stupidest possible outcome is that belgium just beats the shit out of the usa and wins like 5-1 despite all the shenanigans so that's probably what we're getting.

I'd also like to offer up "routine cocaine user" for evaluation as a correlation metric here

Looking forward to the discourse on Yank Bluesky when the Belgians play their former colonial masters

Cristiano Ronaldo: what if a mall in Dubai was a person

I don't think anyone who saw the abysmal USA-Australia match could be remotely surprised by the outcome when the USA faced a team who were a) any good at all b) needed to win to get through

it is understated how much of cultural criticism essentially comes down to "Dems are too much like my mom and/or teacher'

While the biggest and earliest enthusiasm from Platner was from aggro leftists and the PSA weirdos, I do respect Schumer's ability to shit the bed by providing a pointless endorsement after Mills dropped out, rather than sitting it out and looking smart when this-or-similar inevitably happened

On this occasion I do in fact have to support this kind of silliness

Absolutely legendary. From 2 minutes 30 in: www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuPW...

This is honestly such an endearing monologue. Look how proud the little guy is to have slain The Giants

Genuinely the most glorious piece of sporting commentary ever recorded

Ahahaha I didn't know that was where the "your boys took a hell of a beating" quote came from, glorious!

What's especially impressive is that Crewe identifies for the Tories the opportunity, the pitfalls and the ultimate outcome of a turn to populism all in the same paragraph. It went pretty much as he predicted it would, although even he doesn't foresee the growth of another right wing party.

there is a very real risk, should football finally "come home" - as has oft been prophesised - at the same time, or even around the same time, that Andrew Burnham ascends the steps of no. 10 Downing Street to become prime minister, that we could see the dawn of the Second Age of Britpop

much much love for the guy near me at the cafe who, if my eavesdropping got it right, is explaining to his mate that he's feeling lousy not even because of the beer he drank but because of all the crisps he stress ate during the game

Not in any sense handing it to Hanson, but this is very funny (context for non-Australians: Deeming is an extremely unpleasant and litigous conservative transphobe)

The angry Bluesky responses to this one are gloriously literal Anti-Bedtime Left

This is a really good piece

New from me, and my debut in the I: Why Mary Whitehouse broke Britain. inews.co.uk/opinion/anti...

We always hang in a Gruffalo stance

Very hard to see how the story here is in the public interest, rather than just pruriently interesting to the public

So would you say that there's been a sort of... Leyenda, being told, about Spain... A very dark - one might even say Negra - one?

Por que no los dos lamag.com/food/essenti...

This is pretty dramatic - major Australian rail freight operator closed down indefinitely by the regulator for repeated safety violations www.railexpress.com.au/rail-operato...

Whitest team surely Argentina?

Heh. but also an opportunity for a fun history fact: The Normans were more descendents of kids of Norse settlers in Britain setting up in France than Scandinavian. Partly why they worked so hard to paint themselves as the latter, culturally. Medieval version of Americans pretending to be Irish.

literally incapable of conceiving of global relationships (this is Meloni, an ideological ally he has managed to completely alienate in recent weeks) in any terms other than those of a rapist.

"Idea for a novel: Why Does Everyone Hate Me?"

Getting a yellow card and breaking your wrist in a match that you don't play in at all is such a gloriously niche achievement that you almost wonder if it's a betting scam

It's kinda funny that the US and Norway's best players are both English

The horse race coverage here is decent - slightly bizarre that the issues identified as "big issues" are submarines and data centres rather than zero wage growth, though!

This is unequivocally true

Well done Kathy - unrelated I absolutely misread the author of #5 on several readings

i increasingly feel like the standard leftist toolkit systematically disempowers compassionate people who take ideas seriously by convincing them that everything that is or could be powerful is impure, and they should abstain from those things

FIFA corrupt? I refuse to accept it.

the problem with 'ah ha! now you like birthright citizenship' is that the Trumpists' understanding of the world always includes the ability of the absolute monarch to make exceptions.

As in 1066 England will prevail against the Norwegians before tragically losing to the French a couple of weeks later.

If you're not outraged, you should be

OK sure, great, but I don't that helps much. He's 80 years old, woefully out of shape, and probably doesn't even know the rules.

I swear no one understands that it's really hard to get soldiers to gun people down in the streets. It's not how authoritarians try to maintain power! It's a very dangerous gamble because there's a good chance the army or whoever balks at mass slaughter!

"Colonialism is when boats!" "Spanish had boats." "No, gringo, Colonialism is when you *call them* 'boats'."

The annoying thing about the absolute prison abolitionists who refuse to say "yes of course murderers and rapists should go to jail" is that they give a bad name to those of us who correctly believe that only violence should be met with violence

Stopping a flat out Nazi from taking office by pretending to be alive might be McConnell's most positive legacy. Rest in piss

One of the things that people most hated about Aethelred is that as well as being king at a time of great difficulties that he wasn't good at facing, he specifically avoided going personally into battle at a point when that was basic king stakes. I think Starmer does deserve "unready" on this basis

I suppose the function of this is to get money out of people who are trying to pass AI writing off as human-written, so, morally I guess this might even out?

It's funny how haters never generalise this to "yes, it isn't actually possible to tell"

I just don't think that streets of Philadelphia would be very nice. Sticky from the start and they'd go mouldy after a couple of days at room temperature

No, perfect, we've got this

"Australians all let us rejoice (No way, get fucked, fuck off!)"