RandoEFC

Painful reading.

CNN might be biased but Fox genuinely just has people on spouting demonstrably incorrect lies and conspiracy theories on a daily basis. Smaller, "independent" news sources tend to be started up and funded by dodgy "think tanks" and dark money from well-off people with vested political interests. It's incredibly difficult to tell which ones are actually reliable (not many) regardless of what agenda they pursue. At least the "big" news sources (apart from Fox these days apparently) can't afford to just make up biased shite all the time because they have to retain some reputation as brokers of actual news. Start going too biased and pandering to the fringes of the far left or far right just loses you your reputation and the sensible middle ground majority who watch for actual news and make up the majority of the viewership. You see in the US what would happen in the UK if capitalism got ramped up even further and the whole media started off from a relatively blank slate like you've had in the US. We're incredibly lucky to have some public service broadcasting in the BBC. You can tell by the way their reporting is hated by the far right and far left alike that the people working there make fact-based reporting their top priority and don't have an editorial process that's almost entirely driven by the extreme, rabid minorities at either end of the political spectrum who can't look at anything in the world without applying their preconceived political filters to it. Whichever country it is though, it really is sick how the media is weaponised to varying extents to influence the public in their views and opinions. You have to work really fucking hard to just get access to cold, hard facts and make up your own mind.

Gambling sponsors .

Tarkowski having a medical ahead of his free transfer. Club have decided not to offer Delph a new deal. Means he will leave on a free along with Tosun, Sigurdsson and others amounting to a 400k weekly reduction in the wage bill. Pound for pound, Delph is one of the worst signings made by a Premier League club in my lifetime.

Well apparently fixture congestion is a real concern for the big clubs so I presume without reading the article they've replaced the Group Stage with an extra Knockout Round to streamline the process of reducing 32 teams to 16 over two legs instead of six group games. No? Another year of "let's abolish the League Cup at the expense of the bottom 86 teams in the Football League just so a few Man City players get a bit less tired around February" it is then.

He won't. This has been obvious since Partygate started in December. We just have a PM currently who doesn't know when it's all over and will do anything to buy another week or month or three more days. He believes that the cult of Boris Johnson can always win people back around even from an impossible position if he just keeps himself in the game. The unspoken rules and standards of UK governance have always worked fine in these scenarios before because past leaders have had the decency and self awareness to step aside when it becomes clear their time is up. This guy doesn't have that though. Whether the rules of politics return to the norm and show him up as an exception, though, I'm not sure. It's possible the levers of accountability like the ministerial code and the electoral commission might need shoring up and setting in stone a bit more after he finally fucks off to stop the next horrendous moron from staying in office as far past his or her sell by date as he has.

It's not actually funny that people in serious need of a normal government have to go without one for even longer but you have to try to enjoy Johnson's suffering at least because he really, really deserves it. As for the Brexit thing, yes, I've heard about 50 "he delivered Brexit"s today and about 50 "they'll stop Brexit if we oust Boris" as well. Not at all contradictory. But this lot are so bereft of actual ideas or genuine accomplishments to talk about beside getting the vaccines out a few weeks before the EU that it's all they've got left to recycle the disingenuous slogans from three years ago that got them in in the first place. They can campaign (by lying mostly) but they can't govern for shit, it's actually embarrassing how fundamentally dysfunctional they are as operators before you lay a finger on their awful politics.

59/41 split. Very damaging to be honest. They're going to get absolutely torn apart in the Wakefield and Tiverton by-elections in a couple of weeks as well. It's going to be fun watching this tail spin for a bit longer.

Please give me Mad Nad losing it on Twitter tipping the scales against her beloved Boris to end his premiership. No more fitting end.

Sounds like he'll win which will only extend the death spiral.

The local government will never call for it to be removed. The TT fortnight brings so many people to the island. There's 80-90k residents here and the last TT we had 46k visitors. It's simply too big a part of the tourism industry and the economy generally. There's not much outcry from the public either to be honest. Nobody's making them race so it sort of gets accepted as their own personal risk when there are fatalities. There is irritation over the road closures and stuff but the young ones like me appreciate the boom in social opportunities and the older ones who have families just go on holiday for the fortnight because the kids are off school and it's cheaper than it would be in July/August.

Paul Joseph Watson is one of the most bad faith unreliable sources of insight and "news" on the Internet. Many of his followers like to treat him as the guy who's "actually telling us the truth" while ignoring the most logical conclusion, that actually there's a very good reason the stuff he comes out with isn't being said anywhere else, because it's heavily warped at best or completely untrue at worst.

It isn't sudden. It's been gradually building for basically all of his time at Mclaren where Norris has quite easily had the measure of him. He got a lot of benefit of the doubt last year as people said fairly enough that the new cars would give him a chance for a reset and take away Lando's advantage of being more used to the old-era Mclaren car but things have pretty much carried on the way they were and Lando's two most recent spankings of Daniel in Spain and Monaco in light of his bout of tonsillitis have really triggered the latest chapter of the conversation.

Second fatality of the races this year already . It's a great event and a mini festival for us locals but one of those things like the Monaco GP in F1 (for different reasons) that just would never happen if you tried to introduce it today.

-19.3%.

Johnson's reaction to those boos will be to feel sorry for himself. He's absolutely convinced that it's not his fault people feel that way about him and that he's been stitched up by the media. He genuinely thinks that these excuses about attending people's leaving speeches because it was essential to sustain morale while others weren't allowed to attend funerals and the bedsides of dying relatives are legitimate. He won't enjoy it at all. He'll hate it because he thinks people look at him and see the King of the World and he couldn't be more wrong.

The realisation is starting to dawn on some of them that the horse they've backed to the hilt and beyond has finally led them to a position where there's no good outcome for them. He's blown it himself whilst ensuring there are no good alternatives left so he can cling onto power for a few more months. Many of them still remain oblivious though and will do until they get punted out of the circle of power which is going to be precious viewing.

This. There are demented people in lots of other places with different firearm legislation and a lot less school shootings. You can't compare it to knives or baseball bats. God forbid someone rushed a school with a weapon like that, probably/hopefully they get decked before they get anywhere near a child.

Increasing rumours now that Johnson will face a confidence vote in the near future. Cunt.

First TT fortnight for three years coming up around here. Got caught out with the first road closure of the season today. I actually live inside the course for the first time ever this year. Not a massive one for the bikes, but I do enjoy the 50% boost in the population for a week and a half and the massive beer tent and stage they open in town. Might still go and watch some of the sessions as the last part of the lap goes straight past the end of my road so it would be kinda daft not to.

Congrats @Pyfish, good luck in the final.

You can't win. Direct conflict with Putin to achieve a Ukraine victory risks nuclear war. Not sending some sort of aid is essentially leaving Ukraine for dead. The only answer really is something in between. Not sure exactly what though.

Continho and the defender are both 29. The problem you want to avoid is ending up with a Koeman manager who is using your club as a stepping stone when they have their eyes on their dream job somewhere else in 3-5 years time. You never want to see them dropping too much money on players who are in the middle of their peak years. Even Sir Alex Ferguson was guilty of this when his retirement appeared on the horizon when he made Van Persie his number one priority. Won them the title that season but left many other problems unsolved for his successors. Good quality signings on paper but if there's a lot of evidence of this being Gerrard's strategy in the transfer market, then approach with caution.