What's happening with Trump's border wall ? I don't hear about it these days.
A significant part of the wall's path is in Texas and most Texas land is privately owned. Court cases attempting to secure the land for the wall that started during Taco's first presidency weren't resolved. Apart from that, there are practical, financial and logistical barriers to construction. The White House seems a little coy about providing facts but the Texas Facilities Commission reported that it had completed 66.4 miles of wall and it's believed that the US Government has finished around 140 miles. That's for a 1,254 mile border in Texas and the Texas Government has quietly defunded their works.
Of course, there are "smart walls" and water barriers in addition to physical walls; the Rio Grande makes up around two thirds of the border. Taco is claiming that the wall, whatever that is, will be completed in late 2029.
A major factor in shootings by US police/enforcement agencies is the prevalence of gun carrying by the public. YouTube is full of clips of officers shooting drivers and drivers shooting officers after traffic stops. Officers are expecting the worst and shooting first and asking questions later is self preservation. That's not going to change without reform of gun ownership and that's not going to happen without a major change in attitude towards the Second Amendment.
A US National Library of Medicine study found that the incident rate for fatal police shootings in the ten high-gun states was 3.6 times greater than in the five low-gun states. As an aside, the study notes that USA has very high rates of homicide by police compared to other high-income countries ... and that's bleedingly obvious.
A former police officer was recently sentenced to 33 months in prison after being convicted of violating a black woman's civil rights by using excessive force in fatally shooting her during a raid on her home. The maximum sentence is life imprisonment and Taco's administration asked that the officer be sentenced to one day in prison.
You know what I meant He won't be thrown straight to the wolves. He'll be eased into the contest gradually. If he lights it up early he may get a fair amount of game time.
But that's just my guess and when and how he's played will be up to the coaches. It wouldn't actually surprise to see him start forward.
I did?
2026 will be a new kettle of worms with a five man bench and we'll have to see how that pans out. However, the players who spent most time on the pine last season were still >70% time on ground. If Dean is good enough to play, then he doesn't need to be protected other than for possible endurance issues. Forwards like Moir, Motlop and Williams tended to spend more time on the bench and Billy Wilson had a slightly lighter workload than our other defenders.
I'm not opposed to the idea of Dean spending time forward but I don't think that really helped Weitering's development.
We're talking about the opening round. And it's clear we do have options. The question is, will Dean play from the get-go or will the Key backs be a Weitering/ Young or Weitering /Haynes combination.
I suspect Dean will be in the side but on the bench.
I still have hopes for Lewis Young in 2026 And while he may not be a long term prospect... He's very much a confidence player. He played the best quarter of football of any Carlton player I saw in the VFL last year before he was injured. He's proven in the past he can handle the position. He was in everybody's best 23 a few years back. It will be intersting to see if he's in the side for the opening round.
Weitering had a lighter workload than normal in our win over Essendon and only spent 94% of the game on the ground. Lewis Young had 96% game time and, at the other end of the ground, McKay had 94% game time. Interestingly, De Koning only spent 74% of the game on the ground.
Before his injury, Harry O'Farrell's game time was in the 90% range.
I expect Dean to debut in opening round, and he may well start on the bench, but he's not going to stay there; we no longer have 19th and 20th men Lods
Dean probably won't have Weitering or Young game time from the get go and I suspect that he won't be spending a lot of time playing on Amartey or Curnow. I think that he will be used initially as an intercept marking defender with Weiters and Young as the KPDs but he will take his turn on whoever Sydney uses as KPFs. Dean may well take over a KPD mantle as the season progresses but he would be equally at home as an intercept defender and ball distributor.
It's in the eye of the beholder Paul and some aren't particularly discerning. As the great Taco remarked during the campaign, "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK?"
Weitering is a no brainer. Haynes is the next best. How do you fit both young and dean in the backline as well....and everyone needs to stop with the haynes on the wing nonsense, its not a legitimate position change. ....and there is always a potential for mcgovern as well.
To me, young just cant get in ahead of dean for any length lf time.
Haynes played on the wing in our last four games of last season. We won two of those four games, Haynes was among our best players, we didn't miss him in defence, and he played on the wing earlier in his career.
He may not play on the wing again, he could spend the season in the VFL, or the MC may decide to continue with what worked well at the end of last season. Either way, Haynes on the wing isn't nonsense and it's a legitimate option for next season.
I'm sticking with Weitering, Newman, Cowan, Florent, Haynes, Saad, Dean, L Young as my backline, but there's no reason why Haynes can't move into the midfield group and be replaced by O Hollands or Carroll.
