Monzanator

48 minutes ago, Olympian1010 said:

Obviously didn’t read 3 posts up 

I'm sorry but you are fundamentally wrong on the Kurds matter. Ever since the 1984 uprising, Turkey has declared the Kurds as terrorists so that closes that discussion. The Ottoman Empire has been the primary force in the region since the fall of Konstantinopole in 1453 and Turkey is their lawful heir. Even the USA can't do anything about that and like I've mentioned before, USA needs those military bases to have something to scribble on when it comes to Middle East control.

19 hours ago, Olympian1010 said:

I see that Spain has successfully reignited the Catalonian independence movement, which like most independence moments, I support.

And which independence movements you don't support and why?

This will only slow all the Law & Justice projects but they have firm control over the political life. The real big problem would be losing the Presidential elections next year.

Americans overscored on the vault? What else is new? Maroney won an Olympic silver despite landing flat on her ass on one of the vaults

Just now, Olympian1010 said:

Nike can make money anywhere. They shouldn’t have problems.

It's also about the brand. Nike is a brand more than money making machine. I predict they will weather the China storm and just keep doing their job once the media storm calms down. After all, USA is one country where Nike doesn't manufacture their products at all. Everything is manufactured outside of the country - in like 40+ countries including China, Thailand and Sri Lanka etc. This is reality. Daryl Morey can have his freedom of speech but he's not closing down 700 factories all across the world thanks to one stupid tweet

Nike shuts down the Oregon Project. Good riddance.

https://www.bbc.com/sport/athletics/50011044

This being said, Nike has to deal with another tyre fire over in China & NBA after they could lose more money over Morey's idiotic comments. I guess this made the NOP irrelevant at this stage.

Meanwhie Erdogan has played his card and blackmails EU over 3.6m refugees flooding Europe. That's exactly why EU will do absolutely nothing here. Erdogan has a ton of leverage and he knows that. More immigrants mean rise of populism in Western Europe and all those liberals are scared shitless of that happening.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/erdogan-syria-turkey-kurds-europe-refugees-invasion-sdf-latest-middle-east-a9150271.html

4 minutes ago, Olympian1010 said:

We need to kick Turkey out of NATO honestly. There’s many reasons for that, but I just woke up. I’m not ready to debate that 

USA needs their rocket launchers in Turkey to threaten Russia. No way around that You build air bases in Turkey in the early 50s to monitor the Middle East & Soviet Union so it's of strategic military importance and every single POTUS & the Congress knows that.

8 hours ago, Olympian1010 said:

It’s sickening to watch us betray the Kurds. The Kurds are arguably the most Western-like group in the Middle East. They haven’t attacked unprovoked. They’ve been our allies for years. All they want is peace, and we’ve given is death. It’s fucking shameful. I hope they ship every single civilian body to the White House. 

Old news here. USA abandoned the Kurds after Desert Storm too. When will people learn that nobody gives a fuck about the Kurds? USA needs Turkey more as they are a NATO member. EU needs Turkey to slow down the immigrants trail from Middle East too. The Kurds have nothing of value for the Western world Hell, they don't even have their own country so they are doomed one way or another.

Just now, Olympian1010 said:

I know OPEC’s doing terrible. I really just can’t figure out how Qatar, UAE, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait can stay afloat ?.
 

We could involve Russia too 

Right, Qatar is buying global sport championships one by one in case you haven't noticed. WWE is hosting events in Saudi Arabia, I wonder how much that cost in first place. Bahrain, UAE are hosting F1 Grand Prix etc. Yeah, that shows how bad OPEC is doing right now The only thing missing there are the Olympic Games which none of these great Western countries want to stage anymore because they will always lose money. Montreal paid off the 1976 mortgage after 40+ years but Beijing hosts TWO in a space of 14 years Just how bad are they doing now?

Just now, Olympian1010 said:

Venezuela’s economy failed because of systemic corruption that lead to violent protests. Plus the socialist part failed to fully modernize the country and never varied it’s economical sectors enough. 
 

On rare occasion I agree with Trump. I’m not pro-trade war, but I really don’t see any other options besides trying to crash their economy or crash ours so badly it kills them (which obviously wouldn’t work because it’d damage us too much).

OPEC countries ain't varying their economy either, they've got nothing other than sand & oil there, yet they don't go bankrupt like Venezuela does. I wonder why? I repeat, socialism & natural wealth don't match at all.

Yeah, you're basically advocating for Cold War 2.0 with China subbing for Soviet Union. Thankfully even China knows Trump is an idiot who doesn;t know what he's doing so they can ignore him. But if a true sociallist came to power that would escalate the conflict right away. China can be dead serious if they see a problem. Just see how fast those Rockets GM comments blew up in his face.

