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Messages - JDB

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1
Football / Re: RIP Weary (Joann Charles)
« on: March 26, 2017, 03:25:44 AM »
Rest in Peace Sister.

Very sad news. Her commitment and dedication to team and country was genuine and unwavering.

2
Football / Re: Gold Cup 2013 Preparations and Meet up
« on: March 13, 2013, 07:45:08 AM »
Groups and venues out

http://www.goldcup.org/page/Splash

Haiti, Honduras, el Salvador

Jersey, Miami and Houston

3
General Discussion / Re: Google's Android unveiled
« on: January 09, 2013, 08:00:18 AM »
I'm noticing Internet connectivity issues with the iPhone 5 :( ... Also didn't think about not being able to have iMessaging available during calls. For international messages this is an inconvenience particularly when an incoming call you can't decline comes in. Throws everything into text message mode @ cost.

Is this with verizon or AT&T?

4
General Discussion / Re: My First Book
« on: December 21, 2012, 01:32:00 PM »
Niceness Jumbie.

Congrats.

I does follow yuh recipes and they win. Will get the book. I not a step by step recipe man but my daughter could use it someday.

In fact I feel like calling down a Homemade doubles sometime this weekend.

5
Entertainment & Culture Discussion / Re: Walking Dead Thread
« on: November 06, 2012, 09:33:07 PM »
First Episode of the TV series that I would say is better than the book. This weeks episode was 'crazy as hell'

6
General Discussion / Re: Will President Obama be re-elected?
« on: November 06, 2012, 09:12:11 PM »
The closeness of the race in FL bodes well,for Obama. If he is as competitive as the current totals show it means Romney will have a hard time in Ohio and Colorado

Also states that the Republicans had outside hopes of taking like PA, NH and WI have gone Obama very comfortably.

If Romney loses FL this is over

And it looks like he might. 86% of the vote in...50% Obama....49% Romney.
Ohio...Obama ahead by about the same margin.


Yeah but them things does flip easy as counties come in. I think is Obama gets up to a 200,000 lead in Ohio it is a good sign.

Senate races also interesting.

Dems pick up MA and IN from Republicans and yuh could add Leiberman seat, which was pretty much Republican/Independent, which Linda McMahon just lost.

7
General Discussion / Re: Will President Obama be re-elected?
« on: November 06, 2012, 09:05:55 PM »
The closeness of the race in FL bodes well,for Obama. If he is as competitive as the current totals show it means Romney will have a hard time in Ohio and Colorado

Also states that the Republicans had outside hopes of taking like PA, NH and WI have gone Obama very comfortably.

If Romney loses FL this is over

8
Entertainment & Culture Discussion / Re: Walking Dead Thread
« on: October 22, 2012, 10:13:21 AM »
You all remember S01. The black man and he son who help out Rick.

Theyhad a plan to meet up. Rick used to send out messages on the hand radio but to no avail.

Doh spoil it too much but will we see them again?

VB

I don't think anybody could really answer you since the series is not a direct adaptation of the book.

Based on what they plan for this season i.e. them staying in the prison and dealing with 'neighbours' town they probably will not meet that character this season.

9
Football / Re: Brothers on the same secondary school squad
« on: October 09, 2012, 05:12:26 AM »
Shaka and Kona Hislop, CIC, 1985 and 1986
Garvin and Darragh Moze, CIC, 1987
Garvin and Brendon Moze, CIC 1988, 1989

Darragh, Gavin and Kevin play at the same.

Don't know if Brendan played with any of the other three.

10
The true reason US fears Iranian nukes: they can deter US attacks
GOP Senator Lindsey Graham echoes a long line of US policymakers: Iran must not be allowed to deter US

Glenn Greenwald
guardian.co.uk, Tue 2 Oct 2012 15.27 BST


In the Washington Post today, Richard Cohen expresses surprise that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is "starting to make some sense" and "wax rationally". Cohen specifically cites this statement from the Iranian president last week:
"Let's even imagine that we have an atomic weapon, a nuclear weapon. What would we do with it? What intelligent person would fight 5,000 American bombs with one bomb?"

Cohen's surprise notwithstanding, numerous Iranian leaders, including Ahmadinejad, have long made the same point. And it's a point so obvious it should not even need to be made. No rational person takes seriously the claim that Iran, even if it did obtain a nuclear weapon, would commit instant and guaranteed national suicide by using it to attack a nation that has a huge nuclear stockpile, which happens to include both the US and Israel. One can locate nothing in the actions of Iran's regime that even suggests irrationality on that level, let alone suicidal impulses.

That Iran will use its nuclear weapons against the US and Israel is rather obviously the centerpiece of the fear-mongering campaign against Tehran, to build popular support for threats to launch an aggressive attack in order to prevent them from acquiring that weapon. So what, then, is the real reason that so many people in both the US and Israeli governments are so desperate to stop Iranian proliferation?

