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Reply | Good luck son of pugwash
at 09:44 22 Mar 2025
Awful news. I never met Gareth, but I really liked him, if that makes sense. A wonderful character. Really sad. RIP Cap'n. |
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Reply | The Upcoming COP30 climate summit in Brazil
at 16:39 13 Mar 2025
This is simply not true. The climate can change very quickly, both globally and relatively locally. Perfect examples of this are what's known as the Medieval Warm Period, where temperatures rocketed in a very short space of time, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere, where temperatures were actually warmer than they are now, even globally, by about 1°C. (Incidentally, this allowed the VIkings to colonise formerly freezing Greenland and vineyards to flourish in Northern England). The MWP existed from about 900AD to 1300AD and was followed by rapid cooling, leading to what's known as the little ice age, where temperatures plummeted.
This rapid temperature change is also true at the beginning and end of ice ages, and in interglacial periods. For example, in what's known as the Younger Dryas, temperatures dropped by 4–10°C in just a few years. We are currently in - as far as scientists can agree - an interglacial period, and for a long time people have been expecting the climate to cool. But the truth is, we simply don't know.
The climate has, and always will be, in a state of constant flux and there are numerous factors that affect it, many of which are still not properly understood. Despite all sorts of claims to the contrary, climate science is far from settled, and scientists still don't know why these rapid warming and cooling periods happened*. But one thing's for certain, they were not related to human activity.
When scientists are unable to accurately forecast weather over periods of just a few weeks (or even days), I think we should be very wary of any predictions based on limited data.
*Malenkovich cycles are one such theory; they're an interesting idea, but they do not explain all sorts of climate fluctuations. |
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Reply | Alright you bird lovers?
at 10:13 8 Mar 2025
Feck, I got me owls and me crows mixed up! Or did I??
Did the Norse/Germanic-derived collective noun come first?
A parliament of crows "is an ancient English expression which derives from Germanic folklore. It is due to the belief that crows, which were believed to be as intelligent as humans, would reunite to judge their own who had offended the community. If they were judged guilty, the parliament would tear them to pieces.
Pleasure to be sharing pedantry with you Mr M! |
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Reply | Alright you bird lovers?
at 09:41 8 Mar 2025
Oi, I like crows. Try telling their parliament they're unsociable! |
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Reply | Schools
at 15:52 6 Mar 2025
Nope, there are several of us on here. The scrubs run or the round the river run. I preferred the latter as there were places you could stop for a crafty smoke. |
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Thread | A word about contention..
at 10:32 4 Mar 2025
(By contention I mean argument/debate, not whether we're in with a chance of the play-offs).
Last night I was reflecting on the highly charged discussion in the Trump/Zelensky thread, and considering just how polarised opinions are there. And what is surely clear to anyone reading it, is that no matter how 'right' someone thinks they are, there is someone else who thinks they are 'wrong', and that they are 'right'. But in reality, none of us are 'right' and none of us are 'wrong', all we have are our individual perceptions (and our opinions based on those perceptions).
Yet look how heated that discussion is: people fronting up to each other about how 'right' they are, how 'wrong' the other is. Swearing at each other, accusing the 'other' of being a [insert your favourite insult]. We all clearly think our opinion is the right one (and I'm as guilty as anyone else on this), and some of us are apparently so attached to being 'right' that we are willing to fight the other person over it. The anger in that thread is tangible. Yet none of us really have a clue about what's really going on, we just have our particular perceptions.
It reminds me of religion (or for that matter, football), where the advocate of any particular religion - the 'true believer' - knows that they are right, and the other is wrong. But how do we form these perceptions? And why are they so fixed? So fixed in fact, that people will go to war over them. Why are we so determined that we must be 'right'?
Not wanting to go too deep here, but surely it's that little thing called 'ego'? Our egos are functional aspects of our personality that are designed to protect us. They are pretty fundamental to our sense of self, our identity, and they are hard-wired into the primal fight or flight mechanism. Hence, when someone disagrees with us, on a subconscious level at least, we feel under attack. And therefore we must defend ourselves.
