Everything will be all right tonight. Everything will be all right tonight. Or so I keep telling myself, as Ulster prepare to turn and face the strain of Leinster at the RDS. Let’s hope that Ulster can put Big Brother under pressure. It’s simple, really: all we have to do is win. But hope, boys, is a cheap thing, cheap thing: we are the dead.
While Ulster have lost Stockdale to injury, one South Effrican is back for us.
But one of Them has apparently recovered from yet another head injury.
Give me steel, give me steel, give me pulsars unreal
In other news – newsman wept (with joy) as he told me – a familiar face is returning to Cardiff.
Someone’s back in town the chips are down
I just cut and blackout
I’m under Mulvihill’s influence and my honour’s at stake
Today is David Bowie’s birthday, in case anyone was wondering.
Onna telly this week
Friday 8th January
| Glasgow v Edinburgh | 19:35 | Premier Sports 2 |
| Leinster v Ulster | 19:35 | TG4 / Premier Sports 1 |
| Bath v Wasps | 19:45 | BT Sport 2 |
| Sale v Worcester | 20:00 | BT Sport Extra |
Saturday 9th January
| Zebre v Treviso | 13:00 | Premier Sports 2 |
| Newcastle v Gloucester | 14:00 | BT Sport 2 |
| Griquas v Cheetahs | 14:30 | Sky Sports Arena |
| Exeter v Bristol | 16:30 | BT Sport 2 |
| Western Province v Sharks | 17:00 | Sky Sports Arena |
| Dragons v Ospreys | 17:15 | S4C / Premier Sports 1 |
| Cardiff v Scarlets | 19:35 | S4C / Premier Sports 1 |
| Connacht v Munster | 19:35 | TG4 / Premier Sports 2 |
Sunday 10th January
| Harlequins v London Irish | 15:00 | BT Sport 1 |
Saturday 16th January
| Glasgow v Edinburgh | 17:15 | Premier Sports 1 |
Ovally Balls 
Well, Trump did sell the Syrian Kurds down the river and did do quite a lot of bombing as well. He increased the number of drone attacks and restricted reporting on civilian so it’s not all positives.
But bombs make you Presidential:
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TomP – yep, there’s something in the white American psyche where you have to kill foreigners to become Presidential. US civilians will do in a pinch, particularly if they’re non-white, or protesting students.
I suspect Trump himself had approximately 0 interest in Syrians or any other forriners* and therefore probably authorised a few things his military aides told him must be done. Presumably he resisted others. (“Is that near any of my golf courses?”)
*[Edit] Except for those damn Mexicans, not counting the multitude probably working on his properties, and of course the Ay-rabs.
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Probably right about Trump. His reading of Bolton was spot on as well, though he had earlier appointed him.
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Elizabeth Warren deserves better than hanging the Pocahontas yolk around her neck all the time. In the wider scheme of things it is a bit pathetic in relation to to what the scumbags she opposes do, spout and lie about.
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Pocahontas yolk
Has someone been throwing eggs?
Agree in general, although that was a fantastically silly thing. She’s miles better than H. Clinton, for example. But I have some friends in the US who aren’t too convinced about her left-wing credentials.
Now I like Emily Thornberry quite a lot, but she made one foolish tweet, which will probably kill her career for the rest of her days. One tweet is a lot less foolish than the Pocahontas thing.
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@tomp
I never understood why Trump appointed Bolton. Trump made it perfectly clear he had no intention of getting into foreign wars while doing that is Bolton’s only obvious interest. And then when Trump sacked him Bolton whinged and whinged that he didn’t get to start another mess in Iran.
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Thornberry would have been a hell of a lot better at PMQs – and general opposition – than Starmer.
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OT – you can probably blame Trump’s lack of attention to detail, or interest in anything that doesn’t affect him directly. Like Johnson, only more ignorant. “I should appoint this Bolton guy? All right then. Oh wait, I don’t like him.”
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Iks – it was still an incredibly stupid thing to argue about. Trump was always going to milk it.
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Thaum beat me to the breakdown.
