Dr. Gonzo

It’d be annoying if he leaves on a free

He’s blocked from selling, Chelsea’s a frozen asset under the sanctions

Yeah but he didn't live in the era of nuclear powers? Because if it was him handling the Cuban Missile Crisis, chances are none of us would be here today with that attitude

I mean there've been sanctions on Russia since they invaded Crimea, perhaps the West should have taken a harsher stance in 2014 to make Russia think twice about further invasions rather than placating them to let them feel they could continue their expansion in Europe with nobody giving a shit.

Well I understand why the BBC doesn't - it's because the UK government is very complicit in what's happening in Yemen. And it's not just the bombing of civilian infrastructure they probably don't want to talk about - but the fact that we're aiding in a war where the coalition we are on the side of is using famine and disease as weapons of war. It's a disgusting conflict, regardless of what anyone thinks about the Houthis (and I think they're absolute scum, but just because they are absolute scum it doesn't justify what's happening to people in Yemen generally)... and I think it'd be unsettling to a lot of people in the West if more knew that's part of what their taxes pay for. But I think sportwashing does work - otherwise these regimes wouldn't try to do it. Would Qatar be hosting a world cup if they hadn't spent billions in football trying to improve their image as a footballing nation? Would Russia have a state sponsored olympic doping program if they didn't see the value in having shitloads of olympic medalists? Would Chelsea fans chant the name of a Russian oligarch that made his billions in Russia's kleptocracy during that minutes applause for solidarity country invaded by Russia? I definitely think sporting glory helps people look the other way when thinking about what certain governments have done/are doing and that's why shady regimes do it. Because at the end of the day, being ambitious with a sporting side is not going to give many people a great return on investment unless you are content with picking up PL TV money and not having any ambition... at which point fans get pissed off and attendances go down and that's not good for the league and it's TV ratings.

I think this is a pretty strange, but desperate move: https://www.rawstory.com/russia-mcdonalds-trademark-intellectual-property/ A massive relaxation of intellectual property protections, coupled with the threat of nationalisation of companies who pause activities in Russia for more than 5 days, I don't think is going to encourage many foreign businesses to re-enter Russia if they go ahead with that. Nationalisation of assets itself, I think would piss a lot of companies off but they could probably return if they saw that the likely return on investment would make it worth it (and chances are, with the threat of China potentially nationalising business assets - though small, still existing, I think means many international businsses would find it worth the risk). But castrating intellectual property violations makes me wonder whether any business, entrepreneur, or artist - even Russian ones - would try to do anything creative/productive in Russia again? If Russia's government shows they're willing to seize both physical and intellectual property, it's showing they have no issue with operating a business and pretending to be another business to steal that business's profits.

This and Chelsea fans chanting Roman Abramovich's name during the moments applause of solidarity for Ukraine are demonstrations of why shit countries engage in sportwashing. Cos it works.

No all war is brutal, but countries that have veto power at the UNSC should be held to the highest of standards. But permanent members include war criminal nations & a country committing genocide against an ethnic and religious minority... so I guess I shouldn't be surprised the world is so fucking shit

Does this make Lukaku the highest paid government employee?

On the one hand I think this is funny. On the other hand we’ve got a club literally owned by Saudi Arabia’s public investment fund that’s been waging a genocidal campaign for years in Yemen and they were allowed to buy a club this year - and we’re seeing their fans a bit giddy about this… and that rubs me the wrong way.

Seems like every day and we get news of yet another horrific war crime. Often each day's war crime is worse than the last. I thought the news of mining evacuation corridors was grim... but bombing a childrens hospital is about as evil as it gets.

I think it's a bit weird for them to officially "remove" his records. But I can understand Ukrainians feeling like he's an absolute traitor on this tbh. His silence amounts to either tacit approval of Russia's invasion or his belief that his job is more important to him than his countrymen dying to protect their homes. As a half-Iranian, I've got 0 time or respect for any Iranian that is a member of MEK or sympathetic to MEK - because they're traitors that fought alongside Saddam Hussein and tacitly condoned his chemical weapons attacks (and never made any statement condemning the invasion of their country or the war crimes commited against it). It's not as direct of a comparison, because Tymoschuk isn't fighting alongside Russian forces... but his silence is a statement on his thoughts on the war... and it's not a statement that I think would sit well with many Ukrainians. So while I think it's weird they'd try to "erase" his sporting history with the country... I also think it's totally understandable that he's receiving a lot of hate from his fellow countrymen. But I'm also not sure symbolic punishments are the best use of any Ukrainians time right now. Having said that, I doubt the Ukrainian FA is up to right now (other than trying to stay alive).

