Dr. Gonzo

I don't think they're helping Everton's case - but I also don't think the appeals will be giving what fans think any consideration, so I also don't think they're hurting Everton's case. From an Evertonian fan perspective, directing the toxicity that had built up over recent seasons in the fanbase towards the league seems to have really helped Dyche build a siege mentality in his side. With that in mind, I don't think the fans are doing anything wrong by directing the justifiable anger they should have towards both their owners and the league into something that is directed less at the club and more at the league. I think mentally it has done something for the players and at the top level any sort of mental advantage you can get, imo, makes a pretty huge difference to how a season can go. And I think the points deduction was very harsh tbh - it's harsher than Portsmouth's deduction for going into administration. And for as bad as things are financially at Everton, they're not quite as bad as what happened at Portsmouth. And despite all clubs agreeing to rule changes, I think it was entirely reasonable for Everton to think the ongoing investigation would continue using the same rules it was using when the investigation started - especially as they were working with the league to try to get into full compliance. In that sense, I can agree with the "made up rules" statement.

Also:

Lol he said this while advocating after advocating for Trump. Does he know how Trump got his money? Corruption? I'm sure he's thinking some Hunter Biden shit, but what on earth was forcing the Secret Service to stay at Trump hotels and resorts if anything but corruption? If diplomats were encouraged to stay at the Trump hotel in DC - is that not corruption?

Al Qaeda’s one of their proxy forces that had been fighting directly under Saudi leadership in their coalition for their involvement in Yemen, mate. There’s no question about Saudi control and involvement with Al Qaeda. Many of those groups in Syria they funded immediately took that funding and were absorbed by ISIS. And they’re all extremists that follow Wahhabism and Salafism that is spread directly through funding from Saudi Arabia. The absence of direct ties is just plausible deniability for the House of Saud. In my experience most Arabs I’ve met don’t approve of their own governments or the Saudi government. But that’s often why they’ve lived in other Arab countries, rather than where they’re from, or simply left the Middle East. It’s not a great region for expressing thoughts about people having a say in what goes on in the governance of these countries. You’re not going to hear open criticism of governments in most of these countries… As for Qatar’s treatment of Iranian fans - I’m not surprised you saw different treatment for Syrians than Iranians. As stated earlier, Qatar and Iran have very close ties and their governments have worked closely in recent times, especially when Qatari-Saudi relations got sour. These weren’t normal arrests in the World Cup, these people were handed to the IRI government handlers of Team Melli. The same people who threatened the families of players after the players refused to sing the national anthem when that was requested by Iranian protestors.

Advanced jets, tanks, and missile systems all require time to train troops how to use them properly. I think that’s one of the reasons why Poland supplying MIG fighters Ukrainian pilots could already fly was a very big deal - it was stuff that could be used from the moment it arrived in Ukraine. The wars I can think of in modern history most similar to this are: 1) Iran v Iraq in the 80s, where Iraq enjoyed widespread international support (including German chemical weapons the west turned a blind eye for using) - Iran successfully defended Iraq from seizing Khuzestan in large part from the terrain being easy to defend. 2) the first Azerbaijan - Armenia conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh; pretty evenly matched in terms of equipment, weaponry, manpower - but the defensible territory for the Armenians in Artsakh let them successfully claim a breakaway state within Azerbaijan’s borders 3) the second Azerbaijan - Armenia conflict that just happened recently; where Armenia’s largely using the same stuff as they did in the 90s with a much smaller military, and Azerbaijan had advanced Turkish and Israeli drones and significantly more troops. There, the technology advantage and the manpower advantage overcame the defensible terrain advantage. Even in conflicts with less similarity to Ukraine v. Russia - Afghanistan for the US and Vietnam for the US, it ultimately didn’t matter that US military might was impossible to beat in traditional combat. The terrain of both countries meant the Taliban & Vietcong could survive and wait out US will to keep fighting. It seems to me the most defensible terrain in Ukraine is Crimea - and it’s more easily defended if attacked from the Ukrainian side. Ukraine seems to already have the tech advantage compared to Russia due to western aid. But Russia will always have more manpower to spare to throw troops into combat than Ukraine. I’m just not 100% convinced more advanced weaponry, that will take time to be fully combat effective for Ukraine and can’t be used immediately can effectively break the stalemate. I could be wrong, I’m not a general I’m just someone that likes history and following current events. And I hope I am wrong. I will always stand with a fledging democracy trying to defend itself from an unjustified attack coming from a dictatorship neighbor. But I fear nothing will break the stalemate other than direct NATO involvement… and that likely means World War 3, which I’m really not to keen on having happen during our lifetimes. I also fear the results of the US election will lead to another Trump presidency. His idea of peace is Ukraine’s total capitulation, so it’s not ideal for Ukraine. Or anyone hoping for democracy to triumph over dictatorships.

