Dr. Gonzo

Dave Maddock (very reliable for us) says we’re looking to give Origi an extension (good, because he’s officially a legend now) and moving on the players with expiring contracts, namely Moreno (yay) and Sturridge (important because he’s on big wages). And that we’re also open to offers for Lallana to free up wages.

I'm not so sure that NATO is a dying requirement. We've seen plenty of Russian belligerence in recent years to indicate that they're going to try to push beyond their borders and invade elsewhere. NATO wasn't an effective deterrent to stop them from going into Georgia, it wasn't an effective deterrent to stop them from invading Ukraine and taking Crimea as their own. I'm not sure that the armies of Europe alone are enough of a deterrent for Russian belligerence. I think they already view NATO as an institution with waning influence, I imagine if the US is no longer standing beside Europe, they'll view it as virtually dead and keep trying to push back to Soviet borders. I think China would be left as the last superpower. But who knows how involved they would be in protecting their investments in the region - I imagine that right from the off in this potential war, we'll see the war escalate to a level where most countries that weren't initially involved in the first attacks will see what is happening and think "I don't want any part in this." But it's a given that if anything happens, the Straight of Hormuz is just going to be riddled with mines and there are ships from all over the world that'll be impacted by that. So right from the offset, we'd be seeing carnage. And we'd also probably see the western world shit itself at what happens to petrol prices. Granted, they'd have to be the ones trying to make the Middle East a relatively stable place after the hellfire dies down. But if the US does go to war with Iran, as I said before - I fully expect the entire region to go up in flames, the Islamic Republic knows it'll be staring defeat in conventional warfare in the face - I can't see them not using a potential invasion as a way to do everything they can to absolutely fuck over their enemies in any way they can, particularly Israel, the Saudis, and the UAE. And then there would be a long bloody occupation and insurgency over the ruins of Iran.

I've got mixed feelings on Trippier. I think he's obviously a good player, though he's struggled this season and he himself has admitted it - I think he's a better wingback than a fullback. And at the start of the season, I'd have put him ahead of Trent for England... but on the form of the two players, Trent's kicked on pretty massively (from an already good season last year) while Trippier's regressed. It'd be interesting to see how he would do if he did move to Italy. I think for both clubs he's linked with and for himself personally, Juve is a better move. And I also think it'd be better for the England national team, no disrespect to Tottenham at all - especially after this season - but Juve are one of the giants of European football and the biggest club in Italy. The pressures of playing for England I think are most able to be replicated at a side like Juve, where the fans there fully expect domestic success and where they're desperate for cup wins. And he'd also get to play alongside Ronaldo for the last few years of his career. But of course, for him to worry about his England career... he'll have to make his way back into the England side. As one of the standout performers of our World Cup campaign, I think this drop in form is just that... a drop in form. And whether he stays or goes, I suspect he'll improve and be back in the England side. Although he may find he's got more of a fight to start as Trent has grown a bit (both literally and as a player).

I can't ever remember a hangover like this. I feel terrible. Well I would feel terrible, if I didn't know why I'd drank so much. So it's a good feeling terrible, because at least I did this to myself for an excellent reason.

Yeah I hate the fuck out of that tbh Also I should have called in sick today. I only had a few hours sober this weekend and while my hangover wasn't bad yesterday, it's furious today.

I don’t think that’s what is being complained about when it’s said that “London is being overrun by outsiders” as he didn’t say “London’s housing market is being artificially inflated by Chinese investors” (which is basically happening all over the world tbh). 2 separate issues tbh and Brexit wouldn’t have an impact on Chinese investment in any case because China isn’t in the EU. But when people are saying shite like we’re being overrun by foreigners, it’s the people they’re seeing on the streets. Not the nameless, faceless (to most of us) real estate investments

My hangover’s not too bad

It’s a bit fucking insulting to a lot of English born people who’re descendants of commonwealth countries (and look at those demographic stats, those are a lot of ethnicities that were part of the British fucking empire), that live in England as English people, to tell them they’re not English because of how they look.

