TorontoChelsea

Yeah, but his sewing skills are vastly improved and that's an underrated aspect of the game.

It isn't just an American problem for sure but it is much bigger in the US. Everything is a big business of sorts in the States and the prison system is no different. The incarceration rate in the US is the highest in the world (over 6X that of Lebanon for example) and most of that is bullshit drugs charges..For example, the ACLU in 2010 published a study that showed that "between 2001 and 2010 there were 8.2M arrests for Marijuana, 88% of which were for possession". That is 7.2 MILLION arrests on Marijuana possession charges in a decade. It's a disgrace.

It is actually fascinating on so many levels. It's a whole bunch of big American problems coming together. Systemic racism, the militarization of the police, and the over-criminilization of everything (A woman got arrested for swearing in front of her kids last week but that's nothing compared to the way the illness of drug addiction has been criminilized.) Have you seen the weapons a small town police force has? It is insane and scary. The pictures of Ferguson show, not a police force, but an army. A good piece... http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/08/police_in_ferguson_military_weapons_threaten_protesters.html

So Oscar takes Drogba's number and then Lampard's number. If Terry leaves soon, Oscar will soon be #26

Sources are needed to back up controversial ideas, exceptional claims, or when you want to quote directly from a source-NOT when discussing general common knowledge or widely accepted truths. For example "Churchill was the Prime Minister of Britain" needs no source but "Churchill was angry at Edward for abdicating" needs a source because he was not publicly angry (or if you wanted to quote one his recently declassified letters on the subject). Why should I, for example, source the Johnson Report? It is out in the open, a mater of historical record. It is up to you to source credible sources to disprove it which you can't because there are none because you are just pulling information that suits your worldview from the internet rather than looking for historical accuracy. But even quotes and sources aren't enough if they are 1) out of context or misrepresenting the source;s actual beliefs 2) in the extreme minority 3) Not of sufficient historical quality or believably . Otherwise, you can pick and choose quotes to make any argument as so many do Anyway, if you are actually interested, just go to Wikipedia and look up their sources (because they actually do source things there).

That's not the way it works. Keepers are just not expensive. Hugo Lloris was 8M pounds and a top keeper and (I think) 25 years old. Mignolet was 25 years old and was 9M pounds last year. Van Der Steegen was one of the most sought after young keepers in the world, and cost under 10M pounds. There have been, I think, maybe 2 keepers who cost more than 20M pounds and they were Neur and Buffon when they were young. Cech is 32 years old. Why would any team pay 20M for him? It's insane. If we aren't going to use him, we should sell him because 1) I am sure he wants to play and we don't want to be dicks about it 2) There is very little value in the #2 keeper and Cech earns very good wages so we would save a lot of money by selling him.

Willian's extra chances created are because he takes corners. Oscar is definitely more creative (not enough for me to be a top #10 but better than Willian)

You knew exactly what you were saying when you used the word "fake". Your English is fine and if you can words like "acclaim" and "hoax" you know what fake means and "fake" is not even close to what you claim you are trying to say. It's not "strong wording". It's an offensive lie. And why bring up this topic which is ridiculous anyway? The photos are not faked or manipulated. Holocaust deniers don't need cropped photos to pursue their nonsense.. So what if some people claim to be the boy? How does that in any way diminish the impact of the Holocaust? You really think there is someone saying "Someone is claiming to be the boy, so the Holocaust was a lie? How does it do anything? It is very easy, in fact, to confront deniers because the facts are endless but there is no point because if someone denies it, they are not interested in reality or facts or evidence.. Faurrison is not a denier because he lied about a picture, but because he is a bigot. facts don't matter to him at all and a cropped photo makes 0.0% difference to that. Do you think that showing that a photo was cropped has made one single person in the world say "hey, the Holocaust was real? or helped one iota with Holocaust denial? Of course not. So, what's the point? The photographer Eddie Adams said "Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them, but photographs do lie, even without manipulation.". Everyone knows that. Why go back to the Holocaust to try to find these photos which are not manipulated (and then lie and say they were). I am looking at just a few pages back of your earlier writing about the Middle East on here and I am sorry I missed it. It's hilarious! The 1967 war was caused by Israel cutting off water supplies? Wow. That is amazing. Heard a lot of different explanations (it was, in fact, complicated) but never heard that one either. Which insignificant source did you pull that one from? Look up "The Johnston plan of 1955" (otherwise known as the Jordan Valley Unified Water Plan). There was a deal in place signed by all the parties involved but the Arab League backed out (except Jordan) and planned to divert water from Israel. The OPPOSITE of what you claim. Not the casus belli anyway but that's more complicated and has all sorts of factors like bad soviet intelligence. And you have Benny Morris saying exactly the opposite of what he actually believes about Plan Dalet too! How did you manage to do that? Wow. This is fun. Please tell me you've done the Olmert Hamas quote somewhere too. I can't imagine you could pass that one up. Also, lots of Ilan Pappe please. I am 100% sure you are a huge fan. (And I bet you pretend he is a mainstream historian too) I am sure I could guess the 25 quotes you love best .I know you. I have seen thousands exactly like you all over the internet. Pretending to be a student of history, a curious observer rather than someone who pulls the exact same 25 out of context quotes that you all use in order to justify your pathological obsession with Israel.

