Dr. Gonzo

20-0 holy shit

Ray Kennedy has passed away. One of our biggest legends ever, RIP. Shankly's last signing, and in 8 seasons won: 5 league titles, 3 European Cups, 1 League Cup, 1 UEFA Cup, and 1 Super Cup.

The whole thing is fucking hilarious. I mean it’s kind of scary but it’s still hilarious

https://www.footballinsider247.com/sources-sir-alex-throws-his-weight-behind-man-united-appointing/ The source is shit, but I hope it’s true. If Ferguson wants Steve Bruce, who is anyone at United to disagree!

Newcastle want Origi? Think now that they’re rich it’s only fair we take them to the cleaners. £55m for a cult hero please

It's always so hard to tell when someone's sarcastic on the internet

The history is a bit complicated. At the heart of it is the ethnic tensions between Armenians and Azeris - but there's also some external political pressure from Turkey and Russia as you mention. I think the Armenian genocide started during WW1 - modern day Turkey and some of modern day Armenia were both part of the Ottoman empire I believe. It's why eastern Turkey, which used to be full of Armenians doesn't really have very many living there anymore - and during the genocide Armenians didn't just go to modern day Armenia... they went literally all over the world. It's why cities like Marseilles and Los Angeles have such massive Armenian populations. Azerbaijan and the rest of modern day Armenia were part of Qajar Iran, in a territory that used to be called Shirvan, but after the Russia-Persian wars & the Treaties of Gulistan & Turkmenchay... that territory became part of the Imperial Russia. And when Imperial Russia fell, it became part of the USSR. I don't actually know how Russia ended up with the rest of Armenia, though. And I wouldn't say Azeris are Turks (because... they're Azeris ) - but they're definitely a Turkic people. The Russians renamed Shirvan Azerbaijan (which I've always thought was weird, because it's also a province in Iran... that borders Azerbaijan) - perhaps it was to reflect that the territory was predominantly Azeri? I also don't really know all the details on how Russia promoted ethnic divisions - but that's something that definitely happened. And that's how descendants of people who lived amongst each other started hating each other and we see the beginning of pogroms and instances of ethnic cleansing as the Soviet Union started to crumble and eventually fell. Those Pogroms are how the chess grandmaster Gary Kasparov, an Armenian born in Baku, ended up in Moscow. If you look at the demographics of these countries over time, you see that largely these areas were historically full of both Armenians and Azeris for... well, centuries - but since 1989... you actually see the statistics as these place become more and more ethnically homogenous. These ethnic tensions are the crux of the conflicts between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Then we also have to consider the contested territory of Nagorno-Karabagh/the Republic of Artsakh and the two wars fought over that. The contested territory was largely populated by Armenians historically (the area's also known as the Armenian Highlands) - they declared independence when the Soviet Union fell, same as Armenia and Azerbaijan... I don't know why basically nobody recognised their independence though. The unrecognised state ended up on the lands of Azerbaijan's sovereign territory - but operated as it's own state. In the 90s, a war between Armenia and Azerbaijan was fought over the contested territory with Armenia winning. In the decades to come, Azerbaijan would use the wealth it acquired from selling its natural resources to really build up and modernise it's military with the goal of taking the land back. Armenia, for whatever reason, despite spending a significant portion of its GDP on it's military... simply does not have a military that can compete with Azerbaijan's in modern warfare. And that's why in last year's war, Armenia suffered a pretty decisive defeat despite having the better strategic position to defend Azerbaijan's attacks. I am not so sure that Turkey's influence over Azerbaijan and places like Turkmenistan are due to a historical influence the Ottoman empire had over those places (because I'm not sure how much influence the Ottomans had over Shirvan or modern day Turkmenistan tbh) - I think it has to do more with the ethnonationalism and specifically the Pan-Turk ideology. The more extremists of this ideology want to see the Turkic world fully united and flying under one flag. Less extreme views just want Turkic people and nations all working together for the benefit of their ethnicity. And there's a few viewpoints that fit somewhere between both of those. And for what it's worth, I think Turkey and Azerbaijan - who are both nations pushing ethnonationalism and Pan-Turk stuff - don't want to be united as one country (afterall, the Aliyev family loves to say: "one nation, two states") but they generally have the same foreign policy goals. But in any case, like you said - Azerbaijan and Turkey want the road connecting both Turkic nations running through Armenia. It was actually part of the terms of Armenia's surrender after their last war - but progress on the road's construction has stalled significantly due to political turbulence in Armenia following the breakout of the war and Armenia's military failures. Russia's interest is purely geo-political - Turkey is important to NATO because of it's location. Russia has a military base in Armenia as a counterweight to Turkey and NATO. Russia also has an interest in Azerbaijan & Turkey as a means of using their pipelines to get natural gas into Europe through Italy in a way that circumvents the gas passing through Ukraine. I suspect that's why Armenia's found Russia to sort of tiptoeing around their military alliance to avoid pissing off Turkey/Azerbaijan. Armenia also has to deal with the fact that the current government is run by Pashinyan, who's been big on trying to loosen Armenia's ties with Russia and establish more ties with the West - some see Putin's reluctance to fulfill treaty obligations as a way of punishing Pashinyan and trying to force the next Armenian government to fall in line with Russia as previous Armenian governments have done. And honestly, a part of me thinks these tensions escalating right now are a way of Turkey doing a favour for the EU and asking Azerbaijan to do this - with the Ukraine conflict heating up & the Belarus-migrant crisis, this serves as a way to spread Russia a bit thin. But also I think the message the OGSE Minsk group has sent to Azerbaijan is: waiting for diplomatic resolution does not work - the US, France and Russia are not motivated enough to resolve conflicts between Armenia and Azerbaijan. They failed to resolve the conflict in the 90s, they sat by for nearly 2 months while a war raged on and refused to get involved until a Russian helicopter was shut down. Meanwhile while diplomacy has failed, Azerbaijan's modern military has worked. And if Armenia won't build the road, I think they feel it's easier for them to just take the land themselves. I don't think this conflict is going away any time soon, even if tensions die down now... I suspect in a decade, or two, or three, or maybe even more... we'll see this conflict heat up again. There's been generations of ethnic hatred and demonisation/dehumanisation from both sides. They talk about each other the same way the Nazis spoke about the Jews. And there's little political appetite for Armenia, Turkey, and Azerbaijan to have normalised diplomatic relations in all 3 countries. Currently there's the brokered ceasefire between the two, while Pashinyan and Aliyev have agreed to meet with members of the EU on December 15. But Azerbaijani forces are still massing at the border with Armenia. I hope that tensions do not ignite before the two leaders meet.