Every now and then, they reveal the real reason: Iranian nuclear weapons would prevent the US from attacking Iran at will, and that is what is intolerable. The latest person to unwittingly reveal the real reason for viewing an Iranian nuclear capacity as unacceptable was GOP Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the US's most reliable and bloodthirsty warmongers.

On Monday, Graham spoke in North Augusta, South Carolina, and was asked about the way in which sanctions were harming ordinary Iranians. Ayman Hossam Fadel was present and recorded the exchange. Answering that question, Graham praised President Obama for threatening Iran with war over nuclear weapons, decreed that "the Iranian people should be willing to suffer now for a better future," and then – invoking the trite neocon script that is hauled out whenever new wars are being justified – analogized Iranian nukes to Hitler in the 1930s. But in the middle of his answer, he explained the real reason Iranian nuclear weapons should be feared:
"They have two goals: one, regime survival. The best way for the regime surviving, in their mind, is having a nuclear weapon, because when you have a nuclear weapon, nobody attacks you."

Graham added that the second regime goal is "influence", that "people listen to you" when you have a nuclear weapon. In other words, we cannot let Iran acquire nuclear weapons because if they get them, we can no longer attack them when we want to and can no longer bully them in their own region.

Graham's answer is consistent with what various American policy elites have said over the years about America's enemies generally and Iran specifically: the true threat of nuclear proliferation is that it can deter American aggression. Thomas Donnelly of the American Enterprise Institute and the New American Century Project has long been crystal clear that this is the real reason for opposing Iranian nuclear capability [my emphasis]:
"When their missiles are tipped with warheads carrying nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons, even weak regional powers have a credible deterrent regardless of the balance of conventional forces … In the post cold war era, America and its allies, rather than the Soviet Union, have become the primary objects of deterrence and it is states like Iraq, Iran and North Korea who most wish to develop deterrent capabilities."

He added:
"The surest deterrent to American action is a functioning nuclear arsenal …
"To be sure, the prospect of a nuclear Iran is a nightmare. But it is less a nightmare because of the high likelihood that Tehran would employ its weapons or pass them on to terrorist groups – although that is not beyond the realm of possibility – and more because of the constraining effect it threatens to impose upon US strategy for the greater Middle East. The danger is that Iran will 'extend' its deterrence, either directly or de facto, to a variety of states and other actors throughout the region. This would be an ironic echo of the extended deterrence thought to apply to US allies during the cold war."

As Jonathan Schwarz has extensively documented, this is what US policy elites have said over and over. In 2001, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned:

"Several of these [small enemy nations] are intensely hostile to the United States and are arming to deter us from bringing our conventional or nuclear power to bear in a regional crisis."
In 2002, State Department official Philip Zelikow said that if Iraq were permitted to keep its WMDs, "they now can deter us from attacking them, because they really can retaliate against us." In 2008, Democratic Senator Chuck Robb and GOP Senator Dan Coates wrote an incredibly hawkish Washington Post op-ed all but demanding an attack on Iran, and wrote:

"[A]n Islamic Republic of Iran with nuclear weapons capability would be strategically untenable. It would threaten U.S. national security … While a nuclear attack is the worst-case scenario, Iran would not need to employ a nuclear arsenal to threaten US interests. Simply obtaining the ability to quickly assemble a nuclear weapon would effectively give Iran a nuclear deterrent."

The No 1 concern of American national security planners appears to be that countries may be able to prevent the US from attacking them at will, whether to change their regimes or achieve other objectives. In other words, Iranian nuclear weapons could be used to prevent wars – ones started by the US – and that, above all, is what we must fear.

(Graham's questioner said that she believed Iran was not committed to developing a nuclear weapon, and Graham responded that Israeli leaders had reached the opposite conclusion. That is simply false.)
Whatever one thinks of Iran, the signal the US has sent to the world is unmistakable: any rational government should acquire nuclear weapons. The Iranians undoubtedly watched the US treatment of two dictators who gave up their quest for nuclear weapons – Iraq's Saddam Hussein and Libya's Muammar Gaddafi – and drew the only reasoned lesson: the only way a country can protect itself from US attack, other than full-scale obeisance, is to acquire nuclear weapons. That is precisely why the US and Israel are so eager to ensure they do not.

11
General Discussion / Re: Will President Obama be re-elected?
« on: October 02, 2012, 07:07:23 AM »
American vets are finding jobs in Canadian Oilfields. Thanks to obama's 70,000 pages of regulations and an over increase of 1.7 trillion (including obamacare) in new regulatory cost, when he wins will inherit the greatest deficit and debt in US history coupled with the lowest start up businesses, failing energy production from reliable sources, far less industrial production and the highest tax increase in history! Did you see his explanation on Letterman about the Bond Market and the Debt and Deficit... this man is a joke with a capital "J"! Look how brilliant QE3 worked!

Canada is a great place to do business! Keep up the good work especially making good beer! (Steamwhistle  :beermug:) Love all the development that Toronto is doing (too much glass though) and thanks for Sending TD to save some of our Banks!

you do know that Canada has socialized medicine and much higher taxes than the US. Think about that every man jack pays a tax and everybody gets an opportunity to use the same health care. Rich people presumably don’t use this as they then have to to go and buy private insurance. So in effect the rich paying a health surcharge for a service that they don’t use. In the US they call that redistribution.

