pap

You said you were never going to discuss this again out of respect, didn't you? How many times have you done so now for cheap point scoring? Still, this chronic lack of memory is to be expected if you ainttooclever. Ha! I thought that'd draw you out. I've read the debunkings too, Tim. You've made my morning by scurrying about the internet and doing the same. Which one was your favourite?

Dunno if this has been posted on the Lallana thread, but this piece of gutter journalism from the Star is amusing. http://www.dailystar.co.uk/sport/football/390289/Liverpool-MOCKED-for-spending-25m-on-Adam-Lallana-days-after-Kroos-joins-Real-for-20m

A report of an alleged Spanish aircraft controller in Ukraine. http://slavyangrad.wordpress.com/2014/07/18/spanish-air-controller-kiev-borispol-airport-ukraine-military-shot-down-boeing-mh17/

'Cos that works out so well for people

You must have quite the geopolitical nerve-centre in Sussex, Tim. Alas, the limited resources in Liverpool don't leave me with as much dogmatic certainty. I don't trust the Ukrainians at all, or anything coming out of that country right now. Some of the stories that have surfaced are an immediate indicator of fishiness. When a plane is shot down, why the hell is it important to claim that pro-Russian forces have been stealing from the dead? That is the least important aspect of the incident, puffed up and made big to generate disgust. Seems all a bit Hillsborough to me. Let's entertain a wilder claim from Ukraine; that the BUK's are so complex that the pro-Rebels must have had ongoing and operational support from Russians when the missile was fired. I really like this one. It goes for broke, in the sense that it tries to create a direct tie to Putin and MH17. Thing is, it doesn't really make any sense. What good has Putin derived from this incident? What were the perceived benefits of shooting an international airliner out of the sky? The only party that has benefited from the tragedy are the pro-West Ukrainians and those that are supporting them. That doesn't exclude your hypothesis btw; the rebels could have shot down the plane and the Ukrainians could just be creating the corpse-robbin' propaganda. World attention has been fading recently; little international relevance once you mute the screeches of the loudest hawks. There is little that is as tangibly international as a long-haul passenger flight, and few things that'll generate as much attention when one goes missing. Ukraine is back on the international agenda and Putin is a monster that is responsible for shooting down innocent internationals, right? Personally, I think the Ukrainians engineered this crisis themselves.

Official statement from the Russians. http://english.pravda.ru/russia/kremlin/18-07-2014/128078-russian_defense_ministry_boeing-0/ Interesting bit:-

Tapping up mission complete, innit.

The word "terrorist" is an interesting sibling, I reckon. If you're charged as a murderer, you get a trial. If you're labelled a terrorist, it's a tazer, bag over the head and a cargo class flight to a torture facility. If you're lucky, it'll be one that the press knows about.

Just press Alt-Gr when typing a vowel. I always wondered what the fúck it was for

Think you might be hearing trip trapping when none exists. As far as I can make out, Jonnyboy hasn't been trolling you. If anything, it's the other way around. You've set your stall out pretty comprehensively. You require someone to be a pilot, air traffic controller or a specialist in long haul flight to have an opinion on what looks like a deviation (from every other recent flight) into a war zone. You're absolutely certain that it's Russian-backed and that it was murder (therefore intentional), based on what, we don't know - because you haven't said. In a sense though, doesn't really matter what we think. Decisions are going to be made at the national leader level. How many of them do you think will put their people on the line against Russia based on everything that has made you so certain?

Brilliant way to spend your life, isn't it? Starting threads about topics you have no interest in just to "catch" others. The only person who has been caught here is Complete Bóllocks Fry. It was only a few weeks ago that he was harrassing anyone that suggested Stevie G might be having quiet words in Southampton shell-likes at Camp England. The bloke is such a purveyor of complete bóllocks that he probably forgot the specifics of complete bollócks he was aiming at the Stevie G conspiracy crowd when starting this thread. That's why when I asked whether he'd changed his tune, he announced that the entire thread was a lie. Or complete bóllocks, in other words

To me, it's just another case of username falling far short of the inspiration. The famous CB Fry was noted for being proficient in many areas. Our version can only really do three things:- 1) The middle-aged playground bully act 2) Stating the obvious all fúcking day long 3) The "I'm so annoyed with what you just said" ragin' spectacular When it comes down to it, you can distill those to one thing, really. 1) Talking complete bóllocks. I know you like the Small Fry tag for him, but I wouldn't mind giving "Complete Bollócks Fry" a run-out. He still gets to be CB Fry, but we'd have a handy way of telling him apart from the one that achieved stuff in his life.

