holystove

final four Uefa spots : sweden - italy; denmark - ireland; croatia - greece; NI - switzerland I expect (and hope) Italy, Ireland, Croatia and Switzerland will go to Russia.

pensioners who drive during rush hour.. just book your appointments, do your shopping etc between 10 am and 2 pm. please don't drive between 6 am - 9 am and 3 pm - 6 pm, old people.

I voted "someone else" as I think Laurent Blanc deserves consideration. Did a decent job in France, experience with top players, big name.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/10/15/britains-missing-billions-revised-figures-reveal-uk-490bn-poorer/ (behind paywall: Foreign Direct Investment fell by £145 billion to a £25 billion deficit. The article links this directly to brexit as it states "the apparent resilience of FDI flows shortly after brexit was an illusion: the spending that took place in late 2016 had already been committed earlier.") Forget all the back and forth on citizens rights, etc.. It's stuff like this that will break the deadlock, as it did with Greece.

Two major points of difference spring to mind. 1) if American voters so choose, they can throw out the Republicans (2018) and Trump (2020) and thus save Obamacare. Brexit on the other hand was decided on 23rd of June 2016 to be the will of the people for all eternity. (or at least the foreseeable future) . There was an election in which the current government asked for a stronger mandate to continue their handling of brexit. They were denied such mandate, yet are proceeding none the less in exactly the same way 2) Trump (and/or the republican establishment) are not affected by whatever happens to Obamacare, they are covered either way. In a no-deal chaotic brexit, everyone in the UK will take the hit. -- "will someone step in and sabotage Britain's relationship with the EU?" - actually I believe this is the official government policy, no?

Spain is not going to be group leader.. more than likely they will be in "group of death". (Germany, Spain, Croatia, Japan is possible for example) Good news for England though, they wont face Spain or Italy in group stage. Russia, England, Tunisia, Panama would be one of easiest draws.

wow absolutely unbelievable US didn't qualify looking at the other teams in CONCACAF.

I agree. I would like the EU to be able to act much more independently from the member states and to be able to stray from the instructions it has been given. That would require more integration and strengthening of democratic accountability though (pan-European elections, right of initiative to the European Parliament, and so on..). Won't happen as long as (most) member states only view the EU as a tool to further their own national agenda.

Problem with that is the EU's hands are rather tied. It is a rules based organisation and, on brexit, can only act as instructed by the member states. I'm sure some at the Commission want to go faster, but as long as Ireland doesn't get what it wants on the border, Poland doesn't get its money, etc. things will continue as they currently are.

Shame Wales won't be there, fun team to watch. Although I wasn't looking forward to possibly facing them again. I'm really glad Egypt managed to qualify for the first time since 1990. Egyptians are crazy about their football; close to a 100.000 people in attendance for their last game against Congo. The Dutch are staying home, again.

On the Juncker speech: much like Verhofstadt, I think he has one major political goal left in his life: to say whatever he can and do whatever he must, to make sure the UK doesn't reconsider leaving. He raised some good points, but as always, the future of the EU is not decided in Brussels but in every capital city in the EU. The real danger for the UK remains that when the Tory leadership finally realizes it wants to stay in the EU, the EU27 will have decided it is better off with the UK out.

https://thebritishdrea.com/?text=EVERTON+ARE+GOING+TO+WIN+THE+LEAGUE

Actually, imo, joining the euro would have been brilliant for Britain. In exactly the same way Germany has hugely benefited from it. Because the UK is a stronger economy than most eurozone economies, it would have been much more competitive using a currency the last 10 years that in regards to its own economy is undervalued, while at the same time if the EUR drops in value vs other currencies, it wouldn't hurt the UK much, as the vast vast majority of its trade is with the eurozone. This is exactly what the US and other criticize Germany for.

I don't think it's too late MikeO and you can tell by how much Leavers are on the offensive. Fox, Redwood, Johnson, Farage, Rees-Mogg are all being very aggressive, and talk of "No Deal" is back on the table..look at john's post about dictatorships and soviet union.. Leavers can feel it slipping away. (By the way, the EU regulation does not say pigs need to be tagged in their ears (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/pig-keepers-identify-animals-before-moving-them). Gove will need to find other benefits of Brexit.)

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-politics-libya/britains-boris-johnson-jokes-about-dead-bodies-in-libya-idUSKCN1C82RF If I were British, this comment would be the final straw .. completely unacceptable. This is on par with saying Las Vegas will once again be a tourist destination, "the only thing they've got to do is clear the dead bodies away and then we will be there".. except he wouldn't say it about dead white people. If this is the "roaring lion" as todays jingoistic frontpage from the Daily Express Telegraph puts it, then it's time to put it down.

Loving those videos on youtube of people burning NFL paraphernalia, each one of them using way too much fuel and injuring themselves.

It is all looking a little bleak right now (not just leaving EU, but also threatening trade wars with the US), but this is quite funny: (adequately describes the view from the continent)

http://splinternews.com/undocumented-parents-arrested-at-childrens-hospital-whi-1818621039/amp !!

It's not just the 350m figure. : 1. for the UK to save any money from leaving the EU, it needs to secure the same economic benefits at no cost. (impossible). 2. he doesn't take into account the money needed to set up and staff all the regulatory agencies that the UK will need to have set up after brexit, or the money the UK will have to pay if it wants to (or rather, is allowed to) remain a member of EU regulatory agencies and programmes. So people who defend him by saying that he doesn't say the UK WILL spend 350m on the NHS, just that after Brexit the UK CAN spend the 350m on the NHS if it choses to do so, are also very very wrong.

Congratulations! Hope you have a great day (it's a surreal experience).

they did a 10 minute segment on that Mané challenge on the number one rated football talk show on TV here. It was literally 1 minute everyone agreeing it was a straight red, and then 9 minutes on how on earth Lineker, Shearer and Wright could ever make the point that as a manager you'd want your striker to hit opposing players with a flying head kick. IMO, there is no way Mane didn't see him. Surprised it's only a 3 game ban. Of course the injury to the keeper was unintentional, if it wasn't, he'd have to be in jail right now.

http://www.paulplowman.com/stuff/house-address-twins-proximity/ what the shortest distance was between two Address Twins – houses with the same number and the same street-name I know probably not the right thread but I love that this guy spent hours looking something up that is unbelievably trivial; it actually makes me happy.

Surely you are aware the European Parliament is directly elected by EU citizens? For example if you voted for a labour candidate in the EP elections of 2014, if he got elected he would have been part of the Party of European Socialists, which is the second biggest political group in the European Parliament. If they get a couple more seats next election in 2019 and beat the EPP, a socialist will replace Juncker.

second time in less than a month a "once in 500 years" storm has hit the US. Irma is now the size of France Two new storms are forming : Jose and Katia ... Either the US isn't going to get any other hurricanes for the next millenium, or the climate might be changing.

He's a member of the EPP (European People's Party) in the European Parliament. A group that the Conservative Party used to belong to until Cameron made the tories join the ECR (moderate eurosceptics). So yes, you could call them centre right. You were correct in saying that it's the UK prime minister that got to vote on Juncker, but it's imo important to add that they could only choose a candidate from the EPP, as the EPP had won the European elections. EPP had said beforehand that Juncker would be their candidate. So this sort of answers Bailey's claim that the people of Europe never knew they were going to get Juncker. If they didn't want him, they shouldn't have made the EPP the biggest party.