LiberalFox

Lost over 10 games with the most expensive squad ever to be relegated including Plymouth, Millwall QPR and Middlesbrough twice. Hardly a big loss. Good luck to him.

That Donald Trump has been found guilty.

I think he's been neutralised by the deep state.

I think Labour win the election but I don't know how big the majority will be. I'm hoping the Lib Dems can get a decent number of MPs. Mostly I hope for a good intake of MPs.

Isn't Luke Akehurst best known for being extremely pro Israel? I'd argue that's a right wing position.

They've always been seen as charities rather than businesses. I suppose if they are now just businesses they will have no obligations towards their local communities.

I meant that they should remain tax free given it's an act that actually saves the taxpayer money. I'd be interested to hear the rationale for it.

I think if you have children of school age and you are deciding to pay for them to receive an education from the independent sector rather than take up the free state education you are entitled to then there isn't really a good argument that you should have to pay tax on top of that.

Can anyone explain what Labour are actually proposing to do? So far I'm only aware of votes for 16 year olds and charging VAT on private school tuition fees. I can't remember an election where the opposition was considered such a favourite without actually having any policies.

It's satisfying when I know something and he doesn't though!

Yeah I thought it would be something like that.

What's wrong with IVF?

I've found Rob Lee on twitter to be the single best source of information. I've been closely following the war and it's interesting how some traditionally credible sources of information are actually frequently terrible and how some people without traditional forms of credibility are able to prove reliable sources of information. Another useful resource is the presentations put together by Perun on youtube. He explains various concepts in reasonable detail without being completely obtuse. It's from following these sources that I know Russian advances are currently inevitable because Russia enjoys an advantage in combat power due to greater manpower and artillery. I suppose the long and short of it is I've probably learned how to do what Owen is suggesting already and so I know what is happening on a strategic level. I don't really follow sensationalist news media that much and while there can be cheerleading there can also be doomsaying. It's not correct to say that Ukraine's counteroffensive was a terrible failure because that would require knowing how much materiel and how many casualties occurred on both sides. What would be correct is that the offensive failed to achieve anything greater than tactical level advances which are not relevant to the outcome of the war. But similarly the Russian winter offensive of last year failed to do that and Russia is yet to achieve that level of success this year though they are the side with the initiative and therefore more likely to achieve that this year. I don't think the media can replace individual desire to seek a realistic picture combined with enough effort and reasoning to understand how to achieve that. If you don't have that ability then you are still going to end up consuming content that supports your emotional logic. Hence there's a sudden market for the narrative that Russian victory is inevitable while I would argue that it's hard to see what Russian victory would even look like considering it isn't even the inevitable outcome of Russian military success.

This is like reading a match day thread. Russia has the initiative at the moment because Putin has been more successful than anticipated in finding volunteers for the Russian army while Ukraine has been trying to avoid changing its draft laws and that's led to Russia gaining a manpower advantage. Meanwhile the delays in US aid and US/EU lethargy in ramping up ammo production has given the Russians an advantage in artillery. So it's allowed Russia to start making some advances and we might be seeing the beginning of a major offensive on Kharkiv or that may be designed to stretch the front line further and allow more fans in the Donbass. It's really impossible to accurately predict the course of the war or how it will end. If Ukraine can find the right balance with its draft law then it would be able to solve its manpower issues and give fatigued units the chance to rotate. It's also expected that towards the end of the year Western production will really start to ramp up as many newly built facilities go online in the US. I doubt the outcome of the US election will actually influence US foreign policy despite Trump's bluster because the war is great for the US interests. There's obviously a danger of some sort of collapse of the Ukrainian lines or general morale although it should be noted that Russia has proven incapable of conducting any successful operational level advances since the first few months of the war. Most people don't expect Russia to be capable of taking Kharkiv. Long term Russia is going to find it harder and harder to replace its materiel losses because a lot of the stuff they are producing is taking soviet era stuff out of storage and refurbishing that. Eventually those stocks start to run out.

I assume it's because people are more likely to spend when they draw less attention to the price.

It's funny that the UK got 0 votes but there isn't a particularly deep reason for it. We don't have to qualify so we never really bother making songs that would attract the televote. It sort of did what it was designed to do - got some of the smaller jury points because it's a bland radio pop song and flopped with the public. We might well have won with Sam Ryder if it wasn't the Ukraine invasion year so I don't think it's impossible for the UK to win.

Possibly. I'm not sure why that matters. One might conclude that rules were bent due to the near unanimous support for Ukraine. Anyway I'll leave this here because I don't want to argue. It would serve the EBU right if Israel won and half the competition boycotts the next year.

I don't think Israel should have been allowed to partake. Their entry is obviously political. If what I've heard about the Dutch entry that got them disqualified is true then that is also wrong. Not sure how to feel honestly because I quite like Eurovision but don't remember this much drama and animosity ever happening before.

I think it was about midnight.

It was quite exciting. Hope we see them again tonight now I know what to look for. It got quite bright for a few minutes.

I wasn't sold on Kane for a while but think it's hard to argue he isn't up there with the best English strikers.

I hate them for giving us Peter Taylor.

Do Wimbledon have a rivalry with anyone?

Jokes about Spurs not winning anything are a bit boring. Also we don't have a rivalry with Spurs. I don't want us to turn into Forest who think they are rivals with Liverpool.