Dr. Gonzo

I mean sure maybe it was completely packed… but the hospital is still standing and it looks like it hit the car park. So even so… the figure of hundreds dead seems all the more unbelievable now. The whole story, from the explosion, to the propaganda claims, to the way the media covered it, to the world’s slow reaction to more info coming out about it… it’s all proof that the fog of war is very real.

That hospital only has 80 beds and they claimed 500 people died when it exploded. And now we know it didn’t even explode. Dangerous game being played by Hamas & Palestine’s health authority - because now we know they’ve lied about casualties once… hard to ever trust their numbers again.

They've gone up in San Diego county in the last 6-7 months. The market changed pretty drastically here in May, sellers were selling for under asking a few months ago - that's not happening at all anymore.

I bought earlier this year when interest rates weren't as bad as they are now, but obviously not as good as they were around 2020 or 2021. It basically wiped out years of savings without paying for points and the mortgage is more than double what I was paying at my last place. I can't imagine what trying to buy the same house today would cost in terms of: the monthly payment, the downpayment, AND paying off points on the interest rate. It's mental too that houses now are going for above asking price again. There's so many people who'd otherwise want to sell their homes that are locked in at very low rates and seeing that if they move they will be paying a hell of a lot more, so there's very few houses on the market while demand just keeps growing. But if interest rates go down, house prices are meant to go up - so it's not like there's any end in sight to this problem. Seems like it's happening almost everywhere too.

I'll check it out when I get the chance!

Kind of wild that the biggest surprise from this is that the hospital wasn’t even destroyed. Nor were there 500 casualties. Kind of insane how the media sort of just rubbishes Russia’s claims in Ukraine, but was very quick to run with Hamas propaganda.

I’m pretty confident pretty much anyone still on our forum or discord could be one of the best VAR officials in the UK, if not the best.

I know you didn't mean to be rude, but are you really going to say that after video and audio evidence confirmed that the most competent person involved with that VAR decision was the "least qualified" person to make any decision about officiating a football match? I think considering that evidence, the system doesn't allow the best to go to the top. Maybe the problem is they're not paid enough and don't face consequences for serious errors enough. I get paid more than they do, but I also know that just 1 serious mistake could cost me my job - so I take the idea of what the minimal competence required to be considered good at my job very seriously. They get a decent wage and I think we should be asking more of them considering there's people with more important jobs that are paid far less than them because they're not part of a billion pound industry... but maybe the issue is they don't take it seriously enough because they know what they make in football is fucking peanuts compared to the money in the sport. And it's very, very, very hard for any of them to lose their jobs. And obviously what I do is very different to what officials do on the pitch. But if you're telling me that the talent pool in the UK is so low for officials that these are the best we've got, I absolutely disagree with you and will once again refer you to the replay operator who is not an official yet demonstrated infinitely more competence than the VAR officials. That was a guy who's not even close to a referee, he's a software engineer - yet there he was, demonstrating he was better at their jobs than they were. And he's probably making less money than them too, despite having a career in something actually useful.

I think people moaned because there was video review elsewhere in sport and it was used well, so people thought "why accept human error when we have things to prevent against human error?" Now we see them use VAR to get to the wrong decision in about 12 seconds, even though they somehow go through the process correctly and still come to the wrong decision, or spent something like 5 minutes reviewing things that are clear as day. I agree with you that the system doesn't allow the best to go straight to the top. But that's because the system is an old boys club and they're rewarding their mates. Systems can be improved upon, but it's only going to happen if enough people demand it and there's public will for it. It's clear the public doesn't have the will for it, though, so there's no point in hoping for better officiating tbh.

You think it's surprising seeing the US and other big western countries take Israel's side? The US gives them $6B a year to spend on US weapons, there was never any doubt that Biden wouldn't be at bat for Israel.

Republicans tried round 2 of getting a new house speaker leading to the GOP pro-pedo candidate Jim Jordan to be the speaker and he fell short of becoming one of the most powerful people in the US due to 20 of his party members objecting to him being speaker. The minority leader of the house got more votes than him for speakership. Truly a party in unity, some on this forum might say the party is "as unified as it's ever been" There was another vote scheduled for today, but it had to be postponed because the GOP is in such shambles.

