https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/jun/14/how-the-bbc-made-their-2018-world-cup-trailer-entirely-out-of-tapestry

You guys think Vlad will rig the World Cup...poison a team playing Russia?

It's understandable how it happened but he already has Russia in the weakest ever group.
Whatever, the Russian love their children, too.
Putin and his corrupt ways, however...

World Cup off to surreal start with Putin, warnings of 'sex with foreigners' and Russia's big win

Quote:

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MOSCOW -- The opening to the World Cup here on Thursday was, like so much about this tournament, a sequence of remarkably odd juxtapositions.

There was Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, giving a rousing speech to the sellout crowd at Luzhniki Stadium in which he described his country as "an open, hospitable and friendly country" before heading to a VIP box in which the invited heads of state were mostly post-Soviet autocrats or dictators from places like Belarus, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, as well as a high-ranking official from North Korea.

Then there was Putin encouraging visitors to "meet new friends and people who share the same values" while attending this "splendid football festival," only hours after a top Russian lawmaker warned Russian women against having sex with foreign men during the World Cup -- particularly if they are "of a different race."

"It's good if they're one race but if they're of a different race, then it's worse," said Tamara Pletnyova, a member of Russia's lower parliament, in a radio interview. "We should bear our own children. I'm not a nationalist, but all the same."

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By golly, I didn't realized Russia had some much in common with the American Alt-right AKA American Nazis like Bannon. The connection between the Russkies and the KKK and American White Supremacist suddenly makes more sense. Russia has a race problem...and so does America, and its been agitated by the Russians with American Nazis.

On that note: It's Become Impossible for Republicans to Deny Their Party Is Racist

Quote:

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Stopped acting shocked that a Confederate-loving candidate won in Virginia's primary

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https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/jun/25/argentina-what-is-wrong-lionel-messi-football

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v40/n12/david-runciman/the-politics-of-now

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n20/deborah-friedell/tycooniest

For World Cup chatter, see the much deeper thread on the Football board, and let this one die.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/jun/25/england-has-a-football-team-to-get-behind-after-decades-of-shame-on-and-off-the-pitch

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/jun/23/england-world-cup-inflated-egos-inflatable-unicorns-gareth-southgate

https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2018/jun/13/england-2018-world-cup-team-photo-the-fashion-verdict

fun literary way to track games

https://www.theguardian.com/football/live/2018/jul/03/world-cup-2018-colombia-v-england-buildup-live