Iskaral Pust

Agreed that Arsenal have the most solid defense and most suffocating press this season, even if the goals conceded aren’t that far apart. I’m just impressed that Liverpool have conceded so few considering how much of the defense has been missing: Alisson, Trent, Robertson, Konate and Matip have all had significant absences. We’re lucky that VVD has been so durable, and especially that Quansah and Bradley stepped up into the team from absolutely nowhere, and that Joe Gomez has re-emerged as a reliable and very durable FB, and Kelleher has grown into much more reliable form than he ever showed before. Any one of those outcomes would have represented good fortune for a season but getting them all at the same time is a bit of a miracle.

In the short term, he just needs an asset that he can pledge or borrow against in order to raise funds to post the court bond he needs to in order to file appeals and defer final judgment until after the election. In the longer term, he could also sell some or most of the stock even as the fanboys (and illicit funders) continue to hold — just look at Musk.

Generous take: it’s a MAGA meme stock and show of loyalty. Cynical take: it’s a convenient channel for a shady transfer of wealth to Trump by undisclosed political interests in his moment of dire need, in exchange for future influence. Trump can now pledge his suddenly valuable shares or borrow against them for the bond he owes to the court.

Great to see Sainz on his revenge/audition tour, although too many athletes peak when a contract is needed and then fade (not saying that will be the case with Sainz). Pretty incredible to qualify and race like that straight after a return from surgery and with less practice and prep during the week. Considering Verstappen retired very early, it wasn’t a hotly contested race. Perhaps his dominance isn’t the only reason for dull races. Hamilton must be excited to move from Merc to Ferrari but it will be interesting to see if that makes him a contender. I’m not sure he’ll out-drive Leclerc. He’s not even out-driving Russell consistently.

We really liked the first episode. I think we’re hooked and will binge through this quickly. (an episode per evening is fast for us, especially dealing with jet lag this week) How is the portrayal of the Cultural Revolution perceived in modern China?

Agreed, I watched The Gentlemen last week, starting with a flight to London. There’s too much Ritchie unnatural arch dialogue but it’s overall an enjoyable watch. Good to see Daniel Ings land a role like this after he was so good in Lovesick (fka Scrotal Recall). It felt like this was Theo James’ audition for Bond, just like Layer Cake was for Daniel Craig. Oppenheimer was very good, and Cillian Murphy was excellent, but I disliked the post-war McCarthyist politicking as the primary conflict, or the gratuitous sex scenes. It felt like the director couldn’t make enough drama from a literal apocalypse and ever-present threat of planetary extinction. Belfast was really enjoyable, albeit romantic and twee — it had to be told through the eyes of a child to carry off that tone. Very well made film.

I’m looking forward to starting this but I have the books sitting in my to-read pile on my Kindle. I’m torn about whether to wait until I’ve read them. The deciding factor will probably be whether my wife wants to watch; she’s never worried about waiting to read first (there’s a dearth of good TV options, so don’t limit them).

These FFP breaches for losses exceeding specified thresholds create a significant operating risk for clubs. Most of the expenditures are on multi-year contracts for players that don’t get reduced for any club operating stresses (they do reduce for football metrics like not playing, not scoring, not qualifying for Europe, relegation, etc). So if club operations have an unexpected headwind, then the club doesn’t have much room for maneuver. I assume a widespread problem like COVID quarantine affecting stadium attendance or the collapse of a TV broadcast deal would trigger a negotiated exemption for all clubs. But if any one club has a big problem, e.g. stadium capacity is reduced for a year or a big sponsorship deal collapses at short notice (sanctions, bankruptcy) then that specific club may not have many Barcelona-like levers to pull other than a fire-sale of players. Getting a loan improves cash flow to ride out the problem but doesn’t change the accounting loss for FFP.

We over-committed players in two EL fixtures to beat Sparta 11-2 on aggregate, which stole energy from the City match (which we really could have won) and from this Cup QF. This is exactly what was predicted when we saw the EL line-ups.

