leicsmac

Speaking personally, I would hope that it is more than just the Muslim population in Europe that would consider getting involved in this highly unethical and incredibly sordid bit of realpolitik as unacceptable, and make their feelings clear accordingly.

These days, with tech being the way it is, you can quickly be certain in quite a few instances, I think. But then I've long thought that rule to be rather flawed and open to manipulation (since Suarez at the World Cup) and so when it can be confirmed within the time of a video replay that the ball was heading in without the direct intervention of the offender, I really see no good reason not to be able to award the goal.

I think the record of number of CL finalists in the last decade might cast doubt on that tbh. I think it's more that the very best European teams are at the moment at least on a par or better than the top PL ones, but the PL still has the biggest consistent strength in depth.

In these days where you can say with practical certainty that a goal would have been scored, I think there's no reason not to simply book the player and award the goal.

Well, he's clearly wanting to talk to someone about it now, given he's currently ranting about how "allies" won't help him in this particular piece of bloodthirsty foolhardiness.

Fantastic word to use sometimes, isn't it? On topic, I'm not entirely sure how much of a novel story it is, though.

Additionally, the Chinese might even at least remain neutral or at most take a harder stance towards the Russians, seeing as their biggest market to sell stuff to would be being directly interfered with in a big way.

Danny has it right. There's practically no such thing as a "clean" log burner, same way as there's no such thing as "clean" coal burning. Folks are free to use one if you like, but own the consequences for themselves and those around them.

If it comes to that. Of course, given their performance trying to subjugate just one European country using conventional weaponry, I'm not convinced that the Russian military is all that tbh. Edit: the swap would be Moscow and St Petersburg, among others, for London, as well as the cities mentioned.

The Middle East subject certainly has drawn a lot of heat and subsequent locks in the past, that's true. That being said, that has tended to be because of genuine argument on the topic and on the present part of it there seems to not be much of that - possibly because it's reasonably well accepted that everyone involved is behaving horribly and there's no "good guys" to state a moral high ground with that can then be argued about.

Both the UK and France have nuclear weaponry. All parties involved know no one wins that conflict once it begins to escalate. ... is there any particular reason why it might get locked at this point in time?

If that's true then there's quite a few other "threats" around as well. So the US leadership appears to be highly hypocritical as well as self interested liars. Funny, that.

To look at this from an angle bereft of political conpassing, there will always be people who believe themselves and their "tribe" to be superior to all or most others and be willing to back up and demonstrate that belief with acts of both indirect and very, very direct harm to those they seem "inferior". Not all of these people are smart, but those who are often have power and are very, very dangerous to everyone who crosses them in the short term, and absolutely everyone in the long term. Neutralising such sentiment is (probably) not possible, but neutralising the power they have to cause that harm is both possible and entirely necessary. Not just as a moral duty, but as a pragmatic way forward to guarantee the future of our civilisation itself.

Appreciate the clarification. I think the mentality of those in the first paragraph and those in the second paragraph here are pretty much entirely equal in terms of their depravity, tbh, simply because their attitude towards innocent life as expendable is pretty much identical.

Begging pardon, but those first two sentences, on first glance, look like they directly contradict each other.

Quite right, so this always was all about geopolitics and self interest, rather than the (legitimate) plight of the Iranian people after all. They're clearly expendable to all the powers that be who are involved. Glad there is agreement on that.

Which I'm sure is a comfort to those who are dead, and also to those that aren't considering such bombing is not fulfilling the stated purpose of regime change in a "better" direction and, more to the point, was never intended to in the first place. Lack of (stated) intent (though personally I think that itself is up for debate) and exporting various methods of destruction doesn't necessarily make a lesser evil than keeping hideous brutality in house in the name of religious lunacy.

I think a Shakespeare quote is best related to the above discussion: "A plague on both your houses."

“If I have one message to give to the secular American people, it’s that the world is not divided into countries. The world is not divided between East and West. You are American, I am Iranian, we don’t know each other, but we talk together and we understand each other perfectly. The difference between you and your government is much bigger than the difference between you and me. And the difference between me and my government is much bigger than the difference between me and you. And our governments are very much the same.” - Marjane Satrapi That quote, sadly, doesn't appear to ever get old.

Rumour was there was something in the pipeline! Hope they have Alan Tudyk in there as a ship computer or something.

Fair to say, though I would posit that the first of those decisions was far more significant in terms of the game than the second. Just a bit frustrating that it came to that in the first place - but then, pretty much this entire tournament has been frustrating for England, most of it self-inflicted but not, I think, wholly in this case.

I do hesitate before making the point again because the difference in attitudes towards the refs in football and rugby is both critically important and valued - but I think it's reasonably simple to judge that the officiating was the critical difference in that match. There's a fair few people who should feel hard done by tonight.

Guess they didn't want to risk giving away a penalty in that area, kicking it would force France to make territory of their own in the few seconds remaining - which unfortunately they did.

Well, that was daylight robbery. England definitely raised their game, feel for the Irish who should have the title right now.