Dr. Gonzo

Most NFL refs are actually practicing attorneys and it’s actually a long process to move up from officiating kids football to the NFL (because the NFL wants to product the quality of their “product)” - so there’s a fair bit of quality control and they’ve got really intelligent people as officials.

Nah I can’t imagine a footballer at a real job either tbh. They’re mostly spoiled man children who have a skewed concept of reality. That’s because of how we bring kids into football though. Refs don’t have the same excuse. It’s like they’ve just found people who can’t do a good job and said “hey want to fuck up a billion pound industry?”

EPL fans are a million times more passionate than NFL fans, at least. I’ve never once seen an NFL game with at atmosphere like a football match. The closest is Seattle fans and even then it doesn’t top a good atmosphere in actual football. American football in college has a closer atmosphere to real football.

Can you imagine English refs at real jobs though? I can’t because too many obvious errors you do nothing about gets you the sack at most jobs. I do think step one in fixing English referees is booting that bastard Mike Riley out of football forever. It seriously defies belief that he’s the man in charge of officials in the country. He was one of the worst referees I’ve seen in my life, and he if wasn’t a genuinely shit referee then he was a corrupt fucking bastard.

The fact is VAR has been our for over a year and hasn’t actually done anything except manufacture more controversy. It should be binned off until AI referees put the useless bastards we currently have as referees out of a job and they can go get real jobs.

I’d buy someone expensive in January now, just in case Virgil’s never the same. Best case scenario, we end up with a very ridiculously nice CB pairing when he’s back. But I think it’s wise to plan for the worst with a bad knee injury. Don’t want to be relying on him but he’s always injured like Sturridge was. But hopefully they big man makes a full recovery and comes back strong.

I don't really play on PC anymore because my PC is a bit shit in terms of graphics card... and there's other shite I'd rather waste my money on than making my computer really good for gaming. But I've heard that more and more games that come out on PC & console tend to be much easier to play on a controller than keyboard+mouse. I can't imagine that's the case with many shooter games... but I know it's very true with Rocket League. Wouldn't really surprise me that it's easier to fly an X-Wing (or whatever) on a controller than KBM.

This isn't entirely surprising, because London's been the centre of shady money laundering for a long time now... but how long can this carry on before the public demands we stop cleaning money for tinpot dictators like Aliyev? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/04/uk-at-centre-of-secret-3bn-azerbaijani-money-laundering-and-lobbying-scheme

Jesus fucking Christ, that’s criminal

We've now got the first US Presidential candidate endorsed by the fucking Taliban: https://news.yahoo.com/taliban-endorses-president-trump-report-000600880.html a coveted endorsement, I'm sure.

France24 have the best Western coverage of the conflict, imo.

It's inevitable. They'll try to pass it off as following in the footsteps of Belgium's "compulsory health insurance" (where most essential care is reimbursed) - but in actuality they'll push the American healthcare system on the UK. And then the UK will get to enjoy hyperinflated drug prices like the US does - all while more people get much less care overall!

Yeah sneezing is pretty rare if you've caught COVID... but some people who tested positive did report it as a symptom. If you've got a fever... get tested like I did. It's worth the piece of mind of knowing/not knowing - also if you are COVID positive... then you won't accidentally kill anyone (and that's a plus). But I'd only go get tested if I had a fever in conjunction with other symptoms... which... is what I had, so I did. But chances are if you don't have a fever and are exhibiting symptoms... it's probably not covid. At least that's my understanding from the people I spoke to in the process of getting tested/getting my results. But they also said it's not a guarantee that not having a fever with other symptoms means you're covid-free... so

EU leaders are expecting their trade talks with us to collapse. I think the economic disaster from COVID + Brexit is going to be pretty fucking brutal.

I’m actually pretty worried about that last paragraph. There have been weird militias and groups popping up all over the US. It’s shit you hear about happening in Iraq and Syria... so it’s pretty concerning. Then you’ve got that group this week that was arrested in a plot to kidnap a governor. A sheriff in the county the militia was from, who had no idea the FBI had been investigating them, basically defended this attempt at taking out the leader of one of America’s states. I never thought a US President would turn to weird militias to hold to power. I also never thought a militia would try to kidnap an elected official in the US though. I think we’ll see some violence closer to the day of the election - I honestly would not be surprised if there is a mass shooting in the big lines around polls.

