains - the vast majority of their food production goes towards grains - but they've also found issues with getting the food they're used to due to sanctions. Russia relied on food imports for: fruit and vegetables, pork and pig fat, pig offal, cheese, milk, yogurt, cream, butter, eggs, beef, chicken, fish, "prepared food" (idk wtf this is lol), and nuts. There have been reports of supermarkets in Russia barely having any stock of various food items post-sanction... and that's not surprising. They're going to have to adjust their domestic agriculture economy to not just be primarily focused on grain exports. The Ukraine war was Russia's gamble that the world would put global economic health ahead of the West wanting to defend it's ideals of democracy and that Russia's condemnation would be more moderated, like the international fingerwagging at the United States after the Iraq invasion. And I don't believe Putin expected a strong and united international response to his invasion because... well the first one got some fingerwagging but nobody really did anything. And nobody really gave a shit about Russian war crimes in Syria either. He had quite a few years of things just working out for him on the international stage that it led to a serious miscalculation on his part. And I think he's seriously fucked Russia over in the process, by making them a pariah state. It's weird too, Ukraine could not have joined NATO for a while - because of the active conflict on their borders. Even if they fully conceded Crimea to Russia, there's a period of time between a conflict before a country can join NATO. So they could not have applied. Meanwhile if his fear was Ukraine would join the EU... that's an economic pact and not a military pact - so he can't really claim that Russia was under any serious threat from that other than Ukraine would likely see itself get much richer. So by Putin invading, he's motivated Europe and NATO to want Ukraine & motivated neighboring countries to want to join NATO. And ironically, if Putin had listened to Biden... this escalation that has fucked Russia in the arse could have been avoided. Pro-Russian types like to point to the guy who came before Zelensky being pro-Russia and how he was forced out... so it must have been the west who did it. But that ignores the domestic pressure Zelensky's predecessor faced that doesn't seem to be caused by anything other than a domestic population frustrated with a corrupt government that put Russia's interests before it's own. It wasn't an Iran situation where democracy was removed - it was a democracy deciding it's internal leadership. Russia is the one that wanted to remove the democracy.

I don't think Russia's high military spending means they've got a bigger economy than is being reported - it's just that the military spending is high despite the lack of spending in other sectors of their economy. Natural gas and oil sales and their military is how they project power in Europe. They've also now got to go back to a time when there was little international investment in Russia, due to now being the most sanctioned nation on the planet, after getting a taste of what a globalised economy can do for their population. So they're suffering a huge shock to their economy right now that is unlikely to get better any time soon. China's growing it's military with it's economy, because it has to - they want to be the eastern answer to the US, and unlike Russia but like the US, they're actually a superpower. The US projects it's power through it's economic might and having the strongest military - China has to do the same thing. All countries, especially the superpowers, are playing the long game to win. I think China wants to be the dominant nation on the country like the US has been for decades - but I think they'd like to reach that point through economic dominance rather than military dominance. But they'll need a big military to back their economic weight because... well... if the world responded to economic power alone, the US wouldn't have such a massive military budget. China's got an advantage in long term strategy as they've given Xi power for life basically, while the US is absolutely dogshit at implementing policies long term.

In news of actual radical politics in the US, Gini Thomas - wife of Supreme Court Justice - has been exposed as having pressured AZ election officials to illegally overturn the election, according to her emails. It can’t be good having the wife of an unelected official holding his position for life, who ultimately interprets Americas laws, being implicated in illegally trying to subvert democracy.

It’s weird too, when I was a kid all the adults in my family would say things like “don’t believe everything you see on the internet.” It’s good advice. Now I feel like every time I have to talk to my uncle I have to tell him “don’t believe everything you see on the internet.”

I just don't understand how people don't hear something that seems like it's inflammatory and almost unbelievable (for example: the claim that US politicians want a one party state) without looking into it and looking into what was actually said. It takes google and the ability to sift through some links to get a full picture of what actually happened or what was actually said. If a source is breaking up quotes in a certain way and then putting it's own opinion in... without giving the full quote or full context of what happened... when you can see the full text/get a better picture... you should be able to see when political editorialisation is happening to cause division and sow extremism. It is scary, but fascinating, how information manipulation and misinformation can be so effective.

