Fifa yesterday banned Benfica and Brazil central defender Luisão from all football activities until November for knocking a referee unconscious in a preseason game against Fortuna Dusseldorf in August.
Benfica didn’t expect Luisão to be available for tonight’s Champions League game against Celtic but the decision, coming a day before kick-off, will do nothing for morale. While they lost midfielders Javi Garcia and Axel Witsel to Manchester City and Zenit late in the transfer window, it shouldn’t be forgotten that Benfica spent well over £20m this summer. The new guys will no doubt eventually prove their worth, but right now they remain very much the new guys. Celtic have to make them feel a long way from home tonight.
During our last successful Champions League group stage in 2007 we concluded that it was more important not to make mistakes at this level than to try to score the perfect goal. If we get a solid performance from Scott Brown and Victor Wanyama in front of a defence which clears its lines and takes no chances, the stage will be set for James Forrest and Gary Hooper. I expect both to hurt Benfica.
It was interesting to hear our chief executive take questions on the subject of EBTs and the health of our club yesterday. More on this after the matter in hand has passed.
Support a Scottish World Champion Boxer: Ricky BurnsOn Saturday 22nd September, lifelong Celtic fan Ricky Burns is defending Scotland’s honour against England’s Kevin Mitchell in an unmissable World Championship boxing clash!
Burns puts his WBO World Lightweight Championship on the line, in a fight billed as the Battle of Britain. You can bag yourself the best seat in the house with BoxNationTV (Sky 437, Virgin 546).
Get the CQN discount now!
Celtic Quick News proudly presents to you a special deal for our faithful readers. You can sign up for BoxNation for just £10 a month with no registration fee (which usually costs £10) if you’re a Sky TV subscriber. And there’s no minimum contract, so if you decide you don’t want to keep the channel, you can cancel your subscription with no penalty fees after this huge world title clash.
To get behind a Scottish World Champion as he battles it out in the ring, subscribe to BoxNation now and enter the promo code GOALBOXING (all block capitals) to take advantage of this special offer.
377 Comments- Pages:
- «
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- »
Laffer Curve?
I had that one time when I went to see Billy Connelly on LSD.
Its a sort of temporary spasm of the cheek-mouth muscles that creates a ‘Laffers Curve’ on the face.
WHITEDOGHUNCH
I thought it was rhyming slang!
jude2005
You say funnier! He barely brought a smile out on me when I watched him in the Hoops during the 90s. Good battler though, like the haircut of Peter Grant.
wonkyradar
Had the same experience. The Potatoes of the Night lasted for 16 laugh-filled years.
Fortunes Favour Mibbes – Defence currently accounts for 6.8% of government spending.
We spend more than double that on Education, 2.5 times as much on Welfare, and three times as much on Pensions.
Healthcare consumes over 18.5% of government spending. (thumbsup)
Comparison from FF…
Le Guen:
– won 16 of 31 games – win percentage of 52%.
– never won more than 2 games in a row.
– knocked out of League Cup by St Johnstone.
– won 4 out of 6 games in Europe.
– 13 clean sheets (42%).
– was given 6 months.
McCoist:
– won 32 of 55 games – win percentage of 58%.
– never won more than 4 games in a row.
– knocked out of 4 cups by September, all to extremely inferior opposition.
– won 0 out of 4 in Europe.
– won 2 out of 5 in the Scottish 4th tier.
– 22 clean sheets (40%).
– 15 months in (as manager) and counting.
Okay….so it’s Aberdeen, but this is hilarious : ‘Qoute a Hun Competition’.
http://boards.footymad.net/forum.php?tno=4&fid=27&sty=2&act=1&mid=2114798402&page=1
I was mistaken about the Laffer Curve…showing my medical ignorance.
Its actually when someone stands bent over too long laughing at some characters joke.
Hence: “Look at him ower there in hysterics hawdin eez back…the mad bam’s goat the Laffers Curve.”
Hi CQNers
6 hours to KO and counting. As much as i wish Celtic to win i am with those of us who think that draw would be not EoW for us. Our main target is 3rd spot and Spartak is our biggest call IMO.But anyway pls Celtic win ;)
Laffer ?
One of the many American economists who abandoned any economic analysis that didn’t justify their rabid hatred of Obama.
Greetings from sunny Dorset. There’s certainly a Champions League buzz in the air, even if it is just brought on by me trembling with excitement!
Trying to get the father in law to share my enthusiasm, he’s a Villa man. Might have to settle for watching in on my own with the old bhoy up the road on speaker phone.
I don’t care.
Heeeeere we go agaaaain!!!!
philvis
How much of it goes on the Legal System, por favor? And, more importantly, “national defence”?
PS, are you against state-funded education? I think not.
BigYinMilan
13:03 on
19 September, 2012
“soemtiems” should be “sometimes”. Oops.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No need to pick yourself up over a wee typo. Touching post, if anyone was reading that and thought about picking you up on it, then shame on them.
Defence currently accounts for 6.8% of government spending.