Also they have actaully increased taxes in response to the current economy and their budgetary needs, something that would never happen with  Republican controlled Senate, Congress or Presidency.

Also the oil production is a dopey comparison. The US produces twice as much oil as Canada, but Canada has 8 times the oil reserves of the US. Obviously Canada has more opportunities to grow as far as oil production.

When you hear fools like Paul Ryan talk about the US being “energy independent”  if they just “drill for more oil” know they telling the biggest LIE imaginable. The US only produces about 8% of the World’s oil. It uses more than a 25%.

There is no possibility of  drilling oil to satisfy the US domestic needs. Moreso oil is a commodity, drilled by the private free enterprise that allyuh love so much. Even if they could double the current output  it:

a)   would not be in anyones' financial interest to sell it domestically for cheap;
b)   would barely move the needle on the price of oil on the global market

12
General Discussion / Re: Innocence of Muslims
« on: September 27, 2012, 06:59:54 AM »
JC it is not hard to conceive or understand that the post-Islamist middle east was as prosperous or even more prosperous even as recently as 500-800 years ago.


The middle east has always prospered from being in a location that allowed the interaction of all the old cultures, Africa, India, Europe, Asia, much more so then Europe. That exchange of culture and ideas drove the success of those societies for thousands of years.


Before the reformation the Islamists states would have been no more disadvantaged by religion than the catholic “governed” European states and they more than held their own.


Unfortunately, post-reformation and post-renaissance Europe asked itself questions about religious doctrine and has been able to gradually move away from some plainly stupid and ignorant doctrines that result in religious wars, witch hunts and a backward devotion to religion.


Middle-eastern states have not asked those questions, or been able to ask those questions and thus who have states still run by religious charlatans, a lack of self-governance, a lack of freedom, poor outcomes in education and a lack of rational thought that results in things like women getting punished for being raped and “honour killings”.
These are not ideas that are “culturally different” or “understandable because of a different value system” they are objectively backward and unjustifiable.


As for Democracy being outdated we somewhat in agreement. The Greeks provide the foundations of democracy and it has been implemented in many forms across time. I do not believe that humans are democratic by nature; there is always the desire to look out for oneself. We accept the necessity of being part of a larger society but within that society it is always human nature to enhance and enrich oneself even at the expense of peers. This is why ancient and older systems always ended up with limited individual freedom, whether a tribe leader, King, feudal lord, dictator, consul you always find people are eager to take power at the expense of a more “democratic” form of governance.


As a result democratic and republican systems always end up having an oligarchy that corrupts the system. The systems also get calcified over time with laws that contradict or pervert the original rules of the system and make individuals have less democratic power over time. Eventually the system stops functioning effectively and you either lose the democratic/republican aspect of it and become an autocratic state (as in the end of the Roman republic), you become so dysfunctional that other states prey on you (as in the partition of Poland) or you have a revolution, redraft your society and start over (numerous examples but it often happens after a state become autocratic).


I believe that states should have regular constitutional congresses to stay fresh. They probably won’t have the majorities necessary to get consensus on constitutional changes but the questions about what people want for their society will be asked and put into the public discourse. The people will know what their leaders want for society and if it is at odds with their goals and it would provide impetus for change, political or otherwise.


You also mention the state of the world today in relation to the course of history. To that I would say that as bad as things are today we are still on that constant curve of human improvement. All the poverty, war and BS of today are still an improvement over anytime in human history. For example we live at a time when the insanity of conflicts like WWI and WWII are incomprehensible to us. The world is smaller and less fragmented; we have more information and more freedom generally. Things still shitty but they moving on, even in them disadvantaged religious states. The point making there is that the progress there would be sooo much faster if not for the dotish adherence to religion.

13
General Discussion / Re: Innocence of Muslims
« on: September 24, 2012, 05:31:50 AM »

JC what you describing is religion as an abstract concept. As a guide to lifestyle and morals inspired by altruistic teaching/god etc. In practice it is, and always has been a social, economic, political institution run by men, either believing or claiming divine inspiration to exert power in society.

It all well and good to say “it is not the faith, is the people in charge” but if the people in charge always corrupt what is the point of the religion. This is not unique to Islam the catholic church from year dot, or as soon as it had the power to exert influence, has been the same, committing acts that are anathema to what you would think is a benevolent faith.

Also you can cherry pick individuals of any faith or non-faith and cite their achievements. All that does is make them exceptions. The customs of the general society is a better measure of the influence of The Religion. You can’t deny that what you see in the Middle East is the result of an excessively dogmatic adherence to religion that would not prosper in a free-thought, open sharing of ideas environment. You would only require two seconds of original thought to figure out that so many of the religion-inspired customs and practices retarding the society.