I think I saw him and another Steau player a few weeks ago when I was in Bucharest (at least that's what my GF told me. Was in one of the fancy restaurants off of herastrau). Anyway, 5.5M is not insane money for anyone so even if he's overrated, it's still not a massive expense. I do really feel sorry for Southampton fans. They sold Chambers, Shaw, Lallana, and Lovern for almost 100M pounds and have brought in very little talent in return.

There are sort of two different economies now for transfers. One with PSG, Madrid, etc... and then the real one. In the real one, even a world class goalie like Cech with some years left in him should go for maybe 6, 7M pounds and even that is expensive. In the high economy one, I really don't know because it's so divorced from everything else.

"It is a fake, a very famous one ...... " That's what you said. That is not even close to, "those pics were taken out of context" even though that is also a lie or at least an exaggeration They are pictures of persecution of Jews taken during the Holocaust. That's pretty much bang on the nose context-wise. Every photo, is by definition taken out of context because you can't see the context. It's a still image. Every picture is a half-truth but these photos do convey overall truth and are certainly not faked like you offensively and ridiculously claimed.

lol.Maybe you have a PHD but you are still an idiot or maybe just completely dishonest. Gie Van den Berghe is a very minor writer and I have never heard of him (nor is his Wiki page translated into any language) in the world of Holocaust studies, he is an ant. This is exactly what is wrong with people like you pretending to be historians. There are literally thousands of holocaust historians and what percentage believes that these photographs are not legit? 1 out of thousands? 2? Why would you believe a tiny minority of thinkers unless you wanted to. It's because people like you aren't interested in the truth, you are interested in justifying your worldview so you find one minor writer who backs you up and then pretend like it's the truth. You're like a climate change denier-instead of believing the 97%+ of scientists, finding the handful that agree with what you already believe. And anyway, if he's even a historian, show me the passage where he calls the Stroop Report fake because if he says that like you said he's not even a minor historian, he's a flat-out liar. ((you said "well known fake" which is even a bigger lie,)

Neymar, Busquets, and Suarez on the same team? Barcelona is going to be diving all over the place this year. I have found the El Classicos recently both amazing and awful because the football is incredible but the games are always ruined by awful diving, dirty play, and atrocious refereeing. You take all this talent and you want to see a good match-the best against the best, not acrobatics and horrible penalty calls.

I would definitely take Oscar over Willian. Oscar is only 22 and while he is extremely streaky, he has shown bits of brilliance. There were periods where Oscar was our best player. I think it unlikely he will become a top player, but it is possible and I expect improvement and consistency.. Willian is 26, in the prime of his career and is always going to be the same sort of player. He was never our best player for any extended period. Willian has value for us because of the system we play. In another system, he's sort of a fringe player on a top club. There is not a huge market for attacking players who aren't particularly good at attacking.

Stingray is an idiot who has no idea what he's talking about at all and just collects little bits from websites he likes and tries to pretend that out of context quotes and conspiracy theories make you an expert in a field. (A problem of the internet. Lots of access to information is great but lots of access to misinformation is bad.) I am an actual historian who studied history in a top university. Anyway, it doesn't matter, you don't have to be a historian, just google Stroop report and you will see any single historically reliable source will have it as real and lots of details. Here it is in the Auschwitz website- http://www.auschwitz.dk/Stroop.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stroop_Report Look at a the references at the bottom. Now, try to find a single legit source that questions the authenticity. I looked up the fake claims because I couldn't imagine they existed (although racism knows no ends) The people who claim it is a fake, are the Stormfront crowd (KKK)

Starts in March but there is training camp and everything so yes, he'll leave in February at the latest.

