Dr Gloom

That's bollocks. why is it bollocks? why do we always lose on pens? a lot of it psychological if you ask me, a problem the germans don't have because their players are used to winning, not choking, on this biggest stage. maybe england will prove me wrong - i hope so - but i wouldn't against the weight of expectation plus our collective failures over the years weighing on the players' minds and resulting in us going out in the quarter finals again on pens to a team like germany, that arguably we should be capable of beating. Do you honestly think the failures of past teams overly play on the minds of this 23? I don't. i think the collective failure of past england teams and our dreadful record at penalties combined with the massive hype and pressure to win that we always see in the english media does play on the english players' minds, yes. we don't have a winning mentality when it comes to the national team in this country, unlike the germans. if you put us against the germans in a penalty shoot out, i would bet on them winning 9 times out of 10 despite the fact that our squad looks better on paper. how else do you explain that they usually progress to around the semi final stage despite often looking ordinary on paper when the much-hyped english squad rarely get past the quarter finals. the germans got to the semis last time and people were saying the same thing about their squad as this time round. i remember the euro 96 shoot out clearly. you could just tell that every german that stood up to take a pen, looked confident of burrying it. then you look at gareth southgate stepping up to take one....

Lefties in general love knocking Israel while giving Muslims a bit of an easy ride - I think because they see right wing anti-muslim feeling as something to be opposed. I on the other hand see religious fuckwittery on both sides which I have no respect for so tend to call cuntery on both sides (or at least I try to). yeah, that's what i'm getting at. i'm a liberal but i find it ironic that israel is always the bad guy and a lot of the arab nations - and the islamofascists within them - get an easy ride by many lefties that don't want to come across like they read the daily mail. the truth is, the israeli government doesn't do itself any favours but israelis in general aren't about to start blowing themselves up in public places and flying planes into buildings.

That's bollocks. why is it bollocks? why do we always lose on pens? a lot of it psychological if you ask me, a problem the germans don't have because their players are used to winning, not choking, on this biggest stage. maybe england will prove me wrong - i hope so - but i wouldn't against the weight of expectation plus our collective failures over the years weighing on the players' minds and resulting in us going out in the quarter finals again on pens to a team like germany, that arguably we should be capable of beating.

Pipe down. seriously though, i don't see any evidence that geordies have some kind of moral highground over other football fans.

would we really piss on the germans though stevie? they're just the sort of side that we consistently fail to raise our game against in big tournaments. remember that for all our quality players, we have only progressed past the quarter finals of the world cup once since we won it 1966. england are big time chokers. failure is ingrained in the players' minds.

clearly israel has committed atrocities and some of its actions have been indefensible. however, the point about the relative global uproar against the israeli atrocities compared with other nations is a valid one

ISRAEL'S PECULIAR POSITION...by Eric Hoffer - Los Angeles Times26/5/1968. The Jews are a peculiar people: things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews. Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people and there is no refugee problem. Russia did it, Poland and Czechoslovakia did it. Turkey threw out a million Greeks and Algeria a million Frenchman. Indonesia threw out heaven knows how many Chinese and no one says a word about refugees. But in the case of Israel , the displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees. Everyone insists that Israel must take back every single one. Arnold Toynbee calls the displacement of the Arabs an atrocity greater than any committed by the Nazis. Other nations when victorious on the battlefield dictate peace terms. But when Israel is victorious, it must sue for peace. Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians in this world. Other nations, when they are defeated, survive and recover but should Israel be defeated it would be destroyed. Had Nasser triumphed last June [1967], he would have wiped Israel off the map, and no one would have lifted a finger to save the Jews. No commitment to the Jews by any government, including our own, is worth the paper it is written on. There is a cry of outrage all over the world when people die in Vietnam or when two Blacks are executed in Rhodesia . But, when Hitler slaughtered Jews no one demonstrated against him. The Swedes, who were ready to break off diplomatic relations with America because of what we did in Vietnam , did not let out a peep when Hitler was slaughtering Jews. They sent Hitler choice iron ore, and ball bearings, and serviced his troops in Norway . The Jews are alone in the world. If Israel survives, it will be solely because of Jewish efforts. And Jewish resources. Yet at this moment, Israel is our only reliable and unconditional ally. We can rely more on Israel than Israel can rely on us. And one has only to imagine what would have happened last summer [1967] had the Arabs and their Russian backers won the war, to realize how vital the survival of Israel is to America and the West in general. I have a premonition that will not leave me; as it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish, the Holocaust will be upon us all.

