Miserable Lifetime

Watching England play is like watching a run over cat struggle to rise to its feet while its back legs are glued to the ground by its blood. It's brave, that cat, but it can't.

And it's going to suck to be Frank Lampard. Already banished to almost irrelevance by The Special One's mad determination to bring every superstar midfielder to Stamford Bridge, Lampard tommyhawks a ball in the box off himself instead of into a gaping goalmouth in the second half and then gifts the Portugese keeper the crucial stop in PKs. Little Stevie Me did same, but he's a Big Cup and the Liverpool captaincy to sustain him.

Much will be made of Rooney's crotchstomp on Carvalho, so I'll simply say that I'm glad I wasn't Carvalho beneath Rooney's boot and pass on what the running commentary on Guardian said about the incident:

He stamped on Carvalho's swingers. There was a right tussle with Carvalho for possession. He left his foot in. There has been a coiled, Gazza-91 feeling about Rooney all tournament - remember the tantrum v Sweden? - and you have to say that's been coming. I actually don't think the ref was going to send him until Portugal players came flying in - Ronaldo led the protests, and Rooney added to suspicions about them hating each other by shoving him - but ultimately he made a stamping motion, and he had to walk.

The bigger issue is system. Maybe it's Eriksson, maybe it's culture, but England never pushed the pace until after they were down to ten men. Perhaps even that's a coincidence: the pace picked up once horrid plodder Beckham was replaced by Lennon, who created two, three good chances down the right (and no, that was not a PK denied when Lennon was cleanly tackled in box in late going). But Portugal was without its best player and arguably its second, was gassed from the Netherlands game, and England never pushed the tempo, choosing to puttputt upfield. I understood Portugal's patience - they really had no option but take punches and counter, but England never punched. They played like they were pasted to the ground by their hind legs.

And Cristiano Ronaldo: while I can't imagine Fergie selling him, I can't imagine him playing in England this coming Premiership though I can't wait to watch. Man U fans will rally around him since he's wearing the uniform, but the reception he'll receive everywhere but Old Trafford will be, how should I put this, impolite.

* * * * * *

I do want to make one comment on Argentina: mwahahahahahaha! I laugh at you, you chickenshit whiners. The game is 90 minutes, not 70, diving cowards.

friday

The Long Winters

Michael Franti and Spearhead

Jim Noir

John Vanderslice


Paste Magazine does the list thing, the Top 100 singer-songwriters. I'm going to spare myself the tantrum I could throw. Let me leave it here: Andy Partridge is 64? Behind James Taylor, Andy Partridge is behind James Taylor? Andy Partridge is behind Tom Petty. Andy Partridge is behind Jackson Freaking Browne? Jeebus on toast.

And Paul McCartney is number five, but John Lennon isn't on the list?

XTC

And, hat tip to mdp for DCU - KC highlights from this past Wednesday

Coming Soon!

Hmmm, bad news for The Decider? The relentless quest for absolute power hit a tiny legal roadblock called That Damn Constitution? Bill of Rights still apply to littles, freaking littles? What's an administration to do?

TERRORIST ARREST! That's right, just like it was a coincidence last week that the FBI popped a dangerous cell of bored and disgruntled and delusionary black folk in Miami on the same day news broke of possibly illegal govt spying on bank records, this administration desperately needs a coincidence today, tomorrow at the latest! I'm here to help.

Behind Maxine's Antiques and Huhn's BMW Engine and Body Shop on Howard Ave below the railroad and east of Connecticut Ave in Blueville Maryland is a used bookstore called Ostrows, and while I was shopping for a copy of The Moosewood Cookbook I overheard, from behind a doorframe hung with a giant red banner emblazoned with Che, people talking of revolution, of cherry bombs and lit bags of dogshit, of their hatred for shopping at Wal-Mart, for Fox News and Bill O'Reilly, and how, if they could, they'd overthrow America. They had a nickname for themselves: al-Kottair

I'd like my finders fee donated to the FBI so they can investigate the blue uniformed team of the Julius West division of 7th grade girls MSI soccer. Their striker's mother wears a head veil, and a father was reported to have complained about the daily traffic on the Beltway, saying he wished he could blow up the Legion Bridge.

We Are Still a Country of Laws
(sort of, temporarily)

Supreme Court Rejects Guantanamo War Crimes Trials

Watching the pigheads explode in fury should be entertaining. Expect more Cornyncalls for judgekilling, and other demented demands for an end to checks and balances.

And newfuck Alito paid back The Decider! as would have Roberts if he hadn't had to recuse himself. Still only one vote away from Bananastan.

KC 2, DCU 3

What can I say? I didn't see it. There are no highlights up on MLSnet, so I'm guessing that if you weren't in Arrowhead, you didn't see it either.

