bmck

the only thing worse than a bigot is someone who earns a living exaggerating and provoking it (or providing it justification) by unfair and disproportionate criticism. its like someone who comes down hard on islamic fundamentalism dishing out wholesale and unfair criticism of islam as a whole while giving some aspects token and insincere approval; it just embattles people, and its intentional. i prefer people who think islam is a bckwards medieval religion and dismiss its followers to ones who give it token praise to mask their hatred. obviously an accurate picture is what is most needed, but when that is failing i would prefer an honest one, even if its full blown hatred. an honest hatred of rangers would be preferable to the insidious approach of spiers. that said, shroomz is right - condescention, or pitty, is the most appropriate response to his sort - anger is what he is after.

I'm all for playing youngsters, but you need to do it around a very much established core down the middle of seasoned professionals. A big, big blow.

maineflyer, it's actually united a dispirate group of rangers fans to work on issues together. it builds momentum by getting the sort of fan collaboration you need for any sort of lasting change, and makes the fans realise that they can have a larger say if they work together. it must be great up there on your high horse, but what you say is irrelevant, because there's no reason to listen to you. you speak for yourself, and you're far too easy to ignore way out there on the "i'm defined by what i hate" fringe. instead of contributing to the project with your views, you ignore it, wait until it's finished, and then slate it. and then wonder why the rangers fans wont unite behind your understanding of the problem. no-one here was back slapping beyond taking a reasonable amount of encouragement from working together - the very thing you'll need unless you plan on mounting a silver steed, storming ibrox and ousting the evil dictator by yourself. n_c said it - while the fans are divided, there's no hope. but every step short of complete unity isn't failure, and if you are not pleased with the lack of murray-hate in the document you should at least be trying to appropriate the sense of collaboration for your own ends. telling other fans their achievements are shit is just playing right into murray's evil divide and conquer plans, effectively making you one of his cohorts. the only positive claim you've made on this site is that reclaim rangers are a serious outfit..... while we're talking deluded....

you're right, but our current skintness maybe the reason we've got a crop of established 23-24 year olds in the next few years that could be the core of a really good team. it might've forced our hand, but it may work out for the best so long as we can keep a solid core of players.

s_a, "the mod, the writer, the instructor of children in fitness-based team building exercises..."

if whoever ends up getting it signs scott booth i'm handing in my resignation from humanity.

:spl: its on only a rivalry if both teams have a chance of winning

the judge is an idiot. i despair at this country, yet its still the best country.

they really are. sectarian hatred is bad but provincial hatred is ok; it's ridiculous. their papers play up to it too. wee jimmy has taken them as far as they can go - just dont see them improving under mcghee.

that they'd have a "hatred poll" really says it all.

that's because we all take them before we start typing :spl:

i think he's another one we can chalk up to the manager being right not to play him.

i go for a 99% bollocks 1% genius ratio of utterances mate; i leave it to the public to decide for themselves which is which though

n_c, i think to do justice to the subject you'd have to take an extremely polemical approach. the current media situation is historically unique - old media's having to defend its legitimacy and existence in a way it hasn't for a long a time - and a proper treatment of how to address it would have to be less charitable, i think, than the document is as a whole. to manage the press effectively you have to acknowledge concepts like rhetoric, will and propoganda that might have given the positive stance of the document a sour taste, despite its legitimacy. dealing with the media is something you want strategy devised behind closed doors, as celtic seem adept at doing, but we dont.

that is genuinly funny, but i clicked on this hoping i was actually going to read about some plan.

All allowed. Still waiting on someone coming out. Read that back there - I meant to say 'they said they'd send'. It's only TV as-its-broadcast you need a license for. So, if your computer had a TV-card, you'd be fucked, but not if it has iplayer. Scottish BBC is awful; some of the centrally produced stuff is amazing, and would be impossible if it wasn't publicly funded - like planet earth and whatnot. All their educational stuff is better than most other places in the world, but everything else is particularly bad - the media coverage is shite and too political for a publicly funded organisation. Agreed. They should do what Channel 4 news do when ever anything happens. Pick the best person from each side of the debate and have them argue it out. Then if you get bored with all the details you can just choose a side and want them to win. :spl: As for the petition, anyone not going to sign it?

