Dr. Gonzo

The thing about NATO being expansionist is... it wasn't really looking like an expanding anytime recently up until Russia invaded Ukraine. There was some talk of Ukraine wanting to join NATO to protect itself from what it (accurately) thought was the threat of Russian invasion, but it wasn't taken seriously because of rules on being a NATO member and needing to have resolved border conflicts for a certain number of years. Russia invades Europe and suddenly countries all around Russia express an interest in joining the alliance meant to protect sovereignty from Russian aggression... it's not surprising. Furthermore, it's hard to call NATO expansionist when joining NATO doesn't mean you're all of a sudden a western puppet. Look at Turkey, one of the most important nations in NATO from a geo-strategic standpoint... are they a US or EU puppet? Absolutely not, they constantly act in ways that piss off the US and EU. Same with Hungary, which is both a NATO and EU member. Whereas in Russia's equivalent to NATO, CSTO... it's an alliance where nations are called on when Russia wants them to, but they don't really lift a finger if other CSTO nations ask for assistance. So it's not like NATO is going around convincing nations to become their vassel states to mirror CSTO. In fact, this recent surge in NATO's popularity all falls squarely at Putin's feet - it isn't that long ago that people felt NATO was an outdated alliance as Russia was believed to be less beligerant than it was. Similarly, I don't think you can blame Ukraine or NATO for not trusting Russian ceasefire calls, considering how early on in the war Russia and Ukraine would agree to ceasefires and then Russia would promptly break the ceasefire. This is not the West's war to end though - it's Ukraine and Russia's to end... and of course the West will support Ukraine against Russian expansion into Europe (that's why NATO existed in the first place)... if Russia wants the fighting to stop, they must leave all of Ukraine and respect Ukraine's sovereignty. And if the people of Russia want that but their leaders are unwilling to end the war... it's on the Russian people to do something about their government.

Are they losing the war in Ukraine though? It seems like Russia's invasion that was meant to take just a few days has been dragged out successfully and the Russians now have to take defensive positions rather than act as invaders and occupiers. I'm pretty sure the lessons learned from Chamberlain dealing with Hitler are applicable with Putin. Obama, Merkel, Cameron, & co., tried the appeasement stuff with Putin when he took Crimea - it did not stop Russian belligerence and aggression towards Ukraine. Bush & EU/UK leaders did the same thing with Russia invaded Georgia. If you don't stop an aggressive dictator from expanding throughout Europe, they're going to keep expanding and acting more belligerent. Hitler, Stalin, and now Putin have demonstrated it. It's pretty clear that the people of Ukraine don't seem to want to succumb to Russia, nor do many of these former Soviet bloc countries. It's better to support them now and foster alliances with them now than to let them fall and have the aggressive dictator bordering Western Europe and thinking it'll just take that superior infrastructure and economic power for itself.

Do you mean 9 digits? I could afford to sign all of them right now to do my yardwork if they're all triple digit signings I think Bellingham's the only one that'll go for 100m+; Rice I assume West Ham will want at least 80m, Caicedo I assume would be the cheapest if sold to an English club because there's no "English tax" applicable to him (can Bellingham still qualify as a homegrown player for PL purposes though, I'm not sure he can). Out of those 3, I'd obviously prefer Bellingham (but we've got no chance of signing him) and Caicedo - I just think Rice is tremendously overrated although he'd probably fit us better than Mount. I think we're going to seriously make a move for Mount though... and I'm not really sure he'll fit in well with our system. Gotta be honest though, I've got basically no optimism with regards to our summer signings. We'll also be needing a new DoF (thank fuck, tbh)... but it's still FSG in charge holding their fat sacks of money while pretending to be skint.

Tbh... give him 2 seasons and have another manager lined up to take over after those 2 seasons are up and it's not a bad shout. The guy is decent at starting a project and beginning a rebuild... he's just shit when it comes to the next steps of a rebuild and loses the plot entirely.

I hope Simeone never manages in England, tbh. His brand of football is absolute football terrorism, he makes Mourinho, Conte, and Rafa look like attacking football masterminds. Keep that shit in La Liga please.