Not to mention USA vs China business war would be an ideal soution for Mother Russia. It's clear enough most of the EU countries want the economical bans on Russia lifted already. Add the potential war of attrition between USA & China and Russia comes away as the saviour for global economy. That would be hilarious indeed.

Just now, Olympian1010 said:

Yeah I have a feeling there’s other reasons for Venezuela’s economy failing...

 

Or we could invest in clear energy and beat China to the punch.

Like what? Venezuela is as left as it can be but of course the majority of the military rule around South America was far-right to begin with.

Btw, Donald Trump would be proud of your attitude. Doing damage to China is his shtick indeed. I guess you support the trade war then? Not bad for a socialist mind!

Clear energy needs global market to provide enough money to fire a big enough punch to damage China. It will take decades to materialise. Right now majority of the world is still running on crude oil & coal. You ain't getting rid of OPEC that quickly either.

Just now, Olympian1010 said:

We could do equal damage to China. There are definitely ways to nationalize our healthcare without destroying the country. For starters, if we didn’t spend half the national budget on defense that’d free up money.

Again, you're advocating for Cold War 2.0. If you want to wag fingers at everyone, you better have those nuclear guns ready and guess what, that requires money. So you can't threaten to do damage to China without spending a ton of money on the military. You have to have the hardware or else they will see your bluff from miles away. Everything is controlled by computers these days so it only takes a group of hackers to see thru it loud & clear. And then you can play the "we know that they know but we pretend we don't know that they know that we know" game

Just now, Olympian1010 said:

The economy will always go to shit at some point. I’m not actually sure I’d call economics a social science or a science. It’s the one social issue that doesn’t actually care about people. I think we could come up with better systems than the current ones we use in Western economies. 

If you think economy going belly up is unavoidable then you should especially run Sanders and Cortez-Ocasio out of town. The debt after their rule would be bigger and take longer to recover. Sociallist always rely on public funding to run the show. It's manageable for countries with a small population like Norway, Sweden or Austria but absolutely a killer for USA with 280 million people. Venezuela has 31m population and they can't handle it despite having all that oil resources. Hell, USA would have to butcher Gulf of Mexico with oil platforms like crazy to sustain socialism ideas for 280m people!

8 minutes ago, NearPup said:

The Chinese Communist party and the American left have almost nothing in common tbh.

Let the America left nationalize healthcare (also for the illegal immigrants) and their economy grinds to a halt after 10 years. Then you'd be living on mortgage payments owned to China for decades IMO. Good luck with that.

Just now, Olympian1010 said:

Yes, but I do agree that we need to be careful not to end up like China. Eventually we’ll need to bring conservatives back into the fold.

Venezuela is the blueprint for USA turning to socialism, not China. USA has zero experience of communism/sociallism rule. If people like Sanders or Cortez-Ocasio would be allowed to run the show your country goes economically belly up in 30 years tops IMO.

Just now, Olympian1010 said:

I have a very simple solution for China. The US (and allies) should pull their recognition of  and recognize the Republic of China instead. We also make it clear to China to if a single soldier moves into Hong Kong it’s game over for them. We protest aggressively at the Beijing 2022 Olympics, preferably we boycott. Our hacking organizations could focus their attacks on Huawei, Weibo, Tencent. We could arrest Huawei, Weibo, Tencent, Alibaba executives when they travel internationally. We do everything possible to devalue the Yuan. 
 

I will admit that Eastern Europe has taught us that installing democracy in formerly communist countries is a challenge. Now there’s a difference between being in favor of socialist policies, and being socialist/communist. I believe power should be further given to the people. I believe the US should lower its voting age to 14. I believe you should nationalize healthcare. I believe we should do everything we can to combat climate. I believe we should empower our citizens to thing critically and to believe in the power of democracy. We improve our education systems. We should pass the Equality Amendment to the US Constitution. We should abolish the 2nd Amendment so that our kids can be safe at school, so that our country can function without fear. I believe much more, but that’s good enough for now I think 

If you want to tell China to stay off Hong Kong that's a recipe for World War III, period. Even Trump isn't that stupid. You can try to scare North Korea off with some finger-wagging but China? Hell no. Boycotting Games brings back Cold War 2.0. Thanks for those ideas! Unless people in USA believe Cold War was actually a good thing?

Guess what, communism was about giving power to the people! Every single party big wig and executive came from the peasants or working background. All the gentry families linked to 17th or 18th century was opressed. Hell, they couldn't make a career worth a dime. But you could make a huge career if your father was a miner, welder or a farmer! Medical care was all nationalized back then as well! Empowering citizens is so damn communism I can only laugh. Look no further than Venezuela if you want to see what happens when socialism meets natural wealth. Triple it ten times over if you want to see the future of the USA under sociallist rule. Poland got sick and tired of this empowering citizens bullshit the communists sold us after 25 years, then again after 35 years (the military and secret police took over for 10 years after but the horse was dead at that point). If USA goes all sociallist, I give it 30 years tops before it would burn down in flames and people would beg for leaders like Reagan or even Trump to come back. This thing might work in a country like Norway that has 3 million population and the biggest oil resources this side of Saudi Arabia.

