Dr. Gonzo

I think bemused or amused is the right answer. Here's a guy who's been told "hey what you're saying, on the very face of the words you are using, doesn't make any sense" numerous times. So what happens next? Doubling down and a little bit more nonsense to pollute the waters further.

I'm pretty sure most of the fear of mandatory conscription is due to the prospect of Russian expansionist claims seeming all the more likely and this spreading beyond Ukraine tbh. We've seen it before with appeasing a belligerent dictator that has expansionist aims in Europe - and Russia's openly threatened spreading that aggression to other countries. Appeasing Putin with Crimea and Georgia did nothing to stop his claims over other countries. The US, UK, and NATO openly stating that Russia was planning for invasion was met with derision from Putin, saying the West was paranoid, just days before he announced his special operation (which again, is just an invasion). There is no reason to believe that Russia's expansionist claims should not be taken seriously and with Poland, a NATO member, being told repeatedly that "they are next" it would be foolish for NATO to not seriously consider the prospect of Ukraine falling and Russia then moving on to further move westward. I think Armenia should be feeling pretty worried about the prospect of Russian expansion - they've seen how being under Russia's umbrella has failed to protect them from Azerbaijan and are taking active steps to move out of Russia's sphere of influence and chase better ties with the US and France. Ukraine wanting to have more reliable allies and stronger ties with the West is a big part of why Putin backed puppet governments in Ukraine, seized Crimea, and ultimately invaded the rest of Ukraine. And unlike Ukraine, Armenia's NATO member ally is openly hostile to it and the EU is dependent on Azerbaijan for energy now. Azerbaijan is openly hostile to anyone around it that isn't Russia or Turkey. Georgia is shit scared of upsetting both the west and Russia. Iran has decent relations with Armenia, but when push comes to shove - Iran will always side with Russia over Armenia because Russia's more useful to propping up their shit dictatorship oppressing it's people than Armenia ever could be. I think it's a matter of when, not if, of Russia turning its aggression to Armenia. A country the EU won't be able to support because of the energy dependence of Azerbaijan, with no true friendly neighbor, and much less resources and military capability than Ukraine. I suspect things will get pretty bad for Armenia pretty quickly. Either way, I don't know why a South African would be seriously concerned about being sent to the frontlines of Europe. South Africa will likely continue to suckle at Putin's teat the way they have since Ukraine was invaded, you're safe mate.

Normal, but with some psychopathic tendencies

YouTube isn't real media though, anyone can make an account and start posting their videos. It's not journalism or news, it's just vlogging but they can call themselves a "channel" because that's the word YouTube's given to the main page of their content creators. There's also quite a lot of pro-Israel content all over YouTube and social media generally that does all it can to ignore the various war crimes. What happens on social media is notable to an extent, but also in the grand scheme of things isn't notable - people don't actually get news from YouTube, they get narratives fed to them by the algorithm, and often that is just creating an echo chamber amongst social media addicts. The US and NATO peacekeepers wouldn't have any legitimacy in the eyes of Palestinians who see Israel as just a western colony in their land. A peacekeeping coalition would need the US/NATO + several Arab member groups. But these Arabs don't want to risk their soldiers and citizens put in harms way - they want the best of both worlds, favour from the West for uninvolvement in the conflict while also keeping their population happy with the idea that they are supporting Palestinians in their struggle. You keep mentioning possible refugee camps and evacuation of civilians - but let's also not forget that refugee camps and civilians who had been evacuated to them did in fact get bombed by the IDF. Many on the pro-Israel side say "well once Hamas is eradicated, we can rebuild life for Palestinian civilians" - I think it ignores the reality of urban warfare and military invasion. When the US invaded Iraq, their troops faced violence constantly for... pretty much the entirety of the time the US was there. You're right Hamas is the problem, but you don't contain extremism by treating every person in the invaded territory like they are the enemy and that their lives are worthless. If Israel wants to end cycles of extremism, which they should for a better life for themselves and for Palestinians, they've got to stop trying the same failed tactics that have proven to do fuck all but build further extremism.

