philipl

Its not Sky's greed- where do you think all the money for the Premiership is coming from? If Landlords are allowed to buy Arabic feeds, then why should not ordinary citizens be able to buy arabic TV broadcasts of EPL games at an 80% discount? One follows the other. Chinese Premiership TV rights screwed up.

Thanks for pointing that out. Watching it on TV, I kept thinking Ewood was really bouncing with lots of end to end banter. Now I understand the main reason why!

Another compelling reason for ending drug prohibition. In the USA there is evidence that more youngsters buy illegal but unregulated marajuana than legal but regulated tobacco.

and the media pendulum swings towards charging the girl

Like I said before the root of the problem (if it exists) is in the global economic system allied to massive overpopulation - particularly in the developed and developing world .

'drog being man of the world and all that. Sunday Times on free prostitution Boobonomics in the Times Certainly keeping Murdoch's female scribblers in ink.

Very open interview with the LT

Very interesting and long Aaron Mokoena interview from the Mail.

We don't know whether the young lady who was so pleased that her bodily functions were so appreciated by one and all is the same as the one who made the tearful phone call.

Got a feeling this one could be different from the usual gold-digging. One can easilly imagine a 19 year old's state of mind and hormones after six hours of drinking and being in a group of lads being pawed anf fawned over by Manchester's best looking and seemingly easiest talent.

Hughes interviewed in the Times. He says fan abuse is no worse than it has been before. Proof he does not read brfcs then.

West Ham United Three Kings: 1-Robert Green, 2-Carlton Cole, 3-Mark Noble Christmas Turkey: Lucas Neill

It is worth remembering Benni has scored 8 so far this season- hardly abysmal. That disallowed "goal" at the start of the Villa game is causing all kinds of pain now. Ditto the wrong call of Benni offside when clean through at the start of extra time on Tuesday. He will come good, of that I am certain.

If you have a decent midfield you can play two up top. Its called 4-4-2 or SAS as Blackburn folk fondly remember. As it is, Benni is having to drop back to bloster the midfield. In the box, you are going to get crowded and robbed anyway so a 25% success rate for flicks creates havoc and are appreciated. Playing flicks with 25% success rate on the half way line is a different matter.

I am sorry to say that MGP simply cannot handle the tough physical stuff of the Prem. When he was good, it only took one big hit and he'd disappear. This season, he hasn't bothered with the hits and just disappeared. Against the slightly softer kids last night he flourished.

Just thought I would point out how totally irrational some of this hostility towards McCarthy is. Strikers are bought and paid to score goals. Here are some comparisons of goals to games Rovers career stats- Roberts 7/37 Stead 8/42 Santa Cruz 11/23 Derbyshire 12/42 Bellamy 13/27 Dickov 14/50 Speedie 23/36 Cole 27/83 McCarthy 32/65 Jansen 44/153 Sutton 50/131 Shearer 112/138 Garner 168/484 Interestingly, Bellamy, Speedie, Sutton, Shearer and now already Santa Cruz were/are in by far the most productive scoring form of their careers when at Blackburn Rovers. Benni on the other hand has maintained a high consistency throughout his career other than at Celta Vigo- Ajax 20/35 (one Championship) Porto 57/129 (two Championships, three Cups, one UEFA Cup, one Champions League, one World Club Cup) and he is South Africa's all time highest scorer and has scored in two World Cup Finals campaigns. When he's gone we will look back and think wow, Benni played for us.

