Makom

That still doesn't make it an essay you tool. Do you even know what an essay is? The way you're whining here, it sounds to me like you're describing something more like an academic thesis.

Is it true that De Gea's bird is the Spanish entry? Heard it this afternoon on Talksport, as they tried to turn that into the reason why he's off to RM, on account of her being based in Madrid for her singing career.

They do look like a couple of gypos now you mention it.

I'll be sure to just use pictures next time. I want you to feel included in the debate, after all.....

Well, the journos at the Guardian sure have some time to kill. According to that, Chelsea were the most inept PL club this season. Which just goes to show you can prove anything with statistics.

Fish is trying to tell us that Ramsey is twice the coach Carver is. Just more evidence that he's had some kind of bang on the head.

As farcical as allowing the 10 other players to find other PL clubs on the same wages? Your scenario is as rare as rocking horse shit, it's not remotely a sensible reason not to implement some form of performance related penalty.

That's an essay to you? It was a few paragraphs. It wouldn't take a competent reader more than 30 seconds to read, if that.

Newcastle don't play in the Manchester derby, foooool

I could have said it in one line, but that would hardly be conducive to further discussion would it?

That more OAPs are extremists and the youth are likely to vote green is hardly news. But people trying to turn that into a case of the old disenfranchising the young are way off base - for every idealistic young voter there are tons more who simply don't vote because they have no clue about politics. A lot of that is just trying to be too cool for school, but a lot is down to the fact we don't appear to teach kids this stuff in school. The lack of any discernable age difference in Tory/Labour from youth to retirement appears more significant - Ed was after all banging on about how it's the young who are being screwed by the Tory home owning voters yanking up the ladder. It would appear that was just one of his many faulty campaign strategies that was based on appealing to the core vote rather than the swingers (if you assume Tories are pro-self and Labour voters are pro-society).

If you genuinely think the council of ministers is what makes the EU accountable and democratic, and the various commissioners and their quangos are essentially just civil servants, then there's no hope for you. The recent changes to the power of the EU Parliament were made precisely because the level of accountability of the council to the EU citizen is in no way comparable to the level of accountability we have against our own politicians (which is hardly much anyway). And if you want to understand the power of the average commissioner, let alone the commission president, you only need to look at how hard countries fight to get their man in post. The posts are in no way comparable to the sort of civil servants we have permanently attached to each department here.

OK, so I think there's universal agreement that the Ashley model goes against everything that running a football club should be about on an emotional and sporting level. But I wonder how many people have actually realised that it also doesn't make much sense if the goal is simply to make money and promote SD? 1. Stability - as well as ability, the most stable clubs tend to have good team spirit and morale, something which only comes about with a settled squad all pulling for the same cause. Squads with regular turnover, where the best players are always up for grabs, with new entrants seeing the club as a stepping stone, will never have the necessary stability or morale to provide a reliable profit stream. 2. Squad depth - maintaining an artificially small number of decent footballers in your squad for balance sheet reasons threatens the profit stream because it cannot adequately cope with the unpredictable effects of injuries or suspensions on the team's form. 3. Player development - a team that is more often than not fighting for survival (because of 1. and 2.), and is never in the cups or Europe, probably has the least amount of opportunity for actually properly developing academy products for onward sale. And expecting them to get us out of the shit is probably the best way to ensure they don't make it into the first team, or have the sort of confidence or experience that would make them attractive to other clubs. 4. Advertising - apart from the latter stages of a relegation fight, it's generally the case that the better a club is doing in the PL, the more airtime it gets on Sky/BT. Clubs just bimbling along mid-table get the least amount of exposure for advertisers. And obviously if you're not in the cups or Europe, you won't get that airtime either. 5. Brand image - the longer a club has the reputation NUFC has now gained because of the way it's being run, the less likely individuals and corporate sponsors are to pump revenue in through the various corporate and commercial streams that are these days an integral part of every PL club 6. Prize money - while not as significant as the basic PL TV deal money, when taken together, the incremental prize money for each PL place plus the money on offer for progressing in the UEFA cup, is not exactly small change. IMHO, a club of our size that only sold players when it was a no brainer, and maintained a squad capable of competing on all fronts, would easily generate the same amount of profit and advertising exposure that the current model does, if not more.