We spend double that on Education.
More than double that on Welfare.
Triple that on Healthcare
More than triple that on pensions
Quadruple that on interest on debt
And 5 times that on bailing out failed banks.
That’s probably why we’re skint.
Hope I remember to bring my tickets to the game, done that one before :-(
@epic listen to this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgomX3qD-iA
Ole Cicero with a tip for ole ragers.
“What is morally wrong can never be advantageous, even when it enables you to make some gain that you believe to be to your advantage. The mere act of believing that some wrongful course of action constitutes an advantage is pernicious.”
sensiblesenator C.S.C
The teacher said, “Let’s begin by reviewing some historic quotes.
Who said ‘Give me Liberty, or give me Death’?”
She saw a sea of blank faces, except for Little Hodaiki a bright foreign exchange student from Japan , who had his hand up: ‘Patrick Henry, 1775’, he said.
‘Very good!’
Who said, ‘Government of the People, by the People, for the People,
shall not perish from the Earth?’
Again, no response except from Little Hodaiki: ‘Abraham Lincoln, 1863’.
‘Excellent!’ said the teacher continuing, ‘let’s try one a bit more difficult…’
Who said, ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country?’
Once again, Hodaiki’s was the only hand in the air and he said:’John F. Kennedy, 1961′.
The teacher snapped at the class, ‘Class, you should be ashamed of yourselves,
Little Hodaiki isn’t from this country and he knows more about our history than you do.’
She heard a loud whisper: ‘**** the Japs,’
‘Who said that? I want to know right now!’ she angrily demanded.
Little Hodaiki put his hand up, ‘General MacArthur, 1945.’
At that point, a student in the back said, ‘I’m gonna puke.’
The teacher glared around and asks, ‘All right! Now who said that!?’
Again, Little Hodaiki said, ‘George Bush to the Japanese Prime Minister,1991.’
Now furious, another student yelled, ‘Oh yeah? Suck this!’
Little Hodaiki jumped out of his chair waving his hand and shouted to the teacher,
‘Bill Clinton to Monica Lewinsky 1997!’
Now with almost mob hysteria someone said, ‘You little $***!
If you say anything else, I’ll kill you.’
Little Hodaiki frantically yelled at the top of his voice,
“Michael Jackson to the child witness testifying against him, 2004.’
The teacher fainted.
As the class gathered around the teacher on the floor, someone said,
“Oh ****, we’re screwed!”
Little Hodaiki said quietly, “Ally McCoist, 2012.”
I am buzzing for tonight can’t wait champions league under the lights at a full house Celtic park the place will be rocking a just cant get enough it dose’nt get any better than this. Hail hail bhoys and ghirls
BOBBY MURDOCH’S CURLED-UP WINKLEPICKERS – Nope.
It is not, in fact, an argument at all, any more than the theory of gravity is an argument for or against apples.
The Laffer Curve an attempt to explain the relationship between tax rates and tax revenues. We know that revenues at a tax rate of 0% are £0. We know that revenues at a tax rate of 100% are £0 (or would be in very short order after people had time to adjust their behaviour). The Laffer curve tries to plot on a graph how tax revenues respond to changing rates when taxation is greater than 0% and less than 100%.
The theory itself is neutral on whether or not taxes should be raised or lowered, or indeed whether or not maximising revenues is a good or a bad thing.
As a matter of fact you may or may not be correct that raising taxes in the UK at this point would increase government revenue.
Personally I’m highly skeptical of such a claim given that overall effective tax rates including NI, etc. are at something like 45% on average in the UK, and most people are struggling to pay their bills as is. Aint much juice left to squeeze out of the taxpayer. As ever the idea of grabbing more wealth from “the rich” is a mirage.
And even if there is some juice left to be squeezed, there’s no such thing as free money. There are both direct and hidden costs of taxation. The hidden costs include opportunity costs caused by that money not being available to invest or spend in the private sector where it might have created jobs, innovations, etc. or even just made a lot of people that wee bit happier.
Will that money be better spent on keeping civil servants in Maltesers and skinny lattes and heating their offices so they can spend all day leaving peevish comments on the Guardian website in comfort? Maybe, but probably not.
So, we’ve established that:
a) The Laffer Curve says nothing whatsoever about whether or not we should raise or lower taxes. It merely attempts to model what would happen and leaves the political/ethical/whatever considerations up to us.
b) It’s possible but not certain that increasing tax rates at this point in the UK would increase revenues over the medium to long term, but on the facts there are good reasons for believing it isn’t a good idea to proceed down that road.
(thumbsup)
celtic_first_celtic_last_celtic_overall
>>>>>>>>>
Whereabouts in Dorset? I live in Bournemouth.
HH!
Economy is so flamin confusing. If 80% of my gross wages is eaten up by tax, how much of that is going to the bank? Or is it coming from there originally?
If the Bank of England prints and owns its own money, why did we have to give it ours?
If I don’t work, the bank takes my house. If I do work, the bank owns it. I pay the bank insurance so that if I fall ill and don’t work, it might not take my house. If the bank doesn’t work, I pay to help it out.