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But I have some friends in the US who aren’t too convinced about her left-wing credentials.
This is my wider point about the Dems in general.
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Craigs – surely there isn’t anyone here who thinks anything else?
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Thaum beat me to the breakdown.
Turned you over and scored a try! (Rugby action may be sparse in the near future.)
Yes, most Democrats are not anything that other countries would regard as left-wing. One exception is AOC, whom you don’t seem to like. I think she’s fab.
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Obligatory Gore Vidal quotes:
“It makes no difference who you vote for — the two parties are really one party representing four percent of the people.”
“There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party…and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat…the Democrats are cuter, prettier, a bit more corrupt…and more willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the Black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But essentially, there is no difference between the two parties.”
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TomP – yes, but I suspect that those quotes are from about 20 years ago, or more. The Republicans have taken a much more sinister turn lately.
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Started with the Tea Partiers. Well, started with Reagan, actually, much as all that is toxic in our politics here started with Thatcher.
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Yes, a while old. Reagan’s born of Goldwater etc etc.
There’re a few debates about where it’s going. The always great Mike David had a thing last week and the fine Thomas Meaney was at it today:
https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/republican-futures
https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/riot-on-the-hill
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Thaum – She’s very good at twitter but I don’t think she’s very effective as a politician and she’s a bit too sjw for me.
I posted something about her approach to legalisation of weed in NY a while back which more or less obstructed the process. Iirc her view was that licences new weed businesses should be allocated along racial lines as a form of reparations for those communities. The GOP politicians were against this because of free markets etc and (I think) straight up reparations were offered instead. The logic being that you can pay for past wrongs but can’t discriminate on racial grounds going forwards.
Nothing came of it and people are still rotting in jail which is a travesty. It wasn’t just her fault but I don’t like the GOP either and she could have changed a lot of people’s lives by comprising.
I haven’t paid her too much attention recently so she might have done great things since then. Tbh I’m fairly ambivalent recently.
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*compromising.
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What’s Clinton’s war? Bombing Yugoslavia over Kosovo I guess. Not quite in the same league as most of the others. For that matter I’m not sure what Reagan’s would be?
I’m prepared to believe both may have clocked up several, but for the most part the USA’s involvement in conflicts usually involves joining in with existing ones (not to say they haven’t often had some sort of a role prior to the overt action) so it’s all a bit of a grey area I think.
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I think she’ll get better with more experience.
If that doesn’t sound patronising then I don’t know what does.
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Trump may not have, by a narrow definition, started a foreign war, but the sure as hell made situations worse (Iran , selling out the kurd etc.)
I can’t recall, which one did Obama start?
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Ah CMW got there first
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It will be their involvement in Libya I think (start is the wrong – or at least too simple a – word for most of these things).
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Reagan preferred shenanigans like inciting coups and that contra stuff than a straightforward invasion. Big invasions were Bush juniors thing
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Didn’t Murca invade the mighty Grenada when Reagan was in charge? Plus it was also the height of the Cold War so perhaps not the same possibilities for invasion without retaliation from USSR. Plus they were also heavily ‘involved’ in Central America. Perhaps not outright war but lots of support for right wing ‘freedom fighters’ in that part of the world.
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With Bush Snr as a half way house?
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TomP
The Meaney article reminds me of the Tory dilemma: they’ve chosen a volatile leader who is not really invested in their core principles (such as they are), and what to do now? And this leader has disenfranchised the centralist core of the party, leaving only loonies. But he lost me at the Silicon Valley bit.
The Davis article is a bit more meaty, but I am getting tired now. :-)
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@BB- It’s certainly not my intention to defend USA foreign policy under Reagan, just to point out what murky waters we’re swimming in with some statements. I hadn’t forgotten the Grenada thing, but the scale of it hardly really registers in historical terms.
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According to this Reagan’s Lebanon intervention qualifies as a foreign war
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/11/01/fact-check-trump-not-first-president-since-eisenhower-without-new-war/6086636002/
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The USA must have been fairly heavily involved in Lebanon as quite a lot of troops were killed in one major incident there, but I think it was at least notionally a UN thing and as such an involvement in an existing conflict under a bigger umbrella, however partisan that involvement may have been.
