LongTimeLurker

Twitter seems to want me to know that Lieutenant Sulu's no huvin it where Israeli airstrikes are concerned: Don't think that sort of take would have been pushed unsolicited into people's home pages on there pre-Elon Musk.

Guess that explains why they were going to all the trouble of taking old Israeli grandmas and mothers with young children back into Gaza. Seriously doubted it was for humanitarian reasons given what happened at the rave with the big Buddha statue. Netanyahu probably wasn't going to lose any sleep over a few hippies but a holocaust survivor would be hitting the jackpot on this for Hamas on international news coverage and in emotional blackmail terms unfortunately. Complete and utter scum to stoop to that level but you can see the rationale behind it.

Just shows how self-centred they are that they think what their political leaders do always makes the pivotal difference. Hamas have been building up their military prowess to this point for years and that means every so often regardless of who is US president they'll be launching missles at Israeli cities and trying to infiltrate. The last time the Israelis tried a big invasion-style operation they found it very hard going against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. They found out the hard way that they have a generation that grew up with playstations in their parents' basement, who are really not that keen on fighting kids who grew up in refugee camps. It's not the 60s or 70s any more when both side grew up in tough spartan environments. Their answer has been high tech solutions like Iron Dome so they do not need to go in and control the ground missiles are being fired from and simply pulverising the Gaza Strip into submission from fighter jets and helicopters. If Iron Dome can now be overwhelmed by firing huge numbers of missiles simultaneously, and they ever wound up fighting an opponent with the sort of anti-tank and anti-aircraft weaponry the Russians and Ukrainians have access to... Hezbollah and the Iranians aren't going to be busy with the Syrian conflict forever so as far as I can see they really do need to find a viable peace deal but the way their politics work right now that's a one-way ticket to political oblivion.

Hearts B and Celtic B are a Trojan horse for further reconstruction antics from the SFA board and need to be binned ASAP.

The West Bank (or more accurately a series of overcrowded Native American reservation style enclaves contained therein) is still controlled by the PLO who are left leaning secularists, while Gaza is controlled by Sunni Islamists. In de facto terms it doesn't make much sense to refer to them as a single Palestinian entity any more even if in de jure terms that's how most of the world recognises their status complete with the 1948-1967 borders. If there's going to be a second front odds on it will be Hezbollah (Shiite Islamists) from southern Lebanon.

Basically agree but think claiming all of NATO is behind Israel is a bit of a stretch. Turkey? Edit: not entirely sure that news is genuine yet but basic point is that I don't think it's safe to assume Washington and Ankara are on the same page.

99% sure one of them was Civil Service Strollers.

Probably not an in any way massive sum compared to what the treasure chest fundraiser brings in through the course of a season my red-dotting mentalist friend, so there's no reason on that basis not to vote on this issue based on principle, I would have thought. My understanding is that the BUs have consistently opposed colt teams and consistently supported expanded relegation. Slowly as the years pass there are more clubs entering the LL both from above and below that have a significant fanbase to listen to on issues like this.

Can remember LL connected podcaster types tweeting that the colt teams would probably have been booted out at the end of last season if the SFA board hadn't started throwing their weight about reconstruction plans and threatened to bring the Conference in this season. The LL board and The Sun journalist dude from Gala Fairydean appeared to be treating the Conference as a fait accompli but now there should be no reason not to get rid of them once and for all.

Hearts B were going to be part of the Conference as well so that absurd reconstruction plan can't just be pinned on Rangers.

^^^obviously needs some pearls to clutch because that could only ever happen in Bo'ness rather than somewhere as refined and cultured as Blackburn. Haud oan a minute, having been to Blackburn a few times over the years that seems like a bit of a stretch, and if B teams in the LL are something to be bitterly opposed why be at this game in the first place?

