I wonder if anyone is offering odds on every Aston Villa match report this season where they don't win to say they "lack a bit of creativity"

It does appear that Grealish was the sole creative outlet... and I've seen that phrase in the match reports a few times already, and the season has only just begun. I know that teams have their star players, but Villa without Grealish, despite £100m of new talent, just aren't the same.

Did we? I don't remember thinking that. It sounds preposterous.


Well, okay. But 'can' doesn't mean 'will'. Donald Trump 'can' train to be a ballerina, but it's not going to happen. Likewise India are not going to mobilise 100m troops for an assault on the US. I think there may be a bit of paranoia here. The era of US hegemony may be drawing to a close, but it's unlikely to result in direct physical conflict with an emerging power. Warfare between major powers has become abstracted, it's now economic and cyber, not tanks and guns. Brute force is applied only against smaller nations.

I do think the Ronaldo transfer, while it will give Man U an extra option in attack, isn't going to suddenly turn them into title contenders. He's definitely past his peak.
The Messi situation is I think a little bit different, he is a couple of years younger than Ronaldo and probably has a few more good seasons left. Also the French league isn't as competitive as the English league, and PSG are the best team in France and so can just pick and choose when they play Messi. They can afford to rest him for most of the league games if they wish, and just bring him out fresh and ready to go for the Champions League matches.

I don't think Ronaldo is what he was. He still scores a lot of goals, yes, but many of these are penalties. I don't think he really improved Juventus when he was there, and yes he is getting older and towards the end of his career. He is still a good player, and will add something, but it's not enough to turn Man United into title winners.

I think a lot will be made of the fact that he is returning to Man United, but I don't think he has any special feelings or loyalties there... because a few days ago he was genuinely considering joining Man City, their biggest rivals.

Yes, of course it's not that simple. I'm in favour of truly progressive taxation, a wealth (rather than merely income) tax, and a UBI. But I don't want to derail the thread by getting into a discussion about the nuances of all of these things. I'm not suggesting we break up the yacht, sell the parts, and demand that the money be spent directly on sanitation. I think that kind of approach is overly prescriptive.


True. Although I suspect you and I would draw the line of 'too much' in quite different positions. There is a lot of 'crying wolf' on this, too. Threaten to raise corporation tax by 0.5% and there will be a cacophany of howling from global giants that they can't possibly survive and will have to leave the country in search of a new business-friendly home abroad. 


Yes, agreed. As someone with a keen interest in data, I'm aware of the inefficiencies of for example many charities. However the charity evaluator GiveWell, which is I think extremely good, has shown that one of the most efficient ways to help the global poor is simply by giving them cash without it having to run through a network of possibly corrupt intermediaries (GiveDirectly is consistently ranked as one of their top charities). I'm not sure if you give to charities, but you may also be interested in having a look at Deki which helps to a small extent to reduce inequality of opportunity by providing small interest-free loans to budding entrepreneurs in poorer nations. But I think I may be derailing the thread again, so I'll stop there.

Ha. I suppose I'm a different kind of leftist, then. A lot of ideologies tend to be absolute and idealised; the difficulty is applying them to the real world, which is of course messier and full of all kinds of unknown variables and people who will try to exploit whatever system of government is put in front of them. We're probably all guilty to an extent of trying to argue in favour of our preferred theoretical solutions, even when they are unworkable in practice.

I think that the first example below is obscene, and should not be permitted, because the second example exists at the same time. But I'm happy to concede that capitalism (held in check by a democratically elected government) is the best (by which I mean, least bad) system we have.

The incompetent government in Venezuela is certainly partly to blame. But not exclusively. Venezuela has a long and troubled history due largely to its oil wealth. Communist states are a bad idea, but they don't tend to arise out of nowhere; they are a misguided attempt to fix the failures of the preceding system. I think it's overly simplistic to blame everything on the Red Menace. Reality tends to be coloured more in shades of grey.


If you are trying to make a general point that hyperinflation occurs exclusively in communist states, and is an inevitability, then this statement is misleading and untrue.


I wouldn't worry about that happening.

The problem is the same with any club, barring the top few. You want to hold onto your star players. If you let them go, you don't have the pulling power to bring in another global superstar... a problem exacerbated of course by the fact that you've just let your prize asset go and are now seen as a 'selling club'. Same with Villa and Grealish... they wanted to keep him, but Man City triggered his £100m release clause.

You can try and try to hold onto your best players. Maybe you can manage it. If you can't, then your best bet is to buy a few good players with potential, slowly push your way higher in the league, and hope that next time you'll have the power to retain your stars.

Yes, it is happening right now. The stories that come out of North Korea are horrific. The Nazis ran concentration camps for a few years in the 40s. North Korea have been running them for over half a century. They have the worst human rights record on the planet. Have a read of "Escape From Camp 14" by Shin Dong-hyuk.


Why would we forget, though? You do seem to be running a bit of a one person crusade against communism... but there's not really anyone to argue against, or at least no-one with a compelling counter-argument. Communism is terrible, has failed again and again, and is drenched in blood. Stalin and Mao, for example, are two of the biggest mass-murderers in history.