@LFCMike it's a bit mad that we're probably one injury away from Jay Spearing making appearances for us again

Sounds like something someone who holds a pen like a psychopath would say

It kind of feels like the story of the US Airman burning himself alive is being buried by the media. The guy was clearly mentally prepared for taking his life in a particularly unpleasant and painful way. He made a will and found someone to take care of his cat. It was clearly very deliberate and he says "Today, I'm planning to engage in an extreme act of protest against the genocide of the Palestinian people." I find it so strange that the public discourse on the topic contains so few voices that recognise the humanity of both Palestinians and Israelis and I find it tremendously disturbing that western governments find it all too easy to turn a blind eye to blatant war crimes and human rights violations. Israelis have the right to defend themselves, they don't have the right to commit war crimes. Palestinians have the right to exist and to have self-governance, they don't have the right to kill and capture civilians. But the media's burial of this story just seems like further complicity of the west sitting by as Israel fights the war in a pretty cowardly and inhumane fashion, despite having a clear advantage in military might. There have been more civilian deaths in Gaza in a few short months than there were at any year of the US led invasion and occupation of Iraq from 2003-2023. Indiscriminate airstrikes have been used despite the IDF knowing that over 61% of the people killed in these airstrikes are civilians. These aren't the actions of military leaders aiming to break the cycle of radicalisation in Gaza - they are the actions that view all people in Gaza, regardless of how young they might be, as extremist terrorists that are fair game to be killed.

China often gives harsh sentences to make an example out of people, usually the less useful you are to the CCP the harsher your sentence will be. But this one seems absurd, fixing matches and taking bribes is bad - but is it so bad you spend the rest of your life in prison? If Jack Ma hadn't made himself important to foreign investors and to foreign investor confidence in investing in China, I'm sure he never would have turned up after disappearing for criticising Xi - and if he did, he'd have lost more than half his wealth.

You'd think someone that acts like they are so interested in this sort of stuff would at least take the time to learn basic political theory - rather than resort to nonsense word salad. It's one thing to point out that certain leftwing and rightwing people have made and done some pretty antisemetic things, or even point out the hypocrisy in left-leaning people lending vocal support to Khamenei or preaching the fucking ideals of Rullah fucking Khomeini... it's completely another thing to just tar them as communist theocratic fascists without any regard for what those terms mean. Granted, there's a certain terror group out there that's tried to be a Marxist-Islamacist organisation despite that making fundamentally no sense at all - and weirdly enough they pal around with some of America's most extremist right-wing politicians (Pompeo, Pence, Lindsay Graham, etc.) - but they're more of a cult nowadays than actually having any understanding of basic political theory. And they're opposed to the regime Galloway's alleged to be twerking for, so he can't even claim he's referencing them in an attempt to save face. But I'm sure that won't stop him from doubling down and complaining about the fascism of communism. For far too many people, they've gone past caring about whether or not words have meaning.

He was in a boot and in crutches after the match but told journos he was fine. Think it’s a wait and see. But yeah if we don’t were stretched very thin.

Idk I just saw someone hold a pen like that and I thought... "fucking hell that person holds a pen like a psychopath"

I'm... not left handed? I like your profile pic though it makes me want to go to Australia

Do you hold it normally? Or do you hold it like a psychopath?

My thinking is, a decent championship side, which Southampton clearly is as a recently relegated side that's got realistic hopes of promotion is likely to smash a premier league youth side. Klopp's already said the only players from yesterday he can see starting are the players he subbed on late in the game - so that rules out pretty much every single fit senior player we have available. Including Connor Bradley, who's been brilliant since his breakthrough. This likely means we send out Kelleher with a group of kids that'll likely get smashed. My worry is we really don't have much indication of when Alisson is back other than after the international break - do we want to risk Kelleher letting in a bunch of goals after his immense performance in the final? I'd love for us to win everything we can this season, especially because with Klopp anything seems possible, even beating Southampton with kids. But I'd hate to see us fuck over our title chances because the fact we're seriously in the title race, let alone in first, despite the massive rebuild of our midfield is astonishing to me. Suppose I should just continue to trust in Klopp and enjoy the ride for the rest of the season before he goes and breaks all of our hearts by fucking off.

Are we going to be playing the youth team against Southampton? Do we even start Kelleher in that match or do we go with Adrian?

RNC chair resigns, giving MAGA full reign of the national platform. No longer can they pretend to be merely conservatives, it’s officially the far right party

Unbelievable sentence considering the crime.

No I've never had one

A lot, I've got something ridiculous like 9 just in my garage. I'm not going to count them all.

