Rayvin

I think that general principle is very literally the lifeblood of the forum tbh

I'm still on Destiny 2 myself 7 years on and still going.

The only metric I can think of that would support the existing status quo would be to limit each club by a percentage increase based on its previous year/3 year sponsorship driven revenue generation. The big clubs are already saturated on that front and would be unlikely to exceed a (for instance) 10% increase in previous years sponsorship revenues. We would be particularly affected by it since Ashley did so very little to make a commercial success of us on this front. It would be incredibly unfair of course but no team in the league would be hit by it more than us, I suspect.

Is Starmer going to challenge him on that though, or would that risk offending the Brexit faithful?

We're not going to be signing superstars because this is a longer term project, they've said as much. I like what they've done with the team so far on just £90m - if £60m more is in line with that in terms of return on investment, then that's fine by me.

This is a salient point indeed. If restrictions are being lifted, what was the point from an 'authoritarian, control oriented' POV? There clearly was none, which blows their entire fucking standpoint out of the water. Also I'm now seeing some of the anti-vax people I know coming down with COVID, and it's fully wiping them out. The attempts to put a brave face on it are painful. You were wrong, lads. That's it. You believed a conspiracy theory propagated by people who hate you, and they did you up good and proper. That's all there is to it. The scientific community, and experts, the people who spend their lives dedicated to protecting you from your idiocy and conspiracy theories, were right. See also Brexit, Trump, voting for the Tories, mental health and late stage capitalism.

I do say that tbf.

I started off thinking this was banter but honestly I'm not sure anymore. It's a full blown qualitative vs quantitative argument. I love statistical analysis of, frankly, most things - but I also think you can just watch the game and come up with fairly similar conclusions from a qualitative assessment. Then again I've only got one prediction right so far, what do I know.

I'm actually quite opposed to the banhammer on general principle fwiw The whole mod team tried to avoid this but it is what it is.

He posted a meme that made fun of trans people. Presumably with the expectation that it would trigger a bout of arguing.

I read the full range of news information I can - like I've said, I'm not buried in my echo chamber

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/02/13/eu-hands-britain-post-brexit-olive-branch-offer-lead-new-security/ EU wants us to lead on new security Council for Europe. Nice to see some unity although its worth pointing out that at least as far as I understood it, this was really our area within the EU anyway.

The proof will be in the pudding either way, but honestly CT while you're right about the fixtures and so on (although it's not just Burnley and us down there, even Brighton could get pulled in at this point) I feel like you're not giving enough credit to how the team has played - we were fairly unlucky to lose both of our last two games, and they were away to one very good team and one very desperate team. The fact that we're performing well enough now that even 'poor performances' are resulting in very close, very unfortunate losses - rather than 3-5 nil drubbings - should give us some encouragement.

Yeah, shame most of those voting for "freedom" are closet Putin sympathisers. He can fuck right off tbh, the unmitigated cunt.

Agree with both of you, just depressing to see.

Is anyone else becoming a bit concerned that China appears to have sided with Russia on this? I read something about them offering military hardware to support the endeavour. And also this: https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/18/asia/wang-jixian-chinese-vlogger-ukraine-intl-hnk/index.html Chinese vlogger branded a national traitor for sharing the truth.

Done

I honestly and fully think a lot of this is explained by that Carole Cadwalldr tweet that PL linked to a few days back. The world changed around 2014 and not for the better.

Has anyone asked him about our relegation prospects recently? I've be genuinely amused to see how he's processing that

This would be amazing

Trump was a consequence of Putin's information war within our countries - he is the political personification of isolationism and anti-internationalism. He withdrew the US from several significant global organisations and most of his rhetoric was around building walls. Repairing the damage done to the US led world order takes time. Alliances were weakened, the US started to look like a far less dependable partner. The shakiness of the western world order, I would argue, is an emboldening factor. And given his policies and approach to diplomacy, I would suggest that it is clear that Trump significantly contributed to this shakiness. And truthfully, sped up the wider decline of the US as a global power.

It took me longer than I care to admit to appreciate that this was a joke

I don't know if anyone on here would disagree with that statement about Trump vs Bush btw, at least in terms of direct and easily visible deaths and associated wrongs. When you look further into the indirect consequences though, I think the water muddies significantly. Bush was a status quo kind of guy and Trump was... well also a status quo guy, but one who was prepared to throw fuel onto the bonfire of things that the status quo doesn't care about (everything other than money). Trump pulled the US back from the world stage and emboldened Putin - I'm not saying Biden is playing a blinder with this, he isn't, but Trump is the anti-globalisation figure. Anti-internationalism. It's directly aligned with Putin and his aims of bringing down the Western framework of the world order, replacing it instead with a return to imperialism and "strong men" politics. Like it or not, internationalism is the thing that provides stability and prosperity for the world. Yes it's flawed, yes it could be a hell of a lot fairer than it is, but it's better than any other alternative that is presently feasible. What Putin and Trump are putting on the table is far, far worse.

I've said it before, but my "favourite" point of interest with it is that the overlap in the venn diagram of people who voted Brexit and those who favour the death penalty is larger than any other considered metric, including opposition to immigration. More Brexiters support the death penalty than oppose immigration. And I'm not sure this is a demographic that changes their mind. I'll be quiet now anyway.

I mean it's not as if they're delegating it to him, it feels more like the press are specifically targeting him - presumably because they have higher access but also because he's the more obvious face of the team. I assume they could target Staveley but they'd simply be told that business is business. They're asking Howe specifically because he's an actual human being who has chosen to be associated with this - rather than a member of the elite who view us all as ants anyway. No one at the club is going to come out and say anything bad about the regime. That said, I applaud the spirit of the comment. You're right in essence, but no one is going to do anything about it. Howe is just an easier target than Staveley for the press though, IMO.