Mate it’s not unheard of for countries in a region to have influence in that region. The Saudi government has loads of influence in the Middle East and often pretends to speak for all Arab countries & simultaneously funds Arab proxies (ISIS, Al Qaeda, etc). And what Qatar did wasn’t arresting protestors in the streets, they were arresting fans at the stadiums of Iran matches for things like: displaying Iran’s old flag or banners that say Women, Life, Freedom. And the Kish islands are Iranian & the UAE was trying to take them from Iran…

Sometimes you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone

Chelsea against us in a final again... 0-0 or 1-1 before penalties?

But that's not a very libertarian view at all. Freedom of the individual & a person's body being their own property are core components to the ideology. As such, it's an incredibly popular view amongst libertarians that prostitution (which is sex work) should be legal. They view prostitution the same as any other contract or agreement. One person agrees to pay money and in return they receive sex acts performed on them. Furthermore, a key component of being a libertarian is believing that a truly free market destroys illegal and dangerous black markets. The reasoning for this is: a black market exists to accommodate what a legal market lacks. Is this just an instance of you promoting an ideology that don't really fully understand? Or is this just your own personal take on what being a libertarian means - despite it not meeting core concepts that would actually make your beliefs libertarian beliefs?

Good start!

Fallout 3 or Fallout New Vegas on the Fallout 4/Fallout 76 engine would be fantastic

Would be hilarious tbh

Andrew Tate's view of women is essentially treat them like children (at best) and as slaves at worst. He takes vulnerable men and tries to fill them with his weirdo ideology so they can prey on vulnerable young women so their worldview can be shaped into lives of submission serving these "high value men." I fully believe he'd be advocating for men to seek partners as young as possible if not for it being very illegal. Because like you say, the whole ideology is finding young and vulnerable women to exploit and groom into being "a woman that is with a high value man." His idea of what a high value man is weird too. A man who can't cook a meal or clean up their own house is pretty far from a high value man. An adult who can't do either of those things is barely functional imo.

Nice to see Robertson on the bench!

And I think with Putin, it's been shown if there's no willpower from the west to push back - he will keep expanding into Europe. When he sent troops into Georgia, he didn't get much pushback from the west. When he first invaded Ukraine in 2014 and seized Crimea, he got away with it with minimal pushback from the west at all. When he was massing troops on the border of Ukraine before this more recent invasion, while the US and UK were saying "we can see what you're doing on satellite images" he would go before the world and say "there's no chance of us invading, I have no idea what these countries are talking about" and that was DAYS before he sent Russians in to invade. If he thinks the West's appetite to help Ukraine defend itself has finally been quelled, he's going to keep trying to expand. What does peace between Russia and Ukraine look like if not for the west? Total capitulation of Zelensky's government and being replaced by a puppet? Will Ukraine no longer be a sovereign nation? Will Putin try expansionist claims into NATO member countries? I would have thought that World War 2 would have been a good lesson on why expansionist dictators should not be appeased - but here we are, considering whether or not Putin will be allowed to use aggression to further his expansionist aims. But as to your first question, do I think enough of the right weaponry for Ukrainian troops is enough? I'm really not sure. I think it could cause an endless stalemate that leads to decades of war - but Ukraine doesn't have the same defensible terrain as other countries to where I think it could definitively turn the tide against an invader with much more manpower. Simply put, I'm not sure Ukraine has the manpower to win a war of attrition against Russia even if armed with loads and loads of the best weaponry available to it in the world. It would be different, imo, if Russia had more outspoken dissent against Putin's rule and the war - but Putin enjoys large support in Russia and dissidents in Russia seem to genuinely fear him more than dissidents of other authoritarian nations that don't enjoy western support.

I think this news about the army being woefully unprepared for war is a signal to the UK, and to the rest of Europe, to expect Russia to invade a NATO nation sometime soon. Probably means the UK is anticipating a Trump victory.

