35 minutes ago, JeremyCuddles said:

Yeah they're F'd. I don't think they have 10ish mil in players to slap on LTIR even if they did/could match both offersheets. I am also surprised Broberg got such a heft offersheet. Obviously, they both had to be in different compensation tiers. But still. 4.5mil for a guy who played 12 games last year and was the 7th D in the playoffs? 2 years isn't the end of the world though. So if he stinks they can just not keep him. Just found it wild he is going to get so much. No way Edmonton matches the Broberg offer sheet, but they'll probably try match the Holloway one.

38 points in 49 games in the AHL last year, i think Broberg will have a great year next year

probably an overpayment for next year but if not matched, st louis is potentially getting a future top pair defenseman for a 2nd round pick

2 hours ago, LegioN said:

 

"Oh Allah, act with cruelty against the Palestinian's enemies, the Jews, plundering Zionists, Christians, and those who aid them. Oh Allah, annihilate the hypocrites of the Islamic nation. Oh Allah, count them, kill them one by one, and do not leave a single one of them."

 

5 minutes from my house...

this is fucking disgusting

prison.

17 minutes ago, RomanPer said:

 

Here's the problem with any UN organization at the moment - they are quick to blame things on Israel and are strangely quiet when Israel is a target. There were nothing from the UN after Hezbollah bombing of kids playing soccer in Israel. And it's just one example. The fact that UNRWA-funded schools have active antisemitic propaganda and "kill the Jews" narrative has been known for years without any type of reaction from UNRWA or UN. The fact that countries like Iran and Russia can sit and even chair the UN Human Rights Commission and Security Council should be enough to understand what UN is all about. Sorry, but UN as the whole is the biggest useless organization in the world.

This is probably a really good idea:

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2023-002620_EN.html

Obviously emergency aid (food + medicine) to red cross etc. would not be conditional on anything, but any developmental aid should come with conditions like this

2 minutes ago, Bob Long said:

 

Nashville did pound him pretty good tho, having a big partner could help.

im really impressed hughes didnt sustain a major injury through it all. it was brutal to witness.

1 minute ago, Alflives said:

Hughes did not struggle with puck retrievals. Hughes is a phenom. We win the Cup with a healthy Demko. 

he did but it wasnt his fault, he got targeted. 

forecheckers put a target on his back and the moment he would touch the puck in a corner he would get plastered

retrievals also shouldn't be his job. nor should it be hroneks. thats the problem with them together in the playoffs. you need someone big who can take all the abuse in the corner. then hughes can skate it out. 

3 hours ago, Bob Long said:

 

The way our coaches turned Myers into something decent gives me a lot of hope 

 

I think it's a long shot, but if VD could actually play with Hughes it would really help with forming a better overall d group.

 

Hughes VD

Soucy Hronek

DF Myers 

 

Maybe that's what they will try in camp?

 

agreed. i think thats what they brought him in for.

hughes also really struggled in the playoffs with his puck retrievals. VD can go take the abuse in the corner and get the puck to hughes. 

soucy can do the same for hronek on the second pair

Just now, Canuck Surfer said:

 

His speech disingenuous?

Not at all.

Just not surprised that saudi arabia was the place he was indoctrinated with the hateful extremism. 

2 minutes ago, Canuck Surfer said:

Not a common opinion amongst Arab peoples.  And opinionated with certain bias of course.

 

 

"Loay Alshareef grew up a religious Muslim in Saudi Arabia, where he learned that Jews came from pigs and apes, they lived on stolen land in Israel and “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” was true. "

color me surprised.

8 minutes ago, Optimist Prime said:

This video was taken less than two hours after a fight to eliminate Hamas from inside this UNRWA school, where a bomb and rocket making factory was uncovered and the classrooms were still showing chalk on the boards instructions on how to make those bombs. November 9th.

Yes, it is widely known that Hamas operates out of and uses UNRWA schools (as well as hospitals, and other public institutions) to stage attacks on Israel, particularly since oct 7

but that evidence doesn't in any way prove that unrwa is made up of hamas members, or that unrwa voluntarily gave that school to hamas. more than likely, hamas marched up to the school with guns, emptied it out (or even kept some kids as human shields), and used it as they pleased.

5 minutes ago, Bob Long said:

 

Yep. It's also time for more Arab countries to pick up the humanitarian slack, show some leadership that way.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/03/24/farah-pandith-saudi-how-we-win-book/ 

"In recent decades, the Saudis have spent up to an estimated $100 billion spreading Wahhabism"

"the so-called Islamic State in particular would not have existed “in the configuration that we see them today.” The group justifies its violence by recourse to Wahhabi tenets and teachings that “have been pushed by the Saudi state.”

The extreme fringe interpretation of Islam which has been made mainstream thanks to the hard work of the Saudi rulers for the past 40 years took muslim countries from:

to 

This would never have been possible if Saudi didnt murder and imprison imams that openly challenged their extremism like this guy:

https://www.uscirf.gov/religious-prisoners-conscience/forb-victims-database/hassan-farhan-al-maliki

People don't give Saudi Arabia enough credit for creating this borderline clash of civilizations that we face today.

