Dr. Gonzo

Yeah, what you're saying is absolutely true. It's why "trickle down economics"/supply side economics is generally ill advised - it doesn't actually stimulate the economy. Instead what you're saying is absolutely true, it gives extra money to the people who don't need to spend that money out of necessity and they're much more likely to save that money and not directly reinvest it back into the economy. I agree with you - if Labour doesn't win the next election it will be an astounding and almost unbelievable failure. For such a long time Tories have just been running the country into the ground - it's been over a decade of their mismanagement. They keep getting rewarded by voters for it, though, and Labour should be appalled that they've managed to somehow reduce themselves into a seemingly permanent opposition party.

Shit like this is why I don't really have any respect for Justin Trudeau. Talks a big talk, but then is happy for Canada to be a second home for the children of the people running an awful government that in one breathe he's condemning. Because he's happy for Canada to be taking in rich people, regardless of the source of their money being wealth stolen from another country.

If it was Russia, it sort of makes sense from an authoritarian ruler perspective. If he’s ousted, there’s no easy way for the oligarchs to return to printing money again. If it was the West, it’s sort of a strange message to send to Russia. I suppose it would let them know that they don’t care if Putin decides to turn off the taps in the winter. We’ll never know though.

The Azov battalion was absorbed into the Ukraine military a while ago, the original leadership hasn’t been affiliated with them for a while. So not really like them at all. Yeah except US soldiers (not mercs) when attacked by a much larger force of Wagner mercs in Syria, they massacred the Wagner mercs at the Battle of Khasham. And the Ukraine war is proving that even outdated US equipment is proving to be effective for a smaller and less advanced military on paper.

Now google the Wagner Group

1940. *edit* actually, no that's wrong. In 1940 it was £1 to $4 - which is much higher of a rate than it's been in my life. They may never have ever been equal before. Yeah, they've never been equal before. The closest was in 1984 when it was £1 to $1.07... just like it is today.

On the one hand, I can understand why western Europe's put so much reliance on the US for defense. WW2 ended and the Cold War began - no European country was really quite in a position to properly defend itself from Russia. And honestly, seeing what the US (and NATO, but a lot of the heavy lifting has been done by the US) has been able to do to Russia by arming Ukraine to the teeth... I'd say Western Europe can look at that and quite comfortably say relying on the US for defense is a pretty sound decision. Russia's only gotten to experience a fraction of first hand experience seeing why the US doesn't provide it's citizens healthcare... and it's made the "might" of the Russian military look a lot less mighty in less than a year. I think it's pretty mental actually, they've managed to make NATO look like it has a purpose again after the end of the Cold War... and not too long after pretty prominent politicians had publicly questioned the purpose of NATO. And now it's pretty clear if Russia did want to start shit with a NATO country, they'd have to be prepared to get nukes otherwise they'd get humiliated on the battlefield. I still think it was most evident that Europe needed to do something about its energy dependence on Russia in 2014. Or even before that, when Russia rolled into Georgia. That was really all the evidence needed to show that Russia is a European power that has aims of expansion into the rest of Europe. But rather than actually address that, Europe remained reliant on Russia. A big problem, for Europe... but really everyone in the world.... is that there's a hell of a lot of issues with any of the big energy producers. None are really ideal to do business with. There's a tradeoff between maintaining dignity, morality, and standing up for "western ideals" and keeping energy affordable.

I don't even know what you're referencing regardint the spec-ops gear shit but I think it's funny to paint what the federal government, who has jurisdiction over migrants in federal custody, to a governor telling people he's flying them one place... and then flying them elsewhere to score political points with the MAGA idiot crowd. Gotta say though, it's impressive how willing you are to fight a culture war for a country that you don't even live in.

Yeah of course they don't want one, but if they keep offering up rubbish candidates as PM and don't like anyone they actually put up it's kind of hard to say we're a proper democracy without actually giving the people a chance at picking the next PM instead of a group of tory weirdos that can't help but find a candidate worse than the last.

Trickle down economics is based around the premise that the ultra rich and the companies will pay workers more with the higher profits they receive, rather than just pocket the extra cash. History has shown that time and time again, this sort of "supply side" economics just gives the people in society who already have the most even more. And I'm sure @Inverted would know more than me - but I think companies have a statutory duty to look out for shareholders, not their workers. So big profits with low overhead trumps paying workers more because companies have more. There's reports that Tories are already putting in letters of no confidence with Truss. After 3 prime ministers that weren't elected, I think it's a bit rich that the tories want to pick yet another PM. Time for a general election if the tories think they've gotten it wrong, AGAIN, imo.

Not when I was a kid

The pound taking a fucking beating has me thinking I should take a trip home soon and live like a king for a few weeks.

I think it’s already pretty violent and if the protests keep going it’s only going to get worse in that regard.

I think he’s been pretty lucky setting up to be a defensive side that relies on set pieces, but he’s been figured out and it shows.

Gareth Southgate is the first English manager to get relegated as a player, club manager, and international manager

Also asylum seekers aren’t illegal immigrants.