Bit shameful there’s so many people out there who think that English people born in England are not English because of their ancestry. Bit weird because I suspect many of them quite like Boris Johnson, who’s paternal grandfather is Ali Kemal of Turkey and he himself was born in America.

https://immigrationlab.org/working-paper-series/can-exposure-celebrities-reduce-prejudice-effect-mohamed-salah-islamophobic-behaviors-attitudes-2/ So given how the rest of the country feels about us, does he increase the prejudice effect everywhere else? Kind of explains why that non-Scouse blueshite lad on here out of the blue after not indicating he was a bigot anywhere else on the forum decided it was alright to give me & Mo some shite for being Middle Eastern though. A bit sad though that a football player can make people’s bigotry higher or lower based on who they support

I thought he had his uncle blown up with a mortar

Anyone hear this story about the pedo cops (and/or "Child Protective Services") in Kentucky? https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/05/22/how-dare-she-dash-muffins/?utm_term=.450a9313d87b Fucking sick.

If it's anything like Metal Gear Solid, it'll be widely loved by the gaming community and then when I play it, I'll think "yeah it's alright, but this story is absolutely incomprehensible." This looks even more bizarre than MGS, so I'm sure I would understand absolutely nothing about the story... but I'm sure the gameplay is fine. Kojima is weird imo, decent games... but I've never understood the MGS hype. I too am most interested in Doom: Eternal.

Before I went to work I played some Rocket League duos and went on a 8 game win streak

I'm surprised by this. He's been out of football for a while now and he's never really demonstrated that he's "still got it" after he left Porto tbh.

Yeah I've heard that Metro Exodus is a buggy disaster, which is a shame because the first two games were so good.

If Coutinho cost as much as he did, imagine what we'd demand for Klopp. Barca would probably have to sell Camp Nou and give us Messi

Lol Roberto Martinez

I don’t think we have that much deadwood to sell tbh. With Sturridge and Moreno leaving that’s a lot of wage budget freed up on two players who were paid far more than what they earned.

He failed a medical and was deemed a big injury risk because of his knee, I don’t think we’ll go for him again. Sturridge has got FSG concerned about giving massive wages to someone who’s injury prone.

I don't believe in hell, but if I did I'd sleep a bit better at night knowing that Kissinger will spend eternity in hell.

I'd agree in normal circumstances. But with this US administration, I think the most predictable thing has been the unpredictably erratic behavior of the administration. Last week the administration announced a rising threat from Iran, brought a fleet in, then at the end of the week said that there was evidence this threat with Iran was deescalating. So that was fucking weird. Then instead of sticking with that de-escalation, that emergency declaration to sell to the Saudis goes through with the reasoning being the Iran threat. We know that this administration is not afraid for the US to stand alone on the world stage, it's got a slightly enhanced version of the already very strong relationship between the Saudis and Israelis, who've longed for the US to invade Iran, as well as advisors that have been wanting war with Iran probably as soon as the revolution ended in 1979... so with all that considered, my big fear is everyone on the world stage, especially China - the other Superpower - says "don't go to war, it's a terrible idea" but in private he's being egged on by the people who've been egging him on to escalate for war with Iran. And this administration is not afraid to stand alone. What does China do in response if the US decides "fuck it" and starts a war in the Middle East against the world community urging them not to? They can't really step in to fully protect their investments in Iran once the missiles have been launched; how do they mitigate the most amount of harm to that investment? Is it getting involved militarily themselves? Or do they have to threaten getting involved militarily themselves to prevent war from happening? My big concern with brinksmanship like this is when it goes wrong, and it can go very wrong with stupid people involved (see: WWI) - and I think it's clear stupid people are involved here. It's fucking mental how unstable the Middle East is... and it's a region where for my entire fucking life has been unstable as fuck. And the US doing things in the Middle East without thinking about the consequences ever is just making things worse and worse and worse (etc).

I think if Iran is invaded, Iran's proxies will be mobilised and their job will be to make life hell for the Saudis and Israelis if there is a war. To create at least some semblance of a "home front" for these countries that pushed for war with Iran to have to deal with while Iran deals with the invasion. I think everyone knows the US military would (and tbh probably will, unfortunately) destroy Iran and leave it as a pile of smoldering rubble while patting themselves on the back for the liberating they've done. I imagine Iran's first move would be to lash out like a desperate cornered animal and try to inflict as much pain to it's enemies in the region if it is staring destruction in the face. You can bet that Iran and Iraq will target each others oil fields if it comes down to that. And the Straight of Hormuz will be mined by both sides, so oil exports will probably go to a crawl. And then after the "defeat of conventional forces" we'll probably see an insurgency like we saw in Iraq. Then we can think about things like what a US war in Iran would mean, because if Iraq was a long and bloody war (it's still going on ffs) - Iran's a population that's over twice of Iraq's. And the geography of Iran seems much less friendly to an invading force. So it'll probably be absolute hell on earth.

