Dr. Gonzo

If Arthur Melo comes into the side and actually looks class I would be so surprised, but so happy. Cos fuck me, I can't wait until we have a functional midfield again so I'm having to put my hopes in the gonorrhea-boy that Juve fans were delighted to see the back of.

I would not expect it to be anything other than terrible. But it's one of those films where you're hoping it's so bad that it ends up being good. So I hope it's that sort of "good" terrible.

Idk why he's getting shit for putting parmesan on his pasta - "oh no it's not freshly shredded off a block of cheese?" Oh fucking well - I still know why he put the cheese on his pasta. Because cheese and pasta are a good mix. I'll "go Italian" and judge people when they end up putting parmasan on seafood pasta I think it looks tasty @Coma, hope you enjoyed.

Looks like Ajax are picking up Julian Ward for next season. Poor bastards, but I suppose he’ll have to change up from his current strategy of “just sign whoever has good attacking stats in Portugal and Holland” with Ajax.

Is it out? I'll probably buy that for my wife - she loves Harry Potter

Sadly, I don't think there's a quick end. Modern warfare is only really "quick" when one side has a massive advantage over the other (like Azerbaijan against Armenia). Ukraine has the advantage of getting access to better weapons tech, Russia's got a manpower advantage & isn't worrying about things like war crimes in intentionally targeting civilians to weaken the resolve of the Ukrainian people. I think it will drag on for at least another year, maybe two, and for Ukraine's sake, I hope the tanks & fighter jets that may come in the future are enough to turn the tide and get the Russians out of Ukraine. And when I say Ukraine, I mean all of Ukraine - but if peace can be established without Crimea, maybe it should be considered. Because I think the worst thing for Ukraine is for this to be a war of attrition. I think Russia can win a war of attrition. There's also the issue of the international community needing to give Putin an offramp so he can sell a peace deal as a victory for Russia - because he's an authoritarian and that's what authoritarians do when they don't really win a war but need to call for peace. The facade of being a strongman and a military genius is a big part of his authoritarian propaganda. So there's a fine line that needs to be trod on carefully where the international community shouldn't be appeasing an expansionist authoritarian, but also need to give Putin the ability to sell it as a "win" for Russia despite what was supposed to be a short blitz with a new government put in Ukraine now taking over a year and looking like a tough stalemate of sorts.

It just goes to show that the US can't really trust the executive branch with classified material, tbh. The Bush administration was accused of having classified information stored on private email servers with shit security. Hillary Clinton & the buttery males scandal was the same sort of thing. Now we're seeing Obama era documents pop up at Biden's house & Trump with the boxes of classified shit, Pence now having documents.

Apparently there's one in South America now

I think it’s been clear we’ve needed a midfield upgrade for a while, it’s infuriating that we’ve not really addressed it for so long. Now our midfield looks physically and mentally spent, and you can’t have nothing like that in the midfield and expect to play like we used to.

It’s like he never left Chelsea

I’ve been dreading it for months and we’ve only gotten worse. It’s going to be a massacre

Madrid’s going to score in the double digits and FSG will probably still be against us signing a midfielder in the summer.