let's get the whistle massive out there too with their white gloves and glow sticks

those horns are going to get annoying pretty quickly

i caught a bit of this last night. really liked the first series but lost interest when it turned into a freak show around the time of series 4/5. i wondered in an attempt to win back lost viewing figures whether they might go back to the first series et up and put some normal people in there. sadly, they reveretd to type and it's the usual collection of freaks and wrong uns itching for their ten minutes of fame so they can sell their story to the sun or star. i shall nto be watching.

more shame than you probably

geordie morals? sounds a bit like fat fred and his geordie nation bullshit

nice avatar

just watched drag me to hell. superb final scene

there should be a ban on the advert for that fungal nail infection treatment stuff. it always seems to come on when i'm eating in front of the telly

not wasting all those billions on renewing the trident missle system that we don't need anymore would have been a start. that's the main reason why i voted lib dem. annoyingly it was one of the policies they had to drop as part of the coalition agreement. seems bonkers that money is going into a weapons system that we simply don't need anymore when there's such a massive hole in the public finances.

"Go Back to Auschwitz": A Message From the Flotilla http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/45...he_Flotilla.asp

the obvious danger with making the cuts too quickly now is the fragiel state of the global economy. canada got away with it in the 90s because it had a booming us economy to support it during rh e clinton era. likewise with sweden making quick cuts in the 90s when europe was buzzing. obviously that isn't the case now. the cuts clearly have to be made but there is a clear danger of cutting to much, too quickly. it's going to be a difficult balancing act to avoid a double dip recession.

