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#1
Off the Record / Re: Football (Soccer) Thread
Last post by Norgy - Today at 12:20:04 AMQuote from: Baron von Schtinkenbutt on December 08, 2025, 03:05:55 PMUnderstandable. Double elimination until they get down to 16 would still be an interesting alternative.
Let's not mistake FIFA for an organisation that actually gives a damn about quality and competitiveness. While I personally think it is a good thing for exposure that more national teams get a chance in a World Cup, it does make the WC a bit more bland.
Denmark arguably has a strong national team, but is staying at home next summer. The camel through the eye of a needle is quite harsh in UEFA qualifiers. Even the Euros competition is a bit bland because almost anyone qualifies with a whopping 32 teams competing. But most know that it will come down to Germany, the Iberian countries or Croatia at some point. Or France, if they can be bothered. Soccer really isn't that competitive, because there's been dominance from a few countries since 1930. Could Mexico win the World Cup? No. Norway? Definitely not. Sweden had a very strong 1994 tournament.
I see Norway's mostly playing on the east coast (Boston). We did that in 1994 too, and the summer heat almost knocked our players out.
#2
Off the Record / Re: Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-2...
Last post by Tonitrus - December 08, 2025, 11:19:00 PMQuote from: Sheilbh on December 08, 2025, 10:38:37 PMI think Ukraine stopped transit of Russian gas to EU countries at the start of the year. I think the Russian pipe gas in Europe now is via Turkstream - so Turkey and the Balkans.
There's a fair bit of recent reporting indicating that the spice still flows though the Druzhba pipeline.
#3
Off the Record / Re: Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-2...
Last post by jimmy olsen - December 08, 2025, 10:53:10 PMQuote from: HisMajestyBOB on December 05, 2025, 06:38:10 AMAlso drones harassing Zelensky's plane near Ireland.
And why not? Russia has found that they can operate with near impunity in western Europe, because apparently not a single leader has a spine.
What should they do?
Start at 1:23, this embedding extension won't let you set a start time
#4
Off the Record / Re: The Off Topic Topic
Last post by jimmy olsen - December 08, 2025, 10:46:07 PMSecond highest score in the Languish Fantasy league by a good margin and I'm gonna lose this week. Not even in close. 
#5
Off the Record / Re: Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-2...
Last post by Sheilbh - December 08, 2025, 10:38:37 PMI think Ukraine stopped transit of Russian gas to EU countries at the start of the year. I think the Russian pipe gas in Europe now is via Turkstream - so Turkey and the Balkans.
#6
Off the Record / Re: The EU thread
Last post by Sheilbh - December 08, 2025, 10:05:42 PMRight but my point - which I think that link largely supports - is that it's broadly plateaued in the UK over the last 40-50 years (on both income and wealth) as I think is common in the rest of Europe. There are fluctuations within a range but, we've not seen a huge shift in the type or scale of inequailty in that period, while there is a change in the US since Reagan:
I think the key reason is that the driver is the emergence of tech as a new industry and we don't have an equivalent tech sector driving that change. Neither does most of the rest of Europe - France is an exception as they have huge luxury goods companies, who've hugely grown serving the new global elite, with significant family stakes. Of the ten richest people in the world I think all of them (except for the Arnaults) are from tech in industries that did not exist 30-40 years ago and overwhelmingly based in the US. If we had billionaires like the US, there'd be problems but we're exposed to those anyway we just don't have a tech sector that means we can easily avoid reliance on American big tech (to Jake's point on Palantir).
I don't think the key point in the UK is that the 1% are hoovering up more wealth or income - because they're not. It's broadly flat within a range. The issue is our inequality interacts hugely with time/generation and location. The biggest chunk of wealth in the UK is property so if you were able to buy a place (including your council flat) in London or the South-East before the boom in property values then you'll have done very well. You see this even in existing council homes where Reeves has said that council homes will not be hit by the "mansion tax", because there are council homes worth over £2 million (and there should be).
So I think the challenges in the UK is more about how young people are able to access wealth, how we generate it more in all regions (and I say generate because there's already huge redistribution - the UK redistributes more North-South than Germany did East-West - FWIW I think devolution is key as I believe Manchester and Scotland are the only regions actually closing the gap) and also after the massive sell-off under Thatcher (which reducd wealth inequality as it hugely increased the number of people who owned stocks and shares or their own home) how to build state, common assets back up (and I think part of that should be tech - nationally owned cloud infrastructure and nationally owned open LLMs for domestic companies and research and public sector etc).
