desensitized43

Whataboutism just makes it look like you’re trying to excuse or justify it. Are you?

Frankly the stuff I’ve heard this morning about what Hamas insurgents did to children I wouldn’t be shocked if Israel went and carpet bombed Gaza. Beheading babies? There’s no excuse for that regardless of how angry and “pushed” you are. Obviously you need to try and have restraint but there’s some things that are so vile that they won’t be inclined to mercy and let’s be honest, after that who can really blame them. What hamas have done is truly revolting.

You just reminded me of that scene in Bruno where he tries to solve "the middle earth crisis" and suggested that "Pitta Bread" was the real enemy

Everytime something in Israel kicks off it reminds me of my uni days. One of the guys in my classes who I was good mates with (muslim guy, but not Palestinian, if that matters) was very animated on the subject. I remember having a lot of conversations with him about the history of it and where he thought it should go next and a lot of what was said still shocks me. He liked to say that it was all Palestine and that Israel wasn't even a country and that the Palestinians and the rest of the Muslim world needed to "kick them out". I would challenge and ask specifically where they were supposed to go? (to a white country, he would say) what that would mean if the Jews wouldn't leave voluntarily? which was where things got very dark that they should basically force them out or he would allude to just wiping out the ones who wouldn't go. Needless to say what I heard during those days gave me the instinct that we needed to support the Israeli's because they were basically sandwiched between a bunch of people/nations that would annihilate them given the chance. I'm no expert on the subject though. I'm not sure how common that belief is from Muslims living in the UK or abroad and certainly the way they treat the Palestinians is pretty disgraceful and something akin to apartheid.

I don't think this is the case. The public want better connectivity and they're in favour of doing big infrastructure projects which generate jobs and pay back over decades once complete. The reason for the negativity was because they didn't believe it was ever possible to come in at the budget they originally set out...and guess what, they were right. It's a good project but it's been mismanaged from day 1 because it's being led by incompetent halfwits who keep moving the goalposts and aren't willing to commit to it. I have to confess I do have a dog in this fight as my brother works for HS2. He said a lot of the issues have been caused because the line is being subject to planning, environmental and legal challenges every which way because the people in Tory shires and the eco squad don't want it running through so they're having to do all kinds of mitigation work, building tunnels and other stuff. They should have reformed the planning laws first to get the thing built.

True but is it too much to ask that the referee take charge of all the officials and those officials talk to each other clearly and professionally!?

Oh definitely. There’s been criticism of how long it takes when the decision seemed to be pretty obvious but I think this will be a real turning point for how we all look at VAR. If they need more time to ensure the correct decisions get made then I think that’s a trade off we’ll all accept. Part of my criticism with the speed of the decision making was also around time keeping where they weren’t adding on the time correctly at the end of the game. Personally I’d like to see the clock stop for VAR.

Really chaotic and unprofessional. It sounds like they’re all talking over each other, rushing around to try and get the game restarted quickly rather than focus on getting to the right decision, swearing. It’s just absolutely atrocious. compare that audio to rugby where the referee on the pitch is in charge of all the officials, asking them specific questions and essentially running the conversation in the direction he wants.

Really enjoyed that film and a really great cast too. Kevin Costner, Robert Duvall, Annette Benning, Diego Luna and as you say, Gambon with the worlds worst Irish accent but you can forgive it because he's just such an outlandish character that you wish he was onscreen more.

I'm not sure. There's surely a clause in their contracts that says they can't take on refereeing work they've not sanctioned. When have you ever known something involving the Saudi's where money wasn't involved?

Yeah I'm not sure what they're hoping to achieve with their statement. They'd have done better calling for a better implementation of VAR in the future but it reads like a child kicking off at their under 11s game. They've got to be willing to learn from the mistakes but the pace of change in football has been so glacially slow and the lack of transparency over decades has been so absent it's bordering on suspicious...I'm certainly not a conspiracy theorist but they've fed the fire of those who say that there's other forces at work.

The accountants at PGMOL

We need to hear the discussions in real time. There's no reason not to do it other than to shield the bad referees from any criticism of their flawed decision-making. If they did that we'd all know who the shit refs were before they ended up making a catastrophic error and there'd be an incentive to do something about it and improve the situation. We'd all see how they got to the decisions they've made and then you can discuss the refs who clearly don't know what they're doing. FWIW the problem at the weekend is only 50% human error...The other 50% is purely a process problem. They've gone too far in telling the refs when they can use VAR and not, what it can be used for and even going as far as telling them the words they can use "check complete etc"...a 10 second conversation should have sorted that situation out "oh I thought the onfield decision was goal, in that case...." but they aren't allowed to have proper discussions and actually get to the right of a situation. It's all built around trying not to undermine the onfield refs authority, not re-referee the game, not slow down the game and not take any accountability rather than actually trying to get the correct decisions.