Winning the 6N but not clinching a historic second consecutive grand slam seems a fair outcome for Ireland. They started excellently in the tournament but faded in the last two games. The disruptions to the back three were a problem to cover. But winning the 6N under the circumstances was a very good outcome: without Sexton, with a WC quarterfinal exit hangover, and with away matches to England and France on the schedule. Scotland defended fiercely but didn’t offer much in attack. Huw Jones scored a good individual try late on when Irish arms and minds seemed too tired for basic defending. But Ireland had comfortably controlled the second half until then, after a lackluster first half. I thought the Furlong try should have stood, which would have made the scoreboard more comfortable. There were several poor handling errors that ended attacks and disrupted the flow. The handling errors and lineout errors really grew as the tournament progressed. The overall challenge is lack of depth in the squad. Crowley doesn’t come close to replacing Sexton but let’s see how he develops. Byrne showed why he would only be fourth choice fly half but for injuries. We have no idea who should be our scrum half or back-up as JGP and Murray age out. Keenan and Hanson were very difficult to replace. We really lack a fast “finisher” winger like Penaud or DVDM, and we lack some nimbleness and speed at #8 and center. Ben Earle’s rampaging performances or Scotland’s speedy and powerful centers would be nice to have. Doris, Aki, Ringrose and Henshaw all have great strengths but the aggregate (with Ringrose missing) lacks some pace. Opponents are evolving their defenses for Ireland. We’ll have to keep evolving too. We have some tough fixtures for the summer and autumn but we should use those to experiment and evolve.

Liverpool looked tired from the start. We have a pattern of poor first half performances this season but United had so much more energy and speed to press well and then swarm forward. We eventually asserted our better pattern of play and control on the game, but late on tired minds and legs eventually conceded stupid turnovers and soft goals. Too many games for too few players lately.

Ireland retain the same XV for Scotland, but change the bench to a 5-3 with Ringrose. It’s good to maintain some continuity and loyalty to the players finishing out the 6N but probably some room for experimenting in the months following. Peter O’Mahony’s role at #6 looks open for a younger player to come through.

We’re in London this week so I actually watched Liverpool’s EL fixture in real time rather than after I know the result. Not that there was much suspense tonight regardless. Some tidy performances out there and fatigue was managed. There were a few late fouls by disgruntled Sparta players as the night wore on but hopefully no injuries from those. Surprising that Leverkusen faced such hazard against Qarabag but they saw them off in the end.

In the 2000s, America was still very focused on STEM education, especially as a backlash against indulgent, unemployable grads from frou-frou arts majors. But now, as our son gets close to college applications, I wouldn’t recommend that he pursue a deep STEM program in college. They’re just too narrow and limiting. Even with him crushing AP Physics and AP Calculus BC in junior year of HS, he’s also very strong at History, English, Spanish, Jazz. He would be better served by a liberal arts college program that lets him explore his breadth further, including some good STEM options, but not narrowly focused there. Although my education was in deep applied mathematics with no other exploration, now I look at deep STEM focus as better suited for people with a strong left-brain skew either by strong preference or narrower skill breadth, or else with a strong focus on establishing a good, reliable career that probably has a limited ceiling. Maximizing the long term career is not helped by getting stuck in a narrow technical field. A largish portion of my MBA program at UChicago were engineers trying to plot a course out of Caterpillar or similar into private equity or start-ups. After only 5-8 years in engineering, they were already worried about their jobs becoming repetitive mid-level dead-ends.

I only got to watch the Ireland vs England match as far as ~45 minutes (Lowe’s try) prior to traveling for our vacation. I know the result, obviously, but will have to wait another week before I can watch the rest. I’ll probably miss the Ireland vs Scotland game live too (we’re just landing in Dublin from London around kick-off time). That’s the best I’ve seen from England in a long time. They finally dropped the stodgy conservative gameplan and actually played some rugby. The blitz defense and swarming attack stifled Ireland almost completely, like NZ in the WC, even though Ireland have a solid lead to the point I’ve watched so far. Considering the physical advantage England and France have (just from sampling a much larger population), I’m always surprised that England haven’t gone toe-to-toe on style. Ireland have used tactics and gameplan for a while to cover a squad with less elite physicality. Considering the dominance in possession and territory for England so far, I’m surprised the result was only a one-point win through a last minute drop-goal. The imbalance in play has been more than that. Lots to digest in the Irish performance, and some that I haven’t watched yet. The disrupted back three was a weak point defensively, and the 6-2 split was undone by Nash’s early HIA. Perhaps Ringrose should have been included after all to add some wide defense. And if Ryan can be dropped then O’Mahony’s place must be under threat, captain or not — he doesn’t contribute nearly as much as JVDF or Doris. Mostly Ireland need to learn from that loss. Teams will try the blitz defense to smother their attacking patterns. They have to learn how adapt to that type of opponent.