It’s time to stop demonizing Israel The flood of hypocrisy and bad faith that seems to have just been waiting across the media worldwide for the Mavi Marmara is by no means acceptable. By Bernard-Henri Lévy Of course, my position hasn’t changed. As I said the day it happened, during a fierce debate in Tel Aviv with one of Benjamin Netanyahu’s ministers, I continue to find the manner in which the assault against the Mavi Marmara and its flotilla was effected off the Gaza coast to be “stupid.” If I’d had any remaining doubt, the inspection of the seventh boat − carried out without a trace of violence Saturday morning − would have convinced me there were other ways Israel could have operated to have kept the tactical and PR trap set by the provocateurs of Free Gaza from snapping shut, and with blood spilled. That said and repeated, the flood of hypocrisy, bad faith and, ultimately, disinformation that seems to have just been waiting for this pretext to flow into the breach and sweep across the media worldwide − as is the case every time the Jewish state slips up and commits an error − is by no means acceptable. The catchphrase being trotted out ad nauseum refers to the blockade imposed “by Israel.” The most elementary honesty, however, requires one to make clear that this blockade has been undertaken by both Israel and Egypt, conjointly, along the borders of the two countries that share frontiers with Gaza, and with the thinly disguised blessing of all the moderate Arab regimes. Saying the blockade has been imposed by Israel alone can only be described as disinformation. The moderate Arab regimes, of course, are only too happy to have someone else contain the influence of this armed extension, this advanced base and, perhaps one day, this aircraft-carrier of Iran in the region. The very idea of a “total and merciless” blockade ‏(Laurent Joffrin’s June 5 editorial in the French daily Liberation‏) “taking hostage the humanity [of Gaza]” ‏(former French prime minister Dominique de Villepin in Le Monde on the same date‏) also constitutes disinformation. We mustn’t tire of reminding others: the blockade concerns only arms and the material needed to manufacture them. It does not prevent the daily arrival, via Israel, of between 100 and 120 trucks laden with foodstuffs, medical supplies and humanitarian goods of every kind. Humanity is not “in danger” in Gaza, and it is a lie to state that people are “dying of hunger” in the streets of Gaza City. It is debatable whether or not a military blockade is the right course of action to weaken and, one day, bring down the fascislamist government of Ismail Haniyeh. But it is an indisputable fact that the Israelis who man the checkpoints between the territories night and day are the first to make the elementary but essential distinction between the regime ‏(that they seek to isolate‏) and the population ‏(which they are careful not to confuse with the regime, and in particular not to penalize as, once again, aid has never stopped passing into Gaza‏). Disinformation: the utter silence, throughout the world, about Hamas’ incredible attitude now that the flotilla has carried out its symbolic duty − to trap the Jewish state and relaunch, as never before, the process of demonization. In other words, now that the Israelis have carried out their inspection and brought the aid cargo to those for whom it was supposedly intended, Hamas’ attitude in blocking that aid at Kerem Shalom checkpoint, allowing it to slowly rot, is met with silence. To hell with any merchandise that has passed through the hands of Jewish customs! Chuck out the “toys” that brought tears to the eyes of good European souls, but became impure after spending too many long hours in the Israeli port of Ashdod! Gaza’s children have been used as nothing more than a human shield for the Islamist gang who took power by force three years ago, or cannon fodder or media vignettes. The children’s games or their wishes are the last thing anyone in the Strip worries about, but who says so? Who shows the slightest indignation? Liberation recently ran an awful headline − “Israel, Pirate State” − which, if words still mean anything, can only contribute to the delegitimization of the Jewish state. Who will dare explain that, if there is a hostage-taker in Gaza, one who coldly and unscrupulously takes advantage of people’s suffering and, in particular, that of the children − in sum, a pirate − it is not Israel but Hamas? Laughable, but given the strategic context, catastrophic disinformation was clearly seen in the speech given in Konya, in central Turkey, by a prime minister who throws in prison anyone who dares to evoke the genocide of the Armenians in public, but who has the nerve, there, before thousands of fired-up demonstrators yelling anti-Semitic slogans, to denounce Israeli “state terrorism.” Still more disinformation: the lament of the useful idiots who, before Israel did, fell into the clutches of these strange “humanitarians” who, in the case of the Turkish IHH, are Jihad enthusiasts, anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish apocalyptical fanatics, both men and women − some of whom, just days before the incident, expressed their wish to “die as martyrs.” ‏(The Guardian, June 3; Al Aqsa TV, May 30‏). How can a writer of the calibre of Sweden’s Henning Mankell allow himself to be taken advantage of this way? When he tells us he is thinking of forbidding the translation of his books into Hebrew, how can he really forget the sacrosanct distinction between a stupid or wrong-headed government and the masses of those who do not identify with it? How can a chain of cinemas ‏(Utopia‏) in France decide to cancel the release of a film, “A Cinq heures de Paris,” in the same way, simply because its writer, Leonid Prudovsky, is an Israeli citizen? Finally, the battalions of Tartuffes who regret that Israel is declining the demand for an international inquiry are disinformers as well. The truth is, once again, much simpler and more logical: What Israel is refusing is an inquiry requested by the UN Human Rights Council, where those great democrats − the Cubans, Pakistanis and Iranians − reign. What Israel does not want is a procedure of the kind that resulted in the famous Goldstone report, commissioned after Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. The five judges on that sympathetic commission − four of whom had never made a secret of their militant anti-Zionism − wrapped up 575 pages of interviews of Palestinian fighters and civilians, conducted under the watchful eye of Hamas political commissioners ‏(an absolute and unprecedented heresy in this kind of work‏), in a matter of mere days. Such a botched inquiry would amount to a masquerade of international justice, something Israel simply cannot stand for. Its conclusions would be known in advance and would only serve to haul, as usual and perfectly unilaterally, the region’s sole and unique democracy into the defendants’ dock. One last word. For a man like me, someone who takes pride in having helped to conceive, with others, this kind of symbolic action ‏(the boat for Vietnam; the march for the survival of Cambodia in 1979; various and sundry anti-totalitarian boycotts and, more recently, the deliberate violation of the Sudan border to break the blockade hiding the perpetration of massacres in Darfur‏) − in other words, for a militant of humanitarian interference and all the media fuss that goes with it, this pathetic saga has something of a caricature to it, a gloomy grimace of destiny. But this is all the more reason not to give in. All the more reason to reject this confusing of genres, this inversion of values. All the more reason to resist this hijacking of meaning, that places the very spirit of a policy conceived to counter the intent of barbarians at their service. Destitution of the anti-totalitarian dialectic, its imitations and its reversals. Confusion of an era when we combat democracies as if they were dictatorships or fascist states. This maelstrom of hatred and madness is about Israel. But it also concerns, as we should be well aware, some of the most precious things established in the movement of ideas in the last 30 years, especially on the left, and these are thus imperiled. A word to the wise is sufficient. http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/...israel-1.294833

did a double bill last night of up and hurt locker. both class

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...olumns&sid=

the idf has just boarded the rachel corrie. let's hope they handle the situation better than last week

i watched it throughout. loved it and hated it in equal measure. it's pretty lame of the writers to throw in so many unanswered questions then say it was a show all about the characters - it was a kop out and yet they were right in some respects. i watched every episode and felt a bit emotional during the afterlife scene in the last episode despite the fact i was still frustrated with all the loose ends. the only question really answered was the flash forward thing going on in the last season was purgatory before the afterlife. so many loose ends before that. i agree with those that say the writers really didn't know where it was going as they were writing it. shame really as i thought the first couple of seasons promised a lot more than the writers were eventually able to deliver.