I don’t know how it was allowed to happen in the first place tbh. in an age of sports science and with all the emphasis in all sport where you try and achieve marginal gains through technology wherever possible for this to happen is a complete disgrace. Castore have compromised the players performance and embarrassed the club. We should end the relationship immediately and lawyer up.

I wonder if they could just ditch and use last years shirts and sue the arse off Castore.

Really happy with the start to this season. 2 points per game is a really good average for where we are right now, especially with the injuries we've sustained. Attack and Midfield I have no doubts that we'll be a force for pretty much everyone except maybe City, Arsenal and Liverpool this season. I do have concerns about us defensively and especially the number of chances per game we seem to concede which is partly down to this aggressive high line we play. I think CL might be beyond us this season but we should certainly be in the mix for 5-7. Whatever happens this year the way we play is really entertaining and unpredictable.

The difficulty I have is that while the accusers have the right to go to the police and for what are very valid and understandable reasons to seek justice they’ve chosen not to do so. What instead has happened is that Brand has been named in the media and is being judged in the court of public opinion. He’s not been afforded the anonymity his accusers have and his career is now probably over. That’s not justice. I don’t think channel 4 should have aired this (at least not with the Brands name) unless the women were willing to go to the police first. I hope that we now see some kind of police investigation of this but it feels the wrong way round to me. Fwiw I do believe their accusations. I’ve never liked brand and his kind of disgusting, unfunny and pretty disrespectful routines about sex and treatment of women. I definitely think he’s “the type” who wouldn’t take no for an answer. He’s also a massive idiot who’s definitely not as intelligent as he thinks and we’re all told he is, as evidenced by his ridiculous social media conspiracy theorists nonesense.

Up until this point the one thing you could really praise Southgate for has been his handling of the media but he's read this so wrong. The way he's coming across with the handling of the Maguire (and to a lesser extent the Phillips) situation is looking like gaslighting. These players clearly aren't worthy of a place in the squad. They aren't the best players available, they aren't in form, they can't be match fit, they don't play enough football. Certainly in the case of Maguire I "get it" from Southgate's perspective. They've been together a long time and from his side Maguire hasn't ever "let him down" and there's an element of loyalty. However, if Southgate really wants to be a top manager he needs to get over this. Wenger didn't show any loyalty to Viera when he decided his time was done. Ferguson did it multiple times. Pep certainly hasn't. I thought Dunk looked excellent last night and when Stones is fit those 2 should definitely be the partnership.

Obvious red card for basically exactly the same thing as last night but of course there’s no action taken. England definitely being judged by different criteria at the moment. Reputation which has been entirely earned through some pretty poor discipline in recent times but it’s frustrating nonetheless.

Had the same in Florida in late October. Mid twenties kind of heat so was just about comfortable in shorts and T-shirt but the locals were in sweaters and complaining how cold it was. Mental what people get used to. The heat in this country just hits different though. Our buildings aren’t designed with it and the lack of air con is the main thing here. Took a drive earlier and had the air con turned up and when I got out I got that heat blast you get when you’re abroad…was delightful.

I agree the whole thing is such a con. If it was really about the environment they'd just straight up ban those cars not introduce a charge for it.

Or the brown people in them but they've worked out you can't be racist against a boat, just it's occupants.

I'm not sure I necessarily agree that this is precisely what's happened. Not all problems have to be solved in their entirity over the life of a single government as long as there's a pathway to it being dealt with in sufficient time. Hypothetically (and I'm not saying this happened because I don't know) a Tory government in 1995 identifies a problem with 1000 schools and decides to fix 50 schools a year for 20 years, presumably having taken advice that the stuff is safe to wait that long in the most extreme case, Labour comes in in 97 and continues at that pace, but billy bob bellend Osborne and his lot come in 2010 and decide that on a purely financial basis to cut all the work. So who's fault is it? It's a problem that predates Sunak but that's really not an excuse is it?

That's the Sunak way really, isn't it? What's a budget for if not to be cut?

Because (as I understand it) in the 1990s the substance had already been in use for 30-40 years so the very earliest generations started to show signs of deterioration and subsequently it stopped being used for new construction with the understanding that the existing stuff would be removed but (in fairness to the Tories) successive governments failed to get all of it out and now we've run out of road. That's the bit that's generous to the Tories. The non-generous bit is that there was a plan to refurb a bunch of schools but Tories gonna Tory, so they'd rather give it the money to people like Michelle Mone who, lets face it, deserve it way more.