I am not 100% convinced partly because I hope against hope that there is a natural blip that will reverse itself. But if warming is man made then there is something man can do to unmake it. Part of me says that if the people (neocon right) who say global warming is not man made have been wrong about practically everything else they have propounded then chances are they are wrong about being climate change deniers as well. The volcano effect is simply a massive amount of dust and particulates in the atmosphere blocking sunlight. Going back through history, there have been very clear strong links between cold snaps and increased seismic activity which in turn have turned the tides of human history. A simple phenomenon is the vivid colours in Turner's paintings of skies are reflecting how the skies were in the early nineteenth century following the Tambora eruption. http://www.scribd.com/doc/323747/1816-Erup...-without-summer

University of Alabama at Huntsville scientists John Christy and Roy Spencer are the two scientists who have mined the vast amounts of data from weather balloons and satellites to compose the troubling tropospheric temperature history. In doing so, they had to correct for environmental effects. The new studies, all of which were published in the online version of the journal Science, assert that their corrections, and hence their calculations, were wrong. One of the studies showed that Christy and Spencer had over-corrected for the sunlight's warming effect on temperature sensors attached to weather balloons. Another put forward that they also made a mistake in calculating for the way wind moved around the satellites. A third study factored in the errors, and came out with a warming of the troposphere very much in line with rising surface temperatures and computer models. Straight cut and paste. Also, according to a new synthesis report on “Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere,” previously reported discrepancies between the amount of warming near the surface and higher in the atmosphere that have been used to challenge the validity of climate models and the reality of human-induced global warming have been resolved. The report, commissioned by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program and drafted by the leading scientists in this research area, concludes that recent evidence has increased confidence in the understanding of observed climatic changes and their causes. The report is undergoing a final political-level review and has not yet been approved for release as an official U.S. Government publication. But the report, as drafted and submitted by the scientists, has been posted on the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) Web site. Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere: Steps for Understanding and Reconciling Differences. Thomas R. Karl, Susan J. Hassol, Christopher D. Miller, and William L. Murray, editors, 2006. A Report by the Climate Change Science Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research, Washington, DC. The posted Abstract of the reports reads: Previously reported discrepancies between the amount of warming near the surface and higher in the atmosphere have been used to challenge the validity of climate models and the reality of human-induced global warming. Specifically, surface data showed substantial global-average warming, while early versions of satellite data showed little or no warming above the surface. There is no longer evidence of such a discrepancy. This is an important revision to and update of the conclusions of earlier reports from the U.S. National Research Council and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Since those reports, errors have been identified and corrected in the satellite data and other temperature observations. These data now show global average warming in the atmosphere similar to the warming observed at the surface and consistent with the results from climate models, although discrepancies remain to be resolved in the tropics. The recent evidence has increased confidence in our understanding of observed climatic changes and their causes.

Hughes- Benni short on confidence?

A continuous series of data including a five year average trend line from the English midlands since the seventeenth century. The downward blips coincide for the most part with particularly dirty volcanic explosions vapourising vast amounts of rock and projecting it into the stratosphere. This sort of graph dramatically highlights that something out of the ordinary is going on. Given the massive resources the US Government has at its disposal, the failure to produce convincing science that contradicts the manmade global warming theories has tended me to think that the US Government is wrong.

When Roberts came on against West Ham was it? he hustled to great effect but never once looked like scoring a goal. Benni was disappointing last night but got into four goal scoring positions in his 30 minutes including being put clean through the first time and wrongly called offside (not the second time when he patted it to the keeper when called offside- ref waved play on when the keeper got it but I saw the flag go up again that time and he was off side) Now Santa has hit a rich scoring streak I would play Roberts for his muscularity against Chelsea because in part its needed to counter our patsy midfield but ordinarilly Benni should always start ahead of Roberts.

OK, I'll put here what I wrote on the Nicko/Niko thread. Benni's Rovers career stats are 65 appearances 32 goals 2 assists. That includes this season. Where are the goal every other game strikers to replace him with? Roberts averages a goal every 5 appearances for Rovers by the way. Benni's problem lies in our midfield players collectively not being good enough which I also think is a reason for the sudden catastrophic collapse of our defense.

Rio's party without Ronaldo for those who want to read it.

Mind numbing that RFW allowed Rio to organise that party! How on earth the WAGS gave night passes to an officially sanctioned bordello with hot and cold running floozies is an interesting question as well. BBC name Johnny Evans

Stories linking Benni and Anelka to Chelsea today. I find it amazing that a forward who has scored 8 goals before Christmas is getting this much flak. Is Roberts' total haul for Roves 5 goals?