But the thing is, we are all capable of rising above this, if we are prepared to let go of having to be right. Speaking personally, if I let go of having to be right, it allows me listen to the other who I think is wrong, and often I will realise that they have just as valid a point as I do.
I suppose a key question here is, is there an actual, objective truth? Is there an incontrovertible right and wrong? I don't think there is. I think we all live in our own stories, we all create narratives about our lives and our identities. And between us, we create the reality, the society, the world we live in. Or at least, we create the narrative that we relate to.
So, if in truth, none of us are right, and none of us are wrong, yet many of us don't like the way the world is, what can we do about it? Well, the standard way, it seems, is to fight about it! Or, of course, to argue, to debate, to attempt to find consensus. But that doesn't really seem to work that well. How many of us have changed our minds about something from reading different opinions?
The point I am trying to get to is this: in the words of the song that Michael Jackson sang (but didn't write): if you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and then make a change.
I don't believe we can ever truly change the world by the actions we take outside of ourselves, ultimately, the only way change happens comes from within. And this can be tangibly proved. There is a saying: what you focus on expands. For example, if you only focus on things that are 'wrong' with the world, things that trigger you, things that make you angry, then you will see that more and more in the world, it will become your reality. But I have noticed that when I focus on things that are good in my world, when I am grateful, when I appreciate the wonder, the miracle of being alive, then that becomes my reality. Events flow differently - or rather - I am attracted to (and attract) those things into my sphere of existence. In fact one of the great revelations of quantum physics is that our thoughts do actually influence our reality, and therefore we can alter our reality by changing how we think. Yet my ego will often pull me back into the world of having to be right. I suppose I like the cut and thrust of it. I like being 'right'. But does it serve me? Not really.
Anyway, I've waffled on far too long about this. You all know the old adage about opinions, and clearly all of us on this forum, at the end of the day, are just a bunch of arseholes.
Only joking!
Peace out, brothers and sisters.
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Reply | Trump v Zelensky
at 13:25 3 Mar 2025
This is the most profound statement of this entire thread. It's easy for all of us to pontificate and argue the toss, but for the people of Ukraine, it's a very different story.
In whatever shape or form, peace can't come soon enough. |
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Reply | Trump v Zelensky
at 11:14 3 Mar 2025
Oh what a surprise, Hillary Clinton blamed Russia. I mean that's straight out of the playbook. No proof of that whatsoever. Stand that against her (at the same time as the alleged hack) funding the Steele dossier, claiming that Trump had been filmed with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel and was therefore compromised and being blackmailed by Russia. I know how much people despise Trump, but let's have a modicum of objectivity. |
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Reply | Trump v Zelensky
at 13:36 2 Mar 2025
Thanks for at least presenting a well thought out response, but I could absolutely level the same accusation that you make against me, back to you.
For example, you have ignored everything I've said about Joe and Hunter Biden in relation to Ukraine, and your assessment of Zelensky's corruption avoids a pretty damning case for the prosecution (the Pandora Papers was an investigation into criminal activity), which of course includes cronyism on a grand scale. And then there is the case of what's happened to the 100s of billions of dollars that has been pumped into Ukraine. So to state that I "massively overstate the case for corruption against Zelensky." is in itself (ironically), hyperbole.
As I said in my post, there's a lot more that I could say, but I think in the context of this being a football forum and in the interests of (relative) brevity, I have tried to present a condensed analysis based on some key observations.
I would also say that your argument is very one-sided: you've ignored Biden's role, and by omission (like so many others in this thread) made it appear it is only Trump who's been self-aggrandising (which goes without saying), but context is key here. The corruption and self-aggrandising that went on under Biden's watch was off the scale.
I will admit that even with the years of research I've done into geopolitics it's very hard to untangle what is a very complex web, but, in reference to this particular issue, here's a quick snapshot from the United States House Committee on Oversight and Reform report into Biden's activities:
"the Committee on Oversight and Accountability has accelerated its investigation of the Biden family’s domestic and international business practices to determine whether the Biden family has been targeted by foreign actors, President Biden is compromised, and our national security is threatened. Records obtained through the Committee’s subpoenas to date reveal that the Bidens and their associates have received over $20 million in payments from foreign entities.
