Monzanator

3 minutes ago, Olympian1010 said:

Ester Ledeka’s double gold will arguably go down as one of the greatest stories in Winter Olympic history. I still remember NBC calling that race, and then being like “uhhh, we may have made an early call earlier.” Plus, she was just so dominate in the Parallel GS. Now all that’s been complimented by her first World Cup win (and in the same bib number as her Olympic win).

Despite all of that the Americans still can't spell her name right

13th place is probably the worst result for the German women's relay? Talk about going down the drain for the former powerhouse. Herrmann's shooting sucks, Preuss is nowhere and Hinz will never make that elite step. Hildebrand is almost too old fot this shit.

Tomasz Sikora said Germany finished 13th once in the now defunct mixed relay back in 1996/97.

Well, can we officially call Klaasen a pervert?   Then again, Holland is a pretty liberal country so I don't get what's the fuzz about?

Second sprint win for Dorothea Wierer!

@hckosice  implied Fialkova's injury was kinda serious but guess it wasn't? Maybe it's time to return to the old avatar?

12 hours ago, Agger said:

 

USA and UK are not part of the best system due to their love of First Past the Post

Obviously First Past the Post system favors a two party system in first place yet I've been critical enough of liberal democracy that some people won't trust my word

The icing on the cake - Bishop Auckland in County Durham which has never had a Tory MP in 134 years just voted one by 8,000 majority! Margaret Thatcher is rolling in her grave

12 minutes ago, Olympian1010 said:

Yes personality/image seems to be the biggest deal breaker in the age of connection. Lying (while saying that you’re not) also seems to be a big factor in winning. Same trend in  elections. Worth noting that the world is more polarized then ever. Left countries swinging further, and right countries going further right. Internationally my generation seems ultra liberal. It’s going to be an awesome decade of international politics. Buckle up everyone. Let’s hope  and  came create some real change in the cycle.

I'm a cynical realist. Politicians always say what people want to hear aka they always lie one way or another, period. I'm not gonna pretend I buy their crap. You say Trump and Johnson are liars, fine, but Crooked Hilary and Corbyn are equal liars too. Politics is always about half-truths and imperfect lies. Idealism is dead and buried.

Israel is more hung than UK. I guess they're up for a third general election within the last 12 months soon and Netanyahu has rallied the radical troops after his "West Bank will be partially annexed" comments. The guy is pretty desperate and it offers zero chance of a stable political situation

As for "your" generation going ultra liberal, well, just because you win the social media battle, it doesn't mean you win the war. And the younger generations have always struggled to put up numbers when it comes to actual votes. It's the old people and blue collar workers that are still majority of any society in the world.

1 minute ago, Olympian1010 said:

It is really strange. Conservatives has always voted to protect democracy, but now they keep electing these far-right authoritarian leaders. Socialists (who have always favored strong leadership, nationalism, and strong central government) support leaders who want to strengthen democracy. In the last decade we’ve seen a complete flip of ideology.

 

Here's the thing, political battles are no longer won by ideology. That's so 19th century of the pre-internet world. Right now everyone has easy access to news and can see these political schmucks out on daily basis. Nobody truly pays attention to what these people have to say. Attention span is limited. And surprise, surprise, people vote for the strongest personality most of the time. Boris Johnson might be a clown but he wins the personality contest over wooden sticks like May or Corbyn hand over first, period. Likewise Trump, he's a narcisstic clown but he smokes Sanders and Biden out of the water. I told ya, Dems need a second coming of JFK, Clinton or Obama to beat this guy. Biden and Sanders are dead ducks in the race IMO.

29 minutes ago, Olympian1010 said:

Yeah the Irish national party has already flipped 2 DUP seats and could get more. It migh very well be the first time we see more nationalists the unionists. Hell, even parts of Belfast are voting for the nationalists in huge numbers. United Kingdom of England and Wales here we come. Even after saying that, Wales are voted more for nationalists and Labour than Tory. This may very well be the end of the line for the United Kingdom. 
 

Does anyone know wether or not LIB/DEM will support Scottish independence? There really the only party left with any power besides the SNP in Scotland.

Labour still lost 6 seats - all gained by Tory. Wrexham is lost for Labour for the first time since 1935 - another big time sweep.