Is it though? Even in states with strict gun laws, it's not that hard to get a gun as long as you've never been convicted of anything. And that's just if you want to purchase it legally, which tbh a lot of criminals won't give a fuck about as they're already going to use the gun to commit crimes. Stolen guns or guns that were originally purchased legally and registered to a legal owner are then sold illegally all the time. There's no shortage of guns in the US and an absolute shortage of reasonable regulations to stop gun crimes. And then there's the people who think it's their god given right to walk around carrying an AR15 so they can pretend they're soldiers who only really care about one thing: guns and getting more guns. Just look at this link: https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/last-72-hours a list of all incidents of gun violence in the US in just the last 72 hours. It's easy to imagine the US having gun issues, because the US has gun issues - no imagination required . It's just not easy to understand why the US doesn't do anything about the obvious gun issues they have. I don't understand why an outdated rule from a time where America had no standing army and relied on local militias to protect itself from foreign threats is seemingly completely untouchable. "It's part of the constitution" is what pro-gun people say. But so was slavery & they nixed that eventually. Seems like America could do something about it's gun violence issues... just so few people have the appetite for it.

Agreed. He really is the ultimate luxury player. Got a world class midfield/world class team already? Sure then add Pogba into the mix as the cherry on top. Need someone with the heart and desire to help a club grow into being world class? Better look elsewhere.

Even if he was in the state, wouldn't showing up to these riots with a weapon be provocative in itself? I have no idea and I know some states in America let you freely carry around guns, even assault rifles, like it's fucking Somalia or Afghanistan. To me, the self-defense claim seems a bit ridiculous because the only reason he was ever in any danger is because he showed up there with a weapon. And people died because he showed up there with a weapon.

Can they do that with the streaming service? I suspect that'd probably violate the terms of the respective league agreements that probably have sold off the streaming rights to various markets. Like with FSG and Liverpool, Peacock have the streaming rights to those matches in North America - I think an FSG service that only shows Liverpool for football would be in breach of that agreement.

