So quiet that no-one has noticed... almost as if nothing could be found?


No, it doesn't tell us that at all. Ignoring this sort of stuff, a larger crowd at a rally doesn't necessarily translate into a larger share of the vote at all. The vast majority of people who vote won't attend a rally. If more people attend a Trump rally than a Biden rally, then at best it tells us that Trump has more die-hard dedicated supporters than Biden does, which isn't really surprising. Biden is quite bland and middle-of-the-road, whereas Trump is more charismatic and controversial. But this says nothing about total vote share.

Also, what's happening with Spain in that image? I can understand Europe and Asia wanting nothing to do with the UK, that's fair enough... but Spain haven't done anything to annoy anyone, at least not recently. And Iceland are probably feeling a bit left out, too.

And whilst geographical proximity can be important, it certainly isn't everything. For example, China have built up a huge influence over a lot of countries in Africa, but the red boundary doesn't show that at all.

I would suspect that the enemies of the people are those who having been trying for a year and a half to overturn the result of a democratic election, because it wasn't the result they wanted.

I think it's done, they've already announced that he's leaving. The whole Man United squad needs an overhaul, and TBH Pogba has always underperformed for them. Obviously losing him for nothing on a contract expiry isn't great news, but at least it frees up a chunk of the wage bill, which they can use to sign up the new players they so desperately need. I think it will be a long road back to the top for Man United, they aren't going to solve their problems overnight.

It does seem like a crazy idea. The only way this would not be crazy is if the proposed $50k or $100k amount doesn't mean much to you. But obviously this is a large amount for you, otherwise you wouldn't need to take out a loan to cover it. Really this doesn't make any logical sense at all, so I'd say don't do it.

Taking out a (smallish) loan to gamble isn't necessarily always a bad thing, it depends on what you're doing. Putting it all on a single sports match doesn't make sense. But taking out say a few k and buying bitcoin and ETH in the anticipation of price increases over a period of years, whilst still risky, is probably a better option.

I'd disagree with this, it's sounds extremely implausible. The powerful nations of Europe (Germany, France, UK, in particular) are much more aligned politically and economically with the US than they are with Russia or China.
We only have to look at Ukraine for a current example. The US and Europe are together, helping the Ukrainians as best they can. Russia is on the opposite side, and China, although trying to remain on the sidelines, is from an ideological perspective much more aligned with Russia than with Europe. And even within Asia itself, the idea of say India joining forces with Pakistan or China seems highly unlikely.

It was just the uncertainty over his fitness really that made him a comparative outsider. If he'd come into the tournament 100% fit, he'd have likely been the favourite - a fully-fit Nadal on clay, and especially at RG, is as close to a certainty as you can get in tennis. But we all saw how he was in Rome the week before, and it seemed unlikely that he'd be able to win seven best-of-five-set matches in a fortnight to win RG again... nevertheless, that's what he did. He was clearly not fully fit, and the injections to remove all feeling from his foot sound quite alarming, but it turns out even a half-fit Nadal can beat everyone in Paris!

It's true that Liverpool would probably recover if they lost those two, but yes it would certainly take time, and it would probably be unrealistic for them to challenge for the league title next season. It's not so bad when one key player leaves, but two key players who play together well in the same part of the team is a bigger loss. Bringing players in to replace them would mean the new forward line would need to take time to play together and really gel with each other and the rest of the team.

If both Mane and Salah leave, we can pretty much close the betting for the premier league title next season, with Man City likely to finish way ahead of everyone else. If Liverpool lose just one of their big hitters, they may be able to compensate... but losing both those two would be a huge blow, and no matter who you brought in, they'd take time to learn to work together, and the team would suffer in the short team at least.

Yep, agreed. A straight sets win for Nadal seems the obvious outcome.

It does seem a bit of anticlimax for the final, but it's just because of the luck of the draw. Nadal, Djokovic and Alcaraz were all in the same half, Alcaraz obviously got knocked out early so Nadal vs Djokovic was the big match of the tournament. Then Nadal vs Zverev yesterday was closer than a lot of us would have thought and quite an enthralling match until the unfortunate ending.

But the bottom half of the draw was wide open - because Medvedev had to be seeded 2 because of his ranking, but is obviously weak on clay, and then the other big name Tsitsipas, who really had a golden opportunity to get to the final, also got knocked out early.

It always looked like the winner would come from the Nadal/Djokovic half, with the only real problem being tiredness from a string of tough long matches. Nadal however only had to play 2 sets yesterday (albeit over three hours).

Yes, a terribly unfortunate end for Zverev, and he will likely be out for quite some time. I hope he recovers quickly.


