LongTimeLurker

Not sure I would post a tweet that can't get the difference between the Czech and Chechen Republics right. Beyond that freight moving along the Trans-Siberian railway is a significant part of what holds Russia together across 11 timezones and is a lot more important than Muscovites going to the cinema. 15 round trips from Moscow to Vladivostok = time for new bearings if the number in the tweet I posted is accurate. If the war drags on into next year they could have a major problem in other words given the logistics of the Russian Army depend very heavily on rail transport.

It's not just aviation where they have an issue apparently. Their rail freight industry relies on western supplied bearings that are now subject to sanctions:

The only utter tripe that's being peddled at the moment is the refusal of the LL to open up the pro/rel bottleneck and the selfish self-serving attempt of clubs like Civil Service Strollers to link that issue to what happens with the Club 42 playoff. There's a massive imbalance between the HL and LL catchments in population terms so having two central belt tier 5 feeders wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing even if the SJFA's proposal is clearly not going to be the way that it comes about.

The problem was they took out so many of the fantasy elements of the book (Lady Stoneheart, Euron's trip to Slavers Bay, Marwen and the glass candles etc) and kept characters like Cersei and Bronn around far longer than GRRM probably intends to while killing off Stannis prematurely and completely dumping Young Griff to bulk up Kit Harrington's part that they should have come up with their own ending.

Suspect they know full well that this plan has zero chance of actually happening but given the many issues with what the LL is up to at the moment there's no harm pushing for changes through the PWG.

interesting read explaining why the limited number of HIMARS systems being supplied by the US, UK and Germany may not be so stingy after all.

The east region still participates as the Midlands League so this isn't even particularly good flame bait. Tom Johnston has retired and everybody is in the pyramid now meaning the SJC has no replays and doesn't take priority over league fixtures so I'm not sure there's really any rational reason for concern over that at this point. There's much more reason in the here and now to be concerned about how the Lowland League is handling issues like colt teams and relegation.

I've always been very pro-pyramid (grew up listening to a former Bo'ness FC fan waxing lyrical about their first division season in the 1920s that could never happen again) but this junior vs senior stuff leaves me cold. Why not take the best of what both grades had to offer and build something better for all rather than rejecting a competition with so much history behind it? Drumchapel could also access the big Scottish Cup through the SJC or through licensing so what's so special about having an opportunity to rattle 13 goals past Nithsdale Wanderers in what's supposed to be a big showcase event? Maybe the SJC is something the newcomers to the WoS will look at seriously as well? Campbeltown had junior cup entries back in the day that drew large crowds when they made it through to the later rounds. Hopefully the EoS won't be so obstructive this season if clubs in the east want to participate again but they'll probably need a new set of officeholders for attitudes to shift, unfortunately. A national cup for the pyramid would be a positive development but some people don't seem to be able to move beyond trbalism over grades.

She became Walter Frey at one point and offed all his sons with poisoned wine. Another of many indications that the show was heading into a death spiral. There's talk of a Jon Snow spinoff north of the wall today. Hard to see how that works unless they resurrect the White Walkers or Drogon, the Dothraki or the Unsullied show up looking for some revenge.

Regular for them last season: https://www.transfermarkt.com/jamie-todd/leistungsdaten/spieler/564770

Don't do the latter so no idea what you are talking about at this point.

They wouldn't need to hire a QC. Club 42 have no grounds for appeal over this because the necessary rules have been agreed and passed by all parties. Cowdenbeath are now a LL club. You need to come to terms with that and move on.

They are right now in coalition with the SPD and FDP and that's a big part of the reason why Germany's nuclear power plants are not getting turned back on. The CDU sometimes forms coalitions with them in the various landtags even if it hasn't happened on the federal level yet so pandering to their politics is part of what it takes to put a government together in a German context. There needs to be a massive exercise of public education in western countries to counter the relentless tide of emotionally overwrought Green propaganda that led to the policy decisions that made the EU so heavily reliant on Russian gas to the point that Vlad thought he had them by the short hairs. That was self-inflicted and something that can be reversed again over time.