14
General Discussion / Re: Innocence of Muslims
« on: September 21, 2012, 05:10:53 AM »
Deeks yuh being unfair to SNL. That piece of shit video has no art, humour or intelligence to it. It just mean spirited and dopey.

That being said the reaction to is is inexcusable. JC you can’t label it as “so called muslims” because it is not about the individuals. It is about whole societies that include religion as a central theme of governance and daily life having systemic issues with education and tolerance that will always have this type of reaction.

I have been fairly equivocal in the past on the religion thing because I understand it fills an important gap in people’s lives and is intensely personal. But it should,stay personal and should never have any impact on public life. When you reference 2000 year-old texts written by people with a a fraction of the historical, scientific and sociological knowledge that we have today you will end up with a dopey, uneducated society with lack of freedom, opportunity and a low standard of living. Full stop.

This is not a Muslim thing. The christian right would have the US in the same state of idiocy if you let the Bible be the foundation for government. You just have to look at the state of education, healthcare and economics ion Bible belt states compared to more secular parts of the US.

Or you could also look at Turkey, a “westernized” mainly Muslim country  to see how well it works compared to all the others.

There is no middle ground on this shit for me anymore.

Once you come to me debating some structural societal or government issue and I referencing original thought, accumulated scientific thinking, human history and sociology and you referencing a 2000-year old book of ‘nansi stories I telling yuh franckoment to ride to f**k out.

Make some room on that wagon TT because I jumping on.

15
Nice Stuff Fire...

How yuh forget to mention that you in the video too.

I didn't listen to the audio but I assume you playing Beach's father encouraging him to go up to the casket in the frames at 00.59 and 1:06

16
General Discussion / Re: Romney is Boss!!!!!!!!!!!
« on: September 07, 2012, 01:06:17 PM »
back up padnah, yuh take a wrong turn. no talk about slavery in any of this. yuh getting on like biden. my comments were to draw a connection between obama's "base" of supporters and their particular reality over the last four years. the disconnect demonstrates how irrational the support for obama is.

as jumbie rightly pointed out, things for americans generally are worse. people have a short memory for what obama promised and FAILED to do, particularly in the economic realm. it was his decision to ignore his own economic advisors' advice - that is on obama and people giving him a pass if they bother to remember at all. that is unacceptable.


Like JC I not overly enamored with Obama but your indignation of the unacceptability of black people to call Obama to task for black people suffering the most from a bad economy is a cheap shot.

AS JC said, it is no surprise that black people suffer more than whites during the recession. Poor people always suffer more and blacks are disproprtionately poorer, less educated and have fewer opportunities than whites. The factors that contribute to this are myriad and have a long history, dating back to slavery.

More importantly blacks don’t necessarily support Obama, they would vote democratic with or without Obama. The economy does not have to be THE decision point for blacks. Even if it was it would only be held against Obama if the Republicans could make the point that they would somehow do better for the economy in general or for blacks specifically.

There is nothing in the Romney-Ryan (or Obama-Biden for that matter) platform that addresses structural economic issues or suggessts that the economy would be better as a result of a new adminsitration. The previous republican adminsitration, advisors and administrators who would fill a Romney cabinet, was no better at the economy than the Obama administration is now.

So if the economy is a wash between both parties, what is Romney-Ryan and Republicans in general offering blacks?
For the past four years they have treated blacks to a show of simmering white resentment, where a sitting President has largely been described as “other” and “un-American”. The basis for this has often been the implementation of policies that had previously been endorsed by either wholly endorsed by republicans or been recognized as being part of the American political debate.

And then the general approach to the poor and blacks by Republican establishment has been to enact laws that make it more difficult for them to register and vote. This is not the action of a party that will do SO  much better for blacks.

So Obama failed on his promise. Which politicain has or does? Is Romney-Ryan being somehow more realistic in its promise of US energy independence?

17
More despicable behavior by this bunch of amateurs. Nothing will come of this incident but this guy looks like an ass and a half.

He shoulda just come out and admit it was a mistake and offer to pay the charges.

18
Football / Re: McComie suspended pending investigation.
« on: August 04, 2012, 04:11:11 AM »
From the time I see the headline on the main page the first thing cross my mind was that McComie was being an asshole.

McComie could say what he want he is an egotistical, power-tripping ass. Hope the young man is okay.

19
Football / Re: The Stretford End- Home of the Champions
« on: July 30, 2012, 06:12:34 PM »
Glazers floated 10% of the club in an after market announcement.
Expecting $300M which would value the club at $3billion.

And here's the kicker....the last prospectus was nebulous about how the money would be used. In this one they come out frankoment and say that only half going towards the debt. The next half going to the family.

Despicable.

Also with the club holding structure being moved over here they pay more tax but don't have to report financials with as much stringency. So we could expect the club to get sucked dry even more now.

20
General Discussion / Re: Her Excellency Ambassador Baptiste Cornelis
« on: July 30, 2012, 07:08:16 AM »
I only two minutes in and I had to stop fuss it cringeworthy. I feel like I watching the Saw movie where you want to see the plot progress but yuh don’t want to see the full gory details.

