RicoS321

It's our best players, picked in the style of Alex Miller. Most folk had forgotten that Left back was actually a position before Shinnie arrived anyway.

Why? Fuck Ireland. What have they ever done for us?

More guns. That's the answer for everything. The only answer is to roll back our foreign policy. Stop interfering in the middle east (leave everything to the UN, so there can still be some involvement), and make it clear that that is what we're doing - don't give people an excuse. Stop spying on our own citizens, and treat everyone like humans. Make society more equal and respect everyone's human rights. Once all that is done, accept that sometimes people do bad things and that spying and guns won't stop that, but make it worse. Perhaps we can use some sophisticated drone technology to get to these incidents quickly and stun the attackers to prevent further casualty. We're down from 150 at its Sky News peak last night to 120 today. Interesting seeing these things unfold with permanent news coverage. Sky were particularly interesting, as they were just randomly speculating. At one point, the attacks were because it was Friday 13th and that they attacked the concert hall because there was an American band playing. The BBC are, this morning, reporting a spontaneous outbreak of singing of the French national anthem at a French national football game - who'd have thought? Although, so far, no news channel has reported the final score.

150 dead now. Crazy. Fuck it, I'm going to bed.

Unless they're good at fitba. It is very much an internal problem. Borders closed, in a European country, fuck sake. Sounding bad for the hostages like.

Edit: nae need.

All kicking off there again. 40 deed so far, in a couple of incidents, with 100 still held hostage. Mental stuff.

I wasn't mixing the two, I thought Farage was clearly holding the British system up as a democratic example. Which I thought was disingenuous given their own poor representation due to FPTP. I could have been mistaken though. I thought Blair did more to put people off democracy completely, become disengaged, and changed the whole political/election process to a charade that focused on personality over policy. I'd say that the vast majority of my colleagues at work have no interest in democracy or politics at all. Whilst, there's still a majority turnout at elections (65% last time round), I think there's a lot of those still do it because they feel it's their duty, and a lot who support Labour or whoever because "that's who I've always voted for" - i.e. folk who have no interest in democracy; it's like they're supporting a fitba team. Obviously, that is all contradicted when the electorate have something worthwhile to vote for, like in the independence referendum. But even with that, try and start a conversation with someone about PR, and the vast majority will glaze over immediately. I think the majority of people prefer the illusion of democracy without even thinking about what it means. See the lack of outrage about the latest changes to internet privacy for example.

Apart from the shite about Britain caring about democracy. It's an interesting state of affairs in Portugal right now, and he's right about the blanket ignoring of it in the media. Al Jazeera was the only place that gave a decent overview. There's only one way Europe is heading if they continue to ignore the rights of countries' citizens. It's a pretty fucked experiment. The legal requirement for surplus for individual Euro members is fuckin bizarre like.

The dons train at Countesswells, and had to put up some changing facilities separate to those used by kids I think.

Totally disagree. His ability to play in several different positions would suggest he has a good understanding of the game. His excellent runs off the ball, and the way he drops in to cover for other players shows a pretty good team player. His crossing has vastly improved since he first arrived, to the point his crosses more often than not hit the man (or the area where the player should be). Decision making and the occasional poor technique happen when you play the game at the pace that Hayes does. There's not a better left sided player in the SPL in my opinion.

Una cerveza por favor.

Just saw it again, I was spikkin shite, entirely Jack's fault. He did well to get back in and - sort of - put the Jute off.

Possibly one for the Jack thread, but fuck it. Thought Jack was a lot better today and got better as the game went on. Took responsibility for his misplaced pass, apologising to everyone on the pitch, twice, and McInnes which was quite amusing. I'd like to see a replay of the second one though, as I actually thought McLean was at fault as much as Jack. Jack was breaking from defence and running directly toward McLean. Instead of McLean turning and moving into space, taking the defender with him he just stood still waiting til Jack was a couple of yards from him with only a risky pass to Logan on - which he made a cunt of. I thought McLean was often the weak link out right, he seems far more comfortable in field. That said, I thought Pawlett's movement was excellent again today, keeping high up the park and stretching them at every opportunity. His passes were always in front of the player too (see Hayes' goal) ready for them just to run on to, and he got himself into the box at every opportunity. Hayes man of the match with Shinnie and Pawlett close behind. Flood was very good too, and him and Jack seemed not to get under each other's feet for a change too. Overall, a comfortable performance. I may even watch it again on Alba.

He also has a history of being a serious journalist and can think for himself unlike yer average news reader.

Go on. Yer only smoking it.

Apart from when asking: "how did an asset now valued at £62M on your books get acquired for £4M post oldco liquidation?"

Jebus. Huns release their annual results with a loss of £7.5M and a note showing that they'll need £2.5M further investment to see them through to the end of the season..... in order to hide the fact that today the EBT appeal by HMRC was successful thereby fucking over the oldco too. Awesome. Die you sevco fucks.