3 minutes ago, Optimist Prime said:

I can only assure you that I look at evidence and form an opinion, I don't have an opinion and then seek evidence to support it. 
give that a try, it really works.

i believe i do the same, but smarter and better people than you and i have been guilty of confirmation bias too, so all we can do is try our best.

8 minutes ago, Bob Long said:

 

Maybe it's time for the Saudis to step in and provide the aid.

I would be all in favor of using those criminals money to do a bit of good. 

17 minutes ago, Optimist Prime said:

UNRWA can be defunded, dismantled and purged of terrorists and not have much effect on the ground other than to weaken Hamas. 
As you can see, these aid deliveries in orange are a large but minority amount of all aid delivered. 

 

Back in end October/ early November I poured through hundreds of relevant UN documents. I know you won't nor should you believe a rando on the internet, but I have done actual research, not just google searches or parsing of news stories. 

Importing food into the strip is a very small portion of UNRWA's mandate, you know that. 

If you want to eliminate UNRWA by all means, but you need to find a new organization that will operate healthcare facilities, schools, and aid delivery infrastructure.

And correct - the word of a rando on the internet isn't enough evidence for me. If it were true, Israel would have pushed that evidence to the forefront when it came to light, and it would be right in front of our faces.

1 minute ago, Optimist Prime said:

I am not going to go back into the UN library and rehash what is now being proven strait up in the news. Enjoy your googling. 

I did so, theres nothing apparent on Google that suggests that Hamas is contracted to provide labor for UNRWA, aside from unsubstantiated allegations from Israel that "11% of unrwa employees are members of Hamas"

If your claim is true, UNRWA should be dismantled and replaced or restructured, but i dont see any evidence of it being the case.

More to the point, even if you dismantle UNRWA, the humanitarian support role needs to be filled. Dismantling UNRWA without replacing its humanitarian work would be wrong on so many levels.

5 minutes ago, Optimist Prime said:

Oh, no no. Some time ago it was made common knowledge that HAMAS actually won or took the contract to provide the people to UNRWA in the strip. Literally Hamas won the tender to provide thousands of people to staff UNRWA positions. 

Now if you were a terrorist organization that seized power and cancelled all future elections and tossed your political opponents off roof tops to keep power: are you going to let just anyone take those jobs or are  you going to staff them with your own operatives and insiders to keep all the 'good money' coming into Gaza to yourselves?

 

EDIT: it wasn't just incidental crossover, it was years worth of planning and infiltration and ultimately taking on the labour contract to Hamas itself. This isn't like 3%, it was something like 3000 Hamas members infiltrating UNRWA.

 

that feels like a massive allegation that if true would have led to the defunding of UNRWA whenever it came to light

is there evidence of this? plenty of "common knowledge" is just unsubstantiated propaganda

7 minutes ago, Optimist Prime said:

UN probe finds 9 UNRWA employees ‘may have’ been involved in October 7 attack

https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/05/middleeast/un-probe-unwra-gaza-israel-intl-latam/index.html

 

 

Wasnt this going to be obviously the case though? Out of 30k employees, half of which operate in Gaza, all of which are local-hires, you're going to have some members of Hamas.

This should in no way delegitimize UNRWA. 

35 minutes ago, Bob Long said:

 

What does Iran really think it can accomplish? Aren't they just setting themselves up to be toppled?

 

Or do they finally have a nuclear device and want to create the conditions to use it?

 

Iran is trying to re-establish deterrence

No consequences to foreign military activity on its soil means the regime is entirely finished. 

Irans response will be direct but restrained is my guess. Probably a drone attack on an Israeli military base or something to that effect. 

If Iran already had a nuclear device we would know already. Israel has operatives embedded all throughout the IRGC. 

29 minutes ago, Devron said:

Hasn’t played a game under his new contract but is overpaid?

personally i think he was overpaid by us even before he was DRAFTED. 

overpayment is a state of mind. its an attitude. a mindset. few understand this. 

Agreed. Our cap situation for the next 5 years also looks really good. Much better than most other teams.

What an impressive turnaround. 

2 hours ago, RomanPer said:

 

I'm really curious to know how exactly he's planning "to enter". It's one thing to open your mouth, it's completely different to follow through. In the process, he screwed up his big ally Azerbaijan with the whole "we entered Karabakh". Azerbaijan, who is a very close ally of Israel, having most of its army using Israeli military products.

i think theres about a 0 percentage chance of followthrough, an actual invasion of a nuclear state would be complete suicide

he says these things to try to win some domestic support b/c of how deeply unpopular he is and b/c hes driven the turkish economy into the ground and destroyed an entire generation

8 hours ago, Canuck Surfer said:

 

Try living in Pakistan, Syria, Iran.

 

India, Bangladesh, Sudan...

 

I was in UAE just over two weeks ago. Also Jordan, Egypt and a resort in S.A..  It happens more in some places than others.