There's been a fair amount of anti-Nadal sentiment in this thread recently, and I have to say I don't really understand it. Nadal is certainly not "just lucky". Remember he was actually a set up and winning the match when Zverev suffered his horrible injury. Remember also that Nadal has won this tournament an absurd 13 times. Remember also that his career record at Roland Garros reads as follows: Won 111, Lost 3. There is quite simply nothing comparable to this in modern tennis. He is a phenomenon. Yes Zverev's injury was unfortunate for Zverev, but there is not really any argument against the fact that Zverev was losing the match at the time of his injury.

It has been a very weird run from Real Madrid. Take any of those victories in isolation, the round against PSG, or against Chelsea, or Man City, or the final against Liverpool... and it's possible to argue quite convincingly that Real were lucky and shouldn't really have won. But when this type of victory becomes a pattern over four consecutive rounds and seven matches in total, beating four of the biggest and best teams in Europe, then it becomes very difficult to argue against them. Real had by far the toughest luck of the draw in the quality of the teams they had to play against, and they still managed to triumph every time.

This seems like a strange argument to make. Max has lost points due to car reliability, but Leclerc hasn't? It's not even two weeks ago that Leclerc was leading in Spain but had to retire due to a problem with the car.

I'd certainly agree that RB are better than Ferrari - and probably better than every other team - when it comes to pit stops, but I don't think we can really say that it's just RB that have had reliability problems. And it's actually nearly two months now since Max had a DNF.

I still don't really understand the Salah situation. He's at one of the best clubs in the world, who nearly completed a quadruple of trophies this season, he's used to the team and the country, and is a hero to the fans. He also earns a huge amount of money. I don't see how this can be improved elsewhere. Yes another team can offer more money, but they can't offer the success and the hero-status that Liverpool can. And does he really need more money? Any move is a gamble, history is littered with successful big name players who've moved to another big club and flopped.

Her performances this year have been quite astonishing. I do wish that Barty hadn't retired, as I think she's the only one who could have given Swiatek some competition. It would have been fascinating to see if Barty could have held on to the number one spot... but we'll never know.

Swiatek's incredible 33 match winning run (so far) is already the third best run this century! Ahead of her is only Serena Williams (34) and Venus (35). So if Swiatek wins at Roland Garros, and then just wins her first round match in whatever tournament is next, she's top.

First place overall going back to the last century is Navratilova on 74, so there's still some way to go to match that!

Edit: of course, Swiatek won the semi, so is now already at 34.

They may have a lot of money, and they may have secured their premier league status, but I don't think they have enough to attract the very top players. There is no Champions League football, and certainly no guarantee of ever qualifying for the Champions League at Newcastle. If we assume Man City, Liverpool and Chelsea take three of the four places, then this means that Newcastle have to perform better over a whole season than all of Man U, Arsenal, Spurs. It's a big ask, and is likely to put players off signing for them.

There have been some understandable over-performances from Ukrainian sportspeople recently, notably in tennis, but you might expect it more in a team game like football. I would imagine it's very tough to play the Ukrainian football team at the moment, and although on paper Wales are the stronger team I'd not be at all surprised to see Ukraine win this one and make it to the world cup.

I imagine the freedomsphoenix anti-science stupidity will continue well beyond two years.
I know they regard facts as being inconvenient, so they just ignore them, for example:


https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#rates-by-vaccine-status

... but why don't freedomsphoenix post any facts of their own? Is it because none exist? Because they are just making stuff up to further their own agenda?

I say "they", but one look at the website reveals that every single article is written by "Robert Lee"... so the website is simply one man's ranting at stuff he doesn't like and doesn't understand. And he's well-aware of his deceit, because he hides behind a farcical racist pseudonym rather than admitting who he is, and using his real name.

I'd also agree that Salah's performance has not dropped. And the data bears this out. Looking at his year-by-year stats playing for Liverpool, his figures for the current season (as stated above by skarais, 23 goals and 13 assists) are excellent, and in no way worse than previous seasons.

There is a lot of poverty in Dubai and the UAE as a whole. It's estimated that ~20% of people in the UAE live below the poverty line. The figure is estimated rather than official because the government simply does not release data on poverty, which is a huge warning sign.
https://borgenproject.org/10-facts-about-poverty-in-the-united-arab-emirates/


As for Dubai specifically, poverty and indeed effective slavery is rife in the construction industry, for example. The article I've linked to below goes into some depth on the subject, for those who are interested.
https://travellingjezebel.com/construction-workers-dubai-modern-slavery/


(image from above article)