A couple of football related news items I want to talk about, both from today's Sun.
The first is Tottenham boss Harry Redknapp moaning that the way the fixture list is "ludicrous" that his team have a match scheduled three days before the Carling Cup final. He whinges "There's no time for us to get any rest." Yes he may have wanted a bit more time to prepare for a big game, but surely he has to be professional about it. I follow my local team Andover. Due to the weather over the winter, they have had a large number of games postponed. With the league not allowing clubs to play any games after a deadline, this means the club are likely to have to play games on a Tuesday, then Thursday and then on Saturday in the space of a week, towards the end of the season. If part time players, on under £100 a week are able to do it, why can't these over paid prima-donnas do it? Does Harry Redknapp think that everyone else is out to get him and his Spurs team?
Another article in today's Sun features Middlesbrough. The clubs Safety Officer, Sue Walton has issued a note to fans, stating the following;
"I am receiving more and more complaints from our own fans about both the persistent standing and the constant banging and noise coming from the back of the stand. Please stop. Make as much noise as you like when we score, but this constant noise is driving some fans mad."
Surely these people who are complaining about the noise at a football match would be better suited to stay at home and watch their team from their own home where they wouldn't get bothered by all the big scary men making loud noises. Or alternatively, most grounds have Family Stands where it's less rowdy. Another point is, from what I see on TV, compared to most other grounds, The Riverside Stadium is like a morgue most match days anyway. Fans go to matches to support their team and if they are asked to sit down and be quiet, surely that takes away the point of going to watch the match live if you are unable to create an atmosphere.
These two articles, in my opinion, illustrate how the Premiership, and professional game in general are slowly becoming more and more of a joke.
Tuesday, 24 February 2009
Wednesday, 18 February 2009
Empiricism and A Priori Reasoning Lecture
Yesterdays lecture on empiricism and A Priori reasoning was something quite interesting and not something that I was expecting. Some of the ideas that were discussed; for example, Descartes famous quote: "I think, therefore I am" and empiricist views, which rely on ideas that are rooted in direct experience, are both very contrasting views, but both ideas have valid points.
Empiricist views may seem like the sort of ideas that can be truly believed as they can actually be physically proven, but on the other hand most A Priori ideas are based on logic and there is no way in order to disprove them. For example, David Icke's "Reptilian Agenda" views cannot be totally rejected as there is no way of proving that we are not ruled by lizard overlords.
For our task we were asked to find one example of empirical argument and one of an A Priori argument. My example of an A Priori argument comes from The Times on Monday. There was an article detailing how a senior British military commander, referring to the city of Basra in Iraq, stated that "we will be leaving behind a city that is in a far better nick than it was when we arrived in 2003." Although much of the British public may believe that the armed forces have carried out a good job in Iraq, there is no empirical proof of this or, in fact, any way of measuring how much better the city has got. He also states in the same article how the deaths of 179 servicemen is a price to pay for success. Once again, there is no empirical proof of this. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5741840.ece
An example of an empirical argument that I found was in yesterdays Sun. A piece by ex-pro Ian Wright, who drew up comparisons between Chelsea and Aston Villa. He came to the conclusion that since both teams were taken over by foreign buyers, Chelsea by Roman Abramovich and Villa by Randy Lerner, Aston Villa had performed better. The evidence he gave for his argument was plain to see. In the 4 years since American Lerner took over at Villa, the Midlands team have gone from finishing in 16th position, to 11th, to 6th and currently sit in 3rd place. On the other hand, since Abramovich has been at Chelsea, they have gone from winning the title in 2006, to dropping a place every season since. Wright states that this shows that Lerner understands the game more than Abromovich. Although there is no empirical evidence for this, there is still evidence that Aston Villa have performed better. http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/article2243267.ece
Empiricist views may seem like the sort of ideas that can be truly believed as they can actually be physically proven, but on the other hand most A Priori ideas are based on logic and there is no way in order to disprove them. For example, David Icke's "Reptilian Agenda" views cannot be totally rejected as there is no way of proving that we are not ruled by lizard overlords.
