Monzanator

1 hour ago, heywoodu said:

Instead of saying I forgot that, I'm gonna counter with "the Bible says they're the same"  

But you're an atheist so you don't believe in that anyway

13 minutes ago, heywoodu said:

I believe we have some day on the Thursday before it, but I'm not sure  I get easily confused about on which days the dude was killed, went up, came back down, went up again etc.

Pentecost is not about Jesus Christ though so you got that wrong It's about Holy Spirit.

1 hour ago, heywoodu said:

Fantastic, on the first day* I have to start a job and so have to use public transport

 

* Actually that's on 2 June, since 1 June is one of those Christian holidays...not second Easter day but the other one where they 'celebrate' Jesus took the sky cloud taxi or something 

It's Pentecost. I've noticed it's only a Christian holiday in Protestant/Lutheran countries like Netherlands or Denmark. In Catholic countries like Poland it's just a normal working day

Then again we have a Feast of Corpus Christi on the first Thursday after Pentecost and that's a Christian holiday here

It's video game stuff. Once real racing starts nobody will remember about some online game crap

2 minutes ago, Olympian1010 said:

I get the strand feeling that Arabs don’t like Israel 

 

That actually is a seriously interesting point you make though.

Technically speaking they probably compete under Palestine flag. It's not much about Israel as place where they live but the Israeli flag that will never be shown at these Games

7 minutes ago, Olympian1010 said:

Well, besides them not being Arab. 

Then again, I don't see Israeli Arabs competing there either?

6 hours ago, Olympian1010 said:

Y’all were the Australia of the Pan Arab Games 

Indonesia is the most populous Muslim country in the world. Them taking part in Pan Arab Games makes more sense than you probably realize

16 minutes ago, Olympian1010 said:

I’m so sad about the Nordic Combined situation. It’s exactly like you and I have said. These guys should have had zero success. However, they were winning medals at the Universiade (and I don’t think Poland generally gets a ton of those in the winter) and doing amazingly well at the Wolrd Championships. It’s such a shame. Poland kills so many of its promising talents. Of course it’s not an isolated problem to Poland, but you hate to see that anywhere.

Overall, the NC international level has taken a nose-dive in the last 10-15 years. It's basically Norway vs Germany plus some Austria and Japanese one-offs. Finland is barely more competitive than ski jumping. Czech Republic, Italy and France (post Lamy Chappuis) are running on fumes and I don't even know what happened to USA? From Todd Lodwick and Bill DeMong to nothing in less than a decade. Have they closed Steambot Springs down or what?

Our alpine skiing hangs on Maryna Gasienica-Daniel. Maciej Bydlinski who got a rare Top 30 in these Kitzbuhel or Wengen combined events was told he's "too old" at age 27 and became an EuroSport expert instead. Snowboard relied on the Ligocki family clan for most of 20 years but they all became too old and retired (Jagna Marczulajtis became MP and she was the only non-Ligocki snowboarder with any success in the last 20 years). Actually we still have Kwiatkowski and A.Krol in parallel events but parallels are losing ground overall to all the freestyle events. Our freestyle skiing was a one-person squad (Karolina Riemen-Zerebecka). After she retired, we have nobody. What else? The Justyna Kowalczyk success era converted in us building one 5km loop which she called Universiade-level. Now we have some promising juniors and maybe Lukas Bauer and Martin Bajcicak inject some life. We should really focus on sprints IMO.

The best winter sport we have outside from ski jumping (with our senior team getting older by the minute, we could bomb out after Beijing OG anyway) is biathlon but of course that's separate from Skiing Federation and maybe that's why it hasn't been ruined yet.

2 minutes ago, Vojthas said:

Polish Ski Federation has more a less the air proportions: 78% of nitrogen (which is men's ski jumping), 21% of oxygen (which is women's cross-country - earlier based on Kowalczyk as an athlete, now she is building the team of her heiresses, which should have been done by the federation ten years ago) and "the rest" (mostly women's ski jumping as they now seem to be looked forward to complete the mixed teams with the men + the granddaughter of federation's president started her career).

 

What's more - nordic combined has its "sports director" together with ski jumping - as you might suppose, Małysz concentrates mostly on ski jumping.

 

Now Kupczak as the only remaining senior athlete will train with the Czech team (Mateja, one of Małysz's teammates from late 90s-early 00s, will join their coaching staff). The juniors will be trained by... federation's president son (also Małysz's teammate from SLC2002 - did I mention that current federation president was the ski jumping NT coach then?)

Tomasz Pochwala was forced to resign or they straight kicked him out? He was a poor ski jumper and I have no idea how he got the NC head coaching job (other than having the right connections  ).