And that’s exactly why England at Twickenham was a concern. All this talk of Ireland waltzing the 6N just ignored the competitiveness of one-off test rugby and the motivation of England to restore some pride at home.

Forza Italia! Aside from the Ireland game, Italy have been been very competitive this 6N.

Ireland have Keenan back at FB, and otherwise look unchanged. Ringrose returned to training during the week but doesn’t make the 23. Henshaw has earned the starting berth for now, and why disrupt a winning side for a player who will be rusty after several weeks out? The bench is heavy on forwards, wary of England’s power, so no room for Ringrose even on the bench. Ringrose is a world class #13 but has been very unlucky in the past two 6Ns with injuries. Ryan also doesn’t make the squad, which could be injury or just poor form. Henderson is the bench second row instead.

When I saw that team selection I thought Klopp has just forfeited the PL to chase the EL. He probably doesn’t think of it that way, but that’s effectively what he did.

Verstappen (the younger and less despicable) and Newey will have the casting votes in this palace coup. I don’t think the rest matter much apart from fueling the drama. it reminds me of a fun quote, whose provenance I don’t recall, along the lines of: Formula 1 is full of high drama except for two hours on Sundays.

Tierney is the guy who gifted City the title ahead Liverpool by not awarding Everton a blatant penalty for handball in the dying minutes against City. And he has a huge track record of negative decisions against Liverpool when refereeing them. He’s been a meme and a bogeyman among Liverpool supporters for years. Trying to recreate him now as central to some pro-Liverpool conspiracy sounds like peak AFTV. But have fun with it. None of the rage-bait shows Konate getting kicked in the head by a Forest player at the corner kick (not a collision with Kelleher) as the reason for the stoppage.

It’s wild that internecine politics could derail such a successful enterprise at its peak. You would think that factions could rub along together during the good times and wait to get the knives out when the success falters.

Forest did the very same thing earlier when the game was stopped for the Yates head injury. I think the Liverpool players were fed up being the polite mugs being taken advantage of by the opponent’s cynicism.

Not an exciting race. Not just because Verstappen won so comfortably but because the second half of the race had most of the drivers quite spaced out with little over-taking or dueling. When the qualifying times were so closely grouped, I was expecting more of a shootout for P2-8. I know the Verstappen dominance gets criticized for ruining the unpredictability and competitiveness of the races but I take the view that we’re watching one of the greatest all-time drivers and just appreciate his excellence for what it is and look elsewhere for nail-biting competition. It’s not as if he’s just cruising to victory by outspending everyone else on development, he’s just legitimately able to deliver speed, race management and car/tire management for 2 hours in any conditions. Probably Federer would have made tennis boring without Nadal competing with him but I still would have enjoyed watching him play. Looking elsewhere today: Sainz raced well to a podium finish and has a point to prove as he loses his seat to Hamilton. I expect both Merc and RB are talking to him already. I know Ricciardo is a favorite of Horner’s but he doesn’t look like he deserves a RB seat again. Ferrari’s race pace and reliability looked pretty solid today, and they have two very good qualifying drivers. Perhaps we’ll see in future races whether Verstappen is so dominant without clean air and empty track ahead of him all race.

That game shows why the title chase will collapse under this injury crisis. Even with the second string and kids playing their hearts out lately, they looked exhausted today after too many games in quick succession. Tired legs and tired minds were struggling to be crisp at finishing, and Forest know very well how to defend deep. That said, we’ve escaped for today. And watching Forest complain after their time-wasting, clogging and negative tactics all day feels like some sweet schadenfreude, even though it’s mostly my relief at not dropping points.