Tuesday 21st October 2025

[refitman]

Morning all.

[gilsey]

Good morning.


MTA have spat their dummy out.

UK government ‘deeply saddened’ as Maccabi Tel Aviv decline any Aston Villa tickets

[gilsey]

Very good from Jonathan Liew.

Standing with Maccabi’s football hooligans against local police – is that what patriotism looks like now?

The point here is that to treat this as your common or garden football hooliganism threat is to miss the point. Rather, it is the prospect of targeted, politicised footballing violence that renders this particular case so potentially toxic. Violence of the sort seen in Amsterdam late last year, when travelling fans and local thugs fought in the streets, far from the Johan Cruyff Arena where Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv were playing. Israeli fans, an Arab taxi driver and pro-Palestinian protesters were all targeted and subjected to lawless violence.

Who started it? Who was more to blame? At what precise point did tension, provocation and goading cross the boundary into criminality? Nobody can really be sure, and in any case these are questions whose answers are framed by what you already choose to believe. And in recent days, as politicians from across the spectrum have stampeded to condemn West Midlands police – from the centre to the far right – it is clear what lessons our political class chose to learn from the episode.

You want concerted international action against Israel for its crimes in Gaza and elsewhere? Good luck with that when you can’t even get a few violent far-right football fans turned away at Birmingham Airport.

[Frog222]

" According to Jewish News, the potential presence of far-right activist Tommy Robinson — who posted a picture of himself in a Maccabi kit on social media last week — was pivotal to the club rejecting their allocation."
https://archive.ph/yfJQl

True or not, apart from football, the Israeli government has been surprisingly close to Orban, Putin, and yes 'Our Tommeh' .

Whatever, the Labour Spoxx being "deeply saddened " cheered up my morning !

PS Jonathan Liew's point about the Israeli violence actually being triggered by the cops -- would not be the first time, remembering the Paris police and English supporters a while back .

[Frog222]

7 MILLION ANTIFA MARXISTS ON THE STREET, EACH PAID $500 BY GEORGE SOROS

Jon Stewart --

[refitman]

Remember all the fuss that was made over Biden starting to lose it?

[Frog222]

Gosh, he lost me completely ! OK now I know he was attempting to refer to Ilhan Omar .


https://bsky.app/profile/messy-by-name. ... pyrbo2uk27

Takeaways by Bloomberg AI

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The law, which charges a 4% surtax on incomes over $1 million, has created a $5.7 billion windfall to fund bridge repairs, literacy programs, and address the transportation system's budget deficit.
Some business leaders have complained that the tax makes the state less competitive and drives away the wealthy, but others, including a real estate developer and the president of a taser manufacturer, say they are staying in the state due to its talent pool, livability, and renowned schools.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Been out for a meal and a couple of drinks to celebrate a friend's birthday.

I haven't been into the city centre to eat for ages, we ended up at a French bistro place and I almost shat myself when we looked at the prices. I ended up having snails in garlic sauce for a starter, beef bourguignon main, and we shared a bottle of wine between three of us. By the time we'd totted it all up we ended up paying just shy of £50 each. Don't get me wrong the food and wine were good, but they were nothing special in a decidedly unfancy place. And we went there after checking out a new Chinese place and saying, 'How much? £25 for a stir fry with a dollop of oyster sauce?'

It's getting ridiculous now, I fully understand restaurants have higher overheads for a multitude of reasons, and I'm not one of those tedious arseholes who says, 'I could make this better at home for half the price'. But it's getting to the point where even a middling bistro is so expensive most people will only be able to afford to eat there on special occasions.

On the plus side though if you can't be arsed to book anywhere it does make it easier to get a table. I know it's a Tuesday night but even so most of the places we reconnoitred were sparsely populated by punters.

Anyway I'll just sit back, relax, and enjoy my garlic snail burps.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

And yes for anyone who read my post on Israeli football at the weekend despite the extensive coverage I did somehow manage to think it was Maccabi Haifa causing all the ruckus instead of Maccabi Tel Aviv. Lisa Nandy would not be impressed. I mean she was throwing around thinly veiled accusations of anti-Semitism left right and centre yesterday so fuck knows what she'd make of me thinking all Isreali football teams look the same.

It's genuinely sad seeing Labour MP's I've previously expressed at least a modicum of respect for making such absolute cunts of themselves but nobody is forcing them to do it. I mean yeah you could go on about collective cabinet responsibility and all that but nobody forced Lisa to spout that shit with a gun to her head. She chose to do it. To accuse some of her previous colleagues of being racists all in the cause of allowing far right thugs to attend a football match. And they're still at it even after the club in question has refused to allow it's own fans to buy tickets. It's just awful and embarrassing. Everything they touch turns to shit. They're on the wrong side of every political argument. Whether with their own party members or the public at large. Even nature charities have had enough and realised their consultations were a sham and what they're offering is far worse than the Tories.

And all the while they're opening the curtain wider for the fascist clowns waiting in the wings.

[refitman]

One Labour MP is getting it right, at least