And there’s no “we” in this, just “I”.
How odd.
Miki67,
Lol great stuff
Mikeybhoy,
best bar in Tenerife to watch the game tonight :-
HOOPS BAR, FUNCHAL, LOCAL 11, LOS CRISTIANOS, TENERIFE
It’s opposite the AGUAMAR HOTEL. Cost you less than 5 Euros in a taxi. If you go get there early to get a good seat and tell big Stevie the owner that Davie was asking for him!!
Hail! Hail!
DavieL
The Battered Bunnet – Thanks to Gordon Brown’s Brewsters-Millions-type crazy spending spree from around 2001 onwards, we were well on the road to governmental bankruptcy before the same one-eyed headcase handed over blank cheques to the banking sector, but you do have a point in that the bailouts of the banks – and then subsequent multiple bailouts of the doomed Eurozone – have not helped our national finances. (thumbsup)
miki67 13:37 on 19 September, 2012
I’m still laughing at the seventh comment on that Aberdeen thread.
Cruel, but very funny.
Ramsden the two of us need look no more
We were found out by Queen of the South
With no friends to call our own we’ll always be alone
And now we´re in divison three dont change our history
(dont change our history)
Ramsden you’re always running here and there
(here and there)
You feel we’re not wanted anywhere
(anywhere)
If you ever look behind you wont like what you find
There’s something you should know we’ve also got no dough
(we’ve got no place to go)
We used to say “RFC”
Now it’s THE RFC
(We used to say “dignity”)
(now it’s us now it’s poverty)
Ramsden most peepul would turn us away
(turn us away)
We don’t listen to a word they say
(a word they say)
They don’t see you as I do I wish they would try to
I’m sure they’d think again if they had a comp like Ramsden
Like Ramsden
Like Ramsden
Like Ramsden
Fortunes Favour Mibbes –
How much of it goes on the Legal System, por favor? And, more importantly, “national defence”?
I gave the defence figure earlier, no idea how much is spent on lawyers and lawyering.
PS, are you against state-funded education? I think not.
In principle I am. In an ideal world the government would get out of the education business, because they are miserably bad at it.
In practice I recognise that I’m unlikely to ever get my own way on this one, so I would be grudgingly content with trying to make the government’s participation in the education sector as efficient as possible.
For that reason, if we’re going to have government funded education, let the government stick to just funding it – we don’t need them to build the schools, employ the teachers, buy the chalk and pencils, etc. as well.
A system of universal education vouchers which could be spent on any type of school people care to send their kids to would lead to a far better and more dynamic education system for all in my opinion. (thumbsup)
I have a solution to our economic misery.
Liquidate the UK. Pay back 1% of the debt to our creditors by selling the defence assets (big warships and whatnot) to Blofeld at a discounted rate. We then protect ourselves by stirring things up between China and the USA, thus protecting future cashflow when both of them sign more defence contracts with BAE who will just have bought the aforementioned assets from Spectre at a very reasonable rate. Use a reliable banking institution to oversee said transactions.
Gies a joab Dave.
Is their a minute silence or applause tonight ?
there even
Voodoo economics trailblazed by Raygun & Thatcher…destroyed market regulations implemented after The Great Depression to ensure it would never happen again.
Deregulation cued up the 90’s slump, then the Crash of 2008….and here we are, spiralling ever downwards in our scummy ConDemNation.
Rampant Kapitalism and free-rein market forces.
See rfc as a micricosm for the general tone of The UKplc.
So girfuy with yer right wing economic tripe and gie us all peace. Greedy people. Make me sick.
Fortunes Favour Mibbes – Maybe we could liquidate the UK, change its name, and buy the history of the Roman Empire from Italy.
Togas and wine for everybody. (thumbsup)
ok lhads … til laters
Hail Hail
philvis @ 14:07
A comprehensive response, cheers.
philvis..,
yer right of course
“Will that money be better spent on keeping civil servants in Maltesers and skinny lattes and heating their offices so they can spend all day leaving peevish comments on the Guardian website in comfort? Maybe, but probably not.”
it should be health foods only and they should be posting on the Times and Independant challenging the lies :o)
With last night’s CL openers, sevco bombin’ out of the pawnbroker’s jug, and straight down to the pawnie this morning to get some readies for Templyton while he’s laid up wi’ his geetar, last night’s hilarity here,the huns quotes courtesy of Aiberdeen,and us playing Benfica the night, I’m havin’ the best 24 hrs. a mhan could wish for.
HH!
I Would like to hear some of the great celtic songs being played to night ,try and create a good atmosphere,in my opinion some of the stuff that gets played at celtic park is quite awful , so tony hamilton and co ask the fans for a change what they would like to here, the worse song is dirty old town,i think jinky sings it,there is only one band that can sign that song is the Pogues .anybody agree with me regarding songs being played at celtic park.i hope we get a win to-night,but being up at perth on saturday ,i will take a draw.