Shroomz is right; I don't have a TV. It's only tv-as-it-happens from somewhere that you need a license for. If you have broadband - no, but if you have a TV card in your computer, aye. When I said I didn't need one they didn't believe me, they send an inspector out. Mental.

untill you stuck him anywhere near a plane.

i'm astounded to see how many people would be happy to let mendes go. some of the reactions are knee jerk. the guy's played half a season for us; he's been inconsistent, but not even RDB was that consistent when he arrived. do people not get 6 months to settle in? he had hardly kicked a ball the first half of the season. it's same with the players coming back from injury - they're not brilliant for a bit and its decided their surplus. i think the idea is that if you could get someone better. but then they need to time to settle. i think you need to persevere with some level of inconsistency - from young players and older ones - to ever get to consistency. some people would've punted steve davis, kyle lafferty if even a decent offer came in. hutton and broadfoot and a million other examples show that people tend to get better at what they're asked to do after a while - after a period of inconsistency you get better, and can then start turning to style. i think with mendes if you get rid of him (and players like him) too quickly - or are too keen to get rid of them, it just shows a sort of impatience or anxiety. i think is happening not because of the players but a sort of general feeling that the future's not quite right. but in footballing terms i think it's wise to assume retaining - where a silly money offer doesn't come in - anyone who could walk into most comparible first teams. even if they dont perform to their capabilities instantly, its wiser to give them time than to chop and change. challengers need impetus and renewal - that's all the things celtic will be cultivating this year - but we need resolve, thoroughness and to establish a team who know each other as winners and all that sort of stuff. i don't know who we should keep, but big chopping and changing i think would set us back. obviously the finances dictate, but i think the "if we get decent money we could get someone better" line will only set us back - by the time there's agents fees, and the costs of transfer, and the little bit to the debt, we lose momentum at too high a cost.

one of the best articles i've read in a while. the only obvious point is that because sdm owns such a high percentage of the shares, there is no personal motivation (and then, arguably moral) motivation to appoint someone in keeping with the higher markets. full listing costs more too, which may not be wise in a time of decline. while we might want more debate in the boardroom, i can't see what will make sdm want it. hopefully this and the rest of STS can persuade

agree with lepardized other than on lafferty and probably novo. i think if novo had gotten a long run in the team a few years ago he could've really improved, but i'm not sure if he's going to give us more than a bit of impetus now and again. depends on how much he costs i suppose.

looks like the "i still have to talk to murray about it" line while saying he hoped to keep his big stars in the last interview has happened think it was always going to though.

trust me, i didn't miss your point. belief in premises is completely irrelevant to reasoning. as a simple example of deduction, it could be rephrased: P1 If a player plays in a position first it is their natural position P2 Dailly was a striker first -> Daily's natural position is a striker i realise you're only arguing this to make it at least seem plausible why walter smith chose this, supporting s_a's argument. but, as an example of deduction, the argument is sound but not valid, because the first premise is flawed (or least highly contenstable). you then stepped out of rationality to resort to two rhetorical arguments, one a logical fallacy (ad hominem): you've implied his inability to understand your argument is based on incomprehension, when he understands your argument perfectly, but just rejects it. why? because, it seems to some people (like gazza, and i'm sure other succesful professional managers who wouldn't've made that decision) that playing an established defender as a striker is not something that should be done, and it seems ok to others (like you) because it has some justification. this sort of statement: isn't an argument. gazza wasn't arguing there was NO justification for playing Dailly there, just that, irrespective of the justification, it shouldn't be done. just because i understand perfectly that no player has one natural position and one only, and because some players switch positions over years, that christian dailly should be stuck up front at any given time. i know your gripe seems to be with the general, rabid, unreasoned criticism - but there's at least as much rational support for thinking such a move is a good move as thinking it's a bad move, so implying "logic" or those who listen, will necessarily think one way about the decision rather than the other is wrong winning 8 titles makes you an excellent manager, not immune from ridiculousness. i've achieved lots of great things and am still, largely, an idiot. anyway, onwards, we won the double - the most important thing! b

neither of us could afford moyes or someone equally high up in one of the big leagues i dont think.

i think you're making too much out of the word natural. dailly was being played out of position. that he played that position over a decade ago doesn't mean he's any less being played out of position. those who complained he was being played out of position are not being inconsistent, they're right. not quite, i must be daft. people complained daily was being played out of position. you said they were stupid for saying this because striker was his natural position. but then you argued that there was no such thing as a natural position, all the while maintaining the point you are making is obvious. dailly was played in an unusual position. though there were reasons for playing him as a striker, there were reasons for doing things another way that didn't involve playing someone out of position. playing players in position has advantages. holland's total football - everyone playing whatever position was necesary - didn't work. people have a right, and not to be told they are contradicting themselves, when they think its ridiculous to play daily as a striker. but i agree with your larger point that this has to be tempered by the fact that we won, so putting more focus on that decision than the result as a whole is probably skewed, but it's not a meaningless contradictory complaint.