He has though and after a bad result at Everton he suggested the solution was spending more. He's not the only manager in Europe that doesn't have as much say in signings as someone above him - Directors of Football are no longer new to English football, they're basically the norm everywhere. Sure, Chelsea's board and DOF have a lot to answer for - but so does the person they've hired to get the most out of a promising young team. I'm sure part of it is there's an abject lack of experience at Chelsea and so many young faces, but at the same time this side is clearly punching below its weight. These players have a lot more experience on the whole than the kids who were thrown into a cup final due to injury with extra time to go - and Chelsea ended the 90 minutes with momentum on their side even if they couldn't finish. Then a bunch of teenagers ran riot in extra time. I think with Potter there was regression, but you can see he was trying to implement a system and maybe he was found out at a club too big for his tactics or maybe players just didn't respect him. With Poch, I can't see any clear cut system he's trying to implement. It's just throwing shit at the wall and hoping something sticks. Gallagher and Gusto are some of the only Chelsea players that can leave that final with their head held high. And the captain thing is boggling to me, I can understand not wanting to give the captaincy to someone so young - but it's pretty clear Gallagher's at least got more of a captain's mentality than Chilwell. Chilwell didn't really do anything of note at all other than get pissed off teenagers played well against him and tried to get under their skin, but instead let them get under his skin and needed to get hauled off before he was sent off. I'm proud of the youngsters for coming on and not looking like the occasion was too much for them. I'm very proud of Endo, who's quietly made a case for himself being our signing of the season (alongside the excellent Mac Allister), for coming in and his signing being met with a lot of pessimism and dominating that match. But I am very surprised at how poor Chelsea have been this season, very surprised Poch looks like a completely spent force, and genuinely stunned that Chelsea didn't do more to press the advantage they had on paper in a cup final (which would have been Poch's first cup victory in England). But with Poch's tactics and the leadership in the squad looking like mentality midgets, maybe I shouldn't be surprised. But for all of Poch's failings this season, I think one thing you can't begrudge him is making Gallagher the main man in Chelsea's midfield. He's not as technically blessed as Enzo and he's not as physically blessed as Caicedo - but he's out there playing to win with more quality and effort than those 2 expensive players.

That was a while ago, since then he looked bad at one of the richest clubs in Europe & has spent £1b to not actually do anything other than lose a final to a side they priced out of 2 players & trusts their academy as more than a source of funding.

I think they’re just going to add on 4 points deducted for the second offense (even though it covers the same period as the first offense, so it’s really just a second punishment for the same offense) - so they end up back at their original 10 so they can pat themselves on the back for getting it right in their minds the first time. But that’s because like @RandoEFC I have pretty much no faith in the league using their brains and them somehow thinking this makes them look good.

Don’t get me wrong I think Chelsea need to get a new manager before getting rid of any players. But I do think anyone young, underperforming, and getting regular minutes and still not improving at all… it’s going to take something special, like a genuinely world class manager, to turn them around when they’re on a massive long term contract. And I’d be more worried about players like Enzo and the dogshit Ukrainian lad than Caicedo. And at the same time, it does send a message to Chelsea players again that despite the ownership change, the club will always get rid of a bad manager first. It doesn’t really do anything to change the perception that players can down tools when they want a new manager. Good players are well rounded in this era of football. Alexis is not a #6 & the Brighton fan I spoke to said we’d get the best of him box to box. Yet he performed more than capably as a #6 and we’re now seeing him play more in his best position and he’s looking immense. I think it’s not a good sign if a player worth more than £100m+ looks a shadow of himself when put in another midfield role.

I’ve only talked to one Brighton fan regarding those transfers but they said Mac Allister was the real star of their midfield. And let’s also not forget once Mac Allister came into the Argentina midfield as a starter, that’s really when Enzo started to shine in that World Cup. And also let’s not forget that international football is very different to club level football. We’re just lucky he had a low release clause. Not to say Caicedo is bad or that he can’t turn it around - on paper he’s got all the attributes to be a top box to box midfielder. And he’s shown he can do that in this league. But he’s had some rubbish performances where he’s not put in the sort of shift required. I think Enzo made a massive mistake leaving Benfica too early when he could have been developing as the focal point of that side. That he’s being asked to do more off the ball isn’t surprising when he’s in a bigger league. Especially in a match like this final when even with all the injuries - our midfield is a good midfield. Endo, who cost just a fraction of both men absolutely dominated the two of them. Showing more work rate and quality than both. The midfield’s the engine room and heartbeat of a side. And when you’ve got one hard working midfielder paired with 2 expensive players that don’t put in a good shift, I think any manager’s going to prefer the guy who’s putting in the effort. Don’t get me wrong, I think Poch is clearly up to nothing at Chelsea. But I think Enzo’s a massive problem for any Chelsea manager. He’s got potential and technique but that’s not enough to be considered a top midfielder in this league. And Chelsea’s not a place where managers can be patient with a player.