4) Ukraine: Devon Archer joined the Burisma board of directors in spring of 2014 and was joined by Hunter Biden shortly thereafter. Hunter Biden joined the company as counsel, but after a meeting with Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky in Lake Como, Italy, was elevated to the board of directors in the spring of 2014. Both Biden and Archer were each paid $1 million per year for their positions on the board of directors. In December 2015, after a Burisma board of directors meeting, Zlochevsky and Hunter Biden “called D.C.” in the wake of mounting pressures the company was facing. Zlochevsky was later charged with bribing Ukrainian officials with $6 million in an attempt to delay or drop the investigation into his company. The total amount from Ukraine to the Biden family and their associates is $6.5 million."
Full article: https://oversight.house.gov/the-bidens-influence-peddling-timeline/
And that, as they say, is the tip of the iceberg.
Similarly, you talk about Trump's "criminal conviction for fraud, and how he tried to overturn the results of a democratic election", where the second part of that is contentious (as recent revelations have proved), and the first part ignores the context of far more heinous criminal activity in terms of his opponents, not least Hillary Clinton in funding the Steele dossier against Trump - something people in this thread still cite (unconsciously, I think) as if it were true, when it was completely fabricated. Indeed, the mainstream media were gung-ho for it when it was released as evidence of Trump being in Putin's pocket, but when it was exposed as a fraud, funded by Hillary Clinton, there was no retraction, in fact many continued to cite it as if it were true. Yet despite being a criminal attempt to smear her rival, all Clinton received for her crime was a fine:
"Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee have agreed to pay $113,000 to settle a Federal Election Commission investigation into whether they violated campaign finance law by misreporting spending on research that eventually became the infamous Steele dossier." https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-2022-midterm-elections-business-electi
Regarding the Media Lens article I quoted from, did you actually read it? The fact that they absolutely hate Trump, yet still concede that he has consistently pursued an anti-war policy (long before his presidency) and, furthermore, has called out the corruption of the US military/industrial complex and their endless pursuit of war for profit is very telling.
Look, we're clearly never going to agree, but I hope you will at least concede that the issues in this highly polarised debate deserve to be reconsidered without the highly charged emotion that characterises many of the posts here.
The bottom line for me is that peace must be reached as soon as possible. There are no winners in this conflict. Even if Putin does get to keep the majority Russian-populated areas of Ukraine that they have invaded, the price for that has been hideous: 800,000 Russians have already died in this conflict according to my sources. I agree that in an ideal world (one that sadly doesn't exist) then Putin would stop the war immediately, withdraw his troops and submit to a peace treaty. And I agree that Trump should be pushing far harder for that to happen. But in my analysis, Trump's negotiating stance is to play both sides up against the wall in order to get the fastest resolution. It's not nice, but that's realpolitik. |
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Reply | Trump v Zelensky
at 10:21 2 Mar 2025
I don't want to single you out for a LOL, but really, come on.
It is forgivable that you may have missed the Pandora Papers investigation into criminal offshore bank accounts (a media-wide investigation by a consortium of investigative journalists that included the Guardian newspaper), but I think in the light of this thread and the geopolitical quagmire that it refers to, people need to know that one of the revelations was that Zelensky and his associates had millions of dollars stashed away in offshore bank accounts before the Ukraine/Russia conflict kicked off. Given that he was elected in part to oppose criminal oligarchs in his own country, this could be considered hypocritical at the very least.
From the Guardian report:
"The files reveal Zelenskiy participated in a sprawling network of offshore companies, co-owned with his longtime friends and TV business partners. They include Serhiy Shefir, who produced Zelensky’s hit shows, and Shefir’s older brother, Borys, who wrote the scripts. Another member of the consortium is Ivan Bakanov, a childhood friend. Bakanov was general director of Zelenskiy’s production studio, Kvartal 95."