  Hide contents

Amongst those of Arabic, a distinction from Muslim cultures; I was told about Gazan's. ''We hurt for them, with them. These are Arabic peoples, we are as one!''  But where the economy is good in Jordan? Underpinned by economic aid from the US in return for bases & normalization with Egypt.  They still do not like the US, believe that all of Palestine should have been partitioned to Arabic cultures. People are not giving up their middle class jobs to go fight.  Nor do they want the refugee's. 

 

Go live in the third world countries, where a warlord reigns. Say Yemen. Or 2knd world in the hands of a dictator. Say, Iran?

 

Gaza...

 

People are oppressed.  There is no govt. support.  They are given food by Mosque's supplied by militia those with weapons and routes to get supplies. Taught Inshallah, God is great and doctrine (twisted) as Prophets zealots teach it for their own purpose. Communities, always involved with the religious institutions, have their own militia, private security, influence on local politics.  Subjects end up with jobs, customers for their business if they pay a toll, and are allowed supplies from local black markets controlled again by the militia. Like bikie gangs run dug supplies, and competitors are rooted out like Rock Machine vs Hells Angels. I am exaggerating; not much! If you buy in; the same militia, affords some security as long as they are in power.

 

Many such areas have been at civil war for decades, if not infinity. Doctrine they are taught is a function of how power figures manipulate to grip power. Practices of corporal discipline, worse, family roles go back centuries, not to the 1950's. In the news this week. Women were flogged publicly for shopping in Tehran without their husbands present. Women, any who do not wish to follow doctrine, gays, those who don't 'participate' in the community?  Cough; pay tolls, let those in charge have control are subjugated. Beaten & it has happened their whole life? Even from a young age. Stray farther; question or disrupt authority and there are death penalties. 

 

Men, power figures, gangs and militants rule by domination. Which seeps in to everyday life or the power figure in any relationship; how many are taught to deal with things their whole life. It can take generations to remove these 'traditional' ways of doing things.

 

 

 

 

You can choose to ignore all this? Or Google Honour Killings?

 

I recommend the video you replied to; and I can supply many, many more resources on the issue. The video does an amazing job of blowing up what is a legitimate cultural problem in some communities. For whatever reason? I added my observations on what might contribute in the spoiler. Then adding what happens when you add the mob mentality of a war zone, death, historic suffering, blood & revenge lust.  

 

To me it was a perfect explanation of why Oct 7 happened. These are suffering people. 

 

Not just at the hands of Jews.

Adding something to that

Western governments have chosen to back extremist islamic offshoots, like wahabbis, or at least provide their full consent to these extreme factions creating policy, educational materials, and more in the Arab world. We only need to look as far as Saudi Arabia. The US backs a regime that chose a Grand Mufti, who has issued fatwas that among other things have called for:

1. the obliteration of all churches on the arabian peninsula

2. allow 10 year old girls to marry

and said that reconciliation between religions is impossible

these fringe ultra orthodox religious groups have received an absurd amount of financial backing and political power, i think because they reject actual liberalism that would pose a threat to superpowers ability to control them. 

unfortunately a generation + of these people being in power has led to radicalization and indoctrination on a massive scale. 

5 minutes ago, Snoop Hogg said:

All in all he’s just another brick in the Wahlstrom.

True enough. Aaron Rome wasn't built in a day after all. 

25 minutes ago, canucks curse said:

tbh if we are going for it a Rasmus Andersson trade given his contract would be what I would target and I am sure CGY asks for Wallander in return and I would do it.

Andersson is a true top pair two way RD with an amazing contract (...and he was drafted with the 2nd we used on Sven Beartschi)

Would be my pick as well, and would be super ideal from a cap perspective

1. we would easily accumulate enough cap space to bring him in by the deadline (assuming we unload poolmans contract)

2. cost controlled through the worst 2 OEL buyout years

I dont think id trade willander though. We got Hronek for a 1st and a 2nd, i would imagine the price should be comparable. I'd do a 1st and a 2nd for Andersson. 

Hughes-Hronek

Soucy-Andersson

Forbort-Myers

*Desharnais

Willander hopefully takes Myers' spot once Myers contract expires

3 hours ago, DrJockitch said:

What is a better place to free up significant salary?

Move Poolman okay, past that do we have a significant bad contract to move. Myers is next on the list or do you want to move Joshua instead?

Not saying I want to trade Garland (and I didn’t make that argument), there just isn’t really a bad contract on the team that could be moved. 

Depends what the move is for

If you break up Garland-Joshua, you have to replace 50 pts + a play driver, and thats best case scenario. Worst case scenario, you also need to replace Joshua's production if he suffers due to worse chemistry with his new winger. It would already be a challenge to replace Garlands 50pts in a lateral trade with his cap hit. So realistically for it to make sense trading Garland for an "upgrade" at forward, you'd need to bring in a 30 goal/70pt scorer. Seems like a really tall order for his 5m cap hit. 

If youre looking to upgrade at D, the player we move has to come from there. If its a RD, you probably get rid of Desharnais. Assuming a move is made in October/Nov, thats about 5m in cap to work with to get a 2nd pairing defenseman, which is pretty doable. 

The risk now is probably over-tinkering. It doesnt make any sense to risk something that works, for a potential marginal upgrade. The big swings are done, now we have to see what we've got.