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OT in first – I’m not entirely convinced (though that is more than likely because I don’t know enough about it).
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I think where I’m at with it is that I don’t find the statement about Trump to be particularly meaningful.
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So the exam question is – Was Ronald Reagan as peace loving as Donald Trump?
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This doesn’t cover the dirty wars, but it’s a start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_States
NN!
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Most of the bastards who were happy to experiment in Central and Latin America under Reagan ended up in the Bush Jr team. It also aligned the neo-cons with evangelicals and free-marketeers as well. A little testing ground after Vietnam to get America its shit back again.
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Maybe so, but US ‘experiments’ in Central and South America were hardly a new thing under Reagan.
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What’s next, peace-loving British Prime Ministers during the time of the British Empire?
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I’m very partial to the Libya 2011 war to be a mafia hit job engineered by Sarkozy to distract from the money he got from Gaddafi for his Presidential a few years earlier. Not that the Brits or Americans needed much of an invitation despite all the solid support Gaddafi had given over things like extraordinary rendition.
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Hey guys, I would like to point out that Donald is still Pres for another six days, and you are all tempting fate. Plenty of time left to get Vlad or Kim to kick something off as a favour.
Donzo is in my good books today, cos I just got a nice check signed by him. Balls in your court, Joe. Prove you’re a bigger man by sending me some more next week.
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That’s right. The first US president since Carter not to start a foreign war I believe.
That’s both depressing and frightening.
OT – hmm, Carter was also a one-term president. Coincidence?
And this is even worse. Who was the last one before Carter? Was there one?
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Sigh, as ever Africa gets left out in the cold when it comes to foreign power intervention in the post colonial era. Lest we forget, both Regan and Thatcher supported apartheid South Africa, with Thatcher famously calling Nelson Mandela a terrorist (in his role as ANC President) and the US having him on their banned list when he was president here! In fact he was still on the terrorism watch list in 2008 when he went to the US. Condi Rice described it as ‘a little embarrassing.’
The US also got involved in supplying arms to the FNLA in Angola’s civil war, picking, as ever, the losing horse, then switching to backing South Africa and its proxy, Jonas Savimbi’s UNITA. They backed Mabuto in Zaire whilst he plundered the country into absolute poverty and destruction and propped up anybody who nominally said “I hate commies!” no matter their human rights record. The DR-Congo (ex-Zaire) is the only country in the world as far as I know, where grandparents tell kids fantastic stories of roads, cars, electricity and proper running water, that are simply not around in large parts today.
I’ve also been to Savimbi’s house in Huambo: a huge, palatial 3-storey edifice that’s been completely bombed and gutted and left as a reminder not to fuck with the MPLA government. Similarly, in southern Angola they’ve cleared the landmines but have left the bombed out APCs and tanks as a grim reminder of the war and who won.
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The Chinese were also supplying arms to the FNLA at the beginning.as well. That whole Vorster vs PW Botha struggle in Pretoria over Angolan policy is weird for me.
What do you know about Hastings Banda and Malawi? I have no idea at all about it except he had surprisingly warm relations with the Apartheid government and was an utter bastard. I presume the Americans were ok towards him.
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Hoover was a one-term President as well, Deebee. He got biffed by FDR in 1932. The Americans were definitely still occupying Nicaragua but am not sure if he started any wars, continued them and the US imperial mission in the Philippines for sure.
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Stalin was a one term president. As was Hitler*.
*Yes, Chancellor actually, I know.
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** General Secretary not President
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I was vice president of the Shorin Ryu Karate club at uni for one term.
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We started a war with the Shotokan Karate club for domination over the other karate clubs in the Itchen Valley.
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“Sigh, as ever Africa gets left out in the cold”
Is this an opportunity I see before me?
Deebee, I’m pretty sure Libya is in Africa.
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CMW – imagine having American war fomo.
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