Nope. It's very real and there is zero historical doubt about that whatsoever (in fact, the picture is taken from a Nazi report from Stroop to Himmler-have a look at the pictures here.-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stroop_Report#Photographs_from_the_Stroop_Report I have never even heard anyone pretend it's fake because it's so well historically documented. This is some disgusting shit which shows the exact opposite of what you are trying to prove. How propaganda spread by racists on the internet turns into conspiracy theories which people believe despite the complete absence of any proof, Also, the photo in Ukraine above shows a soldier shooting a bunch of Jewish civilians. Making the photo bigger does nothing at all just changes the composition of the photo. The Jews in front were murdered and now the soldier is about to shoot the mother and child. How does that change the context at all? Trying to pretend there is some lie here is fucking disgusting.

It wouldn't leave us thin at all. We have Matic, Fabergas, Ramires, Mikel and even Ake for 2 positions. We only used more players last year because we lacked quality. Matic and Fabergas weren't with us at the start of last year and will be our regulars there. You don't need 5 or 6 players for 2 positions. 4 is plenty. I do agree with you that I find the Drogba signing puzzling if Torres is staying. Neither is good enough to be or #2 striker and having 2 #3 strikers is odd for a team with the resources and ambitions we have.

I agree with that. Is Drogba going to be any better than Ba was last year? Personally, I would take Ba. The real improvement is the most important one and that's getting a legit #1 striker for the first time in about 5 years.

BTW, I love how everyone always becomes an expert on players in other leagues. If you are not Italian and you are watching 10 Roma games a year, you are probably spending 87% of your waking hours on football. I figured that someone watching all of Chelsea, following the Premier League and CL closely (3 games a week in total) and watching a few other big games in football would watch something like 30,000+ hours on football a year which is about 3 weeks of the year. If you wanted to drop down a level and watch more, who else are you watching? Roma games? Inter games? Athletico games? Bayern games? Juventus games? Porto? Benfica? Ajax? How many games can you watch? It's not possible! It's not just about not being able that much football (unless you are taping games and have zero life at all). I am always very skeptical when people say they watch other leagues in depth. (Unless they are from that country or have a particular tie to it).

That is definitely better so sorry for what I thought you believed in and I would be all for it if I thought it even had a 1% chance of happening but it can't. Scotland is going to be close on secession vote . Quebec has almost voted to leave Canada more than once. Catalan wants more autonomy but somehow Israelis and Palestinians are going to get along? The racism is incredible. The bad blood is awful. The history is intense. The dehumanization of the other is overwhelming. It's simply not possible. Never mind, that nobody actually wants this solution. Israel wants a single-state solution where the Palestinians have no rights and are relegated to small pieces of land it controls and the Palestinians want a Muslim single state where Jews are either gone or secondary citizens. I haven't seen a poll in a couple of years, but at the time, the % of people who were interested in a secular single state was well under 10% and unlike other movements, this has almost zero chance of growing significantly unless levels of religion decrease significantly (they are increasing).

You didn't look very hard. Go back two pages. "There cannot be peace while Israel continues to exist. At least not in its current form".Anyway, this is old news. I've had this discussion with Cholou many times before. not in its current form."

Go back a few pages, I am sure you will find him calling for the end of Israel within that time period. I never said what Israel was doing was right He certainly has before (As do other people on here).

The slaughter of Natives in America was still going on less than 150 years ago not thousands and the the repercussions are ongoing. Why is Wounded Knee in 1890 ancient history but Israel in 1935 is modern? How about say, Pakistan? That was ethnic cleansing based on religion as well and it happened the exact same year as Israel was created in much the same way except much much bloodier. How about Russia (USSR) who ethnically cleansed millions around the same time because of ethnicity (Never mind murdering millions of people). How about Turkey who committed genocide AND forced ethnic Greeks out of Turkey? Why does Pakistan have the right to exist? Why does Russia? Why does Cambodia or Turkey or any of the many other countries who have done the same or worse than Israel? It doesn't really matter because it isn't really different. It's just an attempt to make Israel different from all other countries, why you can justify calling for the destruction of Israel but not any other country.

My bad. I haven't really kept up with the thread so didn't even go back a page to see what you may have been referring to. Just came on the page and saw your post.