Fuck I want one

I think this war (not even with confidence in Putin) still got support of higher than 60% of Russians that were willing to answer polls. We're not seeing too many people risk jail (or worse) taking to the streets to demand any change, like China before Xi removed covid restrictions or in Iran where people are just fed up with authoritarian rule. He has enough public support to where there's no civil unrest. People might be unhappy with how Russia has changed in a year, but they're not unhappy enough to demand things go to what they used to be. He's been bordering on desperation the longer this conflict lasts, but all of his calls for ceasefire have remained consistent & unacceptable to Ukraine. They've already threatened nuclear weapons usage more times than any country ever really should and it's not been taken too seriously because at the end of the day Putin won't be able to play Czar if he dooms the world to nuclear holocaust. There's a reason none of these superpowers pick fights with anyone that can seriously hit them back. Although I think in our lifetimes we'll probably end up with world leaders that are too stupid to understand the concept of MAD. But while I think Putin is delusional and a dickhead, I don't think he's as stupid as he's made himself to look in the last year. By the same token, it's why the West hasn't directly aided Ukraine more than funds/arming their military. The US knows if they put boots on the ground in Ukraine, it makes us that much closer to nuclear wear. I think it's too simplistic to say it was just "one" of Putin's closest allies "stole" - I think it's several oligarchs were in on stealing from Russia and lying about the quality and strenght of what they were providing to Russia's military. And Russia's a kleptocracy, with Putin taking the biggest slices of theft from Russia for himself. I wouldn't be surprised if we learn one of the biggest oligarchs defrauding Putin's military was Putin itself. Let's be honest, Russia's got a ridiculous number of those private mercenary armies and Russia wouldn't be leaning on them so heavily if the leadership had full faith and confidence in the way they've prepared the Russian military. The ordinary military are just meat for the grinder. I also think Putin knows his biggest threat is all of the oligarchs that have either: 1) spoken up against the war; 2.) are pissed off they're basically trapped in either Russia or Dubai, with shitloads of what they've looted from Russia frozen in the West. But that's also why he's become much more of a recluse and why so many oligarchs have been arrested or thrown from windows in Russia. Putin's rule is safe as long as Russians largely support the war, remain too afraid to protest, and oligarchs decide that they like living life even without access to their loot, more than they like life inside a gulag or as a mess on the pavement. And for as long as Putin is safe, I don't think he's feeling too much stress about agreeing to a ceasefire or peace treaty that isn't along the lines of the one sided bullshit he's already proposed. And tbh, I think China is watching Ukraine pretty closely. China has it's own issues with corruption that could plague it's military. Russia's got a far more battle proven military than China. And Ukraine is doing an astounding job giving the Russian military hell, without having allies come in and directly fight alongside them - just benefitting from western nations throwing weapons at them. I think if China tries this with Taiwan, the US has a treaty where they will be actively involved. And it's a sea invasion we're talking about, that's even more logistically difficult than a land invasion of a neighboring country. I'm not so sure a largely untested military will want to directly fight against the US, not just US weaponry, considering what a much shittier army has done with a fraction of the US military might behind it.

The Onion's most famous headline is one that pops up a lot... https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1850024424 "'No way to prevent this' says only nation where this happens regularly."

So far there's been no indication that Russia is willing to concede Donbass, let alone Crimea, will ever be recognised as Ukraine again by them. So I don't think that's a likely scenario at all, unless Putin is suddenly out of power - but short of someone protecting him putting a bullet in his head, I don't think the likelihood of Putin not being in power is very high. Ukraine's got no incentive to negotiate with a Russia unwilling to recognize all Ukranian territories as Ukrainian (including Crimea). Nor should the rest of the world encourage them to appease Russia in this way. We know appeasement of expansionist authoritarians does not dissuade them. I'm not even sure why Ukraine would trust any peace treaty signed by Russia, considering Russia tore up the 1994 agreement that gave USSR nuclear weapons stored in Ukraine back to Russia. And I'm sure everyone involved in that from Ukraine's perspective is really regretting that agreement now. If Russia is desperate enough to use nuclear weapons, it means they're desperate and stupid enough to kill us all. Because we all know how the world will respond to those nuclear launches. But I don't think Russia will launch nuclear weapons for the same reason the US and Russia don't invade countries with nuclear weapons - it guarantees their own demise.

This guy was so shit

I think it's strange that Kenwright many years ago was able to get the media and so many, even amongst Everton fans, to buy into the "little old Everton" mindset regarding the club. In reality Everton are one of the biggest clubs in the country & years of mediocrity were sort of left unquestioned by the media due to Kenwright's success in shifting expectations and downgrading the club's ambitions as other clubs used the influx of TV money each year to keep pressing on.

A few days ago I heard there were concrete links with Phillips and Galatasaray - I wonder if this latest injury changes our plans to sell him.

Reports of an IRGC convoy struck in Syria too.

My wife’s from SF so we’re wanting the 49ers to win. But they’re not going to. Honestly pretty great season for the 49ers regardless. Every QB got injured and they kept delivering with backups until this match. and the Eagles were a favourite at the beginning of the season, so no surprises that they’re looking comfortable against a struggling 49ers offense

Partey bail extended

Nothing questionable about it. It’s an evil and oppressive government & I hope the revolution is successful