Nearly all of these associates were given prominent positions in his new government.
The article also reveals that Zelensky had extensive business dealings with Russia.
Please read the full article here: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/oct/03/revealed-anti-oligarch-ukrainian-pr
What I find extremely ironic is that people in this thread accusing Trump of being corrupt have somehow missed this rather damning evidence of Zelensky's corruption.
There are so many other angles to this situation (that no one has referenced in this thread) that I am loath to go into them all here, because I would have to write something like a thesis to explain the web of dodgy dealings that involve Zelensky and US/Western vested interests, including banking cartels, weapons manufacturers and not least Biden and his son Hunter, who was of course handed retrospective immunity from prosecution by his father just before Biden left office.
On one level you have the straightforward narrative that this is just a war of aggression, plain and simple, and in that story it is a simple fact of Putin bad, Zelensky good. But surely anyone who has followed geopolitics this century knows that wars are about much more than these simple tropes. Look at the second Iraq war, for example: an illegal war knowingly entered into by the UK and US based on falsified documents that not only destroyed that country and killed 100s of 1000s of innocent people, but more pertinently to the issue of corruption, lined the pockets to the tune of multi-multi millions of US corporations and individuals - not least of course Halliburton, who strangely had one Dick Cheney as its CEO before he went on to become the American Vice President before and during the Iraq war.
Countless millions of dollars went missing during this conflict, enriching many with vested interests, but also, of course, the terrorist organisation known as ISIS, giving them a huge fund to go on to wage their own campaigns in the Middle East.
I am citing this as evidence that wars are huge opportunities for businesses and individuals to amass fortunes; this is not only heinous in every sense, but also deeply corrupt. The Russia/Ukraine war is no exception. It has been a money-laundering goldmine, as well as a more straightforward profit-generating exercise. And I think it's worth asking: where do people think the 100s of billions of dollars that have been pumped into the Ukraine have gone? Have any of you read the detailed accounting? Well, of course not, because there isn't any available.
As others have pointed out, Trump was elected to (amongst other things), stop the almost endless flow of US tax-payers money from disappearing into the bottomless pit of this conflict. We're talking about 100 Billion dollars (according to Zelensky) up to 300 Billion dollars (according to Trump). And of course Europe, including this country, have also pumped billions into this conflict: we're all paying for this.
At the same time, I think it is pertinent to point out that Trump has not suddenly become averse to war, it is a position he has held steadfastly for years. It is again ironic that it is a hard-left media outlet - Media Lens - who have revealed how consistently anti-war Trump has been. They are extremely unflattering in their view of him, but they are at least scrupulously honest in their assessment of him in regard to military action. Here's a snippet:
"Thus, on the West’s ‘regime change’ efforts in Syria, Trump tweeted bluntly in 2013:
‘We should stay the hell out of Syria, the “rebels” are just as bad as the current regime. WHAT WILL WE GET FOR OUR LIVES AND $ BILLIONS? ZERO’
In the same year, he also said:
‘Remember, all these “freedom fighters” in Syria want to fly planes into our buildings.’
In July 2017, the Washington Post reported:
‘President Trump has decided to end the CIA’s covert program to arm and train moderate Syrian rebels battling the government of Bashar al-Assad…’
In December 2018, Trump announced that he would withdraw all of the two thousand US troops deployed in Syria. The US war on Syria was later revived under president Biden, and Syrian president Assad was overthrown last December.
In 2020, during Trump’s first presidency, the US and the Taliban signed an ‘agreement for bringing peace’ to Afghanistan after nearly two decades of conflict, eliciting widespread criticism. Trump had earlier explained his rationale:
‘Well, I’m the one that talks about these wars that are 19 years (long), and people are just there. And don’t kid yourself, you do have a military-industrial complex. They do like war.
‘I said, I want to bring our troops back home – the place went crazy. They want to keep… you have people here in Washington, they never want to leave. I said, you know what I’ll do, I’ll leave a couple hundred soldiers behind, but if it was up to them, they’d bring thousands of soldiers in.