1 minute ago, Olympian1010 said:

Proof UK made the wrong decision today 

 

Hey, it's your liberal democracy you all hail as the best system in the world  The democracy has supported the biggest clown tandem in the world which probably means more useless analysis will come out of this while the sociallists and liberals of this world will be wondering how on Earth people voted for Trump & Johnson in such convincing fashion

4 minutes ago, Olympian1010 said:

I thought Labour would do better. Of the 20 or so British friends I have, every one of them voted LAB or SNP. Really strange that I don’t know a single person that voted Labour. Guess that says a lot about who I associate with , or (upon further thinking) how polarized the world is right now. I have conservative friends of course, but not many these days.

People simply dislike Corbyn plain and simple. Not to mention they're tired of the Brexit mess. And this idiot wanted to drag on with the shitshow with another referendum. It's safe to say the society told him to GTFO.

It's like foreshadowing Bernie Sanders in the US. Corbyn got slaughtered by Johnson tonight, old fool Sanders would get slaughtered by Trump in the USA but hey, Joe Biden probably steps in and saves Dems from such a disaster (while also losing in a more honorable way IMO).

This election basically proves - not for the first time - people actually want a strong leadership & personality regardless of how huge the negative dead weight is there (which leans into my authoritarianism beliefs). Boris Johnson is the UK version of Donald Trump, no question about it. Corbyn was sitting on the Brexit fence for almost three years and then we he finally made his mind up, he came up with a second Brexit vote. Donk! Horrible idea. Theresa May had a personality of a wooden stick, she fell into a minority government trap while this clown Johnson got Tory their biggest win since Thatcher's heyday.

7 minutes ago, Olympian1010 said:

Yeah the Irish national party has already flipped 2 DUP seats and could get more. It migh very well be the first time we see more nationalists the unionists. Hell, even parts of Belfast are voting for the nationalists in huge numbers. United Kingdom of England and Wales here we come. Even after saying that, Wales are voted more for nationalists and Labour than Tory. This may very well be the end of the line for the United Kingdom. 
 

Does anyone know wether or not LIB/DEM will support Scottish independence? There really the only party left with any power besides the SNP in Scotland.

The Kingdom is only united by name these days tbh. It's rather obvious SNP will force the second independence vote sooner rather than later IMO.

It's safe to say the full-blown sociallist way for Labour is done. Good riddance. Says a lot when the most popular Labour leader in recent times (Tony Blair) wasn't even a sociallist to begin with

Apparently there will be more nationalists than unionists from Ulster as well (first time ever?). DUP is getting their butts kicked

Some seats held by Labour since the proverbial forever have been gained by Tories. Leigh (since 1922), Stoke-on-Trent (since 1950) and Blyth Valley (since 1950). Neither of these constituencies have ever voted Tory!

The icing on the cake would be Labour losing majority of seats in the North East region. They hold 25/29 seats there but it's gonna be a crushing loss if a region so demolished by Thatcher's decisions will suddenly turn to Tory after all those years

Corbyn has been an absolute fraud. Sitting on the Brexit fence just blew up in his face big time. If Boris frickin Johnson leads Tory to their biggest win in 30 years and Labour has its worse result since 1935 (like reported by the BBC) then Corbyn should be shot to the moon first thing in the morning

On 11/12/2019 at 19:52, Olympian1010 said:

Well this show is highly critical of the Catholic Church, so catholics not being into to it makes sense. The reason it appeals to me (an agnostic) is because it shows many of my criticisms of the church. While the show focus on a pope, or in this case two, it’s not really actually about a pope. The show is seriously dramatic and comedic, while asking serious questions about faith, organized religion, philosophy, and morality.

 

I think the reason most people of faith don’t want to talk about their faith is because they know if they critically about it they’ll find holes, and that scares the living shit out of religious people. People who’ve thought critically about religion are the ones who no longer belong to a church. Religion takes faith and belief, and people who have seriously thought about their religion generally come to find a lack of one or both.

The question is why would you spend time in finding holes in your faith to begin with? People usually have better things to do especially when you include job, family and maybe mortgage payments in America. I'm a Christian and obviously I'm familiar with the centuries-old struggle for power between the Church (not only Catholic but every religion there is including Judaism, Islam etc.), politicans and journalists. I know the rules of the game and nobody has changed it. Hell, you can include buddhism, Kaballah and all that spiritual shit which is no different than any of the standard religions. So even agnostics and atheists are people of faith. It's the common drug, I despise communism and socialism but Marx was right about "opium of the people". Even agnostics & atheists need something like this, they may not call it religion but it's something out there.

