This is the 7th Lions v ABs series I've watched ('66, '71, '77, '83, '93, '05, '17) and I think this is probably the tightest my sphincter has been since the 4th test match in 1971. My ticker might not be able to handle this one. I get anxiety attacks even opening this bloody thread. If I don't have a paramedic on standby I might have to go into an isolation tank until the game is over and then look for the result. I thought this was supposed to be fun?!
Terry Jones: Monty Python star dies aged 77
https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-51209197
Dementia, a rare form. Hits close to home. Very sad.
Rest In Peace, Terry.
@Chris-B. said in All Blacks vs. B&I Lions test #1:
@dogmeat As they used to shout on the Basil Brush Show...."Who's that?"
Love that guy.
Boom-boom!
An all-time great as a player and skipper, obviously, by my memory after the Cavalier debacle in ‘86 was that Lochore was the guy who held the fern closest to his chest and helped rescue the ABs, much like Jock did a decade later. People forget how divisive the early-to-mid 80s were, when politics got in the way and supporters were turning their backs on rugby. Lochore was a great servant to the game and the union. And of course, I always loved how he remembered everybody in the Wairarapa, I remember being with family in Masterton in the late 80s and he knew everybody, a national hero who was at heart a smalltown heartland lad. RIP.
@MN5 said in Christchurch Gunman in Mosque:
The gunman ( and I still don't know his name without googling ) ...
I’ve been wondering the past two weeks whether this is by design. I suspect it is, mostly because of the idea that we don’t want to give the sickfuck psychopath “infamy and notoriety” or something. Maybe there are other explanations.
But burying his name seems to me irresponsible and inadequate. It’s a way of absolving him of some of the blame and spreading it far-and-wide onto “toxic white masculinity and privilege,” especially, which let’s face it means a lot of us here. Like, we did it. That’s why we keep seeing fingers pointed at ourselves with far too many confessional white-guilt op-eds telling us “we’re to blame,” etc. Am I being defensive? Maybe I am. But that’s what happens when people start fingerpointing and throwing around blame. And I suspect this is exactly the sort of highly emotional and divisive effect that the dickwad terrorist was banking on.
No, we and society are not to blame. Sure, there are a lot of factors you can pull outta your bunghole if you want to absolve the sicko. But he’s the shitforbrains who planned and executed this appalling crime. His name is Brenton Harrison Tarrant, and he ALONE is responsible for it. Certainly we can all do better as a culture and society making sure everybody feels included. But we are ALL individuals responsible for our own actions, and fingers don’t need to be pointed anywhere other than the sickfuck who planned the assault and pulled the triggers.
@ACT-Crusader said in FIFA Womens World Cup:
There’s some pretty brutal footage from international women’s football games. The hair pulling, kicking, biting, elbows.
“I went to a NHL game and a womens soccer match broke out.”
Re: "There are no easy answers, etc." Of course. But Scott Adams has an interesting hot take. I like it. "Change the frame."
Helping The Terrorists Recruit
There is more terrorism in the news, this time in London. So how do the British politicians respond?
They do a recruitment ad for more terrorists.
They start by giving the terrorists cool labels, such as “Islamic extremists.” Do you know what sounds like an awesome club for an angry young Muslim to join? I’m thinking “Islamic Extremist” sound about right. That branding should be great for recruitment.
The media also helps terror recruitment with their wall-to-wall news about the terrorists’ successes. Every time they mention the body count, the bad guys cheer.
A better approach for the media, if they want to be helpful, might involve inviting a continuous line of Muslim scholars and critics to talk about how these “gullible losers” were duped by ISIS to kill themselves and spend eternity in Hell. And we need lots of visual and other persuasion about Hell. I want Photoshopped images of the terrorists burning for eternity. I want descriptions of the smells, tastes, and sounds they are experiencing, so the next “lone wolf” has something to contrast with the 72 virgin story. Let’s put some doubt into that mix. Fear is a good persuader.