And yet... communism isn't really the problem. In theory, it's a reasonable and equitable — if, for me, unpalatable — idea. The problem is that it is so easy to abuse. Autocracy, however it manifests, whether in a state that is nominally communist or not, is the worst system of government. Any system that cannot, or will not, be held accountable for its own actions is invalid and unrepresentative.

Laissez-faire 'ancap' capitalism is terrible for the same reason, so so easy to exploit.

The best system of government is one where opposition is not just possible, but encouraged, and indeed a vital part of the structure. I am happy to live in a capitalist democracy. As I've said before, it's an oxymoron, but that is its power. There are of course problems, corruption, cronyism, and inevitably a strong tendency towards plutocracy... but still, it's better than the alternatives. And I always vote for a left-wing party, because I see this as providing a more potent countervailing force to the capitalist tendency towards self-enrichment at the expense of others*. Voting for a right-wing party in a capitalist state is a vote to encourage inequality of opportunity and to further entrench the elite.




* Please don't mention that damned cake. Unrestrained capitalism is a 'will to money', and is exploitative by nature. The question of whether or not potential wealth is infinite (it's not), sidesteps the issue.

When an attorney is disbarred, it means that they have been engaged in behaviour so corrupt, incompetent, or criminal that they need to be prevented from practising law. That's probably the main take-away here.

I wonder what chance there is of the weather changing suddenly, and the whole grid coming in to change their tyres, but Hamilton inexplicably staying out, only to come in later and lose a huge number of positions. That could surely never happen.

I do like the rainy races though, it adds an extra element of excitement, and it allows good drivers to come to the fore. Sometimes good drivers are hidden away in bad cars, but in the rain you can often see who has the talent, regardless of what car they happen to be in.

I doubt it, I'm sure the fee is fine. Even if he signed with no transfer fee, they'd be spending more than £30m on his wages anyway, plus a huge signing-on fee. Signing Ronaldo for any fee makes a really powerful statement, and I'm sure that City are desperate to have him... particularly as they have failed in their bid to sign Harry Kane. Getting Ronaldo for a couple of years is a more than good enough replacement.

Caps won't do it. Even bold and a massive font size won't do it. They are immune to facts; their eyes will slide right over your post like it's not there. I'll have a go, too... but it won't have any effect.

These articles are unsubstantiated nonsense.


As franky1 said, it's the Pfizer vaccine. The article you link to even says this, although it adds the words 'seemingly' and 'suggests' to imply that there is some degree of doubt. There isn't.
Amusingly, your link also contains the quote below. The lack of self-awareness is both hilarious and utterly predictable...

Biden is 78. Trump in 2024 will be... 78. If Trump is 'age-failed', it can go with his other failures, such as his 30,573 false or misleading claims as POTUS.


It would save us a lot of time, wouldn't it? And I wouldn't have to continually re-post this 'still no Kraken' image.

Nice link. The classic 'unnamed sources'. That article does however contradict my own knowledge...

Not a joke and not hyperbole – I’m hearing from people close to the situation that Conservative pundit Dan Bongino’s cognitive decline is rapidly worsening and is becoming increasingly difficult to mask. It gives me no joy in saying this and I mean that: [Bongino] is in real significant trouble. And listen to me — everyone around him, everyone knows it. Everyone knows it. This is the scandal — that they’re not telling you how bad his condition is. Even sources I have outside of the Secret Service but who are still in Bongino’s orbit know that he’s not just ‘lost a step’ but he’s lost the ability to function adequately.

See how it works?

I really hope we can finally see a proper Verstappen-Hamilton battle that lasts the whole race. Mercedes brought an upgrade a couple of races ago, but because of the two crashes, we've not yet seen how their new pace compares with Verstappen in a Red Bull. Fingers crossed they are equally matched and we can see some exciting racing for the rest of the season. If they are equally matched, or close, then the second driver for each team comes into it as a tactical angle. How will the contract uncertainty around Bottas affect his driving? Does he have everything to prove, or is the decision already made?

Yes, it seems bizarre. If someone offers you 160m for a player who is out of contract soon and can walk away for free, then why on Earth would you say no and start trying to haggle?
Equally confusing is how Real Madrid can afford to pay such a huge fee. Unless they are planning to structure the deal by paying 1m a year for 160 years

I'm from a G7 country, and I couldn't care less about status and humiliating defeats. The only important thing at the moment for our nations to do is to protect the innocent people of Afghanistan from the Taliban as much as we can. If governments cared more about people than about posturing and bluster and self-aggrandisement, we'd be in a much better place.

Glad you came out of it okay and without long-term symptoms.


But not everyone is fit and healthy. I don't know how old you are, but some people are older. Plenty of people have underlying health conditions and are more vulnerable to the virus.
This is why quarantining, social distancing, masks etc are important. It's not just to protect yourself, it's to protect those who are more vulnerable. Masks in particular are mostly about protecting others.
Four and a half million deaths so far from this thing, and the number is still growing. Plenty of people come out of it okay, some do not.

I don't think so. AFAIK you can only gain citizenship in places that actually exist. Besides which, doesn't citizenship normally confer some sort of rights? I can't imagine that Hell's pitchfork-wielding overlord is much of a fan of, for example, participatory democracy... he seems (at least from his public image) to be much more of an autocrat. Although if this is anything like a realistic depiction, he also likes a good tune, so it's not all bad.