Nah, she's going to be reshuffled elsewhere instead of marketing. And it's not because of any "boycott" it's because of the numerous threats against Anheuser-Busch; only 30% of their revenue comes from the US and it's basically a US culture war issue rather than anything actually serious. I honestly don't see how this trans shit got the way it is. Tbh, I don't understand it and I've got the viewpoint that may be considered "controversial" now - I think it's a form of body dysmorphia in all honesty. But I'm noto so extreme as those who think every trans person is a pedophile and I certainly don't agree with the extremists who think these people should be eradicated. The ones who aren't hurting anybody else should be allowed to do whatever the fuck they want, so long as they aren't hurting anybody else. And the ones who are sex-pests or whatever... should be treated like sex pests. But it's such a small portion of the population... I just don't understand how it's become such a huge issue that it's talked about constantly instead of actual important issues that actually impact the lives of most people. This culture war bullshit is just a means of distracting people from important issues so we all focus on shit that really doesn't make a massive difference in the grand scheme of things.

Peter Crouch

They didn't back Poch when he asked for more transfers to refresh his squad, then when his squad looked tired and out of ideas... they blamed him for the squad not being fresh and sacked him. At least that's how it looked from the outside, I'm sure @Storts can give us the best explanation of what happened out of all of us on here. Idk if patience is necessarily an Arabian virtue, considering how PSG have tried operating (and coincidentally... the one place I can think of in recent years where Poch's times at a club didn't increase my estimation of him - although tbf at PSG I'm not sure how much of a say he had in transfers). Blows my mind with Spurs though - under Poch they seemed to have stability and were building up for a better future. Then they had their excellent European cup run but sort of massively lost steam in the league. And after they lost that final, they seemed mentally and physically spent. A bit like we seem this season, imo. The thing is despite how bad I think this season has been in terms of Liverpool not living up to expectations... I would never in a million years say "alright sack Klopp for this rubbish season" - and perhaps it's easier for Liverpool fans because Klopp's won us stuff. But Poch was building something good at Spurs, it felt weird how Spurs sacked him after he basically had proven himself right to Levy & co imo. And in hindsight, it would have been a lot cheaper to back Poch and refresh the squad a bit than putting Mourinho & Conte on massive contracts only to sack them. And that's even without considering the bizarre Nuno appointment. It's got to be maddeningly frustrating for Spurs fans tbh.

Kind of same as Mourinho tbh. Mourinho's heights I think are higher - but he's been most successful at teams that are already very good and just need that final push to go through and win titles/CLs. And tbh one thing I think he's got Conte beat at, even if modern football has evolved to where his tactics are less effective, is he's a much better cup manager (and I will never understand why Levy sacked him on the eve of a cup final tbh, not like Spurs have a packed trophy cabinet). I think both of those appointments were made a bit too early for where Spurs were at, especially because wanting to seriously compete with Man City basically means the standards at the club have to be so high that they're nearly perfect and the last time I remember them as serious title contenders was the season Leicester won it... and realistically, the gauntlet that Pep has thrown down over his time at City means that the standards are generally much higher if you seriously want to win the title.

It's absolutely mental how badly the wheels have fallen off at Spurs. It's also mental how Levy's reputation went from being one of the most savvy in the sport in terms of building a team on a budget, to this haphazard approach he's had since hiring Mourinho... and sacking him on the eve of a cup final (and why else do you bring Mourinho into a club if not to challenge for cups when you don't have a title winning squad...) As @Spike let us know before Conte was appointed, when Conte leaves a club it's always a bit of a mess... and his prediction came very true. But it's astounding the way this mess has unfolded. I wouldn't blame any Spurs fans for having absolutely no faith in Levy now that they've basically got to rebuild massively. And to rub salt in the wound, it looks like Chelsea are going to get Poch while Spurs look to be starting their manager search again, from scratch.

I'd also take a leave of absence after 2 weeks of death threats. But I'm pretty sure the company will be fine. America's far right is shit at boycotting. When they want to express their outrage at Budweiser, Nike, Keurig, Disney, etc... they buy products for them to then destroy in front of a camera before they upload the video online. So they spend money on the products they don't want to support and give the company publicity (because even bad press is good press). In a few months it'll all blow over and nobody will give a shit that a bad beer had a transvestite on the can for a short period of time. The vast majority of people in the US, in my experience living here, don't really give a shit about the culture war bullshit the media tries to push on them. Especially on an issue that only really impacts 1% of the US. It's just a distraction the media pushes because it takes away attention from actual issues that should be addressed that aren't necessarily in the best interests of media companies and the companies that advertise on them.