I wastrying to figure out what she is ambassador to then I realise is the same lod-mouth clown who was telling people to shut-up a couple years ago.

They really don’t value these Ambassodorial appointments. For the US they appoint a fella who was in school same time as me. No qualifications other than the fact that his family is party insiders.

21
Football / Re: The Stretford End- Home of the Champions
« on: July 30, 2012, 05:51:59 AM »

Manchester United's U.S. IPO may be a tough sell

Just saw a headline yesterday where they have permanently put this plan on hold.

Yeah I saw it on Thursday or Friday. Was going to post then but then didn't bother.

Makes perfect sense because they tryiing to get something while offering absolutely nothing. Glazers want to dig out people eye, they just too damn greedy. They done get the club for free, everything else should be gravy.

With the club valued at 2B they could float a 30% stake and get 600M. All debt cleared and instead of paying 50-100M to service debt every year, they will be able to bank profit and invest in the club. I believe with that level of ownership they could buy back the shares at a future date when they are more solvent.

A stock offering like that would be oversubscribed by zealous fans and investors. Even though investors would risk the Glazers just pocketing the money people would buy for the chance to own a piece of the club again.

22
Football / Re: Official 2012/2013 Transfers/Rumours thread.
« on: July 25, 2012, 11:37:43 AM »
Oscar to Chelsea confirmed. That is a good buy for Chelsea but it seeming like over kill now. Oscar is more like Mata than an all-out striker so now they have Mata, Hazard and Oscar. If Torres or another striker playing up top that leaving two places for Ramires Lampard, Marin, Sturridge, Lukaku, Mikel, Meireles, Essien. I ent even counting Malouda and all the youths.

Up at United I real worried by all the talk about Lucas Moura for 30M. I shocked that a 25M bid get turned down because this is the type of player who should be going to Portugal to season for a few years before somebody spend big money on him. Sao Paulo obviously think that United have more money than sense and expecting them to come back with money because young players rarely leave South America for that  kinda money.

He is a big gamble because right now he is just a man with speed who could dribble, no where near the end product of a player like Silva or Mata. So yuh looking at the kinda early product yuh used to get from Nani and Ronaldo and that is if he manage to settle. Added to that he is another wide player so is just a next man to fight up with Nani, Valencia and Young.

For 30M United could have Baines and Dembele walk into 1st team positions where they actually need players. Baines at left back and Dembele in the “Scholes” role.

In fact in general I scratching my head at teams pursuing players that are very good but are in positions where they currently well-stocked.

Arsenal want Cazorla when they have Walcott, Ox, Gervinho but still weak in defence and in the middle

Liverpool after Joe Allen when they have Gerrard, Adam, Henderson, Spearing, Aquilani but they very weak on the wings

City and United want Van Persie. But City have Aguero, Tevez, Balotelli and Dzeko already competing while United have Rooney, Welbeck and Hernandez probably playing for one place if Kagawa is the new linchpin.

23
You missing the forest for the trees, there are also more guns in NY and Colorado than in T&T yet there are less gun deaths.

How do you correlate that FACT?

You comapring chenettes to guava.

You are playing a stats game and aggregating all gun violence together. Either that or you missing the fact that this is a specific kind of crime that may be curbed by a more restrictive gun policy.

Guns are very difficult to come by for the average TNT citizen. Criminals have them in abundance, that is expected as they are the tools of the trade. Law enforcement have them and business owners go through a somewhat rigorous documentation process to get them. You cannot buy ammunition willy-nilly and they don’t have guns marketed to and easily, accessible by, the general public in gun stores and walmart.

TnT does have much more gun related crime because the place in a mess and we have too much crime but there are no instances of mass murder by mentally unstable people  who have no checks on their access to guns and very few instances of children shooting children/themselvesin the home. As a result when somebody trip off in TnT they most they might do is drink gramoxone, go on a chopping spree or kill their own family. All tragic, but nowhere near the carnage that we see in the US and in TnT, there is no clear path for a non-criminal, socially displaced person to plan something of this scale.

Yuh using the fact that things shitty in TnT as an example to defend something different that is shitty in the US.
The sad thing is neither ploitical party has the will to really debate this because of the money made by gun manufacturers.

24
Anyway, dis fella from Texas aksing how no one in the theatre had a gun to shoot back. De fella had a vest and protector on. How many citizen in that situation could take the gunman out without killing other people? These people watching too much movies.

That is a common NRA inspired lie when these things happen. Because these events remind everyone (for 15 minutes) that the lack of gun control in the US is shamefull the NRA does turn it around to say that there is TOO MUCH gun control as things stand.

Hence you will always meet somebody who watch too much TV telling yuh that “if everybody had a gun, somebody woulda take him down”
Completely ignoring the fact that outside of law enforcement nobody is trained to deal with those situations. In that kind of melee yuh more likely to shoot another innocent, mistakenly target some other gun carrying samaritan/law enforcement or get shot yourself by a gun carrier or law enforcement.And if you are the kind of civilian who on constant alert for the rare threat of a mass massacre and priming yuhself to deal with it, you should not have a gun. That is how yuh end up with the Zimmerman’s of this world.