SJC or Strathclyde Demolitions Cup? Doubt that was a difficult decision. If the HL, LL and EoS don't want to do a national cup for whatever reason, those that do might as well get on with it.

All of the countries listed are arguably white countries and Russia definitely is, so why bring race into this in a context where it doesn't really fit?

Hopefully you have your drainage sorted out now.

The rule books have already been modified to address this. Any such challenge would fail.

It tends to be countries with vast primary resources that challenge the prevailing international order and hence fall out with the west in a big way, e.g. Libya, Iraq, Venezuela and Iran in recent decades. The issue with Russia is that they have nuclear weapons so having a proxy like Ukraine to put this particular uppity primary resource nation back in its box is the ideal scenario for NATO. The idea that all that needs to happen is for Ukraine to hand over the Crimea land bridge and Donbas to Russia and everything can reset to normal is myopic in the extreme. What the likes of Macron and Scholz still don't seem to grasp is that they are not dealing with a bland European politician who craves consensus with Putin but a ruthless street thug who sensed weakness after the fiasco in Afghanistan and has a shopping list of demands that goes way beyond Ukraine. If Vlad wins in Ukraine, it's only the beginning of how he wants to reorder the world in geostrategic terms and his end game is unlikely to be any more comfortable for the western consumer than what is unfolding right now. Beyond that, to minimise the scope for economic havoc, the West needs to come to grips with the Green lobby and all the over the top anti-nuclear and global warming hysteria of recent decades so that options that would reduce dependence on rogue fossil fuel rich actors like Vlad don't get phased out for irrational reasons before genuinely scaleable and economically feasible solutions have been found on energy storage for renewables. If Germany had simply followed France's path on nuclear power in recent decades, for example, the EU would be in much better shape right now. That they won't turn their nuclear plants back on even under the current circusmstances frankly beggars belief.

Think this guy explains quite well the problems the Russian army have faced because they were told to fight a major war as a special military operation.

Wheat isn't the main staple in most of sub-Saharan Africa so think that's over-stating things. It's North Africa and the Middle East that tend to be most reliant on Ukrainian and Russian wheat.

The shape of the world order over the next few decades will be determined by what the outcome is in Ukraine. People need to come to terms with the fact that we have moved into a new era and there's no going back to what we were used to pre-Feb 24. WWIII is being fought by proxy right now on NATO's behalf by the Ukrainians. The Russians appear to have genuinely believed they could win in 3 days with their initial blitzkrieg. Instead they have lost 30-40% of their armed forces in slightly over 100 with the Ukrainian side having significantly more scope for future resupply courtesy of the sanctions that were imposed by western nations. Vlad can probably only keep what he is doing right now going for a few more months. After that things will get interesting...

Think the Ukrainians are serious about retaking their land right up to and no doubt preferably including Crimea/DNR/LNR and there is probably very little concern on their part over whether Putin saves face because they would greatly prefer regime change. Enough of NATO (most of eastern Europe, Baltics, UK and US) is on board that they will eventually get the weaponry needed if they are willing to pay the price needed to stay in the game long enough for Russia's amour and missile inventory to be degraded away.

Germany isn't calling the shots to the extent it was in 2014 and has four floating storage and regasification units arranged for the end of the year in anticipation of Russian blackmail. If the worst comes to the worst they can always turns their nukes back on and persuade the Dutch to ramp up production from the Groningen gas field.

Also worth bearing in mind that the area where most of the action is right now also happens to be prime real estate in hydrocarbons terms:

so far this looks like the squad is as follows when putting all the info together: Musa Dubiga (Whitehill Welfare) Lewis Hawkins Jamie MacCormack Devon Jacobs Zander Miller Keir MacAuley Jack Smith Nick Locke John Ward (Berwick Rangers) Alassan Jones (Haddington Athletic) Declan Hughes (Stenhousemuir) Dan Watt (Hill of Beath) Dylan Coll (Clydebank U-20) + probably Murray Carstairs who was on a two year contract and wouldn't need to be announced, and Ryan Stevenson (see below) If 8 or 9 new players are being signed that leaves 2 or 3 new arrivals. Guess there could also be loan signings on top of that and the new U-20 team will all be on the books for LL action as well.