Zoraptor

You'd have got very long odds on South Africa qualifying after that first match. Gone from absolute shambles to pretty decent.

Some interesting refereeing on show in the England v Ghana game. Can't help but think that if the shirt colours had been reversed Ghana would have been down to 10 and England would have had a penalty. Especially the Pickford one, even England supporters seemed to think he was fairly lucky to still be on the field let alone not giving away a free kick. If it had been Kane vs [Ghanaian keeper]...

They key take away about Starmer is, and always has been, that in his 'landslide' election victory he got half a million less votes than the 'unelectable' Corbyn. It was always about a Tory collapse and how First Past the Post works rather than Starmer/ Labour themselves being popular. Turning out to be Tory lite- which was not exactly a surprise, his slogan could have been 'status quo, but better!'- evaporated even that tepid support. Labour in the UK have the same issue left parties have in most places- spent so long pandering to the mythic floating vote in the centre and shifted so far right in pursuit of it that they've given their core voter no reason to vote for them. For 30 years in the UK, and 40 years here. Then get terrified of doing anything even slightly left economically, and start up with... weird social policies to compensate. For Starmer in particular in seems the only thing he actually capital B Believed in was unqualified support for Israel. Which was a particularly odd look, for someone who was a human rights lawyer. (As a contrast, all the right wing parties are hugely pro immigration here. Most immigrants vote right so adding a million new people give them ~700k new voters; and the 'anti immigrant' party needs something to complain about but not do anything about, of course, since they own houses as much as any other MP. It also inflates the housing bubble further which makes the economy look good on paper while our English Lit grad Finance Minister who has only ever worked in PR and politics runs the real economy into the ground. While spending more money per unit than Trump did on Air Force One buying helicopters and claiming those in social housing have 'won the lottery' (direct quote)- unlike her fellow ministers on struggle street practically donating their time on a paltry 320k salary and claiming 52k/ year accommodation supplement for living in their own houses. One of six in their portfolios. Mystery why NZ has no stamp duty or Capital Gains Tax, eh)

Group G now has the opportunity to do the funniest thing. Especially with Belgium having a player sent off. Just need another 3 draws and the NZ/ Iran qualification quinella is all on.

Don't see how even Iranian hardliners would be opposed, since that's basically who's in charge and who Trump was negotiating with even more so than before. The only 'concession' made was to disavow nukes, which they'd done repeatedly anyway; and had supposedly been months to weeks away from developing since 1999, ie 27 years ago now. All the big provisions Trump wanted beforehand and criticised Obama for not getting- eg no aid to proxies, giving up ballistic missiles- aren't in his 'agreement' either. And they can still shut the straits down whenever needed. There's essentially no downside for Iran.

..and their football team isn't great either. badum_tish.gif

So, how do you spin that to be better than what Obama achieved with no war? Even managing to get an explicit no toll on the straits provision isn't exactly victory, just not an abject defeat. No wonder Trump seems genuinely peeved with Netanyahu.

NZ top of our group? Say the line, Donald. Entertaining game and nice to have one where both sides were clearly trying to win, rather than just not lose.

The current english team itself is as likeable as most others. Their problem is, and always has been, the fans and press who are truly obnoxious whenever there's a modicum of success- or even just expected success. Not all of them, of course, but enough to make even someone who holds an english passport (ie me) hope that they lose in a way that generates the maximum amount of hilarity and over the top sky is falling reaction.

Breaking: Trump to fire Hegseth and replace him with Pochettino. US is playing very well. Paraguay though... kind of wish I hadn't burned the 'only just met' line on RSA's performance now. If it carries on this way it could be 10-0 by the end.

They should award the tournament solely to southern hemisphere countries if they want to hold it in NH summer. No need for 'hydration breaks' then. Rather enjoyed the ROK/ Czech match; would have been a rank injustice if it had ended up as 2-2 though.

Shame no one thought to introduce the South African players to each other before the first match of the tournament. At least the three red cards made it memorable.