Never mind the fact that these nuts want to make a splash more than anything else. If ever they believe that they will meet resistance from an armed public they will just target some place where they know there is a more vulnerable crowd like a place where kids or females congregate.

The “more guns in more hands” argument is for the menally weak and the dsepicably dishonest.

25
Football / Re: The Stretford End- Home of the Champions
« on: July 14, 2012, 11:37:11 AM »
Like the author I can’t understand why individual investor would partake in this IPO. No dividends, no voting rights, it is like a 0% interest bond yuh buying. You could make money off the share price based on the club’s success but the Glazers have no responsibility to a minority shareholder. Or the Glazers could undervalue the shares at IPO but I doubt that will happen.

Nah, under dual-class shareholding you still get dividends, but holders of preferred stock get paid before holders of ordinary stock.  You also still get a vote for each share held.  Preferred stock holders can have more votes per share though, and in this case the Glazers would have 10x the voting power which means even if they held as little as 6% of the shares (which in reality would never be that low, since they are controlling owners) they could never be defeated on any vote.

Yeah I understand that you can still get dividends but the Glazers' have complete control and the the prospectus states that there are no plans for giving dividends. With the way the Glazers' work and the outstanding debt it was kinda clear that they weren't going to give dividends anyway. Why service a debt when yuh done get the money for free.

I agree that the voting rights are practically zero. They also set it up that future class A shares can be instantly converted to class B upon sale. So even if they sell more shares after the IPO they don't affect the voting structure appreciably.

Another damning assessment of this IPO

Manchester United's U.S. IPO may be a tough sell

(Reuters) - Manchester United may be one of the most supported sports teams in the world but that doesn't mean the soccer club is going to find many investors with an appetite for its planned initial public offering in the United States.

Fund managers who have looked at its preliminary prospectus have been either negative or lukewarm on the prospect of buying shares in the club, which is controlled by the Florida-based Glazer family.

They say Manchester United faces significant financial risks given its 423 million pounds of debt ($658 million), and the very structure of the business puts its customers, the fans, at odds with shareholders.

Some are concerned that the U.S. stock market hasn't had many sports team listings, let alone any European soccer clubs, so there isn't much to compare Manchester United against

"With a sports franchise, it's a constant tug of war between player salaries cost and the rest of the operation," said Wallace Weitz, president and portfolio manager at Weitz Funds in Omaha, Nebraska, which holds stakes in Liberty Media Corp, Walt Disney Corp and Comcast Corp.

Manchester United declined to comment and representatives for the Glazers could not be immediately reached.

Like many sports franchises, the team's success on the pitch is largely contingent on its ability to spend cash on players - through both transfer fees and high wages.

While there have been some signs in the past year that transfer spending by top English clubs is being reined in, the pressure on a leading club like Manchester United to spend heavily in an attempt to stay a top team remains. That spending can eat up profits rapidly and lead to volatile financial results.

At the same time, if a club like Manchester United cuts costs and doesn't go into the market for expensive new players, the value of its brand can be at risk. That may not happen to a top club overnight - with just one weak season - but over a few years the value of everything from TV rights to sales of club merchandise can be hit.

Manchester United had a weak season by its own standards in 2011-12, failing to win any silverware, though it missed out on the English title by a hair's breadth.

"The deal is a strong vanity play in terms of being part of a winning franchise but whether or not that mystique around the team translates to money for shareholders I doubt it," said Jeff Sica, president and chief investment officer of Sica Wealth Management in Morristown, New Jersey, which manages over $1 billion in assets. "The chances of shareholders making money on this is very little."

To be sure, many investors will not make a final decision until they know how many shares the company will sell and at what price. The timing of the IPO is also unclear.

COMPARISONS DIFFICULT

But doing a valuation analysis will not be easy even when the price is known because of the lack of comparable public companies in the U.S. The media, sports and entertainment group Madison Square Garden Co owns the New York Knicks basketball team and Rangers ice hockey team, media and entertainment company Liberty Media owns the Atlanta Braves baseball team and cable giant Comcast Corp owns the Philadelphia Flyers ice hockey team, but none are pure sports plays as they own many other assets.

"There's just not a lot of data out there," said Mark Donovan, a portfolio manager with Boston-based Robeco Investment Management which owns shares of Disney and Comcast. "Sports franchises have been the playgrounds of rich entrepreneurs who want a big expensive toy to play with but I don't really know if they pass the test for return on investment."

Teams that have listed in the U.S. in the past also haven't performed well for investors. The Boston Celtics, which were publicly traded for 16 years beginning in 1986, posted three straight years of losses before swinging to a profit in 2002. Shares were thinly traded and held primarily by individual investors, not institutions.

The Cleveland Indians went public in 1998 at $15 before seeing shares tank to $5.38 within four months.

Both teams have since been taken private.

