@Salacious-Crumb said in US Politics:

I hope history records that these deep state scammers and their idiot press stenoographers hated Trump so much they were willing to start a war with Russia. What still irks me is that press agencies & organizations around the world, including NZH almost daily, regurgitated this garbage and pretended it was high-minded seriousness and that anybody who questioned the paranoid Democratic Party conspiracy theory orthodoxy could only have been an alt-right racist.

There will no accountability on the part of the press - none.

There may be accountability for those who opened this investigation if it is determined by AG Barr that the the FBI or DOJ under Obama were acting with political intent.

Watched the second half of this game. Not remembering all the rule variations, I found the refereeing a bit off and I don't know whether that was because a different rule was applied, or whether the ref was shit. Some of that was definitely the latter, as high tackles and forward passes were clearly missed.

Western Force won the game 26 to 16, but obviously they've played a full season under these rules, while the World XV squad only came together early this week. If it wasn't for Nick Cummins having a mare, World XV would probably have won (their defence was excellent, except for the last 10 minutes or so, when they'd emptied the tanks). He butchered three try scoring opportunities by knocking the ball on, one of those coming from an awesome break from Spowart that was a "power try" in the making, only for Cummins to drop the ball. Has he always been that bad?

Anyway, one thing is true about "rapid rugby" and that it is indeed fast, really fast. Having rolling subs and the game only lasting 70 minutes was an absolute necessity, esp for many of the retirees in the World XV squad, although I was quite surprised how good Corey Flynn still is. Pleasants-Tate' constant niggles with the opposition were hilarious at times, as was a break he made in the second half; the surprised look on his face when he sliced through the Force' defence was gold. Ellis is still a classy player and Finau and Spowart were good, too.

One impression I got from the game was that there's a strong "AFL feel" to this format, both due to the speed and the frequent (high) kicking. Unfortunately, that also led to a lot of ball handling errors from both teams. They can keep it in Australia; I hope never to see it here, but I'm glad that the Perth crowd seemed to like it. After the Force being pulled from Super Rugby, it's good that they've games to go to that they enjoy.

I hope history records that these deep state scammers and their idiot press stenoographers hated Trump so much they were willing to start a war with Russia. What still irks me is that press agencies & organizations around the world, including NZH almost daily, regurgitated this garbage and pretended it was high-minded seriousness and that anybody who questioned the paranoid Democratic Party conspiracy theory orthodoxy could only have been an alt-right racist.

@mariner4life said in Athlete's Salaries:

To put a Premier League players salary in to some sort of context.

Man U made 590 million pounds in revenue for the 2018 FY. 19% of that was game day. That's the same as merchandising and retail. People coming to games means about the same to them as people in Asia buying shirts. TV is everything.

They paid 50% of that out in "Employee Benefits" which is far and away their biggest expense. Good players make your team better, which gets you in to good competitions that bring good prize money. But more importantly good players make people in Asia buy your shirt.

My business would probably spend half of our money on wages, so is this any different when their business is really just the guys who play?

Isn't ManU a bit of an outlier though? My understanding was that most clubs spend 80+% on player wages.

Some interesting info here:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/bobbymcmahon/2019/01/20/europes-to-division-teams-generated-revenues-of-22-8b-the-premier-leagues-contribution-was-6b/amp/

The club that gets the biggest crowds is Borussia Dortmund!

@Rocky-Rockbottom yea Shetland is decent, although last series I started was dragging and I haven't got back to it.

Despite its sleepy appearance alot goes down on them islands ️‍️

I predict the Democrats' next stage will be to imply a cover-up on behalf of the AG William Barr when he inevitably has to redact or not give the full report to Congress.

Dave Rennie has shrugged off suggestions that he is in line to coach the Wallabies after the World Cup, saying that he would not quit his role with Glasgow Warriors for the Australian job.

Murmurings within Australian rugby circles hinted that Rennie would be Rugby Australia’s favoured option to take over from incumbent coach Michael Cheika from 2020 onwards if Wales coach Warren Gatland and England coach Eddie Jones were unavailable for the position.

However, Rennie put those rumours to rest when quizzed about the topic by The Telegraph.

“It’s just a bit of speculation, as often happens when there’s a potential job up for grabs,” he said.

“I certainly haven’t spoken to anyone, and my contract with Glasgow takes me through until the middle of 2020. I’d imagine from an international point of view most of these jobs are going to be gobbled up straight after a World Cup.

“I knew that was probably going to be the case when I signed on for another season, so it’s just speculation.

“You never say never, but what I’ve said is I’m assuming that, like a lot of teams, they’ll probably make changes in coaches immediately after the World Cup. That’s November 2019. I’m committed here until July 2020, so that’s why it’s unlikely.”

poor CNN. gearing up for the fap of the century over this Mueller Report release and then it's "oh sorry no indictment ok bye then." WFT. So after 2 years of fretting that it? "No further indictments" says Mueller as he fucks off into the sunset leaving Anderson Cooper, Don Lemon and Cuomo frantically scrambling for something to talk about for the next 8 weeks of screen time. Poor Wolf Blitzer's 86-strong panel of talking heads left sitting there stunned, reduced to extrapolating possible divine interventional meaning from 2 fucken words for the next 38 hours of tv. Poor cunts. Amidst all the dizzying confusion Wolf has forgotten to put his cock back inside his pants.

Well done and fair dues Blues boys. The little I saw indicated a hunger that exceeded my team.

That's a relevant result and worth celebrating after 2 dark, dark seasons. Truth is no fair dinkum NZ rugby fan wants to see an NZ franchise wallowing like the Blues did for too long.

In other news I miss the mongrel that Jamie instilled into a "sum of the parts" Highlanders

This video is well worth a watch, love this guys voice. Singing starts at 1.42