For our task we were asked to find one example of empirical argument and one of an A Priori argument. My example of an A Priori argument comes from The Times on Monday. There was an article detailing how a senior British military commander, referring to the city of Basra in Iraq, stated that "we will be leaving behind a city that is in a far better nick than it was when we arrived in 2003." Although much of the British public may believe that the armed forces have carried out a good job in Iraq, there is no empirical proof of this or, in fact, any way of measuring how much better the city has got. He also states in the same article how the deaths of 179 servicemen is a price to pay for success. Once again, there is no empirical proof of this. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5741840.ece
An example of an empirical argument that I found was in yesterdays Sun. A piece by ex-pro Ian Wright, who drew up comparisons between Chelsea and Aston Villa. He came to the conclusion that since both teams were taken over by foreign buyers, Chelsea by Roman Abramovich and Villa by Randy Lerner, Aston Villa had performed better. The evidence he gave for his argument was plain to see. In the 4 years since American Lerner took over at Villa, the Midlands team have gone from finishing in 16th position, to 11th, to 6th and currently sit in 3rd place. On the other hand, since Abramovich has been at Chelsea, they have gone from winning the title in 2006, to dropping a place every season since. Wright states that this shows that Lerner understands the game more than Abromovich. Although there is no empirical evidence for this, there is still evidence that Aston Villa have performed better. http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/article2243267.ece
Friday, 13 February 2009
This credit crunch business....
My first news blog and I feel there's only one thing I can start with.
With the world in such an economic downturn, it was no surprise to find an article in todays Daily Mirror regarding the well publicised resignation of former HBOS chief Sir James Crosby. Following on from claims by a former employee, Paul Moore, alleging that he was dismissed by Crosby for warning him that the bank was expanding too fast, a second former worker has come out stating that he also tried to warn the banks bosses of the approaching trouble. Tony Main, the banks former head of funding states that he had also become worried by the amount of money the bank was borrowing from US banks in order to fund lending. He too, alleges that although Crosby said he was "alarmed", nothing was done to stop the banks expanding.
This got me thinking that although ultimately Sir James Crosby has lost his job because of his negligence, why has it only come to light after the collapse of Britain's banks? Sure, the two whistle blowers claim that Crosby ignored their worries, but surely if they were that worried they would have continued to push their point until someone took them seriously. To me, coming out to the papers after this all happened seems like they are competing to make themselves look more competent at their respective jobs. Rather than blaming each other maybe the bankers should be trying to make this recession pass as smoothly as they can, if that's possible.
Today, Lloyds announced that HBOS made a yearly pre-tax loss of £8.5 billion , stating that this was driven by £7 billion of bad loans. With Eric Daniels, boss of Lloyds claiming that his £1.6 million pound salary was "modest", and the ongoing Crosby saga, it strikes me that it's no surprise that the economy is in the state that it is when we have these clowns running the countries banks.
With the world in such an economic downturn, it was no surprise to find an article in todays Daily Mirror regarding the well publicised resignation of former HBOS chief Sir James Crosby. Following on from claims by a former employee, Paul Moore, alleging that he was dismissed by Crosby for warning him that the bank was expanding too fast, a second former worker has come out stating that he also tried to warn the banks bosses of the approaching trouble. Tony Main, the banks former head of funding states that he had also become worried by the amount of money the bank was borrowing from US banks in order to fund lending. He too, alleges that although Crosby said he was "alarmed", nothing was done to stop the banks expanding.
This got me thinking that although ultimately Sir James Crosby has lost his job because of his negligence, why has it only come to light after the collapse of Britain's banks? Sure, the two whistle blowers claim that Crosby ignored their worries, but surely if they were that worried they would have continued to push their point until someone took them seriously. To me, coming out to the papers after this all happened seems like they are competing to make themselves look more competent at their respective jobs. Rather than blaming each other maybe the bankers should be trying to make this recession pass as smoothly as they can, if that's possible.
Today, Lloyds announced that HBOS made a yearly pre-tax loss of £8.5 billion , stating that this was driven by £7 billion of bad loans. With Eric Daniels, boss of Lloyds claiming that his £1.6 million pound salary was "modest", and the ongoing Crosby saga, it strikes me that it's no surprise that the economy is in the state that it is when we have these clowns running the countries banks.
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