I just don't buy the argument that these are the best people to be officiating matches in a billion pound industry. It's statistically improbable that there's no good referee in London, the UK's most populated city, that could make their way up to refereeing in the premier league. Look at how many of the officials there are that are from right around the same area. To me... that looks like an "old boys club" - it's hard to get membership if you're not mates with the people already in the club. And the least qualified person in the audio of what was going on during the VAR seemed to be the only person that was actually paying attention to anything going on... so it's even harder to convince me that PMGOL's selected the best possible candidates to officiate matches. He somehow ended up looking like the most qualified official involved in the match. And he wasn't even an official. Referee mistakes were just more forgivable before VAR and hawkeye and all of that shite. Now they've got so much help and they're still making mistakes that shouldn't have been made, I've got no sympathy for them. If the media thinks the referee spectacle encourages viewers, I think they're pretty wrong. I've watched 1 football match since the incident, I didn't really enjoy it, probably my mistake for watching the league match instead of the Europa League - I've enjoyed the international break because it's been some time off from me caring about football. My interest in the league would probably have been rekindled a bit if PMGOL decided to clean up it's act a bit. Perhaps Howard Webb could do with a swift Constantine Hatzidakis elbow to the head.

A rocket coming from the Gaza side of the border failing and crashing down? Israel's committing enough war crimes on it's own to where if even Al Jazeera, which is not exactly unbiased in the conflict, is agreeing that this hospital was struck by a failed rocket... it probably was the case. Hamas rockets failing and killing Palestinians isn't really anything new. It's not exactly state of the art rocket technology they're using. It's not like Hamas killing more Palestinians somehow absolves Israel of bombing a school or bombing areas they've told people to evacuate to. Those are pretty clearly war crimes, I don't think we need to have more fabricated to make the case that the IDF's committing war crimes. Hamas is also very clearly capable of killing Palestinians as well.

No but typically you don't pay someone that much when they demonstrate they can't really do the job either.

Think of it like this: Qatar back PSG and Hamas. That's two disgraceful entities that United won't be associated with now.

Yeah it's a bit of a joke though. Or the officials will put it, a good process.

@Gunnersaurus @Mel81x lol "accidentally" but also "didn't stop the movie" - wonder if it was like a certain VAR ref... "can't do anything"

They shot the suspect. I hope it was the right guy.

It's also being reported on Al Jazeera. And that's Qatari state media, and Qatar's one of the 2 countries holding the purse strings for Hamas.

Watch 19:59 to 20:01 No, I think the air strike on the school was the IDF. Also the bombing of south Gaza (where they've told people to evacuate to) also appears to be IDF bombings.

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/67133660 well done boys, good process

The hospital that got bombed today appears to be from a failed Hamas rocket though. Not that it excuses some of the other things the IDF has done in their bombing campaign on Gaza. I think the strikes on the south of Gaza, after telling people to evacuate there, are particularly condemnable. But that hospital rocket footage and the clips of the aftermath (500 people died) also demonstrate how Hamas don't particularly give a shit about Gaza's most vulnerable and are keen to continue fighting without regard for how many innocents (Israeli or Palestinian) die. But I do question what Israel's real strategy is here other than vengeance. It's not like this slow systematic crushing of Gaza is going to lead to anything other than more land taken from Palestinian control. The longer this goes on, the more likely it is that Gazans don't even have Gaza City anymore - they'll just be forced onto camps. I'm not sure you can blame the neighboring Arab countries for not wanting anything to do with Palestinian refugees. Hamas has close ties with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt - Egypt's government doesn't exactly like them lol. And with Jordan, the last time they took in Palestinian refugees their king was assassinated and Palestinians tried to overthrow their government.

I'm not sure decades of the government neglecting once thriving communities is a good reason, but it's certainly a reason.

How would they prove it though? Milan would just deny, unless they're stupid enough to have given written communication from the club about this there's nothing that Newcastle can really point to as evidence.

Seems like everyone involved was betting on football, including on their own teams. Tonali's agreed to get treatment for gambling addiction. I wonder if Milan knew, maybe Maldini was sacked to save his reputation & Tonali was sold without much negotiation to just try to get value for him before he's banned for this.