@SirBalon and I both agree that I am just a cheap imitation I am Balon-lite, at best

I think United finishing above Liverpool and Chelsea had more to do with the issues of: Liverpool having constant CB and CM injuries all season - honestly, it's sort of embarrassing for the rest of the league that we came from looking unlikely to make CL spots to finishing 3rd while relying on Nat Phillips & Rhys Williams for our final run-in of the season Frank Lampard making weird signings with Chelsea that didn't improve them and his complete inability to sort out a defense Because this season we've not seen those same issues (touch wood, re: our injuries) and as a result, Chelsea and Liverpool both look much better than United have at any point this season. Hell Chelsea were lucky enough to be able to address the "we look a bit shit under Fat Frank" issue mid-season and ended up looking much better and eventually won the CL. Idk about anyone else, but I think it's a bit unreasonable if people expected Tuchel to have the same issues as Frank Lampard (especially after Chelsea's turnaround last season) or for us to have the same sort of injury crisis (which was honestly the worst I've ever seen at the club in my lifetime as a LFC fan). Having said that, with the amount they spent on key areas that needed to be addressed (Sancho and Varane in particular)... I expected them to be able to at least be in contention for top 3.

United also sign players without really thinking about what their impact on the pitch in the short and long term will be. I think a prime example of that is signing Ronaldo purely to stop City from signing him - world class player on paper but he doesn't really fit in with what United really needed from a striker. Or signing Harry Maguire for an insane fee to "make a statement." There's other examples too, but those are easy ones to pick out. Pep and Klopp sign players that fit in with their systems. There is a desired way of playing and the players are targeted based off how well they'd fit into their respective systems. That's also why last season with all of our many injuries, we looked extra shite and went on a terrible run of results (the worst in our club's history, strangely enough) - the injuries caused our system to break down and we had no real answer to that until we had enough players that we could get back to the platform of how we generally play. I don't think Solksjaer ever really did that - first off, it seemed all of the positives of Solksjaer were in his man-management skills and being the "nice guy" to come in after Mourinho went fully toxic on them. Secondly, Solksjaer's not really the sort of manager that I'd call a brilliant tactician. And I think his signings reflected players that were brought in for other reasons rather than how they'd impact his tactics (other than Ighalo & Bruno Fernandes imo, maybe a case for Cavani too). And with Klopp (and even Pep tbh, I think he had a disapointing first season considering the squad he inherited and his reputation as being the most influential manager of this generation)... they didn't come in and find their squads immediately easy to work with to get playing at the level we expect of those clubs now. It's not so easy to say "well with United's expensive squad they should be performing a lot better" because if money was all that mattered, United would be a lot better than they are right now. They've not had a manager that's proven they're a good fit in modern club football for a long while now, van Gaal was passed his prime as a top club manager by several years - his last season at Bayern Munich was considered a big failure. Mourinho was maybe a better shout, but his tactics hadn't evolved from when he was still a top manager and football had moved on. Solksjaer I think did a good job in clearing out the toxicity Mourinho left... but he should never have been given the job full time because he just tactically is not the kind of manager you can hope to gain success with at a top club. Ralph Rangnick's got the pedigree in terms of building up a football club, as a manager and behind the scenes, but let's be realistic... he's never managed a club with the weight of expectation like United. So tactically he's probably got the right sort of ideas for United... but he's also managing far bigger egos and far more expectant fans than I think he's ever had to deal with in his life. And at the end of the day, I think the players deserve the brunt of criticism from people after so many years of failing with so many different managers. If we believe the reports that United players are unsettled by not knowing if Rangnick's staying or not... it looks a bit like this. Mourinho: "he's too mean" Solksjaer: "he's too nice" Rangnick: "we aren't sure if we like him or not because we don't know if he's staying" and the reports of comparing his assistant to Ted Lasso... it just strikes me as a bunch of players who think they're better than they are because they are at Manchester United, that know that if they play poorly they're probably safe and the manager will get the axe. Couple that with players like Pogba, who's inconsistent as fuck and doesn't really have the mentality you'd expect of a talented top level player with his reputation, or Ronaldo, who sulk and/or kick out when things aren't going their way, or players like Maguire who can play consistently poorly but act like they're the hottest shit around, Lingard who's upset he didn't get to move when he wanted being reportedly the source of numerous leaks from the dressing room to undermine management, etc... I'm just not sure they've got the right mix of people to be at a club that's expected to win things at the top level. tl;dr - I think there's a mix of reasons why United haven't done well despite having an expensive squad with lots of good players on paper. For too long there's been no semblance of a tactical plan for United in the short term or building a club's identity up - until this season (and even then, who knows if Rangnick's the man for the job), too many players that think they're at United because they're good enough when they aren't, and too many shit attitudes within the squad. United need both a short term plan & a short term plan, as well as a clearout of players that either aren't good enough or have shit attitudes (or both).

