Monzanator

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

[hide] Knockout RoundDecember 13th - December 15th, 2019 4 Nations, Semifinals, Third Place Match and Final Third Place Match Date & Time (GMT +9) Nation 1 T1 T2 Nation 2 December 15th 2019, h. 17:30 Norway 1 Russia Final Date & Time (GMT +9) Nation 1 T1 T2 Nation 2 December 15th 2019, 20:30 Spain 2 Netherlands [/hide]

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

[hide] Knockout RoundDecember 13th - December 15th, 2019 4 Nations, Semifinals, Third Place Match and Final Semifinals Date & Time (GMT +9) Nation 1 T1 T2 Nation 2 December 13th 2019, h. 17:30 Norway 6 Spain December 13th 2019, h. 20:30 Russia 5 Netherlands [/hide]

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

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

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.

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

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

You should be a little sad. You wanted Russia banned for 30 years IIRC so 4 years is kinda soft Plus it's Russia who gets banned but not actually Russians

Russia has operated that way since centuries. They will always blame others for trying to take them down. No way Russia has a full team in Tokyo, just no frickin' way. What's even worse, most of the world thinks Russia is the only doping problem in the world and everyone else is clean. Like I've said, watch out for these Russian hackers starting to uncover documents about Western athletes next. This will be a part of the "payback" campaign IMO.

This goes back to my original question, how much money and effort is ARD or any other media willing to spend to track down the doping in Kenya and find evidence of state-sponsored doping to the extent of the Russian case? In my view - nowhere near as much IMO. I'd say they'll be happy to let Kenya and Ethiopia slide alltogether. These African countries are poor enough and have no global value beyond athletics, yes, their governments can look away and let the big money sponsors take over the sporting programme and maybe inject enough doping along the way. Sure, enabling these doping cases is very similar to Russia, the difference is Russia injects their own money & resources while Kenya & Ethiopia allow foreign investors to fund the whole ordeal. And they're supposedly less guilty or even not guilty of state-sponsored doping. Just because the money isn't Kenyan but from off-shore accounts or whatever?

Just a name? Hell, then don't say a word someone makes the notorious Slovakia vs Slovenia jokes. Slovakia is also just a name, no biggie Let's go Czechoslovakia!