TheAuthority

My 2nd greatest desire in football is that Liverpool don't win the league.

9 hours ago, sidcow said:

Bad boys stick together. 

Young guns, go for it.

11 hours ago, bickster said:

had to Mooney

You had to Mooney Money? 

You are Billy Idol and I claim my £100

6 hours ago, theboyangel said:

Just finished the Netflix limited series The Spy based on true events when Mossad successfully planted a spy in Damascus on the sixties.

It was pretty good and interesting, especially as I'm not that up on middle eastern political history. 

whilst the lead was played well by Sacha Baron Cohen, I couldn't help but think he was just playing a serious borat! 

Worth a read if you're interested in analysis of the current political lurch to the right by  a leading figure  and professor of Political Science & Psychological Science at UCI. 

Quote

Democracy is hard work and requires a lot from those who participate in it. It requires people to respect those with different views from theirs and people who don’t look like them. It asks citizens to be able to sift through large amounts of information and process the good from the bad, the true from the false. It requires thoughtfulness, discipline and logic. Unfortunately, evolution did not favor the exercise of these qualities in the context of a modern mass democracy. Citing reams of psychological research, findings that by now have become more or less familiar, Rosenberg makes his case that human beings don’t think straight. Biases of various kinds skew our brains at the most fundamental level. Our brains, says Rosenberg, are proving fatal to modern democracy........Humans just aren’t built for it......

The irony is that more democracy—ushered in by social media and the Internet, where information flows more freely than ever before—is what has unmoored our politics, and is leading us towards authoritarianism.....

Compared with the harsh demands made by democracy, which requires a tolerance for compromise and diversity, right-wing populism is like cotton candy. Whereas democracy requires us to accept the fact that we have to share our country with people who think and look differently than we do, right-wing populism offers a quick sugar high. Forget political correctness. You can feel exactly the way you really want about people who belong to other tribes.

Right-wing populists don’t have to make much sense. They can simultaneously blame immigrants for taking jobs away from Americans while claiming that these same people are lazy layabouts sponging off welfare. All the populist followers care is that they now have an enemy to blame for their feelings of ennui.

 

Politico Mag

(Could also post in the US Politics thread but I'm sure the visitors there will also be here

I'm not sure if it's available over there, but NBC Sports in the USA has a show called the "Big Interview" and this week it was Dean Smith.

About 40 minutes in depth. Very good - He's a great guy.

(I was able to find it through reddit on a dodgy flash site with tons of pop ups.)

7 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

That whole route, Monmouth, Goodrich, Ross with Malvern hills off to the side is pretty much my regular commute, minimum twice a week.

I shake up my days by sometimes using the drive through Starbucks outside Ross and sometimes using Strensham services.

38 minutes ago, bickster said:

It's the title of a rather influential album that explains peoples attitudes to people with non-white skin tones, rather than a statement of fact

Apologies maybe my musical reference was too subtle

Don't worry Big Country fans need not listen (or Mr Mooney for that matter) 

Fight the Power!

Thats a very soft penalty

42 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

 

In his twitter profile pic he looks about 17 and wearing his dad's suit.

6 hours ago, tonyh29 said:

It’s about £5.20 a pint of lager now at my local .. i was in Belgrade the other week and you could get 4 pints for that 

Jeez - When I was a teenager (I know, I know) a pint of Holts bitter was 81p a pint. For 5 pounds you could buy 5 pints and a ten pack of B&H, get pissed and have a jolly old time (providing Josephine was in a good mood.) And if she wasn't you still got pissed and had a few laughs.

18 hours ago, Xela said:

Being inconsiderate may not make then bad people but is a massive character failing on their behalf. I'm a bit of a rocket polisher at the best of times but even I wouldn't dream of playing loud music early in the morning or late at night as I know my downstairs neighbours are a young couple with a kid. If I was doing DIY, even during the day, I'd go down and mention it to them or ask when they were going out so I could do it then and not disturb anyone. That is just basic manners. 