Access to the matches for both sides' fans is part of the hosting agreement. ie things like the Iranian ticket allocation are mandatory, not voluntary. Infantino is just pathetic and the US knows he cannot pull the tournament; and that's it. All that ludicrous 'peace prize' told Trump was that Infantino would let himself be walked all over. Same as every other bit of appeasement Trump has received. It doesn't earn you credit, it's an admission you're a client and should be treated as such.

Eh, that's a bit too extreme. Even Trump- who makes threats reflexively and is a definite bully- doesn't think violence is the answer to every little conflict. Just an option to solve it (or 'solve' it). See his deal with the Taleban last time which he got a lot of stick for, but was certainly not the violent option. Trump is the only President dumb enough to try it on with someone like Iran though and think it'll all be a breeze and he can end it all on his timetable, his convenience and with him looking like a genius; unlike Sleepy Joe. For pretty much every war it's the combination of thinking it's doable/ winnable and problems tending to look like they can be solved with nails when you have the very large hammer that is your military.

If it were AI it wasn't sent without any human checking it for sure, since the german language version got edited due to someone noticing; though germans subbed to the english language version still got it. Could easily be that whoever was checking the english version just skimmed it without thinking what it looked like. Don't think there'd be much issue with the kolovrats/ sun wheel(s) in isolation since they aren't the overtly nazi black sun version. It's the double sowilo that is the problem and to be scrupulously fair to GOG, the sowilo is also 100% the rune for 'sun'. As well as having been appropriated by the SS. (Of course it's the germanic rune for sun, not slavic... but if you want a sun rune that's what you get)

They used AI. Bit hard to sack them. Tempting as it might be say that they used Grok one of the problems with AI is it has no actual context beyond what it 'reads'. The tsunami of "no, they're just pagan symbol enthusiasts!" every time a Ukrainian neo nazi's tattoos or uniform patches gets posted to social media means AI 'thinks' that it really is just slavic culture to be doubly enthusiastic about Harry Potter cosplay/ a confused Buddhist/ like specific stylised renditions of a sun/ skull etc. OTOH, can't wait for the reaction to GOG's Jain games promotion week.

For all the snark about cease fires now meaning "you cease, we fire" or being agreements to stop killing civilians so quickly* most cease fires historically were practically just agreements to stop shooting so much at each other. In the hope that they'd become permanent in the case of open ended ones. eg the longest running current ceasefire on the Korean peninsula where they still semi regularly end up shooting at each other. They have mostly ceased firing. Except Israel of course, and they have at least ceased firing, at Iran. The problem is the one everyone foresaw except Trump himself- he can't get an agreement that even looks like a win. Which he needs, and Iran knows that he needs. *given the US justification for their strikes the "aggressively placed their country/drones near our peaceful and purely defensive military bases/ drones" cliché is relevant as well.

Here's a link. It's the FT article reproduced in the non paywalled Irish Times. Hasn't seen a dollar spent to help rebuild Gaza, is definitely a distinction that needs to be made. You can bet prospective Gauleiter of Gaza Tony Blair* and pals have had their snouts in the trough though, especially since Blair's been in the media. Telling Starmer he needs to suck up to Trump more and that will solve all his problems. They've also had at least one actual meeting, where they decided... to ask the UNSC to ask Hamas to disarm. Ho hum and Ha ha, given that the BoP was marketed as a way to neuter/ end run the UNSC rather than begging them to do something like everyone else does. *At least George Bush had the decency to retire rather than still inflicting himself on the world 15 years after leaving politics like Blair does.

Used to be part of the same confederation. Officially, Australia left because Asia provided better competition and more commercial opportunities. Unofficially, Australia thought they should dominate and determine policy, everyone else didn't want that and kept voting Charlie Dempsey as confed head. The most famous consequence of that was South Africa missing out on the World Cup to Germany first time around in one of those perpetual FIFA voting scandals. Which semi ironically is also how Oceania (practically, NZ) got a permanent qualification spot to the World Cup a decade later. Doesn't make much practical difference, now, as FIFA has relaxed some of their more restrictive rules on cross confederation participation (eg in theory there was a limit on the number of NZers able to play in the Phoenix or previously the Kings despite them being NZ based teams, since they were classed as being non confederation). Don't think Auckland can play in the Asia club champions competition despite winning the Australian competition, but that's about it for limitations now; similarly, two Australian clubs play in the Oceania league.

