Burning Gold

New measures have been leaked early to the press every single time since we started this in about March. Why are they only doing this now?

"Tier 4" for London and the South East over Christmas according to Twitter. For the government go from "I won't cancel Christmas" to "Okay I won't cancel Christmas, but please don't have Christmas" to "Christmas is cancelled!" in less than a week is truly cowardly

Really bad news. Seriously wonder how long it'll take to recover from that sufficiently to play football professionally, if ever if there's permanent lung damage

Invaded is strong. They sent troops to support the communist side in the civil war. Cuba's always tried to export communism beyond its borders (sending doctors overseas being a topical example) albeit on a small scale due to their size and economic frailty. At that time, Vietnam had just ended and the major players were tiring of getting involved in foreign wars. Cuba, at their strongest economically, saw their opportunity to make their mark

Remainers literally voted down soft Brexit in parliament because they wanted to go all in on a second referendum. We agree that they're within their rights to do that, but you can't just wash your hands of responsibility for the consequences when your plan is a massive hail mary that relies on a Conservative government voluntarily ceding ground and cancelling Brexit. Of course Boris Johnson's Conservative government aren't going to pass soft Brexit. Last year's election gave them a huge mandate to push Brexit through at a time when the debate had changed to become simply hard Brexit vs Remain, due in no small part to the fact no one was backing soft Brexit. But May's minority government would've jumped at the chance to get a Brexit deal done, any Brexit deal, had parliament approved soft Brexit. The voters would've let them as well; the pro-Brexit mood was a lot less hardline at that time and it could've been sold as a victory of soft Brexit over no Brexit, a possibility that went out of the window somewhere between that vote and Johnson becoming PM and turning the debate into hard Brexit vs no deal. To reiterate, Brexit is absolutely on the hands of the Conservatives and their assorted conspirators, but the remain strategy left this possibility wide open when it didn't need to

I don't think it's "their fault", but there is absolutely a group of people who decided that, instead of accepting Brexit and trying for the most favourable terms possible, they'd try to block it altogether. Fair enough, you can argue it's a noble goal, but it hasn't come off and they need to accept their share of responsibility for the situation we've ended up in. The issue has become so polarised by various attempts to stop Brexit (even more so!) that the party line is now that hard Brexit is the only acceptable type and pro-Brexit Boris Johnson is Prime Minister. When the Brexit-neutral May was Prime Minister, there was an actual vote in parliament that could've seen us go down the soft Brexit route that failed by 3 votes because some were too determined to cancel Brexit altogether. I know this sounds like when we blame Lib Dem voters for Tories winning instead of Tory voters, but you can only control so much and you have to expect that Tories are gonna Tory, and people who want Brexit are going to push it as far as they feel they can.

I thought that as well. Apparently it's everyone over 50, plus adults with an underlying condition; being overweight doesn't count (because that'd be 60% of the population right there ) but morbid obesity does It's prioritised within that phase 1 so we should start seeing good results (and hopefully easing of restrictions) sooner.

I read yesterday that there are 18m vulnerable and 25m in priority 1 (which I think is something like vulnerable + carers + healthcare workers), which is fucking loads in a country of 65m and still leaves us needing just over three years! That said, the rate will definitely increase. For a start, this is only one of three (I think?) vaccines, and the most troublesome in terms of logistics. They're confident the vaccine will work on this new strain as well. Viruses mutate all the time and there are quite a few strains out there at the moment, so a vaccine that can't deal with mutations would be pretty useless... and arguably not worth bothering with.

Most of the takes I'm seeing from "those" people ignore the virus stats and focus on the fact we're still under restrictions and more people are in higher tiers now than before lockdown 2. As if they've forgotten about the risk of the virus itself and simply think the point of restrictions is to prevent further restrictions. To some extent, I think the government's messaging about a second lockdown being economically disastrous hasn't helped on this front, along with those outside the government (e.g. Starmer and the welsh lot) appealling for an earlier lockdown with the stated aim of reducing the need for tighter restrictions later on. On the other hand, I'm no longer in the mood to make excuses for people being wilfully obtuse. There are times as an adult when you have to expect people to take simple concepts for granted in order to have a proper conversation without having to constantly retread old ground. That's not to say assumptions shouldn't be challenged, but they do need to be challenged and not simply ignored. If you're arguing against lockdowns without acknowledging that the latest one has reversed the trend on new cases and cut them by between a third and a half, you're missing the point and wasting everyone's time