Edit Not least because we've got the bigest wealth transfer in British history on its way with older people who are now sitting on £1 trillion + property assets in often run of the mill suburban homes in outer London/South-East dying and passing that on which will create deeper and more entrenched inequality. Again it's not necessarily about billionaires but becoming a day-to-day Jane Austen/Regency society not Edith Wharton/Gilded Age.
I think the key reason is that the driver is the emergence of tech as a new industry and we don't have an equivalent tech sector driving that change. Neither does most of the rest of Europe - France is an exception as they have huge luxury goods companies, who've hugely grown serving the new global elite, with significant family stakes. Of the ten richest people in the world I think all of them (except for the Arnaults) are from tech in industries that did not exist 30-40 years ago and overwhelmingly based in the US. If we had billionaires like the US, there'd be problems but we're exposed to those anyway we just don't have a tech sector that means we can easily avoid reliance on American big tech (to Jake's point on Palantir).
I don't think the key point in the UK is that the 1% are hoovering up more wealth or income - because they're not. It's broadly flat within a range. The issue is our inequality interacts hugely with time/generation and location. The biggest chunk of wealth in the UK is property so if you were able to buy a place (including your council flat) in London or the South-East before the boom in property values then you'll have done very well. You see this even in existing council homes where Reeves has said that council homes will not be hit by the "mansion tax", because there are council homes worth over £2 million (and there should be).
So I think the challenges in the UK is more about how young people are able to access wealth, how we generate it more in all regions (and I say generate because there's already huge redistribution - the UK redistributes more North-South than Germany did East-West - FWIW I think devolution is key as I believe Manchester and Scotland are the only regions actually closing the gap) and also after the massive sell-off under Thatcher (which reducd wealth inequality as it hugely increased the number of people who owned stocks and shares or their own home) how to build state, common assets back up (and I think part of that should be tech - nationally owned cloud infrastructure and nationally owned open LLMs for domestic companies and research and public sector etc).
Edit Not least because we've got the bigest wealth transfer in British history on its way with older people who are now sitting on £1 trillion + property assets in often run of the mill suburban homes in outer London/South-East dying and passing that on which will create deeper and more entrenched inequality. Again it's not necessarily about billionaires but becoming a day-to-day Jane Austen/Regency society not Edith Wharton/Gilded Age.
#7
Off the Record / Re: What does a TRUMP presiden...
Last post by The Minsky Moment - December 08, 2025, 10:03:42 PMIt's the old pull the pin on the hand grenade in the enclosed room negotiation trick.
Sometimes it seems like Trump read something about the madman theory of international politics and decided to improvise around it, without really understanding how it is supposed to work. Of course, that isn't really possible. Everyone knows Trump doesn't read.
Sometimes it seems like Trump read something about the madman theory of international politics and decided to improvise around it, without really understanding how it is supposed to work. Of course, that isn't really possible. Everyone knows Trump doesn't read.
#8
Gaming HQ / Re: Europa Universalis V confi...
Last post by Legbiter - December 08, 2025, 10:02:40 PMI'm parking the game for now. Will check back inn March once they're back in the office and have settled on how they want the in-game systems to work and have ironed out the bugs. There's a gem buried under the jank though.
#9
Off the Record / Re: What does a TRUMP presiden...
Last post by Bauer - December 08, 2025, 09:36:00 PMQuote from: The Minsky Moment on December 08, 2025, 08:38:47 PMQuote from: viper37 on December 08, 2025, 08:21:01 PMTrump is threatening tariffs on Canadian fertilizers because of... price increases in the US.
No one in MAGA understands what is happening.
https://globalnews.ca/news/11568842/donald-trump-tariffs-fertilizer-canada/
What a load of shit.
I see what you did there.
And also as usual, how can you negotiate with a man like that. He's punishing us all with tariffs on stuff America needs. Riiight.
#10
Off the Record / Re: Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-2...
Last post by Tonitrus - December 08, 2025, 09:35:06 PMThat's what I meant.
Though, it may be that there aren't any parts of the infrastructure in Ukraine that would allow them to just "switch it off", and it would require actually physically "cutting off" the pipeline...which I expect would be very messy (if they could even stop the flow without the Russians stopping it from their pumping stations).
Though, it may be that there aren't any parts of the infrastructure in Ukraine that would allow them to just "switch it off", and it would require actually physically "cutting off" the pipeline...which I expect would be very messy (if they could even stop the flow without the Russians stopping it from their pumping stations).