Nobody suggested they didn't deserve support. My suggestion is that they deserve different support (from the state for a start). That the two need to be separated. Given that I don't know anyone who died in WW1/2 - my grandparents were involved in WW2 in some capacity - I see remembrance as a tool to remind us that wars don't need to, an shouldn't, happen. In fact, that was what I was taught at school. As Rocket suggests, the poppy is effectively hijacked for use in later - avoidable - wars. Hijacked by a duplicitous prime minister (Cameron, and Blair before obviously) who is simultaneously stoking up support for a bombing campaign in Syria. Basically, I don't think it's enough just to remember. All that remembrance money going to monuments and funds to help the continuous stream of needless deaths is just perverse. The remembrance funds should be used to prevent more war - that would be the best legacy of WW1/2 and the best way to stop future deaths. Surely that's the point in the poppy? Could you imagine us going to war in Iraq if the previous ten years' poppy funds had gone into anti-war lobbying? Or, through education, we had an armed forces who were able to stand up and question the conflict that they're being asked to fight in; a mass conscientious objection, because they have been empowered to do so. That'd be worth buying a poppy for.

Stupid cunt - me - I meant tax threshold. Even then, it's not a great analogy! Why do you need monetary reward for performance? Especially as a team. It's absurd. It has absolutely nothing to do with competition, and it is entitlement. I pay money to play in a football league every week, and try and win every single game. The prize is winning, beating your opponent. Footballers expect a good wage (rightly so) and will often be seen as money-grabbing and so on, but that takes place off the pitch. There's not one player in a dons shirt of a weekend playing his arse off so that his parent club can make £100,000 extra for finishing above the club below them. They just want to beat Hertz, the Jutes or whoever. The prize is finishing above them; winning. Just as I don't turn up at work to increase the oil company I'm working for's share price. As for other sports, most are irrelevant. Individual sports aren't - for the most part - dominated by wealthy players winning everything. Andy Murray can't buy better tennis bats than Marin Cilic because he won more money at the previous tournament. But then I don't believe he still plays tennis for the money either. The US entry draft system is probably the only example I can think of where last season's poorer teams are given first pick. I have no idea what their prize structure is like. Not that it's relevant what every other league or sport does. I'd rather Scotland broke the mould, and tried something new. Given we're in our most sustained period of two team domination in the history of our game, we'd certainly do well to try something meaningful.

De-criminalise initially, then legalise and tax. We spend an absolute fortune on policing and locking up adults for taking and selling an arbitrary substance to other adults. Spend the savings on better social education and better provision of social alternatives to boozing.

Quite simple really. Just remove the phrase "prize money", and replace it with "distribution payment". In a team sport where money can make a team exponentially better over time, the notion of prize money is absurd. You're suggesting that fairness in sport isn't measured on performance of two teams with a similar sporting chance, but on one team's ability to overcome a severe initial handicap. In fact the fairness you're referring to is just perceived entitlement - the exact opposite of fairness. It's about as fair as the fat lazy cunt with wealthy parents fa's just benefited from an increase in inheritance tax.

I've said for years that that cash should be split evenly between everyone in the league so that everyone knows they're budget at the beginning of the season, and everyone gets a good payment. The nonsense that is cash per place is just anti-sport. Only the top 4 would lose out if the cash was split evenly, and only the top 3 significantly. Put another way: given an over-estimate of SPL player's salaries and expenses at £100K p.a., we'd be able to afford 10 more players than the Motherwell team that didn't get relegated in the play-off. These are just prize funds of course. It's safe to say that any increase in player's salaries etc. can be covered by increased attendances that roughly correlate with better performance on the park. If we want a more competitive league then a sporting prize fund is a must. It's not just the gap to the Tims that is the use.

I can't help but think McLean is shoe-horned in there because there's no one better. The further away from our defence he is the better I think. I don't believe he's good enough defensively to play deeper, but it may work versus the shiter teams. But I also think that Shinnie is better at left back (than Considine). It's the one position I think we're missing a good starter in. Every other position on the pitch we've got a guaranteed player that is good enough to start regularly, and in many positions we have two or three that could do a great job. Where you've put Goodwillie, I'd say is both McLean and Pawlett's best position too, and I wouldn't play them anywhere else (perhaps Pawlett on the wing if we're struggling for players). But it could be that Jack is the issue? Perhaps he doesn't do enough at defensive cover that a better player might, which means we can't afford the luxury of Kenny McLean and Goodwillie alongside him. If he had a bit more grit and was stronger in the tackle - pressing like Flood or Scott Brown - rather than slowing down the play to wait for support (which might not come), it'd allow us more room in midfield for ball players like McLean. Similarly, if we got in a strong defensive midfielder, does Jack have the ability to become the incisive midfielder capable of moving the ball quickly? I think we're a better team with Jack in it, but perhaps we're seeing the limits to his ability and maybe we're not pushing him to improve in the defensive areas of his game - or to fulfil one key role. But I'm probably over-thinking it.

Nor should it. Apart from the fact that wearing the poppy (unless you made your own) isn't about remembering the dead of WW1 and WW2, it's about raising money for charity to help veterans of all wars. In other words, you can't really wear the poppy without donating to the cause of more modern wars (all WW1ers are now deed, and WW2ers are dwindling, and the majority probably no longer in need of financial support) - they're financially inseparable. Not that I have a problem with giving money to soldiers of modrin war, even though I disagree with the acts of war in themselves. If poppies were free, I think that'd be better. Also, and I'm not denying you're authenticity here Manc, it's become so polluted by folk who wear it to be seen to be wearing it, that I think it's lost any meaning. If I'm really honest, I don't feel any great emotion or sense of feeling toward the dead of any war before I was born - despite enjoying many a book about lots, and getting riled by some of the stories. I suppose I feel that - by wearing a poppy - I'm hijacking someone else's emotion. Like being at a funeral of someone you met once in the pub ten years ago.