They were promised jobs in Massachusets by Florida, who had no authority to promise those jobs to people. They purposefully didn't notify anyone at DHS in Marthas Vineyard that they were sending migrants there. They were also told they were being flown to Boston and that's where they'd get work. They were instead sent to Martha's Vineyard to embarrass Kamala Harris while she's there. It was all a political stunt. They're also being housed in Massachusetts (the state Martha's Vineyard is in, btw) not New York. Begs the question where you're getting your news from tbh. California, Illinois and Pennsylvania are all "sanctuary states" as well - so doesn't really make sense why another sanctuary state would be taking in so many migrants seeking sanctuary. They were also told to change their addresses with USCIS - which isn't the appropriate agency they'd be reporting address changes to. That was a deliberate attempt to get them flagged and fast tracked for deportation after they'd been used as pawns in a political stunt. DeSantis and relevant Florida agencies are now being sued, Texas is being investigated for it's own similar stunt, and the DOJ is investigating both states for being involved in kidnapping and human trafficking. This isn't even properly about illegal immigration - the Biden administration has stopped more illegal immigrants at US borders than any other president's administration in US history in 2 years. People who live in cities and towns on the US-Mexico border aren't too concerned about illegal immigration either (source: I live in a city by the US-Mexico border) - there's a reason for that too, 1.) legal migration of Mexicans to the US, and vice versa, is easy as fuck - it's mostly the drug war that leads people to dig tunnels and use submarines; 2.) most illegal immigrants to the US enter via airports legally - and stay once their visas have expired. This was just an attempt to bring immigration to the public eye again before the midterm elections (like that MiGrAnT cArAvAn that suddenly stopped being an issue for right wing media as soon as the last midterm elections were over) and bring a new front to DeSantis's culture war (because his "war on Disney" stopped being popular with his voters once people in Florida, especially Orlando, found their local and state taxes going up as a result... in the middle of the cost of living skyrocketing). One thing I question: is why the fuck did it cost $500k to hire a jet to fly these people? A quick check indicates a private jet holding 40-50 people is significantly cheaper to hire for one flight that length. So is there some crony capitalism in the midst of this human trafficking scandal? My guess is: yeah, absolutely. In any case, if the US wants more safety at the border with Mexico - they should be addressing their drug policy and doing what they can to stop their nation's drug problem from making Mexico a cartel ruled wild-west. And if the US wants more protection against illegal immigrants, it's got to be better about enforcement of expired visas. Trafficking people to states that republicans don't like very much doesn't really solve the issue. Or any issue. It just furthers a culture war that doesn't serve to do anything other than further divide the country. And that's probably being done because otherwise people will pay attention and see that the rampant corporate corruption of America is probably the greatest issue it faces.

The footage of the protests in Iran is crazy. Good luck to all of those brave kids, I remember my uncle telling me about the aftermath of the 2009 protests - I hope things don't go so brutally for them. The death toll from the response by the Basijis & IRGC keeps rising though - I think it's already higher than the "official" toll of 2009 (which I'm pretty sure really underrepresents how many kids they killed).

Of the newer assassins creeds, I think the best ones are the ones like Black Flag & Valhalla where you’re not really an assassin but your character becomes one. Agree with you on the burnout. I generally like Ubisoft’s open world games (welll…. Assassins Creed & Far Cry), but they are very easy games to burn out on. So much shit to do in those games and the missions do get quite repetitive. I think running through the whole series all in a row would seem more like a chore than it would be fun, which is a shame because some of those games are quite good. Especially the second one.

The first Red Dead Redemption is arguably the best campaign of a single player game I've ever played in my life. The second one is very good and I definitely recommend playing the first one... first... because while the second is a prequel (which is weird lol), they do a lot of referencing back to the first one which I think makes it more enjoyable. But holy shit that first one is so good. Ass Creed games range from really good to absolute shite - but that's an absolute fuckload of games to play if you're going to run through that series.

FFS he's called up an injured Henderson to replace the injured Phillips. I fucking hate Gareth Southgate.

The darkest days under Rodgers can be quite fucking dark, so I'm not surprised. Weirdly, like with us... he's managing to cling onto the job longer than should be reasonably possible considering the performances (and results). Bit of a shitshow for Leicester though - changing managers mid-season is never ideal unless you've got someone lined up after they're ready to come back into football after their sabbatical. And the new manager's going to have to come in and try to give players bereft of confidence some confidence again, as well as try to get players that haven't looked like they give a fuck to suddenly give a fuck. But when Rodgers is out of ideas, it's absolute rubbish and your club feels like it's in total freefall. I know how you feel right now.

I think they'd actively have to try to find someone worse than Rodgers at stopping the rot at this point

Yeah, you should actually look into the details they weren’t even told where they were going and had to fill out false DHS forms. Everyone involved should be investigated

Perhaps DeSantis has that idea because Cubans can come to the US in what would otherwise be illegal immigration, but because of the Cold War, undocumented immigrants from Cuba get a pathway to citizenship in the US. And they are a reliably conservative voter block in Florida. In the rest of the country though, even legal immigrants don't have voting rights. You've got to become a naturalised citizen to be able to vote as an immigrant. I think it's more considered inhumane because taking people from one place without telling them where they're going is... kidnapping and human trafficking... Not so much the destination they've been sent to. And I think most normal people would find kidnapping and human trafficking to be morally wrong. I think it backfired though as the plan was to piss off a wealthy "left wing" (although I think Martha's Vineyard is more classically liberal and not really left-wing at all) neighborhood and instead that community rallied around these migrants who were trafficked from Florida to Martha's Vineyard to provide them support. It's managed to piss off even conservative Hispanic groups too. And it's just another example of a culture war being fought by America's political "leaders" rather than doing anything to address the issues. No surprise DeSantis is waging yet another culture war though.