I’ve stood in the middle of a staunch Rangers pub, Glasgow – while Celtic, battered them courtesy of the Martin O’Neill. All while portraying deep disappointment at the match unfolding in front of me – I didn’t want to get lynched, ffs.

I endured them winning 9-in-a-row, and one of the key characters in that story was one Alistair Murdoch McCoist – aka Super Ally. He, Laudruup and Gaza were the backbone of Rangers 7th, 8th & 9th titles (if memory serves) – a knack for key goals, with any part of the body, Scotland haven’t had a better natural finisher since. One of life’s good guys, he was always the one Rangers player I never quite hated. Intense dislike for a 90 minutes spell 4 times a year, but never hate… to see him endure what Rangers are going through at the moment, is really too much for such a loyal and talented servant like him.

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I have to say, I have approached Rangers descent into administration with undisguised glee – loving it even. I may have been heard to say, while discussing an amusing anecdote with a friend – “Yeah… you know what else is funny………… Rangers going bankrupt.”

And I meant it. It truly was bringing me amusement, to see a club that had so classlessly lorded it over the rest of the Scottish League, be brought to its knees by financial mismanagement. Not even the Germans have a word to describe that feeling.

It’s expected that later today, administrators may release some of the first team playing staff from their contracts- while I don’t see much mileage in Sympathy for Footballers t-shirts, I wouldn’t wish this on any professional. I would hope that some players stay on to see the season through, pay or not. Wildly optimistic perhaps…

For the fans – it couldn’t be much worse. Rangers, due to their financial status, look like they won’t get a license for competition in next season’s European competitions. They have just lost 3 in a row at home, most recently, losing 1-2 after taking the lead against Hearts. This is unheard of in Scottish football – the last time Rangers lost three at home, to a set of teams not including Celtic, Queen Victoria was sitting on the throne – 1891.

Next up at Ibrox. Of course, Celtic. A chance for the Hoops to really rub the salt into the wound… a part of me, for once, will be hoping Rangers get a result that day. Or maybe only lose in the very last minute… I’m still not quite sure.

http://m.guardian.co.uk/sport/david-conn-inside-sport-blog/2012/feb/22/manchester-united-glazers-debt?cat=sport&type=article

United’s day of reckoning is in the post – consistent underinvestment in the playing staff is starting to take its toll, the quality of the squad is nowhere near what it was circa 2008. When Ferguson goes, United will struggle to find another manager who can maintain elite levels of performance with one hand tied behind his back.

Well worth a read, gives a good idea of how this situation is likely to play out. Executive summary? No good outcomes. Area specialises in agriculture, fishing and power generation. However, over to the expert;

The chain reaction has stopped. That happened in two seconds. But the radioactive isotopes are still decaying away. They’ll decay for at least a year. So you have to release the pressure from that containment pretty much every day. With releasing the pressure will come releasing radioactive isotopes as well.

So yes, the Times is right that every plant — there are now three or four of them — will be opening up valves every day to make sure the pressure is down. And there will be releases from these plants for at least a year.

We are seeing how the US election cycle drives policy decisions in far away places, with real world consequences for those unfortunate enough to be on at the sharp end of any given situation. Declaring ‘combat operations’ in Iraq over (For US troops), allows Obama to claim a key pre-election pledge has been achieved. The real world had something to say on the topic; US troops have since been killed by an Iraqi army regular, US troops have had to directly assist Iraqi troops in combat. It’s not quite his Mission Accomplished moment, but it shows that all presidents are hostage to events rather than their own best laid plans.

Obama now has ‘ending’ the Iraq war, health care ‘reform’ and financial ‘reform’ as his talking points for the next 2 years. (“Reform to whose benefit?” will be an interesting question – I wager the health insurance companies and banks will be those counting their blessings.) It’s worth bearing in mind that the upcoming midterm elections are just the half time show. The real thing will be the campaign around the 2012 presidential elections, about to begin in earnest, once the midterms are finished. The importance of Obama getting his talking points set will become more apparent after the mid-terms as it seems Republicans are set to win enough seats to make passing new laws almost impossible in the coming two years. This will fit with the GOP strategy of denying Obama anything that can be used as a legislative victory.

To get a 2nd term, his third act, Obama will need to link the current economic slump to Republican administrations and decisions past; not easy in a media environment where the truth and facts are not one and the same.

The coordinated bombings across Iraq this week are the logical result of the drawing down of foreign combat forces in that country. Afghanistan is operating on a different time line, but the end result will be the same.

In this writers opinion many of the policy decisions leading to the long term occupation of Afghanistan have been driven by a desire to corner Iran strategically, and to secure the Turkmenistan and Pakistan borders ensuring that proposed natural gas pipelines from the Caspian sea pass through countries sympathetic to the United States and friends. At some point in the future, foreign governments will make policy decisions based on the fact that the costs in materiel, manpower and treasure will begin to outweigh these future unrealised benefits.

When this moment comes, and combat troops are drawn down in Afghanistan, Obama, or his successor will declare ‘Mission Accomplished’. Just as in Iraq, this will be the starters pistol for any Afghan anti-government forces to begin a wave of bombings across the country.

As in Iraq, events will show as false the premise that combat operations will be determined by the ‘facts on the ground’ and that they would only finish when Iraqi/Afghan forces were equipped and capable of maintaining security on their own. Afghanistan can look forward to the same scenario playing out when it is decided in far away places that the training wheels need to come off…

Google and Verizon are suggesting that existing commitments to net neutrality are maintained over wired internet connections, but that these same rules should not apply to wireless traffic. Why the distinction?

WireLESS will be a taking a bigger and bigger share of the overall internet traffic pie in the coming decades. As more and more devices become wifi enabled and truly mobile, the amount of data they throw back and forth between the phone networks will grow accordingly.

Google has a unique opportunity, as a company that already trades in the flow of data (its core business), to monetize a growing segment of that market. Given their dominant position in search, and their growing position as a leading OS provider to smartphones; will this be a licence to print money? Almost certainly…

This is not in the public interest, and the issue of net neutrality must be free from overbearing corporate interference.

Pay for what you download. We will all suffer collectively if we’re forced to pay to put things onto the internet. The argument of expense is a fallacy, storage costs are continuously decreasing, such that you can store twice the data with no change in budget every 14-18 months.

This is an attempted lock down, a monetization, of future data flow by Google. A permanently dominant position, absorbing any startup with decent technology through stealth (charging them for getting their IP to market) or by hostile takeover.

“Do no evil.”

We’ll see if those at Google treat this as a purely sentimental PR line. For the betterment of the vast majority, I hope the regulatory authorities in all relevant jurisdictions enforce a truly free internet for creators of content.