Sheaf Saint

Oh dear, what a pity, never mind.

If Pellegrino drops Boufal back to the bench now, he should be lined up against a wall and shot. Worthy winners in the end as WBA had nothing in attack. They defend competently, and usually that's all a team needs to do to get a point or more off us these days, but finally we managed to magic up a bit of quality from somewhere. A gritty performance because we knew that any Pulis side would set themselves up ultra defensively, so there was so little room for our forward players to operate in the first half, but then WBA changed their shape a little and the 2nd half was more open. We stuck to our guns and kept persisting and for once it paid off. Still got massive concerns about Forster though. Not tested at all today (only had to make one save that I remember), but somehow manages to make very hard work of the easy stuff. His parry back to the striker last week cost us, and it's juts lucky that his dropping the ball right back in the mixer wasn't punished today when it was still 0-0. Good to see VVD looking much more like his old self again today. He had Rondon in his pocket all afternoon and won a lot of defensive headers. Got forward well too and hit a thunderbolt shot just off target. Much better than anything any of our AMs could manage. BT Sport gave MOTM to Boufal for obvious reasons, but I'm going to say Lemina for me. Was everywhere and got stuck in.

THAT is why Boufal should be starting every week!

How is that not a penalty? Foster literally grabbed Tadic's thigh and pulled him back.

Redmond for Romeu? WTF!?

He's going to cost us a goal or two tonight I reckon. Just can't deal with anything under the slightest bit of pressure. Total liability

One of my mates who I went with knows a guy who lives in Milan and is an Inter ST holder, and we went and met up with him at a small bar a short walk from the ground beforehand. As such, we were a little late arriving for the match and only just got inside in time for KO. One of the most surreal experiences of my life... walking up to one of the most iconic sports stadia in the world, being pretty much deserted outside except for the security, and hearing OWTSGMI booming out from inside it. Gives me goosebumps just thinking about it.

This is a classic sign of clinical depression. You can go and see your GP about this is if you want to, but with the current wait times for mental health issues, you might be waiting a long time for any kind of assessment, and even longer for any kind of treatment. In a lot of cases, the GP will look to just prescribe some anti-depressants and get you out the door again. Now this might work for a lot of people, but it isn't right for everyone and can lead to lots of other problems as trying to come off them again can prove very difficult and produce symptoms which are often worse than the ones they were originally prescribed for. If you don't want to go down this route immediately then you can try changing your lifestyle first. Do you get a lot of exercise? Just being active a couple of times a week can really help to improve seratonin production and make a big difference. I would suggest, if you don't already, that you try going for long country walks or bike rides. Study after study has shown that regular exercise and connection with nature are excellent natural anti-depressants. If you already do these things then maybe take up a new hobby, or join some kind of groups where you get to meet and spend time with people who do share your interests and opinions, rather than the ones who you say you have nothing in common with. Just being around like-minded people will make you feel much better than feeling separated from those who you struggle to connect with any more.

If you derive your view of how good/bad the world is from what you see on the news or read in the paper, then it is very easy to conclude that the world is just sh!t and life is meaningless. I had to have two months off work earlier this year due to stress, and the best thing I did for myself while I was recovering was I stopped reading and watching the news completely. I can't begin to describe to you how much happier this made me. But seriously, I suggest you consider the possibility that you might be suffering from depression, because from what you have described it sounds quite likely. It's worth checking out IMO.

This is the level of stupid we are dealing with...

Yes, I agree. The key phrase in my original post was "in some cases at least". I'm not suggesting that it applies to all cases and nor would I. I just think that it is a very important avenue of investigation when trying to identify the root causes of radicalisation.