Hmmm unfortunately it looks like replacing the carpeting with flooring with bamboo myself would be about the same as getting someone to take out the carpets and put in the vinyl plank we’ve got in the non-carpeted rooms. I’m looking to move in asap because paying 2 sets of utilities isn’t going to be very fun, so it might just be easier for me to be lazy and have someone do it for me… even if it’s not as high quality.

Thanks! I’m going to have to look at the pricing of all the materials. The fact it’s wood makes me think it’ll be pretty expensive?

Probably vinyl plank

The fuck are oil protestors at a snooker event? Also I heard everyone's pissed off at the Persian guy... why what's he done?

Seems about the same as spending 50 hours not doing it and not knowing exactly where the contractors fucked up.

That's genuinely hilarious on the one hand. On the other hand, I'm sure the two women injured are probably didn't deserve to get hurt. It's a bit mental that it happened in the first place though. Really doesn't highlight any semblance of confidence.

Got a quote for changing the floors at my house... and I think I'm just going to do it myself. Is that a bad idea?

The whole point of the UN is to keep an avenue of communications between the nations of the world - even between countries that don't have good relations (or in some cases, any relations at all). More specifically, it was meant to be a forum for global diplomacy between the 2 superpowers (USA & Russia) at the time and the rest of the world caught in between their nuclear standoff. But there's a reason that the Taliban's Afghanistan is even guaranteed a seat at the UN - that baseline guarantee of diplomacy available for all countries. Most everything else the UN does is... I don't want to say worthless... but it's close to worthless in comparison to the main purpose of the UN. I agree with @Beelzebub in a sense, I don't particularly agree with the idea that Russia's threat of using nuclear weapons is/was serious. But I do agree that Russia's representatives should have an avenue for diplomacy at the UN, as all countries should. Regardless of their illegal war violating human rights. I think there's a real danger in trying to cut off a country from the rest of the world - historically, it hasn't really worked out that well that removal of normal participation of global diplomacy and the global economy forces the change that the west wants to see. Only Apartheid South Africa comes to mind, tbh... and that's a country that's already in the western sphere of influence. With other more dangerous governments of hostile countries, backing those countries into a corner has only served to make them more hostile and gets them to strengthen their resolve in being more hostile and dangerous than ever. A more belligerent Russia's nuclear threats might be a lot more serious, and I suspect their resolve for belligerence and hostility will grow the more economically and diplomatically isolated they are. And ultimately, it's not just Ukrainians that need to worry about whether Russia launches nuclear weapons. On the other hand, I think diplomacy with Russia is a fruitless endeavor for as long as Putin is around. But I'm not sure that justifies denying representatives from a nation on the UN Security Council (and a permanent member, for that matter) their ability to represent their country. And it'll undoubtedly be used as effective propaganda to point to how the west is constantly antagonistic towards Russia & will be used as justification for further Russian antagonism. I think denying the visas feels like the right move morally and emotionally - but I think there's a case that denying a UNSC member their voice at the UN makes the world a bit more unsafe for everybody... and that means it's also not the most moral choice at all.

So doing just fine?

Basically what @nudge said - and if you like onions on your burgers it's a bit different tasting having the onions grill with the meat when smashed into the cooking surface. Some people smash in jalepeno peppers and even cheeses (although I think having ordinary melty cheese if you like cheese on your burgers is better than grilling it with cheese smashed into the burger as it grills) - basically anything that you could put in a burger but isn't lettuce or tomatoes I'm certain someone with a griddle has smashed into a smash burger.

Got my donation in. I'm having an incredibly hectic time (in a good way) in real life. I've not been very active on here... even less so on Discord tbh - hopefully things will change as I get more settled in.

I like both.

Yes but only after we’ve gone out to sign the most injury prone players the world has ever seen

Hey look Azmoun can score regularly if used as a striker and not a midfielder! Bizarre the last manager figured that’s where to play him after spending money to bring him in earlier than a free transfer.