So he's never espoused the white replacement theory... he's just going on TV and showing clips that have been edited short to claim that one party wants to... replace whites. It's the fucking white replacement theory. He might be trying to disguise it... but look at what he's saying - he's not disguising it very well. He's getting criticism because he's gone on TV with a neo-Nazi conspiracy theory days before a neo-Nazi has murdered people using the same neo-Nazi conspiracy theory in his manifesto. Seems fair to me a prominent mouthpiece of white supremacy gets criticism when something they've been saying gets cited by a white supremacist murderer. Idk what you're talking about regarding Pelosi wanting a "one party state" - she commented she wanted a return to republican values before American politics got so polarised and cited old republican policies that were a part of the party platform even during the Bush era. That's not wanting a one party state, that's wanting the extremists of America's right wing to not be so prominent in the republican party. For all this fearmongering about Americas radical left... it's really not that many people that are truly left wing in US politics. Bernie Sanders, that one woman who has the same initials as Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Angus King, and a handful (and I really do mean a handful, like 3-5) members of the house of representative. Most of the democratic party in the UK would likely closely ideologically align with tories & Blaire era labour (which was very tory-esque). There's a handful of fringe left-wing weirdos calling themselves Antifa... and most people don't really like them because they see them as disruptive and violent. I think that's a hell of a lot different than the most watched political news channel in a country's most popular show spouting off neo-Nazi bullshit. And if US conservatives want to distance themselves from white supremacy - they should take more steps to condemn it, rather than promote it on their largest media arm. Otherwise they will get criticised for it. And it'll be fair.

Eh... he might just be misinformed by whatever info he's been fed from wherever he consumes media from. And even if he's not, it's important to counter wrong information on the internet because for whatever reason sometimes bullshit just sticks with people. I do think it's weird though when people claim neo-Nazis are part of the extreme left. It might be because Nazi's a mix of "National Socialist" and they see the word socialist... but the Nazi ideology is a fascist ideology. So Nazis are a part of the extreme right. And the reason this gunman claimed he didn't like Fox news is not because they're a right-wing media outlet... it's because they weren't peddling enough of the far right white nationalist bullshit some of their talking heads (like Carlson) push and were too moderate. But he did specifically cite something that Carlson had been pushing on his show in the days before his attack. But I think it's right Tucker Carlson gets some blame for the shooting - he's got the most watched show on the most watched news network in the USA and he spreads far-right white nationalist conspiracy theories designed to make people afraid and hateful. Carlson didn't invent the "replacement theory" but he's certainly helped it spread - and now that theory has been cited by a man who's murdered people simply because they're black. The media needs to get more shit for the extremism they have been building up in the US (and really, the world). Because they are going to spread ideas that if people take too seriously will lead to other instances of domestic terrorism like the Buffalo shooter. The media can't just pretend like they're another loony at Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park "just getting their ideas out of their head." They've got a remarkably large platform and they spread ideas, more than news nowadays tbh, to millions of people in an instance. So pushing neo-Nazi conspiracy theories that are cited as a reason a man goes out to murder people of a different race to him... it's something that should be condemned. Having a "free press" is not an excuse to spread hate and violence.