It's also worth noting that, in addition to the defenders available at the end of last season when Haynes was playing on the wing, we should have Newey, Florent and Dean available for Opening Round.
Interesting that Taco informed the oil companies of the attack but didn’t bother with Congress.
Kings don't need to consult jesters.
I think that you've got the Turkish proverb arse-about Shane. It's "When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king; the palace becomes a circus."
A pity Khawaja made so little of his last innings: he pottered around like an old chook when the conditions required something more positive. Granted that he isn't Travis Head, but his total lack of attacking really lost us momentum.
That's been my knock on Khawaja; with a couple of exceptions, his recent innings have been dreadfully slow and he doesn't turn the strike over. It's as if not getting out is more important than contributing to the team's total.
One needs to mediate carefully between the group and the individual. There may be a small element of truth to certain groups conforming to certain behaviors, but that needs to be measured against that fact we are individual minds, and you need to be wary of flattening or erasing any nuance or legitimate difference that exists between members of a group.
In terms of parental pushiness, my experiences were decidedly mixed, with 2 children involved in soccer, cricket, swimming, ballet, fencing, drama, choir, art classes, gymnastics. Pushy parents come in all shapes and skin colors, as do chill parents.
This is wise words.
That being said, our work has put on 2 'indian cultural days' where the goal is to help understand the differences between Indians and 'traditional' clients and how to navigate this without being offensive.
It was run by an indian woman who has been in Melbourne for almost 2 decades now.
Summarised best by explaining India is so big and varied its best thinking about it essentially as different countries. Wealth, education, language, religion, mannerisms all change depending on where you are.
However, take home message is this. As a general rule, "if you don't ask, you don't get" and "You can't say 'no' to indians" put a lot of people offside from our end. Culturally, they are 'pushy' because they need to be. There's a billion other people they are competing with. While as a group/company, we acknowledge this, but its poor form to bow down to such demands in comparison to any other client. Why should they get favouritism simply because they are pushy??
Obviously, within that individual personalities vary, just like other cultures, but they acknowledge themselves its part of theirs. This certainly does show up in sports and with pushy parents.
For those interested in movies, 'Dangal' is an indian movie based of real events of an overbearing parent going against tradition and training his daughters up to be world class wrestlers, competing at commonwealth and olympic games as a result. A great standalone movie in its own right, but gives you a look at 'the other side'.
Nice post Kruddler!
I haven't been to India but I hope to one day. A lot of what I know about India has been gleaned from cricket commentators like Harsha Bhogle on the wireless. They often stress how diverse India is with so many different religions, ethnic groups, languages, cuisines, cultural practices, etc, etc.
One of my former colleagues is from Nigeria but he obtained one of his degrees at Guru Nanak Dev University in Amritsar. Some of his fellow students were Muslims and they couldn't get beef in Amritsar. Mba was travelling to a Muslim city and they asked him to bring some beef back with him on the bus. Unfortunately, one of the passengers noticed blood dripping from Mba's bag and he was confronted. He fessed up and was worried that he was about to be kicked off the bus in the middle of nowhere. However, all of the other passengers left the bus and he returned to Anritsar by himself.
The attempt to obfuscate the need for Congressional authority to use force under US domestic law won’t work if a couple of Republicans grow a spine.
While the US attacks in Venezuela are clearly a breach of Article 2(4) of the UN charter, nothing will come of that … apart from Putin acknowledging that international law does apply to other countries.
Taco was quick to bully Nigeria using the false claims that Christians are being killed. The strike he ordered, without Congressional approval, was ineffective, unless you’re the owner of one of the mud huts the missiles hit.
No prizes for guessing what Nigeria and Venezuela have in common but Nigeria also has significant lithium deposits.
I suspect that Russia and/or China will be extending the hand of friendship to Bola Tinubu.
"We're going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure."
"We'll be selling large amounts of oil."
However, US oil giants haven't responded to Taco's claims. Chevron, is the only US oil company currently operating in Venezuela, and they have undertaken to follow Venezuela's “relevant laws and regulations”. I suspect that Taco doesn't understand that multinational companies have to operate in an international context and can't play fast a loose with the resources of sovereign nations.
The formerly US-backed opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Maria Corina Machado, seems to have had the rug pulled out from under her. Despite her "the hour of freedom has arrived" comment, Taco says that Machado doesn't have "support or respect". He is backing Maduro's deputy, Delcy Rodriguez, saying "she's essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again." 🤮
Of course, Rodriguez is remaining loyal to Maduro and is promising to resist US aggression ... for now.