He died: https://apnews.com/article/bc3b304de3c8d3bf3acbb3c221960ecf

Almost any time I hear about Lebanon in the news it just sounds like ordinary people get absolutely fucked by shit out of their control. Brutally sad, tbh. Shame too, every Lebanese person I've ever met has been nice as fuck.

https://news.yahoo.com/russian-officer-complains-dead-general-113255353.html "Grozen reported that Russia’s cryptophones may no longer work in Kharkiv because Russian forces had destroyed surrounding cell phone towers, and Russia’s encrypted comms system operates using 3G or 4G." They destroyed their own encrypted communications system

I will absolutely do that

I was supposed to fly out yesterday, but got some good news that she was now “awake” - my dad said she’d be having a procedure. Apparently that’s gone well and she’s doing much better. Got to FaceTime with her and she assured me I don’t have to rush out. So that’s some good news in a time of mostly shit news!

If Ukraine is lost, can Russia fully occupy it under the present circumstances? I think it would be a sort of quagmire for them that isn't really sustainable for them, there would likely be an insurgent resistance to their occupation like what the US found itself fighting in: Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq... or the Russians themselves found themselves in Afghanistan. There's a huge economic cost but also a huge manpower cost for a long-term occupation like that... and now that Russia's been given a pariah state treatment after it's invasion, I'm not sure a long occupation is really feasible for them without reducing the standard of living for ordinary people pretty drastically. We've seen countries like Cuba, Iran, and even North Korea (granted they can now threaten the world with nukes to get food aid sent to them) survive despite this sort of economic warfare waged on normal people with the hopes of getting the citizens there to become so fed up they take up arms against their autocratic leaders who brutalise them... but none of these countries are attempting a long occupation of a country being armed to the teeth by NATO. If the reports that this war was meant to last just 15 days and we're now on day 15... I think it's fair to say this hasn't really gone the way Putin would have liked. Can Russia truly occupy Ukraine if NATO and the EU keep supporting Ukraine? It could mean Ukraine is a bloody battlefield for a very long time... but I am not so sure Russia would be able to hold and control it, even with a puppet government.

Idk about Iraq (but if they were used in Fallujah that's pretty bad), but in Afghanistan they were mostly used for clearing out cave complexes the taliban were using as bunkers. But their use in Kharkiv (and Fallujah) is horrifying, imo. They're meant for clearing out bunkers and shelters - not for use on civilian populations. Their use on civilian populations might not be in violation of international law - but it definitely should be. The red cross is also saying the evacuation cooridor from the city of Mariupol has been mined - I think that is definitely in violation of international law. And there are reports that the mines the Russians have used are internationally banned butterfly mines: https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2022/02/26/7326201/ That's pretty fucking grim.

My gran had a heart attack and is in a coma now. . I should probably fly home this weekend.

Russia and America having the most makes the most sense because of the cold war & the arms race. And while Russia and America were building their stockpiles, China was pretty far from a superpower and having to go through things like Mao's cultural revolution - but they're actively looking to expand their arsenal. I don't think Russia and the US are and there was talk (a long while ago) of both of them getting to agree to reduce their nuclear stockpiles. It'll never happen though, at least not any time soon after this.

They tried a blitzkrieg style, but despite their air superiority they found Ukranian AA to be more effective than they thought while they're having difficulties moving in large armoured units. So blitzkrieg style attacks failed, that's why they're sieging cities and bombing civilian infrastructure. They wanted Ukraine to fall in 15 days according to Ukraine's Pravda, which reported on finding captured battle plans. That's evidently not going to happen, so they're trying to break the resolve of the Ukrainian populace by making the war as brutal for civilians as possible - like using vacuum bombs (which the US used on a remote taliban cave complex) to be able to clear out sheltering Ukrainians. It's pretty fucking grim.