‘Someday people will explain it, but you do have a group, and they call it the military-industrial complex.
‘They never want to leave; they always want to fight. No. I don’t want to fight, but you do have situations like Iran. You can’t let them have nuclear weapons. You just can’t let that happen.’
Full article: https://www.medialens.org/2025/orange-peace-is-donald-trump-a-racist-misogynisti
Industrial scale money-laundering and corruption are inextricably bound into this conflict and Zelensky is at the heart of it, whether people like that fact or not. So even with a modicum of impartiality, it's fair to say that Trump comes out of this well. Yes, I know this will absolutely enrage many of you, but it's a plain fact that no one has done more than Trump to attempt to end this conflict that has already killed 100s of 1000s of people. Yet I see people in this thread calling for a perpetuation of this war. To me, that is a hideously bloodthirsty attitude, and of course it represents the position of most of Europe. Surely, peace is of paramount importance?
I could go on, but if you've read this far, well done. I'm sure many will disagree with my analysis, but there is a whole lot more that I could add to illuminate this heinous, murky, horrible situation. But I do want to say that I am NOT saying that Putin is a good guy; he's just another one of the mafia thugs involved. But I do want to take issue with the reductive, simplistic and IMO flawed anti-Trump rhetoric. |
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Reply | Traditional cafes
at 10:14 1 Mar 2025
How about the Embassy Cafe, just a few minutes walk from Latimer Road tube? You can walk to the ground from there in 20 mins or head back to the tube and it's a couple of stops to Shepherd's Bush.. |
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Reply | Hammersmith Bridge
at 18:47 26 Feb 2025
Well done for managing to find something counter to those published facts and in spite of the obvious and understandable desperation of Wandsworth council to sort this out. However, the answer to your question "I was just wondering whether the money needed for Hammersmith Bridge might be better spent elsewhere, to solve other greater and more urgent infrastructure problems" is - as far as I and many many others are concerned: no. [Post edited 26 Feb 18:51]
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Reply | Hammersmith Bridge
at 17:51 26 Feb 2025
As another West London driver I thought your assertion sounded unrealistic, and it's not surprising to discover that it is in fact, nonsense.
From a Wandsworth council report:
"The Council has collated its own data as well as working with the Department for Transport (DfT) and Transport for London (TfL) in obtaining their information. Snapshot data from the DfT shows that between 2020 and 2023, the overall number of motor vehicles on Putney Bridge was estimated to have increased by 16%, from 32,083 to 37,239. The Council’s own automatic traffic count data shows a 25% increase in traffic during the morning peak hours between 2019-2023. Data from TFL has also confirmed that bus journey and waiting times have worsened.
As a result of the greater traffic flow, it is clear to see that journey times have lengthened, and the level of wear and tear on our roads has disproportionately increased, at a greater financial cost to Wandsworth taxpayers. This data will form a key piece of evidence as we continue our campaign for Hammersmith Bridge to reopen."
Simon Hogg said: “The ongoing closure of Hammersmith Bridge has placed an unacceptable burden on the people of Wandsworth. Following the closure over five years ago, traffic has got increasingly worse on our local roads, resulting in regular gridlock and longer journey times for people commuting to work, school, and vital appointments. Businesses are struggling, emergency vehicles are delayed, buses are delayed, and our community is rightly frustrated at the inaction and lack of progress to reopen this key river crossing."
Have a read: https://www.wandsworth.gov.uk/news/news-january-2025/urgent-action-needed-on-ham [Post edited 26 Feb 18:02]
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Reply | Places for a new ground
at 14:52 26 Feb 2025
There is a fairly realistic site and that's the Old Oak Common redevelopment area. The new station, part of HS2, will offer (allegedly) fantastic transport links. It's a brownfield site and I think if our owners were serious about a new stadium, this would be the place to look. |
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Reply | Hammersmith Bridge
at 10:44 25 Feb 2025
Oh my god that is absolutely hideous. As you say Colin, it is disgraceful that this is still nowhere near being sorted out. What a shitshow. |
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