And unlike these teams, Manchester United doesn't play in the United States - other than for occasional exhibition games in the summer months. It may have a sizable armchair fan base in the United States who watch English games on TV but that isn't comparable to the almost religious nature of the support in the U.K.

RED FLAGS

One particular problem is that some of the legendary English club's millions of fans around the world have shown a rabid dislike for the Glazers, who acquired the 134-year-old team in 2005 through a leveraged buyout. Whether through sizable demonstrations at games or comments on fan websites, they have slammed the Florida-based Glazers for loading the club up with large amounts of debt.

Another red flag is that medium-sized investment bank Jefferies Group Inc got picked to be lead underwriter on the offering only after Morgan Stanley bowed out due to concerns over the team's proposed valuation, according to sources familiar with the matter. Morgan Stanley had been set to participate in the underwriting earlier this year, when the Glazer family sought to list the team in Singapore, raising $1 billion. That plan was initially slated for 2011 but got pushed back due to market conditions.

The team also toyed with the idea of listing in Hong Kong, Reuters previously reported, but investors in the U.S. are largely seen as more accepting of the dual share structure that the Glazers wanted for the offering - a structure that allows them to retain almost complete control even after selling a large stake.

Jefferies and Morgan Stanley declined comment.

There are still a number of big banks helping to underwrite the deal, including JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Credit Suisse AG.

One concern among investors is that the team's cash balance - which it dips into to attract top players - stood at just 26 million pounds as of March 2012, down from 151 million pounds last June. The lack of plans for a dividend is another.

Its revenue rose 6 percent to 245.8 million pounds in the nine months ended in March, while its after-tax profit climbed to 38.2 million pounds from 13.3 million pounds in the year-earlier period.

However, despite the improved figures there are signs of strain. Its net finance costs in the latest nine-month period were 35 million pounds, swallowing up more than two thirds of its operating profit of 50.7 million pounds. Much of its net profit was due to a 22.5 million pounds tax credit, which is unlikely to be sustainable in the long run.

TV RIGHTS

The revenue from the sale of TV rights to its games, which comprised roughly a third of Manchester United's overall revenue in 2011, is based on contracts with the Premier League and Champions League, and are at least partially based on its players' success on the field.

Its match day revenue, meanwhile, is generated from the number of games Manchester United plays. This fluctuates based on how far the team progress in domestic cup competitions and in the knock-out stages of the Champions' League, the top competition for European clubs.

Even its most reliable revenue segment, commercial, which includes sponsorship, merchandise and apparel, could take a hit if the team has a poor season.

"Five years from now, Manchester United could fall on hard times and their attendance could drop and concessions could go down," said John Kim, a portfolio manager with Sentry Investments in Toronto, Canada which owns shares of Disney. "Generally speaking, there is a reason why most sports franchises are private."

The Glazers will keep an iron grip on the team through the dual-share structure which investors fear will give them little say in the club's affairs.

"A dual class structure is definitely a red flag," said Mohannad Aama, senior portfolio manager at Beam Capital Management in New York. "You don't know if the family really knows what they're doing or is someone doing this as a hobby."

(Reporting By Olivia Oran in New York, additional reporting by Keith Weir in London; Editing by Martin Howell, Bernard Orr)

26
General Discussion / Re: Atheism, science or cult?
« on: July 11, 2012, 11:46:48 AM »
This is true if one is trying to make a scientific claim... but that's not the case here.  Your stance here is similar to Dinho's in that thread about Jack Warner being named Min. of National Security... where he challenged us to name a better candidate.  Classic burden shifting... he's correct that Jack is the best candidate because we cannot name a better candidate (even though we don't have all the facts to prove a better candidate does or does not exist).

Here you claim there is no God and challenge us to prove there is... even though we don't have all the FACTS to prove or disprove the existence of God.  It's one of the more elementary logical fallacies.


I agree with this in part. God is an article of faith and as such cannot be proven. Science is not really used to disprove that God is real, just used to show that there is no objective evidence of such.

I think that the problem is that people do put forward phenomena as examples of God that really can’t be proven as being attributed to God. Good science can disprove all these examples and still leave the possibility that there can be an, as yet unproven, God.

JC gone to the other extreme putting forward God as real and challenging people to prove otherwise. Obvioously that is a useless exercise.

27
Football / Re: The Stretford End- Home of the Champions
« on: July 11, 2012, 09:21:08 AM »
Like the author I can’t understand why individual investor would partake in this IPO. No dividends, no voting rights, it is like a 0% interest bond yuh buying. You could make money off the share price based on the club’s success but the Glazers have no responsibility to a minority shareholder. Or the Glazers could undervalue the shares at IPO but I doubt that will happen.

A more likely investment is to hold on until they eventually sell the club. But even if you look at it as a long-term bond type investment you have to consider the risk inherent in the Glazers history of profiteering at the club’s expense.

I torn because I would like to see the debt financing go down so that club profits don’t get sucked into the Glazers’ money pit. If they could clear off 450M of debt United’s balance sheet would be fantastic. The problems are how much funds will go to the debt. They will siphon off some for personal use and pay penalties/interest on any debt that gets paid down.