That's practically a signature of any Amazon genre TV show at this point. Spend a lot per episode overall, but save money by having weirdly/ unbelievably empty sets and having everything happen in the same few places. If you notice it, it makes it feel extremely cheap. How many guards/ people are there at the White House, in reality? Yeah... At least Fallout has a built in excuse for the emptiness. (The Boys not as egregious there as Rings of Power though. Massive, and probably incredibly expensive establishing shot of [populous place]. Actual population seems to consists of half a dozen people. Numenor, big enough population to basically conquer Middle Earth but the biggest crowd seems to be around 20 people, even for something as important as their queen getting 'executed')

Well, apparently/ according to the NYT*, the US/ Israeli plan was to have Mahmoud Ahmedinajad become the new (old) Iranian leader. Under normal circumstances you'd have to laugh at the idea of one of Iran's most hardline leaders- and supposedly linked to the revolutionary Hostage Crisis/ storming of the US embassy, pro nuclear program, stridently anti west etc etc- being advanced as a proxy by the US, and laugh at the idea of him deciding it was a bad idea only after the plan to free him from house arrest resulted in him getting injured (killed in early reports). Completely absurd, and would make you question the nature of reality- or be convinced it was a clumsy and obvious psy op to get Ahmedinajad hanged- 2 years ago. Given it's Donald 'concept of a plan' Trump though it has to be given at least some consideration for being accurate. *doesn't seem to be a gift article link, but isn't paywalled for me.

For a memorial, sure. It's in their interests to embiggen their contribution. And the other sources manage to be even less credible if you can be bothered checking them. eg the BBC article on the topic managed to increase the size of the park by a factor of 1000000 (yes, one million fold; 52 km^2 instead of 5.2ha. Not a simple typo either, you cannot accidentally write 52km^2 instead of 52000m^2, at best you have someone who isn't aware that 52km^2 is a decent sized city and cannot do maths properly doing your verifications). They did, at least, manage to correct that, eventually. They also spent a lot of effort counting the names on the 'memorial' wall, but no time at all verifying that the names on the wall were of deaths. Neither was there any comment on how even their numbers don't get anywhere near the claimed number of deaths, ie 6000 out of 11000 deployed. Mostly because that number is extremely obvious bollocks, which makes relying on the exact same sources for information about the memorial park look dumb. That just results in a full scale invasion in 2014, and, if the troops were followed through on, potentially nukes flying a month or so later. People love to think that Russia doesn't really see Ukraine as an existential threat. Doesn't matter in the slightest what you think or I think- or even what Macron/ Biden/ Johnson/ Obama/ Merkel thought- in that matter, all that is important is what the Russians thought. To be frank, despite what western leaders say they all know that's how Russia sees it, which is precisely why they haven't deployed troops and- despite breathless media reports over the past 4 years- won't without Moscow's approval. If it's an existential threat nukes are in play. There's no point having them otherwise.

Kill hundreds of civilians by shooting down their plane and you get a medal from the US. Also, finish your current course before starting your next. (Can't remember which strategic genius that sage advice ultimately comes from; Sun Tzu, Clausewitz, or my mum)

Trump has suspended a plan- or a concept of a plan- to bomb Iran again after his Gulf allies objected. Which might not really be news given it's Trump but is kind of interesting given the sustained push to paint those same Gulf allies as being all in (politically, and over the last week or so, militarily) for the initial attack that has been going on. I was always skeptical of MbS being anywhere near as gung ho as he was painted as given his country's sustained inability to even deal with the Houthi's drone and missile threat. And the UAE's leaders must be aware that their 'Sparta of the Gulf' reputation is a joke when the orders issued by the rich Dubai/ Abu Dhabi elite have to be carried out by those in the poorer Emirates. Which already resulted in their expeditionary force fleeing Yemen after nearly 100 Fujairans copped a scud there and threatened mutiny at dying for Dubai's imperial ambitions. (The off the records seem to be implying that there's a ban on airspace and baseage for attacks, at least until diplomacy is exhausted, and has been since the ill advised attempt to force the Hormuz blockade)

The original source for that is the (free/ gifted) article that Malc linked to above.