As far as transfers go, Pogba's got to be right up there with one of the worst signings in the league's history, if not the actual worst signing in the league. Came in at an absurd fee to lots of fan fare/social media excitement (#Pogback)... then didn't really help out United's midfield problems at all, now looking like he'll be leaving for nothing. I'm gonna be honest though, I think he's clearly talented... but I don't really rate him... unless he's an addition to an already brilliant midfield (like with France or when he was at Juve). Any chance he'll #Pogback to Juve? Because they're a far cry from the side he left, so it'd be a bit funny to see him go back to massive fanfare again. But if I were a United fan, I'd be glad to see the back of him. He doesn't work hard, he's petulant as fuck when things aren't going his way on the pitch, and I suspect Mourinho was right about his attitude in the dressing room. An expensive mistake for United, for sure... but good riddance.

Maddison Cawthorn, another Congressman that's probably most simply described as "a young neo-Nazi" has also offered him an internship. I know fuck all about the laws there, but I'm surprised self-defense can be successfully claimed when you show up to riots from another state with a gun - which to me seems like a deliberately provocative act.

I think it's a bit mental United didn't sell him in the summer while his stock was probably the highest it's been in years after performing well at West Ham. Now he'll be leaving on a free when it could have been a bit more money for United to put towards the central midfield (or anywhere else that United needs fresh blood). I think you're right, he'll probably be leaving for West Ham. Perhaps you can still get some money selling him to them in January. But I'm sure he'd prefer to leave as a free agent because he can get a nice fat sign on bonus from that.

Isn't Manchester Evening News a bit shit for United news?

If they do it like they've done the Red Sox and the Penguins, they'll try to get the Penguins self-sustaining and use money they generate for their hockey team. But considering the money in English football compared to hockey (not just in the US, but literally anywhere), I doubt we'd move down in the pecking order to them. I know the Red Sox are the most important team to them since they're Boston located and... their company's named after their stadium... but look at the new TV the league just signed and all the money in the CL. We're probably very very profitable for FSG even though owning a sports team is historically something rich people did more for prestigue/fun than making money.

Yeah sure, but maybe taking it after these trials have been done and it's been shown to actually do something against Ivermectin. I'm also fairly certain other trials have been conducted with it related to COVID and they found there's no evidence it actually does anything. Until there's evidence it does anything, there's no reason for anyone to be taking it as an alternative to the vaccine. And the people taking horse dewormer aren't insane, imo, they're just fucking stupid.

It'll be a case study on how people can take issues that really aren't political in their nature and make them a partisan issue as part of the partisan divide to exploit, for sure.

I don't understand how this is still happening. Like anywhere. First off, there's Ivermectin that's meant for human consumption. So why take horse dewormer if there's a human version? Second, it's an anti-parasite medication. It's really effective against parasites... but COVID is a virus, not a parasite. Third, the manufacturer has said: "don't take Ivermectin for COVID-19." Forth, even if you disregard all of that... there's no evidence Ivermectin does anything to help with COVID, while the vaccine has plenty of evidence that it can reduce chances of getting infected and minimise the effects post-infection. The high profile people who've taken Ivermectin and had speedy and successful recoveries simultaneously took those antibody cocktails - which are meant to be fairly effective at treating COVID... and that's because you're pumping yourself with COVID antibodies. It has fuck all to do with taking an anti-parasite medication. Fifth, apparently gobbling down that horse dewormer ivermectin makes lots of people uncontrollably shit themselves. Is being afraid of needles, or whatever fucking reason people have for not getting vaccinated, really worse than spending days sat on a toilet? It's mental, tbh. Being so anti-vaccine that you're willing to take something which at best won't do anything and at worst... probably isn't good for you because constant diarrhea isn't good for you