1 hour ago, heywoodu said:

 

Wow, I knew Nordic combined has very tiny depth, but a team with two athletes I've never in my life heard of (and yes, I watch all the World Cups and always check results of Continental Cups) finishing 6th at the world championships says quite something for me  

 

Not good of course when 75% of the main team leaves.

 

Edit: wait, Marusarz was not in that team, Pawel Slowiok was and at least he sounds sort of familiar  

Slowiok was a ski jumper until late teens and actually came alive in youth categories later than our bygone prodigy Klemens Muranka He switched to nordic combined in 2009 IIRC. He quit in 2019 citing bad results (well, places in World Cup Top 30 was still very impressive but he lacked motivation and even the WCh relay scholarship didn't change his mind).

Thankfully I don't watch these iRacing crapwagons. It's been like 15 years since I played Grand Prix Legends online but that ship has sailed for me

40 minutes ago, Olympian1010 said:

From what @Vojthas has explained to me, from athletes accounts, and from reading sites like ITG; Poland is easily the best example of how not to run your sports programs. I know Poland isn’t rich. I know there’s still a lot of governance problems. However, I also know that Poland has some of the most dedicated fans, good young athletes, and more money than many other nations. Poland punches way below their weight in my opinion. It’s so sad to see a team I had high hopes for just give up like this. Polish Nordic combined was going places. They had Universaide gold medalists, that 6th place at the World Champs, competitive skiers, etc. This sucks 

Here's the news. Nobody in Polish Skiing Federation cares about nordic combined, snowboard and alpine skiing. Nobody! The most important people are related to ski jumping and the thing should be called Polish Ski Jumping Federation. Our nordic combined rose from the dead in the last few years (there was nothing for 20 years since Stanislaw Ustupski retired in mid 90s) but Adam Cieslar and Pawel Slowiok were second-rate ski jumpers who converted to nordic combined and somehow managed to get some reasonable results. Szczepan Kupczak is the only guy who doesn't suck at cross country and has the best results. Local clubs are way too poor to carry such a niche sport like NC and like I said, the national federation only cares about ski jumping. Case closed.

Btw, our bobsleigh national team also collapsed after last season but that's a case for a different story

So the 2021 World Baseball Classic is postponed? Or World Softball Championships? (which I have zero knowledge of)

1 hour ago, heywoodu said:

That includes two Sunday and two Wednesday races  

Yep, and Darlington keeps the September Labour Day race as well. I can't remember when was the last time a single track hosted three points races in the same season. Probably 1971 when both Daytona Twins counted for points and it was the last season before the modern era.

25 minutes ago, Agger said:

 

Yes, MeToo has surely been used by some people for personal/political gains. I even know somebody who has been a target for these reasons, but ignoring the positive effects of the movement is just stupidity!

The positive effects don't have a long-lasting effect which actually fits the current short attention span generation. US movie industry is liberal and pro-Democrat enough without the extra MeToo boost. No offense but Alyssa Milano and Winona Ryder are yesterday's news. California & Hollywood are sliding towards isolated island of progressive joy. The entire left-wing has swung towards ideological wars and battles who is progressive & liberal enough. This comes at cost of losing the blue-collar workers who don't care about ideology but workers' rights & salary. That's why the Rust Belt gave Trump the decisive edge over Hilary Clinton in 2016 and it will happen again later this year. That's why Labour can't win a damn thing in UK anymore and is losing votes to Conservatives in the North East. Margaret Thatcher must be rolling in laughter in her grave

3 minutes ago, Olympian1010 said:

Again, not all people on the left feel that way. I totally agree that the Democratic Party has lost any high ground it had on the issue. 
 

I still think that we should encourage people to come forward with information, details, and experiences of sexual assault is a good thing. The metoo movement did a lot of good. Plus, it empowered woman, and made people more educated about sexual assault. Obviously it got ultra political and unfortunately hyper partisan, but I think going forward, more people will feel confident to say when they are a victim or rape or not their sexual abuse.

Right. Just make sure you don't wait 27 or 38 years to report rape because they will laugh you out in court. Obviously in politics throwing dirt is standard procedure so you can build a capital based on lies from three decades ago To quote a classic, Who needs evidence in politics?

MeToo is heading down the same trashcan the WikiLeaks craze did a while back

And there we have it, Michigan Governor (Democrat) says "Not every sexual assault claim is equal"   So much for the support of women when it's your political candidate on fire

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/03/gretchen-whitmer-backs-joe-biden-sexual-assault

Guess the whole MeToo crap is going down the drain and even left-wingers know it (not to mention The Guardian got duped by the Wikileaks before). Now the White House can cite MeToo to blast Biden and it's not what the liberals want to hear. Good riddance, it was obvious from Day 1 that MeToo will be used as political tool and now the liberals are getting whacked by the same weapon they thought they will run conservatives out of town. Can they spell irony?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/02/joe-biden-tara-reade-allegations-metoo-trump

NASCAR will resume action on May 17th at Darlington. Four Cup races will be held in May on two tracks (including the 600 mile race at Charlotte).

https://www.nascar.com/news-media/2020/04/30/nascar-announces-revised-may-schedule-as-racing-returns-beginning-at-darlington-raceway/

10 minutes ago, Olympian1010 said:

Oh believe some parts of the party are furious with the way the left has handled this. I’m embarrassed honestly. There’s no way, I vote for him in the election. I can’t support the party he’s running. I’m sorry, but he’s just Trump, but a little further left, and just barely more with it.