So Friday afternoon the bloke from the upstairs flat came down and started banging on the door. My wife had just got our young son to sleep and we were both exhausted, so we had decided to get some rest.

Now, he's a bit of a rocket polisher at the best of times but I had to answer the door  and he started going on about doing DIY?! He wanted to mention it us (and I'm guessing anyone else who would listen) and not to disturb us or some other rubbish. Honestly I wanted to chin him, but anyway I just smiled to get rid of him and went back to bed.

5 minutes later he's banging away at the walls and drilling for at least an hour. Neither of us could sleep and the baby was up and crying again almost immediately. What an absolute Representative that bloke is.

18 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

Trying to imagine a scenario when I'm up at 7.30am playing loud music and pretty much drawing a blank to be honest. 

You were probably rollin'

On 07/09/2019 at 11:25, villa4europe said:

I've had to track weather data several times because of construction claims, claimable inclement weather is usually classed as worse than the last 20 years, the shit thing is you can only claim time and not money so its usually stuffed in your back pocket

2 months ago I checked the last 5 years worth of temperatures in tianjin because someone was trying to sell us a cheaper quicker better waterproofing product to use there, what they tucked away in the data sheets was it can only be applied between 15 and 30° giving you around about 50 days a year that we wouldn't have to cool or heat the site, we could have lost over a million if we'd just cracked on with it

I was close to a job in Tianjin but decided to not continue the process after taking a really deep dive on living in China as a Westerner. 

I'm really interested to know if you've been over there though to work? Specifically Tianjin.

On 07/09/2019 at 11:25, Villan_of_oz said:

Nothing like a spreadsheet to drive a point home

Heat map or GTFO

14 hours ago, blandy said:

I think there's an element of accuracy in that interpretation, but only an element.

Clause 4 is an interesting one, because it used to be about common ownership of the means of production distribution and sale, or something along those lines - i.e. the state must own everything and run it, whereas Blair changed it to some sort of fluffy words about everyone having a share of wealth and opportunity.

 The old version was completely bonkers for the modern world, and the newer version was a sort of over-rideable "mission statement" of the sort that might be adopted by a photocopier company being "passionate" about scanning. One was a historic legacy and handicap, the other a load of easily ignored waffle.

Blair and Brown started off and were too timid I ditching Thatcherite type policies that they inherited. They did great on things like 3rd world debt relief, but ran scared of the tory accusation, always made of financial recklessness - they used PFI to keep "public debt" off the ledger, as the tories had done. They should have scrapped it. They were (IMO) right to turn away from the very old labour "nationalise everything" philosophy.

From a person in the street viewpoint, a heck of a lot got a heck of a lot better under Blair Brown, for a long period. His approach to Iraq was ruinous and appalling. The handling of the crash was OK, Darling was (IMO) on exactly the right lines with is response, too.

Blairism, was pretty much self-defined as "the third way" wasn't it  - neither Tory style, nor old Labour style, and while people can say it was too tory, or whatever, it wasn't that far off in getting results in a lot of areas, in many it worked. Key areas of society improved enormously.

Blairs flaws, like pretty much all leaders were personal, not ideological - his (as you say) slavish lap-dog approach to Bush, and cowardice re-Murdoch. His "God" thing and his actions re Iraq which were just mendacious and deceptive.

I agree most Corbynites want to kind of erase anything and everything that Blair ever did - like Trump with Obama, and it's a massive mistake. They define themselves far too much by what they are not and who they are not, and not nearly enough by what they ought to be and how they ought to behave. It poisons their approach to a whole range of problems. But they also hold a range of views and ideas and prejudices which are not only Corbynite v Blairism, but Corbynite v The world as it is. Bunker mentality thrashing out at all kinds.

Er, Brexit, not going well is it? to stay on topic.