I am absolute dogshit at Halo: Infinite

I agree with you that keeping national/ethnic identity alive is important and often times ethno-nationalism seems like the only option. I suppose it's a bit different in places like Armenia/Azerbaijan because they were once areas that were not so ethnically homogenous & are now... very ethnically homogenous. I think there's a thin little tightrope people/countries have to walk on with ethnic/nationalistic/both of those things mixed. Preservation of cultural identity is definitely something I think is important and it's something people and countries should value. But I do think it's very easy to push ethno-nationalistic views into some really evil things, not just things like ethnic cleansing either - in the Middle East and Caucasus there's now widespread misinformation campaigns and attempts to re-write history and erase some groups culture. And in some of those cases... I think it's just to create the pretext for land grabs and ethnic cleansing in the future. But I see what you mean regarding Lithuanian resistance to the Russian empire, Nazis & Soviets and feeling the importance of the Lithuanian ethnic and national identity and relating to people like the Ossetians. I'm also glad to hear there's no ethnic tensions between Samogitians & Lithuanians - and that's the way it should be for countries that have different ethnic groups that call the land home. Usually when you see a national identity isn't fractured along ethnic lines... I feel that those people who are nationalistic are a lot less hateful and negative (I dunno if that's the best word) with their nationalism. Whereas I feel many places that push ethnonationalism push their nationalism in a way that's divisive and hateful.

I dunno if we'll ever have a PM as bad as David Cameron, although Boris could run him close just because he was PM during big moments in our recent history (the man to lead us through Brexit, lol, and also the pandemic) and he's just fucking inept. But I will forever associate Cameron as the man who set the UK on the downward spiral we've seen for some time and will probably keep seeing for some time. The state of political leadership in the UK is an absolute joke, I dunno if there's any MP out there that I know of that I think would make a good PM. God help us if Gove ends up PM - he's as inept as they come and lacks any of the charisma (if you want to call it that) that BoJo the clown has. I feel it'd be the same as having Boris in charge, just more detestable.

I wikipedia'd them and learned they're considered an "Iranian ethnicity" - I had no idea, and tbh I'm not really sure what that means ... but that's cool! I listened to a bit of their language on YouTube too and... well, it's not like Dari where I can understand 98% of what's been said. Had no clue what the fella was saying! And I agree with you, I sympathise with ethnic groups that lack self determination... although I've got my own concerns about ethno-states with extreme ethno-nationalism (tbh, I dunno if Ossetians have extreme ethno-nationalism due to me knowing almost next to nothing about them - but I imagine the struggle for self-determination can lead to ethno-nationalism), especially in regions like the Caucuses which historically are home to LOTS of ethnicities. Because ethno-nationalism usually leads to the demonisation and dehumanisation of people from other ethnicities. And while all of these ethnicities have their own culture, history, languages, and traditions that make them unique... imo, there's a remarkable amount of cultural similarities between many of the different ethnicities that are closely geographically located. They're different enough that they can/should have pride in who they are as people and the history of their people - but they're similar enough to where shit like pogroms and ethnic cleansing shouldn't fucking happen. Going back to Armenia and Azerbaijan - I think both of those countries lands are also historically tied to Tat/Talysh people, who are an extremely small minority in pretty much every country where you can find them. And both countries don't have great records with their treatment of these people as well. So really Armenians and Azeris aren't the only victims of Armenian/Azeri ethno-nationalism. But uniting people around "the fear of the other" is sadly very effective and history has shown that leaders can utilise this to get people to participate in some horrific atrocities... pretty much all around the world. Are you Samogitian? I know fuck all about Lithuania, teach me!

Last year, historical Armenian land that has been occupied by mostly Armenians since… forever pretty much… but was within the borders of the Republic of Azerbaijan after the USSR fell. It was the second full blown conflict over that contested territory - the first war happened right after the Soviet Union fell and both countries gained independence. It ended with an Azerbaijan victory (basically) and a ceasefire agreement brokered by Russia. This year the conflict is a bit different - but related, Azerbaijan wanted Armenia to build a road connecting Turkey and Azerbaijan. That hasn’t happened yet, so Azerbaijan decided to take the land itself and build the road (and probably keep the land itself). The tensions between Armenia & Azerbaijan are rooted in ethnic divisions, but honestly it’s very strange because culturally they are so very similar. Ossetia’s a bit like Artsakh isn’t it? In that they claim to be an independent state within Georgia’s borders… but it’s not really internationally recognised. I dunno anything about them other than that

Yeah I thought his body was burned, but there's an absurd amount of bullshit written about what happened with his body for some reason. I think a part of it comes down to his cult of personality and the years of propaganda that so many people couldn't believe he died by suicide and was burned in a ditch/artillery crater.