Didn't expect you to be pedantic over my use of the word all, but it's interesting that the example you picked is a sport with standardised pitch sizes I don't think any of what you've said refutes my statement that other sports apply their rules as precisely as the technology allows. Of course video replay can't tell you definitively if there was a foul or whether the receiver had control of the ball, but it can tell you if the ball moved on contact with the ground, and it can tell you if the receiver got two feet down and "made a move common to the game"; it can tell you if a batman made his ground before the bails were removed, etc., etc.

Not that I'm accusing @Lucas of trying to pull anything, but that's not the final image, is it? It's a dotted line when they confirm it

Well the rules need to apply to all teams evenly, and the easiest way to do that is to have a precise definition and stick to it. Playing areas being different sizes is hardly unique to football, yet all other sports manage to apply their rules as precisely as the technology allows.

It's a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy isn't it? I'm genuinely not saying any of this to have a pop at anyone in particular, but when people decide they hate VAR and jump in every thread (or real life conversation) telling everyone how much they hate it, stating absolute falsehoods, and offering half-baked "solutions", then yeah, that is going to spark discussions, possibly slightly heated ones, and derail actual conversation about the game. It grates a bit when those people then turn around and make that an argument against VAR. It's borderline infuriating when those people are the TV presenters who literally set the agenda for post-match discussion

Cavani will get 1 match tops. That's what Balotelli and Bernardo Silva got for posting racist jokes and I can't see how way Cavani did was worse than that. If anything it's less bad, but obviously you can't ban someone for less than 1 match

I think you're naive if you think that fans will meekly accept a) decisions being made against their team with no attempt to get it right beyond a cursory glance and b) a referee's judgement on what is and isn't obviously offside. We already have reems of evidence that we won't accept a referee's view on what is and isn't obviously a foul, so I don't see why offside would be any different

It's more because he's spent a significant portion of his career running a sportswashing enterprise for one of the worst states in the world to be honest, hence the comment about anyone else willingly taking a job there

He is, but then anyone who willingly signs up to work for that club is a cunt, so we'd only be breaking even if he were to leave

There's also the fact we finished about 12th in distance covered last season. We press like mad for short periods, but it's opportunistic and the majority of our game is based on control and keeping our opponents at arm's length. Really lazy analysis to say we win because we run a lot

Absolutely love him, one of my favourite to watch because he's so exciting and unpredictable. Very switched on as well. He's shown flashes for us in the past, particularly in that Villa game, but the challenge for him this season is to prove he can turn inventiveness into effectiveness and put up numbers. I've not had a chance to watch Blackburn this season, but it sounds like he's on his way to doing that

I don't think they do, but obviously this increases the chances of them getting it

I'd love to agree with you, but had we gone into the season with one (injury prone) senior centre back, you wouldn't have bet on us to win it again. We'd be being written off in all parts because it's a ludicrous position to be in, and yet that's the position we now find ourselves in. I think it's a bit much to say we'd be doing well to get top 4, but by rights City and Chelsea should both be very disappointed if they don't pull clear of us

This isn't the first time he's suffered serious injury playing for England (and Southgate) that's ruled him out for an extended number of games for his club (if rumours are to be believed). This time last year England fans were booing him for being attacked by a teammate. Honestly why would you bother if you were Gomez?

Christ we're going to be at this for a few more days aren't we. Pennsylvania saying it's going to take them at least that long and Arizona and Nevada look to be the same. I don't trust AZ anyway

Anyone know what's going on in GA? @Stan's website just says unknown for votes left They're going to recount it, but will they call it before then?

It's going to be so close in Georgia. Trump leads by ~12,000 with just under 48,000 left to count. If my maths is correct, that means Biden needs to win about two-thirds of the remaining votes to take it. I know postal votes lean Democrat, but that seems a lot to me in a state as close as that