yoda

This Kilmarnock team are a less exciting version of the County team that won the Championship in 2018/19.

It's not a "snow job" just because you don't like it. There's some good points in it, particularly regarding their market power.

Annie Lowrey had an interesting article on index funds a while ago. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/the-autopilot-economy/618497/

Can you imagine a world without Roy "Chubby" Brown?

This is some good stuff.

Ghost of Tsushima was a gorgeous looking game with some really cool quirks. But... the initial charm soon wore off and I got bored after a few hours of the same repetitive tasks*. However, I had come straight from playing the base game of The Witcher 3 so the next thing was always going to be dull in comparison. *I guess that's the trap most open world games fall into but something like HZD or Spider-Man at least managed to be quirky enough to maintain my interest. Assassin's Creed, on the other hand, did not.

I'd say quite low. Not impossible but still low. There's no real benefit to China of handing out massive loans - and potentially damaging economic relations with the US and Europe.

The Dr Zhivago remake looks shit.

Would the board even notice?

The "escalate to de-escalate" logic has been discussed in the past. I don't know if it has ever been official Russian policy but I wouldn't say it's necessarily unrealistic logic.

One of the posters more informed on military weaponry can probably provide a better answer but not all Russia's nuclear weapons are big "Hiroshima style" (a rubbish comparison but you get the jist) bombs. They've got low yield battlefield weapons that they could use - or threaten to use - and that's presumably what the escalation would be to (rather than hitting the big city vaporising red button). If you've got more of these battlefield nukes than NATO (and maybe they do) then it's a credible threat that doesn't guarantee a escalation from NATO (because how do you escalate from there, and do you even want to?).

It's not (as far as I'm aware but it's been a while since I've covered this) written in stone that the US will actively defend Taiwan. It's vague language about providing them with the means to defend themselves without expressly stating that they'll intervene. "Strategic ambiguity" has been the policy since 1979. They had to backtrack on Biden's comments a few months ago about a "commitment" to Taiwan.

This is obviously the important, nuanced, part that's maybe not been emphasised by some folk (not necessarily on here, but elsewhere online and in sections of the media).

Watson's pass in the build-up to Hungbo's goal was maybe, probably, the greatest pass ever played by any footballer in the history of the sport.

From Tooze (The Great And The Powerful): An interesting read (link) but from before the latest round of sanctions aimed at the RCB were announced. The stuff from clever people seems to point to bank runs and a currency collapse at some point soon.

On the China and "Taiwan / Ukraine" thing (which seems like a lazy comparison). There's the small issue of Russia actively backing and arming secessionists in Donetsk and Luhansk. I can't imagine that's the sort of thing China really wants to see (IMUAAO (in my uninformed armchair analyst opinion)). The things I've read seem to suggest that China will remain as "neutral" as they can.

wot

An interesting (although the PIIE article is dated) take on that figure:

People can say goal music is terrible but there's something oddly endearing about sitting at New Douglas Park - in an away support numbering no more than 50 - and hearing "Bits & Pieces" blaring out over a terrible speaker system as your team goes 2-0 down.

I remember Steven Watt scoring an Andre Hainault volley from a corner against Dunfermline.