I mean... he specifically cited the "white replacement theory" that's been peddled on Tucker Carlson's show - I think it's understandable the loudest voice pushing that particular extreme view takes some blame. A bigger issue than whatever his political leanings were are that the US media is pushing people into extremists on both sides. That's not any politicians fault, that's the media's fault. Controversy sells, so the more extremists they can create the more disasters will happen and the more controversial stories they have to report on. I'm not sure that's really true... most of the US (and the West's) sanctions on Russia have come after Russia has done things like poisoning ex-spies in Salisbury, which led to UK 2 police officers getting poisoned as well, and Russia's second invasion of Ukraine. Russia's destroyed it's own economy by invading Ukraine under false pretenses and having western business pull away from Russia and reluctant to do business with Russia - and it's sent ripples through the world economy. I'm not sure how the US could "do the same thing next" with China, unless China brings it's military into Taiwan - which I can't see them doing after Russia's Ukraine invasion because Ukraine has made the world's second largest military look pathetic against US and NATO weaponry. China might have better weaponry than Russia - but it also might not, Russian equipment at least is fairly combat tested with all of their "peacekeeping" operations in former Soviet states and the brutality they brought to Cechnya and Syria, for example. China's military is far less tested than Russia's. China's also got a far larger economy than Russia has had for decades. Russia's economy is basically propped up by being Europe's petrol station and biggest supplier of natural gas. China, on the other hand, has probably the largest manufacturing industries in the world as well as a thriving service sector. But they rely on the West just as much as the West relies on them - if they were to do anything to get the sort of treatment Russia's received... we'd all be reeling from the economic impact. I also just don't believe that the US really does long-term foreign policy - everything is short term and because of the American political media, the thinking gets an even quicker time table - basically what really matters is the policy in between election cycles. The US and Russia would have a relatively "normal" relationship between the two rivals if not for this invasion - which was something the US warned Russia not to go ahead with in the weeks preceding the invasion.

Bill Gates lives in Cailfornia now

This would scare the shit out of me! I'm glad he's alright now!

I don't watch much non-English football tbh, but I've watched a bit of La Liga and Serie A this season. Tbh, I think their refs are a bit... annoying because they seem very keen to stop the flow of a match much more regularly than English refs are... I think their VAR is more consistently applied than it is here. But I also don't know if I've watched enough to comment that with 100% certainty. And I'm sure if it's a problem with our officials, it's a problem with officials all over the world... not just here.

Yeah, nobody asked for every offside decision to be put under a microscope. It's the obviously wrong decisions that we could see on replay that had people annoyed and is where people thought referees could use the help and extra pair of eyes. A player's left nipple possibly being off by .01mm when the rest of him is on is not something anybody should have ever possibly contemplated with VAR... yet that's where we've seen officials focus. FIFA probably need to come in and give referees a set standard of what "clear and obvious" is meant to mean all around the world. Referees should be mic'd up, because even if people disagree with them... we should at least know the reasoning behind some of their decisions as it might make them more forgivable (we all make mistakes after all, if we can understand the rationale we can at least understand why a mistake was made in the first place). VAR was brought in to make their hard job easier - to provide assistance to the officials. Instead it's taken away my confidence in officials being able to make consistent decisions even with technological assistance.

No they've been awful this season, I dunno if it's any worse than previous seasons but it's certainly not better. I still think there's no saving the officials in this country until Mike Riley has been loaded into a spaceship and shot into the sun. It's not hard to imagine why the referees are so poor when literally one of the worst top flight referees in our lifetimes is at the head of the officials in our country.

So Jeff Bezos is FOR taxing the rich? Didn’t he pay nothing in taxes?

We signed some of them before PSG bought Neymar? We can go back even further, tbh. Would we have gone on a 30 year title drought if not for the breakaway foundation of the Premier League? Maybe, maybe not... maybe United would not have established that period of financial dominance as we were navigating life after King Kenny left and Souness destroying the foundation of his side so he could "leave his stamp on it" had football not sold it's soul in the same way. It's not like PSG was the beginning of football selling it's soul. Especially when you consider what the English clubs did in the 90s to fuck over the football league to chase the cash.

I think the way China is still treating covid is absolutely mental. Having said that, I'm glad they won't be hosting the AFC.

But we haven't benefitted from the existence of these clubs? They make football worse for every other club while also simultaneously making the planet a worse people for the people who's human rights they abuse but get the west to turn a blind eye to it. Top flight football has long been a playground for billionaires who want their teams to be good as a way of compensating for whats in their pants, but the oil clubs and added commercialisation have just served as a way to further remove clubs from the communities they represent.