Welcome to real life, sexual desire is universal for humans regardless of the political opinions. Though I can imagine the progressive liberals would only like to think conservatives and Trump supporters are the only ones who can behave that way and the Democrats are too perfect to exist. If this happened to a GOP candidate, New York Times & co. would be all over it. It's funny such a left-wing tube like The Guardian has to make a stance and ditch the usual political lines to make liberals look at least awkward.

It is what it is, those liberals who wouldn't have voted for Biden anyway won't change their mind now. All those who stay at home actually help Trump. It seems to me Republicans are not as divided as Democrats and people will vote for him because he represents the party even if they dislike Trump himself. Those Democrats who dislike Biden simply won't vote for him and that's the end of it.

Joe Biden has been sucked into his own sexual misconduct scandal - this from "only" 27 years ago so not as bad as Brett Kavanaugh

I smell another pack of lies. Where this woman was when Biden was a VP for instance?

I'm not surprised the progressive liberals tried to sweep it under the rug though.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/29/joe-biden-sexual-assault-claim-democrats

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/24/joe-biden-sexual-assault-claim-tara-reade-deserves-to-be-heard-katie-halper

2 minutes ago, Federer91 said:

The Polish presidential elections: 

 

End of March:

Ruling Party - "We are thinking of postponing the elections, because of safety from COVID." 

Opposition - "How dare you remove democratic elections, you want dictatorship like Putin, Erdogan" 

 

End of April:

Ruling Party - "We are going to have the elections on may 10th"

Opposition - "How dare you want to have elections, risking the population's health with COVID

 

Real textbook politics, if it's true 

They talked about them on a political show here, and that the elections were going to be mail only (?), and the opposition (Left?) didn't want that, because of frauds. 

Quite strange, because aren't the Left parties in Europe the one who are always advocating for mail voting?

The opposition who doesn't want the elections are the anti-communist right who took on a liberal mask over the last decade. Their candidate wants people to boycott the elections. The genuine post-communist left actually stands put by the elections if they happen. Their candidate doesn't call for a boycott.

1 minute ago, Olympian1010 said:

I wasn’t advocating for colonialism in the slightest. We also definitely gave zero humanitarian aid to South Vietnam or Iran.

Because you thought Ngo Diem and Reza Pahlavi were puppets on the US strings and failed to account what the society of these countries want. 40 years on and Vietnam & Iran remain the biggest blunders in US foreign post-WWII politics.

9 minutes ago, Olympian1010 said:

I just don’t believe that. I do believe the US fucked up by dropping the isolation policy in regards to conflict. We’d honestly do a lot better if we offered more humanitarian aid to Burkina Faso, Iraq, Syria, etc. than weapons and troops.

Syria & Iraq were controlled by Ottoman Empire, then it was French & British colony. Franklin Roosevelt didn't orchestrate the fall of the British Empire for USA to form their colonies there. The failures of South Vietnam and 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran gave USA enough bad karma not to consider humanitarian approach ever again IMO.

1 minute ago, Olympian1010 said:

I’m just going to say this about the death penalty.

A) You’re teaching murder is wrong by using murder as a punishment. That’s some highly flawed logic. We don’t punish fraud with fraud. We don’t punish rape with rape. With don’t punish drug use with drug use.

B) It costs an insane amount to kill someone (at least in the US).

C) You let the murder take the easy way out instead of forcing them to think about and remember their action for years, essentially destroying their life the way they destroyed someone else’s.

D) Like @heywoodu pointed out, there is a huge issue with innocent people being put to death.

Homo sapiens is an apex predator of this planet. Hence violence will create violence. History of mankind has been build on war and death. Money and compassion ain't gonna change the that. Ever since USA dropped the isolationism policy, the room for moral dilemmas is gone.

3 minutes ago, heywoodu said:

 

Sure, but a death penalty can't exactly be reversed once carried out, no matter how much evidence pops up that someone was actually innocent.

In the days of DNA testing you don't need much other evidence, do you? Ted Bundy was put away based on dental records, I don't see much hoopla around him being innocent unless of course you ignore the fact he's the celebrity serial killer #1.