Will be a question only asked by people with some level of familiarity with the geography and geopolitics of the Gaza Strip. I guess it's cynically aimed for use by American networks as the explanation for the average clueless couch potato somewhere out in the Midwest. The penalty for being a vacuous virtue signaller shouldn't be gang rape and death but if the Israeli military can't prevent Hamas from gatecrashing on paragliders into a peace rave to which only one side was invited maybe more people will start to see through the veneer and ask deeper questions about exactly how tenable the state of Israel is in the long term on its current trajectory. The relatively moderate secular portion of Israel's population is no longer being bolstered numerically by the Law of Return while the birth rates of the Gaza Strip and West Bank on the one hand, and Ultra-Orthodox and Religious Zionist Jewish populations on the other are still well above replacement. Israel is becoming less and less appealing politically to the portion of its population it most needs to retain. If Iron Dome can now be overwhelmed and most of the Gaza Strip's male youth have nothing better to do with their time than dreaming up ingenious ways to break through the 1948 green line what happens to inward investment and economic growth if the better educated and secular portion of the population slowly drifts away from Tel Aviv to New York, Toronto and Sydney...

Elsewhere:

This whole episode basically just highlights that people like George Galloway who advocate a one state solution should be honest about what they really want. Long term this isn't going to end happily ever after for either side unless something like the Oslo accords can be made to work but neither side seems to want that at this point so if I were a young Israeli or Palestinian I'd be looking for a way to emigrate before things really start to hit the fan.

With the way drone weaponry has been going elsewhere how long until Hamas and Hezbollah can overpower the Iron Dome system by sheer weight of numbers? A lot of people nowadays seem to think Israel is a military colossus that could never be beaten but they have no strategic depth and are always just one innovative weapon system away from being Artsakhed. Don't think that weapon is going to be the motorised hangglider but I bet plenty of Israelis with second passport options are going to be leaving over the next year or two after they see all the things that have happened in Sderot.

Think the western media provides a very slanted picture because Armenians = the Christians = the good guys vs Azerbaijanis = the Muslims = the bad guys is about as deep into the issues as most people in western countries are likely to go. There is no getting around the fact though that NKR/Artsakh was and is universally recognised as being de jure sovereign Azerbaijani territory by all UN members including Armenia. That forms the basis in international law of who can reasonably be viewed as the aggressor in this conflict and for the most part it hasn't been Azerbaijan. There is a small de jure Armenian enclave inside Azerbijan close to the 1991 de jure border that they did seize so the Azerbaijanis are not as pure as the driven snow on this issue: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artsvashen Beyond that it's worth noting where the Zangezur transport corridor is concerned there's a less alarming scenario that is currently being peddled by Erdogan that doesn't involve seizing any land by force and revolves around using Iranian territory if the Armenians don't agree to participate:

...really shouldn't be controversial: Russia being allied with Armenians against the neighbouring Muslim powers that blocked their path to the Mediterranean Sea and Indian Ocean is something that stretches right back to Tsarist times.

Having a customs free transport corridor to the Nakhichevan exclave doesn't have to be mutually exclusive with the territorial integrity of Armenia. Bosnia is able to use a port called Ploce on Croatia's Adriatic coast in that sort of way without there being any suggestion that Croatia is cut in two in some way by hosting that arrangement. The obvious quid pro quo would be Turkey facilitating Armenian access to the EU market in a similar sort of way.

So in terms of geopolitics, now there are almost no Armenians left on sovereign Azerbaijani territory after the NKR leadership decided to evacuate their population rather than attempt to negotiate in any serious way, there's no obvious need for there to be any Russian peacekeepers inside Azerbaijan's borders and the Armenians may pull out of CSTO now. Don't think this has followed the script Vlad expected it to. Going right back to the 1980s there were opportunities for compromise but the NKR Armenians always wanted to push for maximalist goals. After the First Nagorno Karabakh War up to 2020 they appear to have assumed that they would always have Russia behind them and would hence be able hold all the land they had seized in perpetuity on that basis. Hopefully now things have finally returned to the 1991 borders it will finally be possible for Turkey and Armenia to slowly normalise their relations in the years ahead to Turkey-Greece sort of levels. Suspect Transnistria will be the next Russian sponsored pseudo-state to unravel if/when the Moldovans are able to break their reliance on its continuing existence to be able to have a reliable and affordable gas and electricity supply. Abkhazia and South Ossetia could have a lot more staying power regardless of how the war in Ukraine finishes because of their direct borders with Russia.

All because of the suede denim secret police no doubt.

...while the more Bo'ness sounding Blair Sneddon at left back is now on loan at Stranraer. Michael Travis has played quite a bit at SPFL League One and Two sort of level so looks like a strong addition to the team: https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/michael-travis/profil/spieler/158506

Elsewhere:

Does this mean Rob Roy and Rossvale will be groundsharing at the new stadium?