Straggler

Bingo on this one. I was watching with my 2 sons, this is the first season they have watched. My eldest literally asked what the point was of watching the season if this could happen. He walked out of the room before the race finished. He may be back for next season or he may not, but I suspect not. If this race had finished under the normal rules I can guarantee we would have all been counting the days down to the start of next season.

Morning all. So I slept on this and am still feeling angry. I had quite a long hiatus from following F1 as frankly I was finding it a bit boring. Over lockdown I watched drive to survive and got back into the drama and began to understand a bunch more of the personalities, so gave this season a chance. And what a season it was to give a chance to. It was brilliant and competitive and edgy, the story to get the last race was one of the most compelling in any sport for a long time. Cards on the table, I do like Lewis, I respect his ability and his longevity, his skills are off the chart, but I'm not a die hard fanboy, I just like the way he drives. Max I like less, again based mainly on the way he drives. I think he drives in a reckless and juvenile way. He is obviously brilliant, but I don't think he understands that other cars don't have to jump out of his way just because he is there. However, the combination of the reckless young talent and the mature elder statesman jousting away at the front of the pack made for thrilling racing. The threat of contact, the speed, the undoubted skill of both drivers, the ebb and flow of the championship lead totally dragged me back into the sport. Then the last race happened, and it was brilliant too. Full of drama and skill, but with 6 laps to go it was clear who was the better driver on the day and which team had the better car. The story had an end, and it had taken a mighty effort of consecutive wins by Lewis to get over the line first. Then a Williams crashes and the cars bunch up behind the safety car and the heart starts racing again, the result is in jeopardy. But as the rules are explained by the commentary team a bit of excitement goes out of me. Chances are the race will finish under the safety car, it is not thrilling, but probably fair, the race had already become a bit of a procession anyway. We even hear Masi say that the lapped cars will not be allowed to go past on the radio. Then with seconds to go on the penultimate lap the rules of the sport change. It is one of my biggest WTF moments in any sport ever. I tuned in to watch 2 generational talents sort out who is the best on the track. I didn't tune in to watch motor sports entertainment produced by Michael Masi. The final lap drama was not 'racing' as Masi tried to make out, it was produced entertainment more akin to an episode of Top Gear with Clarkson sinking an amphibious car totally by accident. If the last lap is what Masi thinks motor racing is really all about then I think he fundamentally misunderstands the sport. There could only be one result after that decision, and it feels artificial. It is a fundamental of any sport that the rules don't change during the competition. I don't know what calculations were going on in the Mercedes garage regarding bringing Lewis in to get new tires, but it can't have included the race director changing the rules for the last lap. I don't care about Red Bull celebrating, they have been chasing this title for years and the pent-up frustration of the perpetual second place must be overwhelming, I can't blame them for letting it out. I don't Blame Toto for feeling robbed and behaving like he has. He has been robbed. Lewis being as calm and respectful as he was after getting out of his car has done nothing but enhance his reputation with me. I have no idea how he managed to be so magnanimous after yesterday's events, and I don't know many people who could be. Me, I still feel that hole in my sporting soul that natural justice was not achieved and the best racer on the day came second. Sometimes a tire bursts, or an engine fails and you move on as that is racing. When a result is twisted thanks to poor officiating, the sting stays a little longer and the stain on the sport takes a little longer to wash out. FWIW I don't think there is any great conspiracy about the decision. I think Masi, under all sorts of pressure, made a poor choice.

I remember it differently. I thought the entire field was behind the safety car not half the number. If they were not behind the Safety car where were they?

The back markers have to get WAY round the track. They're supposed to get all the way around and join the back of the snake. If all they did was get ahead of the safety car then there is a reasonable chance the race leaders will have a big line of traffic to negotiate pretty much immediately. It effectively defeats the purpose of letting the lapped cars unlap themselves. You can't release them earlier either, as it would not be safe to have them whizzing around the track at the sorts of speeds they need to do to get back into the queue. If it was safe enough to go through the crash zone under yellow flags then the safety car didn't need to be out there in the first place. The rules as they are make sense for lots of good reasons. Changing the rules on the last lap of the last race blew my mind.

For the longest time I thought he was called Tiffany Dell.

Another update just came out and still not fixes for the buggiest career mode that I can remember. Noodle armed youth players, no name and number on the kit, the player editor as limited as it is resetting changes whenever it feels like it. What is the point of allowing us to edit the kits and then have the game overwrite it? 4 or 5 seasons in and most of the teams have the same noodle armed players with blank kits running around the pitch totally ruining the immersion. This game has pissed me off more than any other. The game play changes have been awful too. It was significantly better at release, and subsequent patches have actually made it worse. So many other bugs too. I did like the gameplay, but thoroughly fed up with them now.