The reality right now is if the UK government awards a contract to a British company in a way that goes against EU competition law, the businesses that lose out can sue the UK govt for their losses in the ECJ (and indeed I think they even apply punitive damages). The same goes for issues about the environment and workers rights, albeit with organisations not companies as plaintiffs. This is how little sovereignty we have right now, this is how far removed the voters in each member state are from such issues. These are the realities of being part of a pan-European trade pact. I've not heard anything about TTIP that is any different to this, except the idea that instead of the ECJ it will be an independent panel, which, as I've linked to above, may not be a bad thing, since the ECJ is already taking years to decide on individual issues, most of which end up being moot because either the company goes out of business, or in cases like Microsoft/IE, the world has moved on beyond all recognition to that which was relevant to the judgement.

My response is more geared to those people who seem to think TTIP is something that undermines democracy and sovereignty in ways that are somehow new. Based on my admittedly limited research, that seems to be a major misreading of the situation.

Pundits are making out like Bruce's managerial record against Man U is somehow relevant here (17 losses and 4 draws). It's pretty obvious that the circumnstances here are wildly different to most, if not all, of those games. Utd's recent form being the most glaring difference. In the 5 matches since the Manchester derby, Utd have only scored 2 goals once, and in three out of five they have failed to score at all. On that form, Bruce's team talk is quite easy - 'we just need to score 1 and then park the bus to stay in the league, because NUFC are fucking dogshit right now'.

The idea that companies suing governments over trade disputes is a new phenomena is open to debate, and that's putting it mildly..... http://www.debatingeurope.eu/2014/11/27/support-ttip-companies-sue-governments/#.VVoSjblVh8M It's laughable that there are people out there who thought this had never been done before. How long do people seriously think an international trade treaty would last if particular disputes were adjudicated by politicians representing one or the other side? (or even national courts of either side?). It stands to reason that the issues would be settled by an independent panel - that can be a supra-national court if you want, just as happens in the EU, but you might want to look at stories like http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-32631029 before strongly advocating that that's the best way to do it for an EU-US deal.

Sure. And all the current EU directives were drafted in the interests of the people and the environment, and the various member state democracies all have ultimate control over how they're enforced. Come on. Even if TTIP gives ultimate power to corporations, which I seriously doubt, the idea that it's being taken away from 'the people' or even their elected politicians, in this day and age, is really laughable.

To KCG obv. Are you sure about that? I'm pretty sure that companies can, and indeed have, sued EU member states for not adhering to EU directives. And you summary of the EU is not exactly accurate, there are thousands of unelected officials in the EU monolith, which isn't really a monolith anyway, it's a labryinth of different bodies, most of which are quite removed from any kind of political or judicial oversight. That includes the executive body - the Council of Ministers has as much control/oversight of its day to day workings as the Prime Minister here has over the various ministries and quangos here.

For the love of God, no. You owe me a new set of eyeballs.

I think that tweet is mean to be a joke. The afternoon shift on Talksport reacted to the news Carver wants to know his future within 2 days of seaons end with all the derision you would expect.

It's very simple when looked at with cold hard logic. Chances of Ashley selling if we stay up: 0 Chances of Ashley selling if we go down: 50/50 if not immediately promoted, and only going to get higher the longer we stay down It amazes me just how many people seem to be relying on either blind hope, or worse, seem to be settling for a Ashley run club just because we'd be in the PL.

It's only in the news again because they (ISIS) apparently found a weakness in the defences of a town near Baghdad and have taken part of it. In the wider scheme of things, where they are largely being driven out of the country, it's not that important. Iraq are getting their shit together - a few months ago the whole town would be ISIS by now and the army would be running for the hills. That's apparently not the case this time.

Anyone complaining about this from the British side needs a serious wakeup call frankly. There's virtually nothing about the environment or workers/consumers rights in Britain (certainly nothing fundamental anyway) that isn't already ultimately controlled by EU directives - if our 'sovereign' government does something that goes against EU treaties, then surprise surprise, it's down to an unelected panel to decide how much of a fine we pay. This is how international trade deals are enforced, why is this a surprise to people in the 21st Century? It's only surprising to America because they have a long history of thinking that they're the best country in the world and thus have never needed to really commit to any international deal that wasn't defence based (and the list of UN Treaties the US has never ratified on ground of 'sovereignty' is fucking horrific).

How Gemmil is that? He needs to use it before he knows it works Thousands of happy customers and protesting black cabbies is not enough for the gem lad.