Koro

Its funny you bring up Bosnia and Albania because those two countries are Muslim thanks to the Ottoman invasion and occupation (as you all probably know). And what we are seeing now is the biggest influx of Muslims into Europe probably since the Ottoman's came over. The difference is this time the Muslims are actually going through Vienna and into Northern Europe too.

:nw: ALLAH WHO AKBAR! :nw: I'm personally not a Muslim myself (I don't do what a barbaric medieval book tells me to), but I agree that unless Europe changes it's approach to Muslims, Europe may one day be Islamic (or at least individual nations within Europe).

It's games like this that I'm really glad we have Spanoulis, making clutch 3s and free-throws and setting up Printezis to score in the 4th. We were behind for most of the game, but with players like Spanoulis, Printezis and Bourousis, you know Greece can always come back. Croatia ran out of 3pt luck in the 4th quarter and Greece made at least 2 important steals. But this was not the most convincing performance from Greece considering Croatia were without their best player, I'm not going to complain though, its still early days in the tournament. Croatia were the biggest challenge in this group for Greece. So now this team should go and win all the other group games, Slovenia are probably the only other team that could worry Greece.

Wow we should not be loosing to Croatia considering Bogdanovic (their best player probably) is injured. Big 2nd half needed.

If I was a Syrian sunni Muslim then I'd probably join ISIS and if I was a Shia'a or a Kurd I'd probably be fighting against ISIS. But I'm just guessing when I say that, because its impossible to truly know what you'd do in someone else's shoes.

I only saw the 2nd half, but Greece looked good. Bourousis and Koufos were dominant in the middle, both getting double-doubles, but perhaps that is more due to the Skopite's having awful big men. I am confident this team can beat Croatia in Zagreb next. Serbia beat Spain 80-70 in the big match tonight. Belijca went crazy.

Here in UK we've already taken loads of refugees from Somalia in the past, but they've struggled to integrate with the natives and the more established Caribbean immigrants too, so the Somali's live in their own segregated areas now. Same thing would probably happen if Syrian refugees were taken in too. Millions of people will always want to come to Europe for a better life, there is always poverty and nearly always war somewhere too. It would be great if Europe could save loads of refugees from Syria or wherever and then everything would end happily ever after. But in reality such a migration would only benefit those that go to Europe and get a better life, while the war/poverty remains in the Middle East and Europe has a new set of problems associated with accommodating for the refugees. European leaders have to think long term. There are already social and racial tensions associated with non-European migrants and Muslims, this will only increase with more refugees. Europe is also very densely populated and unsustainable environmentally, something immigration would only worsen.

Its just the same old shite. Rodgers should have been sacked after the Stoke defeat last season.

Kyriakopoulou looked very good, I think she was the first Greek in a long time to win a medal at the WCs. Hopefully she can do the same thing, or better in Rio 2016. Tsakonas will probably be disappointed not to reach the final considering he ran a much better time in his first heat. Even though I doubt he would have won a medal, its still nice to see Greece being represented in the sprinting for a change.

I don't think anyone can deny that Sterling and Stones are both horribly overpriced. Its partly because the selling clubs know how rich Man City or Chelsea are, so they can sell high. Having said that Liverpool signed 18 y/o English CB Joe Gomez for only 3.5 million this summer. He may have come from the Championship and was unproven, but he's started every game for us so far and looked decent.

Maybe because they built that new big road, so the smaller roads will be quieter.

Dave is Cesar Azbiliquetta (I've probably butchered his second name), I've no idea why some some people call him that, but I find it funny. And Stones would be a good signing. Overpriced, yes probably, but I think he has all the skills to be a top defender.

I go to the same place in south Messenia and the only difference I noticed this year was there was less Germans than usual. They probably worry about getting some abuse from the locals after their government screwed Greece over. There are still alot of people I thought were German, but they are actually Swiss or Austrian and loads of Dutch people too. More Brits seems to go than they used to, I think 4 airports in England all fly direct to Kalamata now, and most of them then head down to the Mani probably. Also less Italians, they used to all come over in their camper vans and little fiats, but now I'm not sure why they've stopped, probably cannot afford anymore. Main difference is the Greek tourists are spending less and eating out less, but the foreign tourists seem to have picked up the slack and most tourist businesses are still doing ok.

Yes Pedro looks a great signing, he showed his quality on sunday and from what I remember of him at Barca, he always works hard for the team. But its Chelski's defence which seems to be the problem, strange given that its supposed to be their main strength. John Terry's been having a right mare recently. And I still think Ivanovic is too slow to play RB, Mourinho should move him into the middle with Cahill, then put Dave at RB.

No surprises there then. But its hard to tell exactly what the rotation will look like and how many minutes most players will usually get, especially for the SF and PF positions, given that Antetokoumpo will probably play a mix of both. Coach also has a lot of options in the back court, but that is partly because apart from Spanoulis none of them stand out too much. Sloukas, Zisis and Calathes are also good though so I have no complaints here.

