Guess we need a new one. How about just deleting posts/banning offenders rather than locking up the entire thread? Just a thought.

Watched the first episode. Basically Tiger King with chimps. Exotic animal people are all nuts.

Login to view embedded media

Login to view embedded media

And the funny part is Trump called it out right before it was leaked.

WNBA is not profitable. And the Iowa Hawkeye WBB team does not pay for itself. If the women's basketball team was a standalone Profit and Loss program, it would be in the RED every year. Does not matter how many sellouts the lady Hawks have in a season. Everyone quotes secondary market prices. "STOP" That is not what Iowa gets. And remember Caitlin Clark is gone. Most season ticket packages were about $195 (about $12-13 per game) for last season. The new TV deal for Woman's March Madness will help NCAA WBB teams. Football (TV deals) and Men's BB (March Madness) carries the day and pays for the other sports.

Both women's leagues, the NCAA and WNBA are on the rise but still a long way from profitability.

I believe Iowa fans will continue to support the lady Hawks by going to the game? Yes.
But make the Iowa WWB tickets same price as men's games. Also make the WBB season ticket holders donate money to the athletic program to get the right to buy some tickets. Not so sure what the attendance would be if that was done like Football and MBB?
I enjoy Lady Hawks BB more than the men right now. That is just me.
WNBA is in same boat here. Trust me if the W starts even getting close to making more money, the players will want more. As they should. Low salaries. The WNBA has to go way more than the NCAA WBB to become profitable and popular everywhere.

Login to view embedded media
Login to view embedded media
Login to view embedded media

Haven’t even made open ceremonies and former Hawkeyes are already scoring bangers in soccer. Cloe Lacasse, stepping up for the defending gold medalists in the biggest start of her career…

Login to view embedded media

for those that celebrate

Login to view embedded media

Live performances only please.
Login to view embedded media

Long term this will prove to be the winning strategy.

Login to view embedded media

BENGHAZI, Aug 26 (Reuters) - Oilfields in eastern Libya that account for almost all the country's production will be closed and production and exports halted, the eastern-based administration said on Monday, after a flare-up in tension over the leadership of the central bank.

There was no confirmation from the country's internationally recognised government in Tripoli or from the National Oil Corp (NOC), which controls the country's oil resources.

NOC subsidiary Waha Oil Company, however, said it planned to gradually reduce output and warned of a complete halt to Libya's production, citing unspecified "protests and pressures".

Another subsidiary Sirte Oil Company also said it would cut output, calling on authorities to "intervene to maintain production levels".

Nearly all of Libya's oilfields are in the east, which is under the control of Khalifa Haftar who leads the Libyan National Army (LNA).

If eastern production is halted, El Feel in southwestern Libya would be the only functioning oilfield, with a capacity of 130,000 bpd.

Overall oil production was about 1.18 million barrels per day in July, according to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, citing secondary sources.

The Benghazi government did not specify for how long the oilfields could be closed.

While the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity provided no confirmation, its head Prime Minister Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah said in a statement oilfields should not be allowed to be shut down "under flimsy pretexts".

Two engineers at Messla and Abu Attifel told Reuters on Monday on condition of anonymity that production continued and there had been no orders to halt output.

POWER STRUGGLE​

Libya's oil revenues have stoked tension for years in a country that has had little stability since a 2011 NATO-backed uprising. It split in 2014 with eastern and western factions that eventually drew in Russian and Turkish backing.

Tensions have escalated this month after efforts by political factions to oust the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) head Sadiq al-Kabir, with rival armed factions mobilising on each side.
Advertisement · Scroll to continue
The Tripoli-based CBL said on Monday that it had suspended its services at home and abroad "due to exceptional disturbance".

The central bank is the only internationally recognised depository for Libyan oil revenue, which provides vital economic income for the country.

"The Central Bank of Libya hopes that its ongoing efforts in cooperation with all relevant authorities will allow it to resume its normal activity without further delay," it said in a statement.

It temporarily shut down all operations last week after a senior bank official was kidnapped but resumed operations the next day after the official was released.
Protests have previously disrupted oil output.
The NOC declared force majeure earlier this month at one of the country's largest oilfields, Sharara, located in Libya's southwest with a capacity of 300,000 bpd, due to protests. The force majeure is still in force.

Waha, which operates a joint venture with TotalEnergies (TTEF.PA) and ConocoPhillips (COP.N), has production capacity of about 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) which is exported through the eastern port of Es Sider.
It operates five main fields in the southeast including Waha which produces more than 100,000 bpd as well as Gallo, Al-Fargh, Al-Samah and Al-Dhahra.