Ah very good. There's symmetry here. This thread, much like its starter, is not to be taken seriously, (so is it just the attention you like, or the opportunity to call other men "sweetheart" - there are plenty of places that'll accommodate both)

Well, I note this change of tune with interest. Does this mean you're prepared to put some stock in the "Stevie G tapped up our players at the WC" theory?

May I ask sir how he has arrived at such certainty himself? Which claim was it that put you over the edge? The immediate rush to blame rebels, the photograph of a "rebel" Buk missile launcher or the reports that rebels have been pilfering from the dead? The last one worked very well in deflecting blame at Hillsborough, y'see.

Have you been watching Red Dawn on repeat?

How have you come to these conclusions? The situation in Ukraine is as chaotic as it is precisely because so many agents are involved. We've seen the grim spectacle of the far right rescuing democracy in Ukraine, the US have been caught on tape discussing their plans for a new regime, and is part of wider battles, such as the Eurasian Union vs the European Union, or the EU versus the US (Fúck the EU, they said ). On the ground, things are just as, if not murkier. How is Russia responsible for everything here?

Er, no - but I didn't need to be. Little that we've seen is concrete yet; all circumstantial. Suddenly flying over a war zone when so many previous iterations of the same flight had avoided it is a little puzzling. Depends who is directing the aircraft, but the Ukrainians as instigators is an obvious line of investigation. The whole situation in Ukraine is fúcked. Here's a rundown of recent events, if you haven't been paying attention. Ukraine had competing deals on the table from East and West. The Russian deal was an energy subsidy and a multi-billion dollar loan with no strings on how that money should be invested in the country. The West's counter-offer was the usual stuff; the swirling tendrils of the IMF or some other Western controlled bank and eventual membership of the EU. The democratically elected President of Ukraine went for the Russian deal. It was never closed, because he was unconstitutionally removed by members of his own party. They held a vote and secured a majority, but didn't get the required threshold to remove their President from office. With the help of the far right and the West, they removed him anyway. That is legal in the West's eyes. The referendum in Crimea to return the province to Russia's sphere of influence, which was a popular vote and massively in favour of cutting ties with Ukraine, wasn't legal - despite having more apparent legitimacy in reflecting the will of the people. The West has stirred this up (see Victoria Nuland, etc) and in my view, as has happened so often recently, we're making both the wrong friends and the wrong enemies. The Ukrainian Far Right? Do me a fúcking favour. Is that really who we're cosying up to these days? This of course, follows the suggestion that we buddy up with our Al Qaeda ally rebel fighters in Syria against the hated Assad. The term "conspiracy theory" is weaponised language, primed after the JFK assassination and regurgitated ever since. Boiled down, it means "don't take it seriously, kids". That's why anything important is labelled as such. Needless to say, I don't take it seriously Why should you?

For the sake of argument, let's assume the most cynical position and assume that all governments are legalised protection rackets. Which crime syndicate's marketing do you like best?

Gleiwitz, Pearl Harbor, Gulf of Tonkin, false accusations of Kuwaiti babies being turfed out of incubators by Iraqis, 9/11. Before anyone starts, I don't think the Americans did Pearl Harbor to themselves. I do think that Roosevelt made it a very attractive target, and knew that such an outrage was the only way an isolationist America was going to get involved in another war.

It does appear as if this plane specifically flew into harm's way, doesn't it? I wonder why it deviated so much.

If the rebels were responsible, and it looks increasingly likely, then the chatter from their ranks indicates they thought they were shooting down a Ukrainian military asset. It's a war zone. If you can think of an environment where accidents are MORE likely to happen, I'd be very interested.

Love it. Obviously the opposition is very weak, but like the fact that RK is giving all the players a go. I'm a fan of Sharp; been very good in pre-seasons and is just trouble in the box. Would like to see him kept on as an option.

Yay. I got the Lounge vote. I never knew.

Ha, it gets a Cineworld, a TESCO Extra and a Nandos and it thinks it's civilised Speak to us when you have a train station, wool. Or indeed, an international golf tournie (it's actually on the Wirral - we've nicked it Eastleigh airport style). I was in Leigh tonight for a 30th birthday party. We went for an Indian in a restaurant called "The Indian". FFS, it was like being an extra in the Naked Gun movies.