Jimmy_D

From what I’ve read, it was auditors that signed off on Everton declaring that amount of losses due to covid, NOT the premier league. I still doubt anything will happen points wise, but it’s not quite as cut and dried as it seems. If Everton really have been cooking the books egregiously, I can see them being in the precarious position of being big enough for the premier league to use them to make a statement, and distant enough from the regular top six race that they’re not too big to fail.

Leeds & Burnley threaten legal action against Everton and Premier League over handling of club's finances - BBC Sport There does seem to be something fishy about Everton's finances. Unlikely, but it'll be interesting to see if anything comes of this.

Seems extremely unlikely that even a mutated variant of monkeypox would have anywhere near the same level of asymptomatic transmission as Covid to make it a big enough threat to the population that a lockdown would be required. Best defence right now is to raise awareness and stop it from being unknowingly spread by people assuming the symptoms are due to something else.

More or less the case. Peace Talks Are Suspended, Russia and Ukraine Say (wsj.com)

Ah dammit, lost 2-1, final score. Great effort, really could have gone our way on another night.

Into 5 mins of stoppage time, still need another one to take it to extra time...

Burnley score a penalty to go 1-0 up!

Starting to create some chances now, we're certainly not out of this!

Sonnie Davis playing! That's Kelvin Davis son, I remember him coming on and scoring a penalty against his Dad in Kelvin Davis testimonial as a kid!

2-1 down now... We'll need to dig deep

Damn, 1-1

Gerrrrrrrin!

The US Senate just passed the $40B Ukraine Aid bill 86 votes to 11, only requires the formality of being signed by the president now. That'll be a significant help in helping Ukraine as it attempts to liberate Russian occupied territory.

No one thinks Russia is doing this without reasons for doing it. Suggesting that Russia's actions are justified is still a ridiculous and blinkered position to take.

That's the most realistic assessment of the situation I've seen yet from the Russian side. I don't think the same realism is there in the people that can actually make a difference yet, but hopefully the tide is starting to turn there. Just this appearing on State TV is surprising, it'll be telling over the next few days whether Khodarenok is allowed to continue speaking out.

How full scale invasion started. : ukraine (reddit.com) I think this video more than any other I've seen so far has made it hit home just what Russia has destroyed. Going from something that seems so mundane and normal in an instant... have to admit it's easy to lose sight of that a bit when for weeks Ukraine has only been seen as a battlefield.

The lend-lease bill is something separate that was already signed to make it easier to lend or lease existing military stock to Ukraine. In effect anything provided with that will returned to the USA if possible. The $40B is a separate aid package that will in effect be a donation to Ukraine. It was prevented from being fast-track ratified by a single US Sentator, Rand Paul, objecting, but it has bipartisan support and will easily be approved by the US Senate once it's fully debated. EDIT: You're correct in that it'll be US produced arms that are sent, but that's the entire point, to arm the Ukraine Army with more/better weapons than they have. The dollar value is just there to simplify the decision on whether it's approved or not.

Of course everyone wants the war to be over, but it’ll be finished on Ukraine’s terms. The USA putting $40B in with bipartisan support, in addition to $9B that was already available, shows that they’re not going to leave Ukraine high and dry.

Do you mean the Women’s FA Cup Final? That was an excellent game.

Any agreement that Russia would accept would likely include Ukraine disarming, a pledge for Ukraine to not join NATO, and if Macron got his way, recognition of at the very least, Crimea as Russian, as well as the territory they’ve already taken. All Ukraine would get is Russia stopping their attack now and agreeing to peace… until Russia comes up with a story about Ukraine breaking the agreement, or carrying out some other atrocity, and Russia being forced to “ensure their security.” It’s likely that Ukraine’s security and peace can be best secured by defeating Russia militarily, such that Russia lose the capability of invading effectively and retreat unilaterally. That then leaves Ukraine free to increase their military capability and enter security agreements to make any future invasion cost Russia far too much.

Russia’s trouble there is that, between Russia breaking their agreement not to invade if Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons, and Russia’s constant misinformation before and during this war, Russia’s word in any agreement is essentially worthless. Giving up anything to restore peace, and hoping Russia will be satisfied with it, is essentially just handing something over to Russia for nothing. At this point Russia don’t have Odessa, and it’s almost guaranteed they would break any agreement in the future if they thought they could take it.

To be fair the same reasons that Ukraine has done well have probably helped the UK somewhat this year... Second to Ukraine is the best I'd have wanted us to do this year I think (and the best we could have done!) Would have felt awkward almost if we'd pushed Ukraine into second place? 😅 Anything that annoys Putin and will be noticed by the Russian public is a win for all of us in my book.

Well... they've tried at least. It's not completely over Zelensky's head as they've come up with proposals and then taken them to Zelensky. He unsurprisingly turned them down. Macron is still a bit of a bellend for trying to surrender on someone else's behalf.

Russia have gained very little in the South since the start of the invasion, and have paid a huge price for those small gains. All tanks originally allocated to the invasion are now reported as destroyed. They’re digging into mothballed equipment from as far back as the 60s, and some are now armed with only bolt action rifles. Morale is close to the point of breaking. With Russia breaking around Kharkiv, that’ll free up some of the Ukrainian forces there and will give them options. Ukraine now has artillery, including the M777, that vastly outranges Russia’s, is vastly more accurate, and has better counter-battery systems attached to them. A combination of Ukraine’s Javelins, the UK’s Brimstones, and now even an Israeli Blue Spear system, have made the Black Sea increasingly hostile for Russian ships. I think the reason there’s been so much activity around Snake Rock the last few days is that Russia were on a clock before that arrived to get a foothold for an amphibious assault on Odessa. That’s likely passed now, Odessa is extremely unlikely to fall.