TotalEnergies and ConocoPhillips did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

By David Ignatius
July 21, 2024 at 2:03 p.m. EDT
President Biden has always had trouble letting go, even if it was something as simple as a handshake in a receiving line. He might be tired and stressed at the end of a workday, but he would clasp each guest’s palm, maybe a pat on the back, too, or a hug, reminiscing and cajoling as the minutes ticked by and the line backed up.


Sign up for Democracy, Refreshed, a newsletter series on how to renovate the republic.

Biden seemed to love all his jobs in government, especially this last one. The whole world was waiting in line to shake his hand. He could be irascible and demanding with his staff, but in his public role as president he was nearly always the genial patriarch. After a lifetime of being underestimated, he liked being in charge. And it was hard to give that up.
The country has watched Biden’s agonizing path toward Sunday’s announcement that he won’t run for a second term. By the end, he seemed nearly alone in resisting this decision. Three-quarters of the country told pollsters a year ago that he was too old to serve another term as president. But perhaps Biden saw that long receiving line stretching toward the horizon, and he didn’t want to step away.



Biden’s decision will allow a relieved country to applaud his success as president. Much of the Republican critique of Biden is pure nonsense. In fact, he helped steward sustained economic growth. He made critical investments in technology and infrastructure. He rebuilt America’s foreign alliances. And he was steadfast in the great moral challenge of our time, which was resistance to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s dark designs on Ukraine and the world.


It’s often said that if we could see ourselves through others’ eyes, we would make better decisions about our weaknesses. But Biden for many months resisted recognizing what television viewers could plainly see: that he was aging and increasingly unsteady in ways that made another term as commander in chief problematic.
Simply raising the question drew the wrath of Biden and his inner circle, as I discovered when I wrote a column in September arguing that despite my admiration for him and his policies, he shouldn’t run for reelection.



In Biden-world, retirement was unmentionable, and his team quickly closed off any real discussion last year of his age and fitness for office. It wasn’t the best moment for his party, or for some members of the news media, who were so focused on the threat they saw in former president Donald Trump that they deflected any real discussion of Biden’s weaknesses.
Why was Biden so resistant? Part of it surely was the pride and vanity everyone feels as they age. Older people don’t want to give up the keys to their cars even as they become a danger to others. They insist they can do everything as well as they could decades earlier, even when they can’t. It’s human to resist the signs of aging. I’m 74 myself, and I am deep into denial.
But it’s different when you’re commander in chief. You can’t talk about getting to bed earlier when you’re the person who could receive the ominous phone call at 2 a.m. warning that an adversary has launched a missile strike. “I just got to pace myself a little more, pace myself,” Biden said in a July 11 news conference. That’s good advice for most people, but if you hold the fate of the world in your hands, it’s not enough. Covering over your infirmities can be an act of recklessness.





http://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...c_magnet-op2024elections_inline_collection_17

Biden’s stubbornness has in some ways been one of his superpowers. He was the guy who was always undervalued. Others might be sharper debaters or more innovative thinkers, but Biden stayed in the fight, through personal tragedies and political reversals. That bred a self-confidence that could be downright ornery at times. One of Biden’s close advisers likened the Biden White House to a sentimental but sometimes dysfunctional Irish family. You did not want to make the boss angry.
The public Biden conveyed the common sense of a normal person. He was the guy from Scranton, Pa., who had grown up in the middle of the middle. He prized the “regular order” of the Senate. After spending more than half his life as a legislator, he knew how to compromise. He was the scrappy come-from-behind guy. People didn’t think he could win the White House in 2020 or be a good president. But he proved them wrong, twice over, and that reinforced his belief in his own judgment and resistance to others.
Biden’s mission, as he so often said, was to defeat Trump, who he thought was genuinely dangerous to the country. If Trump hadn’t cruised toward the nomination, Biden might have stepped back months ago, one of his close friends told me. Biden truly felt an obligation to halt the MAGA menace again, as he had in the 2020 presidential race and the 2022 midterm elections.