That's the modern day paradox, atheists and agnostics seem to be more interested in the Pope or movies about religion or the Pope than Christians. I'm a Christian but I don't watch any religious movies and wouldn't waste 5 seconds on a TV series about the Pope. Religion in movies is flat out boring and a waste of my time

Reminds me from another forum when most threads about certain tennis players were filled by comments from the player's haters rather than fans. Religion suffers from the same paradox, the majority of people who want to talk about religion actually doesn't believe in God in first place

1 minute ago, Olympian1010 said:

I’m all for the drama. This is just pointless drama in my opinion.

The modern version of the Cold War you call pointless? How come?

20 minutes ago, Olympian1010 said:

The list of debates and commentary I’ve seen about today’s decision is quite insane. Here’s a few of my favorite arguements and some other nonsense.

 

1) We should just have an Olympics for doped athletes 

2) Ban Russia completely

3) Russia is innocent/Western conspiracies ?

4) Everyone else dopes so it’s fine

5) Lance Armstrong

6) Ban Russia forever ?

7) OAR v. ANA. v. IOA v. RUS

8) Russians will kill WADA officials ?

9) It’s all the IOCs fault

And many more

 

This is getting ridiculous. Ban Russia, let clean athletes compete under the UN/Olympic flag, and get on with it. We all saw this coming for past half year. Also, people who don’t know shit about the issue, shouldn’t be giving opinions on it. Also Americans need to calm the fuck down. Russia cheated, we caught, not everyone is dirty, this has nothing to do with the Trump thing, let’s all move on.

Not in your wildest dreams. When politics enters sport this is the shitshow that happens. And you advocate for political statements during Tokyo Games. Buckle up and get ready for more drama, my friend

1 hour ago, Olympian1010 said:

Right, In fact our doping test system is very good at catching athletes. Generally athletes dope on a one off basis, and our eventually caught. Our national federations do not encourage doping, nor does the government. Many of the drugs used in doping are hard to obtain in the US anyways. Our doping system could be much stronger though.

This is a global world, you don't have to buy drugs in the country where you live. C'mon, athletes travel all over the world these days. It ain't the 50s.

11 minutes ago, heywoodu said:

 

How people can be so blind that they really think it has nothing to do with doping is just unbelievable, but sure, everything being a big bad conspiracy sounds a lot tastier of course.

Unless IAAF bans Kenya or Ethiopia from taking part in their events, these conspiracy theories will have a lot of oxygen to breathe

3 minutes ago, Olympian1010 said:

Not looking to argue this morning so this is all I have to say about the matter:

 

I’m happy with the decision. The country itself is punished, while the athletes themselves can continue their athletics careers. I will be annoyed by the whole OAR thing, or whatever the decide to go with, but if that’s the cost of clean sport so be it. This wasn’t a political decision, it was one based on fact. Politics must certainly played a role, but the fact remains that Russia engaged in state-sponsored doping, and then attempted to cover it up, and continue to hinder the investigation process. I also think Kenya is not currently involved in a state-sponsored doping scheme, but that the government’s negligence is a sign of complicity, and so they should be severely punished as well. We should also be watching Egypt, Thailand, and the Central Asian nations.

Keeping sport clean is important, and it’s worth fighting for. Emotions aside, this is right for sports, for athletes, and for the integrity of what we love. I know that it can feel like a real kick in the teeth to those who believe their is a Western conspiracy, but the sun will get brighter, and we can be more certain than ever the Russians and other athletes are clean.

 

I will not be commenting on this further, unless people want technical questions answered, or need help otherwise.

Seems like you know perfectly well it's a politically motivated bullshit hence you're so sensitive on the matter. Moreover IAAF will do nothing about the Kenya doping and of course neither will CAS or IOC. There's no political gain of throwing Kenya or Ethiopia to the wolves since these countries simply don't matter on the global scale.

Well, the Russian hackers have taken down the Alberto Salazar empire so I hope you won't pretend to be shocked when more Western athletes suddenly get exposed via the same route