Just now, Olympian1010 said:

All because of an Orwellian government.

China is China. Can't change their communist ways. If you think you can, go ahead and try! What next? Hong Kong is British? This would be your answer? You can't install democracy into a communist country, period. And these communists have a lot of money and are the second biggest market in the world. It's funny that American sociallists don't support China since socialism is basically a soft version of communism in first place. We had this change overnight in the 1970s when suddenly communism was dead and sociallism was the new name. Yeah, that worked out just fine!

48 minutes ago, Olympian1010 said:

Right Basketball is so insanely popular in China that the Chinese government wouldn’t be able to erase it. You can’t make a sport 8 million people watch and more than that play disappear in a day. I don’t think the Chinese people would care quite frequently, but sometimes values are more important than money. I’d rather be homeless than rich if I knew I’d done something that made a difference for people.

As a General Manager Morey is supposed to do what's best for the team? If he's so high on values then he should should quit this job and enter politics. We know that ain't gonna happen. 600m people have watched NBA games in China. The TV/streaming contract alone is worth 1.5bn! Yao Ming single-handedly created the basketball buzz there, hell, FIBA awarded them the World Cup this year and Morey blew the market up with one fuckin' tweet. That's insane. You'll see NBA teams traveling to Europe again to beg for revenue, the second biggest market in the world has been slammed shut on them. All because of one guy and one tweet

3 hours ago, Olympian1010 said:

We are three days into this week. So far in US politics 1) NBA gave into Chinese demands that NBA players, staff, and other associates be silenced about their political views about China, Hong Kong, or Xi Jingping. 2) Blizzard a video game developer found itself in the exact same place as the NBA launching a huge gaming movement to #BoycottBlizzard. 3) Trump abandoned our Kurdish allies in Syria. 4) Trump then also stated that he won’t cooperate with the impeachment proceedings. 5) Finally, today the public learned about Matt Lauer’s rape of a fellow NBC employee during the 2014 Winter Olympics.

 

I mean if this has been the news cycle in the first 3 (3 days!) days of the week, I really can’t wait to see what the next 4 have in store for us.

Money talks. China is the biggest market out there to conquer while teams like Memphis or Sacramento create zero buzz even in their own country. You get more bucks selling Rockets in China than Kings in California... and it's over?

Hell, Zion had all the hype in college and NO is still a football town. Sean Payton has more value in that city than Zion. Pro sports is about entertainment not politics. Daryl Morey potentially cost NBA hundreds of millions of dollars, I bet Adam Silver must be royally pissed over what happened there.

Then he should have retired after Pyeongchang and cut the bullshit. His body language last season said a lot. He just can't accept JTB has pulled so far ahead of him. When it's gone, it's gone.

On 07/10/2019 at 12:29, RobtheAggie said:

Fourcade announces that this could be his last season.  He will assess how things are in April 2020 to determine if he tries for the 2022 Olympics.  

His time at the top has passed. If he struggles as much this season as he did last year then he will call it quits. JTB is the new King of Biathlon.

25 minutes ago, phelps said:

 

actually race walking was always held in short circuits (max 3k) plus a short stint to exit/enter the stadium because they still had a restrict number of judges (the difference was that until a few years ago, the judges were taken fron the NF of the organizing Nation, so they could afford in certain cases to have a bigger number of them -but that always led to many inepts covering that role and making disasters in terms of allowing athletes to infinge all the rules or disqualifying people who were walking perfectly only because of political pressure, even more than nowadays...meanwhile right now there is a panel of judges -still bised when not corrupted, but this is another issue- who are always the same covering the global events...this was done because iaaf wanted to have more uniformity in judging, but we're still well far away from having a fair and objective situation)...

 

the chip question, is far from being approved...there is a lot of controversy and many coaches / athletes are against it, because it would certify that nobody is walking regularly...suspension is almost physiological at the speed they walk nowadays...and it doesn't solve the real problem, the interpretation of the knees being blocked or not, which is what makes today's race walking a farce, as they allow always the same athletes from the same Nations to run instead of walk...

The fact that nobody is walking according to the rules is known for ages and proven ever since the slo-mo cameras arrived. They flat out banned the cameras showing the walkers feet a long time ago. It's simply who can disguise the running better. For a while the Latin/Hispanic walkers were immune to any DQ but that has changed some time ago. I still remember the days when Mexicans were getting away with everything until Segura was finally DQ after the 2000 OG finish. 

6 minutes ago, dcro said:

 

Well, if you can find judges to cover 50 km long loop, be my guest.

Somehow they managed to cover the course back in the 80s or 90s?

Besides, it's only a matter of time before they install electronic chips in the shoes IMO.