“I think I’m the most qualified person to run for president. I beat him once, and I will beat him again,” he said at that July 11 news conference. “I got more work to do. We’ve got more work to finish.” Really, it was as simple as that.
I hope Biden will preside over a competitive race to choose a successor, rather than anoint Vice President Harris. She will be a better candidate and potential president if she goes through a tumultuous one-month barnstorming campaign that should energize the Democrats and the country.
When President Lyndon B. Johnson stepped back from reelection in March 1968, he had a kind of rebirth. Doris Kearns Goodwin writes in a new book that “the lame duck rose like a phoenix from the ashes.” Johnson’s poll ratings reversed from 57 percent disapproval to 57 percent approval. An editorial in the Washington Post said he had made “a personal sacrifice in the name of national unity that entitles him to a very special place in the annals of American history.”



A similar wave of public admiration should follow Biden’s decision. He did the right things as president for America and the world, even when it hurt. He put the country back together after a bruising Trump presidency. And in the end, he understood it was time to go.

Pulling for Fulham like always. For a middle of the pack team like Fulham first and foremost I'm hoping to stay up. The dream...european competition. Bring on Europa conference league!


Come on you whites!

The update is ready for this season!

Iowa Century Club 2024

Login to view embedded media

Seems like there might be a few people who are willing to admit she is a total pawn.

There is nothing to see here. Why is everyone driving so slow

Doing some stat predictions for the 2024 Iowa football season.

First up: QB and RB

The big question for Iowa in 2024 is how much better will the offense be in 2024? Given the historic lows it sunk to the past few seasons, I don't think there's much doubt that it will be better -- but what does better look like? How much better will it be? The pass offense could definitely be improved from 2023 -- and still not be very good in comparison to other pass offenses around college football.

Iowa hasn't posted big numbers on offense very often over the last decade, either, so projecting an offensive explosion in 2024 seems like a stretch. There are a lot of unknowns -- Lester at OC, McNamara and Sullivan at QB, new faces at WR -- but there could be positive answers to those questions. The health and experience of the OL could finally pay dividends. Likewise, Iowa has a lot of talent at RB and TE. So it's certainly not out of the question for Iowa to surpass these projections (hopefully they do)... we'll just have to see how the season unfolds.

AMA..............

Ask me shit if ya want. Down 12 pounds in 12 days. Just trying to be helpful and maybe give some "hacks" for some of you thinking about it.

Login to view embedded media

The attorney of one of the illegal migrant suspects charged in the murder of Texas 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray has filed for a protective order to ensure that the negative media attention the case has received will not prevent him from his right to fair trial.

Two Venezuelan nationals – 21-year-old Johan Jose Martinez-Rangel and 26-year-old Franklin Jose Peña Ramos – have been charged with capital murder in the death of Nungaray after the 12-year-old was found strangled to death in a Houston creek on June 17.

The two men reportedly crossed illegally into the U.S. earlier this year.

Peña’s attorneys filed a protective order "preventing the parties to this cause, law enforcement officials, the Houston Forensic Science Center, or court personnel from making extrajudicial statements or otherwise disseminating information concerning this cause by any means of public communications."

In the protective order filing, reviewed by Fox News Digital, the attorneys argued that media attention was "likely to produce a result of undue prejudice" during Peña’s trial.

"The additional extra-judicial statements to the news media are likely to produce a result of undue prejudice in the community to deprive the Defendant of a fair trial guaranteed by Article I of the Texas Constitution and the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution," the motion said.

The filing argued that Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg made "made numerous statements about the case that went beyond the statements of the prosecutor during the probable cause hearing."

The documents cited Ogg saying: "[M]make no mistake, this is a horrific crime" and "the immigration system is broken." Peña's attorney argued that these statements would produce prejudice in his trial.

In the filing, Peña's attorneys concluded their request by asking for all parties involved in the case to "refrain from making any further extrajudicial statements relating to this cause and to refrain from further dissemination of information, regardless of whether the information was previously disclosed to the public, concerning this cause by way of public communication, and for all other relief just and proper in the case."

Nungaray's murder has prompted calls for stronger border enforcement and accountability.

During Trump's visit to the southern border on Aug. 22, Alexis Nungaray, the mother of the 12-year-old, spoke out about her daughter's murder.

"It’s still very, very early. It’s still very, very raw. It’s still very, very surreal," she said.

Alexis said Peña and Martinez "shouldn't have been released" after they were first detained.

"There was over 300 detention beds that they should have been at (sic) because they were detained, and they were released when they shouldn’t have been released," Alexis said. "One had an ankle monitor, but that didn’t stop anything."

"So now I have to go through the rest of my life with my son always asking for his sister," she said.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the Harris County District Attorney's Office and Peña's attorney for comment.