He’s on powerful steroids to keep his lungs pumping... and has been tweeting insane shit as a result. I’m watching the senate confirmation hearing for Amy Covid Barrett... and I don’t know why I’m watching it. It’s just making me angry.

I will admit I lean left more than most due to being a Merseysider. But fuck anyone remotely close to the American right. Them and Rupert Murdoch have done so much to erode political discourse in the English speaking world. They are fucking scum, quite frankly. These same people making attack ads against Trump will once again be making the same ads against anyone to the left of a candidate like Biden. The centre of America’s left are basically Tories, so I’m not too sympathetic to republicans switching over to be Biden democrats. America’s right that isn’t completely insane shouldn’t be celebrated. The current GOP platform deserves widespread condemnation, and if it’s not going to come from within America (and I don’t think it will - the one GOP Senator that thought the orange man should be removed thinks the orange man should be able to appoint a Supreme Court justice) it needs to come from the international community. Trump’s America doesn’t deserve to be considered a superpower. It has domestic terrorists trying to kidnap governors. That is some Taliban shite. The people at the Lincoln Project played a part in that. They don’t just get a pass because they aren’t as fascist as their former colleagues.

On the one hand, I think the Lincoln Project are a bunch of cunts who spent so long taking right wing discourse & making it nice and easy for Murdoch to sell to the American public. On the other hand, I like seeing the US right cannibalise itself over the orange cunt they’ve foisted onto the world.

Apparently FSG want to go public and that’s not great news for us tbh

I can only really speak for my neighborhood, but we did have our local post office taken away right before ballots were to be mailed out. And the state let my wife (and any voter) track her ballot - it ended up being a few days later than anticipated. Because it’s a pandemic more people are planning to vote by mail. So the postal service being fucked with doesn’t help. I imagine there’s more election ratfuckery that’s gone on in parts of the country where the presidential vote isn’t as secure. But either way, my wife’s decided to just take her ballot to a drop off place early rather than trust it with the federal mail service. But I don’t think all states have made voting for this election as easy. It seems Texas has done what it can to reduce polling places.

I think he will, tbh.

I think Grujic's just a bit bitter because his dad was pretty right about how his LFC career would go and how his career with us has been dead for a few years, tbh. I don't think he's got much left on his contract and tbh he should be thankful we got him a last minute loan as he was looking at at least half a season of playing with the reserves for us (because no more spots for non-homegrown players). In any case, Adrian's Liverpool career is still very much alive for the next 5 weeks or so as he'll be starting for us.

The reasoning he gave behind not wanting to do a virtual debate was essentially "they will shut my mic off if I try to interrupt Biden, that's not fair." he's such a childish little cunt, I can't believe how popular he is with some people. Speaking of how popular he is with some people... the more extreme of his base are going to be up to a whole lot of weird shit in the run up to this election. Here's a news story you might expect out of somewhere in the 3rd world... right out of America - https://www.npr.org/2020/10/08/921655143/militia-members-plotted-to-abduct-michigan-gov-whitmer-fbi-says a militia had plans to kidnap a state governor. I think that's pretty close to attempting a coup in that state. Will be interesting to see the amount of fuckery that goes on in the runup to this election. My big fear is mass shootings at polling places.

I don't have COVID!

Apparently he (and possibly Origi) were the two LFC staff that tested positive during pre-season, but the club was allowed to keep their identities quiet for some reason. But the Swiss national team said the test picked up evidence of the virus from the first time he had it and he's (apparently) not contagious. Also he did test negative - but they're saying it's possible he might test positive again in the future. I'm not really sure how that works out. But I, obviously, don't know enough about how testing for COVID works or any of the science behind it. My gut reaction is "sounds like the test is a bit shite" but I don't know enough about testing a new disease for that to necessarily be true.