I think you misunderstand the point I am making. I'm not talking about the people at the very top, I'm referring to the foot soldiers, the pawns, the suicide bombers themselves. I have no doubt that the ISIS top brass are clever and manipulative enough to influence other people to carry out their bidding for them. They know exactly how to prey on the vulnerable to convince them that blowing themselves up in the name of the cause is a noble and honourable act that will guarantee their entry into paradise. What I am interested in is what makes these people vulnerable enough to accept this in the first place, because anybody who believes that murdering a load of innocent people and blowing themselves up in the process, because some magic man in the sky will reward them in the afterlife is a great idea, is quite obviously not of sound mind and judgement. Yes it is and no it doesn't. This is clearly a very contentious issue that polarises opinion, as demonstrated by this long-running thread. But one thing that I think we can all agree on - to a man - is that none of us supports terrorist activity and we all want to see it reduced or eliminated completely. For that to happen we need to look at all the potential reasons why people choose that life path in the first place, and that means exploring all avenues and being open to all possibilities. We need to identify the root causes of the behaviour so we can prevent people from becoming radicalised in the first place, and I firmly believe that mental health is one area that needs to be seriously considered in that respect. In the UK at least, why is it that the people who carry out these attacks are almost always young and from under-privileged backgrounds? Why do these young people feel so disenfranchised and disillusioned with society that they feel it necessary to look to this alternative narrative being promoted by ISIS? Is it possible that there is a correlation between the rising numbers of attacks in recent years and the cuts to public services that have severely restricted access to youth mental health services? These are all very important questions that need investigating if we are ever to get to the root cause of the problem IMO.

Now this is an interesting point you raise, and one worthy of discussion. Whenever something like Las Vegas happens, the immediate assumption is that the perpetrator must have had some kind of mental illness. Why is it that nobody ever seems willing to ask this question when the attacks are carried out by someone with brown skin and a middle-eastern sounding name? Is it not possible that, in some cases at least, mental illness has a part to play when people become radicalised?

Went to see Bladerunner 2049 last night. Wow. I was very dubious when I heard there was a sequel in production, but I was absolutely blown away by it. A totally absorbing cinematic experience and I can't fault a single aspect of it. I think this could be the first time I have ever given a film 10/10.

Yeah enjoyed it so far. It has a very different feel to any of the series that came before it. But that was inevitable given the massive budget and the on-demand nature of TV watching these days, meant they could produce a serialised and cinematic show instead of the episodic ones that came before. I like the fact that there is a dark edge to it as well. Starfleet has always been depicted as a shining beacon of honour and integrity in the past, but already with Discovery we can see that the captain is obviously being entrusted to use whatever devious, underhanded tactics he sees fit in the fight against the Klingons. Kirk or Picard would never have busted a prisoner out of a transport ship to recruit them to his crew like that. Looking forward to seeing how it unfolds.

That wasn't on a saturday afternoon though

That's all well and good. But he offers no goal threat whatsoever. If we are going to persist with playing a lone striker, then that player needs to be someone who can actually stick the ball in the net. And when the 3 attacking midfielders behind him don't/can't chip in with goals as well, it's a recipe for disaster.

I'm not really qualified to answer that as I confess that my understanding of economics is very limited. On paper, they have costed everything they want to pay for and stated how the revenue will be raised. As to how that would work in practice I can't really say. I was just pointing out that there is a constant narrative that Labour = bad for the economy and that Tories = good for the economy, but the statistics show that narrative to be false.

The idea that the Tories are more trustworthy than Labour when it comes to managing the country's finances is a myth... http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2016/03/13/the-conservatives-have-been-the-biggest-borrowers-over-the-last-70-years/

We're actually looking a lot more dangerous now. need to get a goal from it while we can.

Finally we force De Gea into a save!

Good tempo and intensity so far. But Utd have already cottoned on to the fact that we will be looking to get it up to Long quickly and have got 3 defenders on him every time the ball gets near him. We need Davis and Tadic to be closer to him when the ball gets to him, so he can lay it off to them when he gets crowded out.

It really doesn't. It's an essential tool when making projections because it gives us a frame of reference. How can climate scientists convince policy makers of the need for action if they can't show a valid projection of the consequences of inaction? They can't. There are a number of examples of 'populist shyte' which cloud the issue (such as the constant harping on about polar bears) but the business as usual baseline scenario really isn't one of them.

It's just a commonly used term to describe one of a number of possible future emissions baseline scenarios that are fed into computer models to make projections about possible future warming. Nobody is actually suggesting that we continue down that path (except, it seems, Trump and his friends in the oil industry). http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg3/index.php?idp=286

Continuing with our current rate of emissions