If you haven't already, you may enjoy this Thatcher & Sons. An interesting take on British politics 1979 - 2010.

4 hours ago, snowychap said:

I wouldn't be at all surprised if Blair, earlier on, viewed himself as a committed socialist.

I wouldn't still be surprised if Blair, now, viewed himself as some form of socialist.

I'm not convinced that he isn't. He may also be a lot of other things.

I read a biography of Blair which interviewed his old House-master at Fettes College (often described as the Scottish Eton*)

Quote

"What you have to remember about Tony is, that he's an actor. A very good one, but an actor none the less"

I'm paraphrasing as it's been a number of years since I read it, but it really stuck with me. Very telling that someone who knew him as a child/young adult would feel this was important to say.

*For reference here is a picture of Fettes. I bet many Socialist roots are formed in places that look like this........

On 05/09/2019 at 14:51, LakotaDakota said:

The Premier league are apparently looking at the Sale of VP.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/49600851

 

On 05/09/2019 at 18:01, LakotaDakota said:

A 2 year old could see that we did it to get around ffp rules so that isn't really the question. I guess the one thing that could potentially hurt us in any sort of investigation is the price, If Derby sold their ground to themselves for 80 million and the cost of building a new stadium is rapidly heading towards a billion then the 56 million paid would massively undervalue VP and trying to explain that away may not be quite so easy.

If the financial reports that the new owners were having to pump in about 5 million quid a month to cover Xia's reckless spending then this is a really clever valuation. A season is about 10 months so that covers the last year of terrible ownership. Ownership that was approved by the EFL. 

How can they possibly punish the new owners when the leagues approved a charlatan who got one of the finest, oldest clubs in the country into a complete mess?

On 06/09/2019 at 11:09, Brumstopdogs said:

 

 

Have the Colombians been training with Patrick Bamford?

5 hours ago, Brumstopdogs said:

 

I actually watched this game here in New York on ESPN (It's amazing the amount of footy you can get live here now.)

Before this, Delfounso was subbed on (boy has he bulked up) and CoH Cruyff turned the Fonz who ended up on his arse. Then ND had to leave the pitch injured! This left Blackpool with 10 men as they had used up their subs and CoH scored when it was 11 vs 10.

Another Villa connection is that Simon Grayson is managing Blackpool now and they played some nice stuff. As another poster mentioned earlier Coventry also play some really nice stuff and this was a thoroughly enjoyable game. 

(I'm not as anti-Coventry as some on here as I haven't cared about them since Steve Ogrizovich  (sp?) was their goalie.)

Edit: Just found his pic. What looker eh?

12 minutes ago, mikeyp102 said:

How does Rose and trippier start over Chilwell and Alexander Arnold? Two holding mods, but no Maddison? 

@BOF & who?

30 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

I actually fell asleep and missed the goal. 

Me too!

7 hours ago, Genie said:

I quite like that, I'd play it in the pub.

Until someone spills their pint on it and the screen fizzles out 

3 hours ago, tinker said:

The Brexit party would win any Election, surely that's clear ........the Tories can't pull Brexit off and the majority or the electorate want it. Labour doesn't stand for anything , leave or remain,  they will get destroyed.

10 minutes ago, tinker said:

They more or less quote right wing press version of events and or facts . Their all working class and live and or work in Birmingham. It's a depressing environment for someone who wants to remain, they know I do but respect me enough to not push it to much.

What people need to regonise is the deep feeling of injustice that brexiters feel. I hear it nearly every day and it's a real concern , most of my family sing from the same hymn sheet as the people I work with.

 

I wouldn't be as fast to dismiss your points as some on here. After the two major political earthquakes in the cradle of Western Democracy (Trump & Brexit) I could believe anything is possible. Even Farage becoming PM.

The injustice that people feel (mentioned in your 2nd quoted post) is a great motivator and sadly it can also be manipulated into anger & hatred. It's exactly what has happened here in the US.