I'm not a fan of immigration in general, but yes Muslamic immigration is the worst kind in my opinion. I'm not going to do a massive religious rant about Islam, but just look at how much the Muslim population has grown over the last 25 years in countries like Sweden, France, Belgium, UK, Germany etc. Those sort of countries made big mistakes with their immigration policies, now they have created divided communities and those mistakes cannot be reversed. Thanks to high Muslim birth rates too, in more European cities Muslim populations will reach 25% and some maybe even 50% in the future. I'm assuming that the Eastern and Southern European countries who's citizens are still basically all native Europeans (inc. Greece) will not be stupid enough to make the same mistakes on immigration from outside Europe that the North-Western European countries made. And I hope that the countries that have already let large amounts of Islamic/non-European immigrants in, don't continue down the same path and end up sleepwalking into becoming an Islamic republic.

Decent opening weekend of premier league football. Good to see West Ham beat Arsenal away and Chelski dropping points is always a bonus. I don't think LFC played that well vs Stoke, but they still won thanks to a brilliant goal by Coutinho so I don't mind. Ranieri got off to good start as Leicester manager beating Sunderland 4-2 haha.

If ISIS is defeated Kurds could get their own state in Northern Iraq. They were due to have a referendum on independence, but that got put back because of the war. Kurds also now control large amounts of the Syria-Turkey boarder, Turkey is already worried about that. But no-one ever suggested the Kurds could take on Turkey. Kurds forming their own state is not impossible however, those sort of independence movements work occasionally. We should not be foolish to think that an independent Kurdish state (including a part of Turkey) would benefit Greece, they have never helped us in the past and they are still Muslims, like the Turks. But I'd still like to see that happen because its ridiculous that an ethnic group of 30m does not have their own state and it would be great to see Turkey get a bit smaller. For me Turkey's only enemy capable of taking them on is Iran, who are supporting the opposite sides in the Syrian and Yemen wars now. That depends on if Iran ever goes to war with the Saudi's. And Iran is aligned with Russia so...

Yeah I often wonder how that Erdogan muppet gets elected. I think its because so many Turks are conservative/extremist muslims who live in their little village and are deluded by Turkish nationalism. There worried about Kurds because they are the only large minority group that the Turks weren't able to get rid of or assimilate. The Kurds are probably the biggest threat to Turkey's fabricated nation.

I think Greece has a decent chance this year, the team was announced a couple of days ago and it looks better than the one we had at the WC last year. Looks something like this: PG: Calathes Sloukas Mantzaris SG: Spanoulis Zisis Giankovits SF: Antetokoumpo Pakanikolaou Peperoglou PF: Printezis Kaimakoglou Agravanis C: Bourousis Koufos Sarikopoulos Having Spanoulis back is big and hopefully Koufos can help Bourousis in the paint, because our back up Cs were useless last year. Its a shame Pappas is injured and perhaps it would be better to have Sofo as well. I personally would like to see Antetokoumpo at PF more, because he's pretty useless at SF standing on the 3pt line, given that he can't shoot 3s. France, Spain and Serbia are probably the main favourites going into this tournament.

Turkey's main enemies in the Middle East are the Shia's and the Kurds. Turkey also bombed Kurdish military yesterday as well as ISIS, so they're basically bombing the guys who are fighting against ISIS too. Turkey may have just been using all this as a smokescreen to hit the Kurds in Syria, they have also been arresting a lot of PKK member in Turkey since ISIS set of that bomb in Turkey. But Turkey will still be friends with the other Sunni states like Saudi Arabia (who is also allied to USA) and they would need a powerful ally like Turkey to back them up if they ever went to war with Iran. Then you have the other Turkic states like Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, who supposedly have some sort of ethnic connection to the Turks, but ironically most Turks aren't actually as ethnically Turkic as they'd like to think. Pakistan, along with Turkey and Saudi Arabia is another powerful Sunni country, but they are probably too worried about India to ever help Turkey. You're right jvc there are a lot of Islamic extremists in Turkey, the right-wing parties there sympathise with ISIS and that includes Erdogan's AK party. So I can't see Turkey going all out vs ISIS (unless ISIS makes a mistake and provokes Turkey again) and I definitely can't see the Turks helping the Kurds. Hopefully the Kurds will be able to push back ISIS in Syria and Iraq (with the help of the Shia's there) and also grow stronger inside Turkey too.

I wouldn't know which side I'd rather Greece take in that Israel vs Turkey rivalry, both evil nations. Since Turkey has now started bombing ISIS in Syria and letting USA land its planes there too, that may improve Turkey's relations with the USA and NATO.

A bit off topic?

Don't worry about it Pana, I hate Kapino for going to Oly too and was going to change my avi anyway.

Done, changed.