A bigger problem is the way this is being done. The Glazers show with the takeover, the attempted HK float and now this that they will skirt every rule possible for personal gain. They win big when they get United for NOTHING, and now they will be winning again by getting out of the situation, again with zero personal cost.

Perhaps I should be too concerned. In a sense United done get hosed by the Glazers, if they advantage some investors on this deal at least it should be less pain for United in the future.

28
General Discussion / Re: Atheism, science or cult?
« on: July 11, 2012, 08:59:29 AM »
JC I think yuh putting forward some very flawed arguments based on the false equivalence between atheism and religion. Atheism is not a religion. Atheism is simply the absence of belief. There is none of the ritual, dogma, rules, congregation, structure that is present with religion.

You also make the mistake of giving atheism the same relevance to atheists as religion is to believers.

For atheists God is just something that other people believe in. Atheists don’t share the belief but their investment in “non-believeing” is no where near as great as the investment of religious people is in believing. Just as there is no interest or onus in you proving scientifically that the tooth fairy does not exist, an atheists existence is not dominated by the question of God.

As for science you are making a ridiculous demand to say that there has to be proof positive that God Does Not exist. You cannot assume an unknown (and immeasurable) as fact and then say prove it is not a fact. Again it is like saying “The magical character, Santas Claus, is real”…”show me proof that he isn’t”.


you also hate religion bc yuh hate the idea of somebody telling you how tuh live yuh life, in other words, your arrogance and disdain for ppl saying yuh need to live ah discipline life allows you to accept the notion that God don't exist.  so i will stop here with you, stay cool.

Just taking your original premise and applying it here. If atheism was the same as religion TT wouldn’t be an atheist since it dictates how he should live his life. It is either that TT can subject himself to a belief system that dictates how he must live or that atheism is not a religion.

29
General Discussion / Re: obamacare at the supreme court
« on: July 02, 2012, 07:23:11 AM »
All yuh foreign based in the US.  Ah here watching all de talking heads on CNN discuss the ruling.  Ah hearing dem Republicans mad as hell (and mad woman Michelle Bachman on mih screen as I type with she mad self vowing to repeal it when they win in November).

Foreign based, what it is about this law that have Americans so vex??  And ah say Americans because that's what ah hearing.  Ah know most of the noise coming from the right so ah doh know when they say Americans if they mean most Americans or is just propaganda.

Help mih out nah US foreign based....please and thanks.


The problem is that it is a plan by the Democrats. This is the same old inter-party nonsense. The part of the plan that they object too as being ‘unconstitutional’ has been proposed by Republicans in the past (and opposed by democrats) and Romney’s health care bill in MA (the state with probably the best health care nationwide) is based on the this individual madate.

The plan is half-arsed and flawed. It has benefits over the existing structure in the fact that it covers more people and subsidizes care for those who cannot afford it. The problem is:

     if it is viewed as a resolution to the Health Care ills there will be no further movement toward a more comprehensive, affordable system

     if it is viewed as a failure/injustice there will be no real attampts to develop a truly affordable, comprehensive system

Also  the Republican party has been playing up a divide between the parties and framing it as a tax (if you don’t have insurance), artifact of the nanny state (if you are encouraged to buy insurance) and then there is the canard about taking from the rich and giving to the poor. In this case the middle snad upper classes will pay taxes on health care (currently it is a pre-tax deduction). And also there is a libertarian argument that a healthy person should be able to choose whether they want to be insured. Of course when they actually get sick they might change their mind about government healthcare and just go and get seen to on the government dime anyway.

The current Republican plan is to de-regulate insurance completely so you can buy it any quality of insurance to be insured in name only if you wish. This would further increase the gap in quality of care between the rich and the poor and the healthy and the sick because it is the healthy people being enrolled with less healthy people that makes insurance possible. If you have a patient pool where everybody maxes out their benefits its not really insurance.


The truth is that healthcare is an incredibly complex problem. With the current political system in the US where it is antagonistic betweent the two parties and both parties are driven by money and special interests and benevolence it is a problem that absolutely cannot be fixed in the US.

30
Football / Re: UEFA Euro 2012 Thread.
« on: June 27, 2012, 01:52:21 PM »
Portugal is playing very well... Hussling them and harrying them and winning the physical battles all over the field.. And most importantly not letting the Spain midfield get into a rhythm to dictate the pace..

Xavi, Iniesta, Silva, Xabi (is he playing?) not seeing much of the ball, and when they do they not getting time to pick apart Portugal. This is like how Real Madrid defeated Barcelona in the Copa Del Rey.

Meireles and Coentrao having monster games, and Ronaldo is so much more effective as he has been all tournament when he plays as a team player and doesn't try to do it all for himself.

Ramos is a wild man.

Sounds like Portugal really pressing Spain and giving them they hardest challenge so far. Win or lose Bento showing that he is a boss coach. And if Portugal win this is really Ronaldo tournament.

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