Classic Met catch 22 when it suits them. Can't investigate because of lack of evidence, has no evidence because of lack of investigation.

I just had a moment reading back at my last post realizing that there is 11% support for less strict gun regulation. I'm not sure how this is possible without giving them away with happy meals. I mean, they were already being given away as an incentive to have your covid jab.

I've not really been talking about an amendment to the constitution at this stage as I don't think it is remotely possible. I'm really looking for the baby steps that can pave the way towards such an amendment. I'm referencing more the popular support of the general population for some gun ownership regulation beyond what it is at the moment. I don't think evidence exists for constitutional amendment support of 75% of states, the country is way too partizan for that right now. I'm pretty sure a sane debate about gun regulation is impossible. It's an interesting thought process though, and I imagine you are right about how the states voting numbers might break down. For reference, the stats that I was referring to are below. The big problem with broad questions like this one is that stricter can include everything from banning guns completely to stopping shops from selling them on a Sunday. A consensus on what should be done next is harder to come by (see Brexit). Gallup

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. The polling in the US has consistently been massively in favour of stricter gun control for decades, but action is prevented mostly thanks to the disproportionate influence of special interest groups such as the NRA. There is a sort of myth that America loves guns and that any move to limit access is against the constitution and unpopular, but it is not followed by the facts. Overturning Citizens United would lay the groundwork to make the decisions in government to be more about the democratic will than monied corporate influence. There are a whole lotta steps needed to even begin that process as neither party has that as part of their agenda (they both love the money), but there are elements in the Dem party that are on board. You then need to unstack the courts and relitigate the entire thing, which is probably the work of a generation or more. Whilst that is happening stricter measures on gun ownership can be brought in. It is a huge job, almost unfathomably difficult to achieve and will be met with some quite terrifying resistance along the way, but there are already people out there working on it. I do wonder if it is possible to have an event big enough and bloody enough that it would shift public perception enough to break through the system and make more regulation inevitable, but given what has passed so far, I don't know if such an event could happen outside of full scale revolution. It is very literally the will of the people that gun laws should be changed. It is a scandal that it does not happen.

The Jim Jefferies one is a classic of the genre.

So glad it's not just me. I say it in Optimus primes voice every time.

OOOOHHH, what a chance!

For me it is more the standard of the performance that is the worry for Norwich. This can be a real confidence sapper if they don't get a winner. It's one thing to fail to get the three points, it's quite something else to look incapable of winning against 10 men.

Well that was a finish of a class the rest of the game has not reached, what a hit.

The thing is in the second half the Newcastle goal was coming. They were putting more pressure on the Goal than Norwich were.

There was a hand in the back, but there was hardly any force applied. Not a pen for me.

Norwich are awful. Sargent is remarkable in his ability to never be in any space or look dangerous in any way. Rupp is taking all the touches and slowing everything down. Newcastle are binging everyone back, but they are hardly having to work. Even with 10 men back, you can still see the gaps there to exploit, but the passing and movement is so bad that Norwich can't exploit it. The complete lack of creativity is relegation standard.

Yes I did. And now the thread is dead to me. Its history. Now there are no limits to the talk about pop music, so yes regrets, I have a few. Where have all the good times gone?

At this stage, Tory thinking is an oxymoron. A literal head in hands moment when he says "is it any wonder...." as his arrow of logic flies off target into a pile of channel 4's tax money at Pepper Pig world.

Yep Gove is a slippery little back stabbing word removed on a good day.

Hang on, I'm not having this. It's all well and good trying to retcon our understanding of historical figures to fit a "modern narrative" of good and evil, but what the hell did Genghis Khan ever do wrong?

I have very recently watched the whole of Blackadder again and will admit inspiration from a certain wee jonnie poo pong mcplop from the Flashard 1st WW episode.

I'd be more inclined to believe Jock McLiesalot, from Half Truth Town in Talk BS county, after he graduated with honours in falsehoods and gaslighting from Oxford University even after he was convicted for fraud, if he told me he was riding into town on a glorious pink unicorn this evening to copulate as the meat in an JFK and Elvis sandwich, than believe the Sun.

For me it is pick one and sit the other. I don't really mind which one plays, so long as it is because they are playing the best. We don't have to fit them both in, it just makes the bench stronger and the options better.