I also wonder why the families of terrorists are not being flooded with condolence messages from Muslim clerics saying they are sorry about their kid burning in Hell for eternity. Be sincere about it. Include some digital representation of Hell in those cards and letters.
Change the frame.
—
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/161427038341/helping-the-terrorists-recruit
The Gambler Who Cracked the Horse-Racing Code
Bill Benter did the impossible: He wrote an algorithm that couldn’t lose at the track. Close to a billion dollars later, he tells his story for the first time.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-05-03/the-gambler-who-cracked-the-horse-racing-code
Good start to Randwick. Race 1, 2yos, gah! a pile of scratches; check the track, rated Heavy. Small field. Looked at the stats for ‘em all, selected the only two horses who’d placed on Heavy, $1 exacta (top n’ bottom so $2 total bet), paid $90 yesssss!!!
Baron, just for you. I saw this on tv two nights ago, and figured if you hadn’t seen it you would want to. Strangely, Fox News did not promote it, and some yuotubers were uploading it and then it was getting removed. Likely just a Chinesecoincidence, maybe, who knows. Bloody thing should be viral, excuese the pun, I mean it. Give it a watch while you can, some fascinating stuff.
@canefan Yup, I got friends and relatives who draw fabulous salaries and are stressedtofuck because they’re leveraged up to their eyeballs in debt overpaying for real estate and luxuries they don’t need.
Breaking story about a locomotive engineer near the Port of Los Angeles who deliberately derailed a train near the naval hospital ship USS Mercy, because of “coronavirus concerns.”
Developing, clearly...
It’s airborne.
A choir decided to go ahead with rehearsal. Now dozens of members have COVID-19 and two are dead
[...]
On March 6, Adam Burdick, the choir’s conductor, informed the 121 members in an email that amid the “stress and strain of concerns about the virus,” practice would proceed as scheduled at Mount Vernon Presbyterian Church.
“I’m planning on being there this Tuesday March 10, and hoping many of you will be, too,” he wrote.
Sixty singers showed up. A greeter offered hand sanitizer at the door, and members refrained from the usual hugs and handshakes.
“It seemed like a normal rehearsal, except that choirs are huggy places,” Burdick recalled. “We were making music and trying to keep a certain distance between each other.”
After 2½ hours, the singers parted ways at 9 p.m.
Nearly three weeks later, 45 have been diagnosed with COVID-19 or ill with the symptoms, at least three have been hospitalized, and two are dead.
The outbreak has stunned county health officials, who have concluded that the virus was almost certainly transmitted through the air from one or more people without symptoms.
In interviews with the Los Angeles Times, eight people who were at the rehearsal said that nobody there was coughing or sneezing or appeared ill.
[...]
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-03-29/coronavirus-choir-outbreak
Every seat occupied.
Tone-deaf idiocy. Sadder still, this wasn’t somebody elses’ “gottcha!” This was the photograph they themselves chose to accompany their own headline.
@pakman said in Coronavirus - Overall:
Not sure I understand the offence?
Probably a seat-belt law against riding in the boot - even voluntarily.
@Bovidae said in All-Time Favourite NBA Team/Players:
@Salacious-Crumb I was going to say the Bad Boys but that was too easy. Watching them get under MJ's skin was funny though.
But the reality is MJ got under their skin. He won the battles, then he won the wars. After he torched the Pistons with those two games I saw, Pistons coach Chuck Daley game up with a NHL style gameplan to physically chop Jordan. And they did abuse him. Wayne Gretzky had it easier.
@shark said in All-Time Favourite NBA Team/Players:
PF Dennis Rodman
I never recall The Worm being particularly hated in anything other than a cartoon villain. Most fans, even opposing fans, enjoyed him. And certainly nowhere near the heat that his Bad Boy teammate Bill Laimbeer took. He was a hated thug. It was all the funnier / more infuriating because this big oaf didn’t need the NBA. The salary was play money for him. He was born of such extravagant wealth and inheritance he already had more money before picking up a basketball. Opposing players genuinely hated him.