One of the countries on that list with the joint lowest age of consent is China, a permanent member of the UNSC... which doesn't dictate a bloody thing to the west since all it takes is one of the western members of the UNSC to simply veto. The UN doesn't dictate anything to anybody, it's only purpose is serving as a platform of open dialogue between nations to prevent international conflict from spreading into anther world war. But it's a common libertarian view to conflate the two though. It's only been done because so many libertarians have advocated for a lower age of consent or simply doing away with the age of consent. A core component of the ideology is protecting individual rights and removing regulations imposed on individuals and businesses. This includes rolling back workers rights to where they are virtually non-existent. Getting rid of "pesky" health and safety regulations that get in the way of profitability. And for many libertarians, they've been quite vocal about consenting humans (note, they make the distinction between adults) being able to make decisions regarding their own bodies, including when they should have sex. If you take issue with it, don't take issue with @Rucksackfranzose highlighting the contradictions of what you've said and the ideology you're peddling - take issues with the diehard believers of this ideology being absolutely vile. Most regulations on business exist for good reasons, most workers rights exist for good reasons, having an age of consent exists for very good reasons. Children don't belong in mines, children don't belong in sexual relations with adults. If you don't like being called out for peddling a horrible ideology, don't spread that shit around.

Qatar has probably been Iran's most reliable "partner" Arab nation (other than Iraq after the ISIS cleanup shit, but that's just them taking radicals and further radicalising into controlled proxy groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen) - they were actively targeting anti-regime Iranian fans during the world cup and arresting them before turning them over to Iran. That's pretty complicit in oppression of Iranians. The UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait have no reason to fear Iran invading them - Iran's not done any invading since the Persian empire, the last wars they've been involved in have been: getting invaded by Iraq (with the support of the west, the east, and other Arab states - all complicit in Iraq's war crimes) and being invited in by Assad to fight ISIS (and keep Assad's shitty government in power). The other conflicts Iran's involved with have all been proxy conflicts, mostly with Israel but sometimes with the Saudis - so again, no real threat of invasion. Just the threat of spreading their horrible ideology. The other Arab states have played more indirect roles in supporting Iranian extremism when convenient, but always being against Iran approaching the west or creating normal diplomatic relations with the US over the decades. And that's because they've had the most to gain with Iran being cut off from normal economic activity with the west, and the most to lose if Iran does have normal relations - or worse for them, another revolution. They have been consistently opposed to any regime change in Iran - other than floated plans to break Iran up into smaller ethnostates (because Iran's got a ton of different ethnic groups in it). I have family and friends suffering under this autocratic rule, so I will always resent the other autocratic nations in the region that have played their part to slow down the necessary change for people in Iran to have better lives. I think part of it is because they economically benefit from Iran not being a normal participant in the global economy and another part of it is anti-authoritarian movements scare autocratic monarchs.

I agree with the last paragraph and that’s why I haven’t been supporting Iran when they play even though I’m half Iranian. But when it’s Iran up against those gulf states it’s very hard for me to not want Iran to win because of how I feel about those countries. Except Oman, no strong feelings towards them. And Iraq because I feel a lot of sympathy towards them. I disagree that you can’t compare them to Russia tbh. While these countries haven’t exactly been friendly with Iran in the last decade, they’ve all played a big role in the decades of oppression Iranians face on a day to day basis. So for as long as they’ve got their absolute monarchs sitting pretty, I’ll always dislike the hell out of them. Nothing against the ordinary people who live in these countries - but like you say, by playing for a national team you’re basically part of their nationalist propaganda.

yeah it comes up all the time. “I’m not a pedo, but I’m a libertarian and my beliefs on individual liberty mean I should be allowed to fuck kids.” It’s a widely common view amongst the ideology. Couple that with their belief that human rights aren’t truly universal, that regulations on business (and remember, most labour regulations are written in the blood of workers who died on the job) aren’t necessary because they cut into profits… it’s really just an ideology that serves as an on-ramp towards to fascism. So “proto-fascist, possible kiddy fiddler” is what I think when anyone tells me they’re libertarian.

BoJo doesn’t genuinely care about Ukraine, I’m pretty sure he was just giddy a war in Europe broke out so he could pretend to be Churchill for a few days. He only cares about what’s good for him.

Libertarians are just nonces that don’t want to pay taxes

Hasn’t Azmoun assisted all of Taremi’s goals - but yes Taremi’s the best Iranian player. Also VAR wasn’t correct for those disallowed goals. Taremi’s a dickhead too though tbh because he’s very pro Iran’s terrible government. And I just don’t like the UAE as a country - the same way you’d probably want Ukraine to beat Russia.

Same, I did mine stone cold sober too. Bizarre honestly.

Still think their ability to play well would be hampered quite a bit by being on land