Yeah and it wasn’t that long ago the US was arming Saddam Hussein with chemical weapons (when it was okay if Iraq had weapons of mass destruction lol) to use on Iran. Unfortunately, I fully anticipate the US to go to war with Iran. John Bolton has been wanting war with Iran for decades, he’s a key advisor to Trump. He helped manufacture the WMD evidence to invade Iraq. He’s got the Saudi’s pulling him by the strings and dictating his Middle East policy - and they would love to have their biggest rival crushed. The fact that the US president domestically always mired in scandal, is seemingly unable to get legislation through anymore, and has falling poll numbers make me think war is more likely. No US wartime president has ever lost their reelection. I think as things get more desperate with him, the more war looks appealing to him. For me, personally, I think it’s a fucking disaster. I’ve got family members who are probably going to be bombed because of an idiot president and the evil people that pull his strings. What seems to be the US (or at least John Bolton’s) plan for regime change in Iran is to topple the Islamic Republic and put Mujahideeh e-Kahlq (MEK) into power. That plan is fucking insane. MEK were actually instrumental in removing the US’s puppet from power in the revolution - they were initially formed as an Islamist-Marxist (weird mix, I know) party in opposition to the Shah’s forced secularisation and against the Shah’s crackdown on left leaning political figures (which ranged from things like censorship to having SAVAK, the secret police, kick in your door at night and drag you to Evin prison for torturing, and anything in between). In the aftermath of the revolution, however, MEK and many other political groups (like the Tudeh party) were purged more brutally than anything the Shah did. The MEK took this betrayal as an act of war. They left Iran and set up shop in Iraq. In the Iran-Iraq war they fought alongside Saddam’s forces gassing Iranians, so virtually every Iranian considers them traitors. Since then, both Iran AND Iraq consider MEK a terrorist group (the US did as well until very recently) - that should clue you into how MEK have operated in the Middle East since the 80s. What I’ve actually noticed though is that a lot of MEK members are all over the west. They are the Iranians who cheering the loudest in support for Trump to go ahead and devastate their country. When you couple that with the news that’s John Bolton takes money from MEK it really explains itself. The history of MEK should explain why Iranians wouldn’t want MEK in command of their day to day lives. A history of western intervention in the Middle East, particularly Iran, demonstrate to everybody why nobody should want this. It will cause shitloads of death, destabilise the region, and likely cause a headache the rest of the world will have to deal with for decades or more. I think what’s most sad about frustrating about this is Iran has a pretty young population that has shown it will push for political reforms through their own political processes. They have very very high voter turnout, so despite the oppressive government, they believe their votes matter. And since the 80s Iran has reformed pretty significantly. And relations with Iran and the US were reaching their highest point under Obama after the JCPOA was signed by Iran, the US, the EU, Russia and China. This led to big big support for reformist politicians over hardliners. Gradual political reform in Iran is possible without bombing anyone or killing anyone. Soon all the people associated with the revolution will be dead. But the hardliners who were against making a deal with the US said things like “you can’t ever trust America” and “this is a trap, they want to invade and they don’t want us to be able to defend themselves.” For a while it looked like egg on their faces. And then Trump proved them right. He backed out of the deal, he reimposed and introduced new sanctions (which affect ordinary people the most, the Mullahs are corrupt and will smuggle the oil they can no longer export - then they’ll get their money) and is threatening them with war. This must be devastating to the reformists in Iran, so much political momentum lost. But that isn’t so important to them if they’re about to go to war. You could not have made better anti-US propaganda for the Islamic Republic of Iran. They made a deal with the US, they followed through with the deal - the US broke it. They kept following through with the deal, to try to at least keep relations warming with the EU, the US introduced new and harsher sanctions. Iran looks to the EU and sees they aren’t willing to violate US sanctions and also sees the US park a fleet next door, then says they’re going to have to violate parts of the agreement to protect themselves. But you know how the hardliners will spin that story? “The reformists let our guard down and trusted them, now invaders are here to destroy your country like they did to Iraq.” This is why a mentally handicapped person shouldn’t be president of the United States

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