Here's the WaPo article, here's the KC Sun article, here's the MLSnet article.

Conrad, who hustled back from Deutschland, had an own goal, then Freddy scored in the 16th (in a spectacular goal according to the MLSnet article - we'll never know, now will we?), and then Moreno set up Gomez in the 50th (in a spectacular sequence according to the MLSnet article - we'll never know, now will we?). (Actually, if they were that spectacular, it'll be interesting to see if MLS somehow gets a video of both so they can be candidates for goal of the week.)

Nowak started the same line-up as this past Saturday. Gros was subbed out for Wilson at 58 and Gomez subbed out for Quaranta at 59, so both Gros and Gomez should have relatively fresh legs for FCD next week. That's a game I'm greedy for a win.

The Post reported that Olsen was back on Monday and could have been available if needed. Clint Dempsey played for Ningland last night and had an assist. Conrad made it back. I don't know if there are injury issues or prior vacation agreements that kept Eddie Johnson and Josh Wolff from being there for KC, but if I'm KC management, in a game of importance - not that they'll catch DCU in standings, but they may face them again in the playoffs and, besides, sweeps are embarrassing - for the both of them to not even make themselves available to come in as substitutes? That would piss me off.

35 points out of 16 games? Even if the closest team in standings win both of their games in hand, DCU has a nine point lead in East, a two point lead in Supporters Shield? I'm not even - for today, at least - gonna go look for something to bitch about.

Except for the fact that I couldn't see the game.

DAM!

Lake Needwood*, where I spent many a day not going to Frau Colburn's

German class my junior and senior years of high school, and the designated launching pad of every epod (not that Elric 7 is reading this), major or minor, is a holding reservoir of Rock Creek, and its dam is in danger of being overrun and/or breached. Normally I would find this cool, but since I live within 200 yards of Rock Creek downstream from the dam, it may affect me personally, inconveniencing my in and out of my neighborhood. Dam.

* * * * *

Damn. DCU's playing in KC tonight and it's not viewable. Comcast, which recently re-upped to broadcast away games starting with next week's game in Dallas, is showing a stupid baseball game, and MLSnet, who I gave $$$ to so I could watch road games, isn't showing this one. Washington Post has a brief overview underneath an article about the evaporation of the expectations surrounding Santino Quaranta (who as little as a year ago was getting playing time for USMNT in friendlies and seemed a potentially permanent member of the prospective player pool).

The article mentions that Walker and Eskandarian and Mediate probably are unavailable for tonight, meaning another long night for the starters and a very short bench for relief. To be honest, this feels like a oh-well game: if things start strong, play full out. If things start badly, ease off the pedal, give three of the tired an early night, though it'd be nice to take all 12 possible points vs KC this season (and really, why are these teams done with all four games with half a season to go?). The pregame on mlsnet says Wolff and (the useless and vastly overrated) Johnson and Conrad still away for KC. There're points for the taking. Whether DCU has the legs to do it remains to be goddamn unseen.

* * * * *

rinôçérôse

Dance sans guilt.

Feist

says "Mushaboom" (an incredibly subversive song, meta-musically)

AND DAMN!

Sleater-Kinney's calling it quits. Damn.

One Beat

* Please note that I did not make a Rush Limbaugh joke based on the very real name of the lake. I want to be a good blogofascist.

Cassandra Blackdogred

We are one terrorist attack - it doesn't have to be gigantic, just bloody - from a police state.

Consider this, Yglesias in Tapped:

I walked through the door yesterday and my roommate already had Hardball on. There were two people debating the issue of . . . whether or not The New York Times should be brought up on charges of treason. Seriously. Treason. For publishing an article in a newspaper. Treason. And there was Chris Matthews happily presiding over the whole thing as if this was a serious conversation that people should be having. This all taking place on a network that, allegedly, does journalism.

Consider this, Glen Greenwald on Unclaimed Territory:

The clear rationale underlying the arguments of Bush supporters needs to be highlighted. They believe that the Bush administration ought to be allowed to act in complete secrecy, with no oversight of any kind. George Bush is Good and the administration wants nothing other than to stop The Terrorists from killing us. There is no need for oversight over what they are doing because we can trust our political officials to do good on their own. We don't need any courts or any Congress or any media serving as a "watchdog" over the Bush administration. There is no reason to distrust what they do. We should -- and must -- let them act in total secrecy for our own good, for our protection. And anyone who prevents them from acting in total secrecy is not merely an enemy of the Bush administration, but of the United States, i.e., is a traitor.

Consider this, solicited in a contest for posters by the always repugnant Malkin (no, I will not link):

Consider this, Froomkin writing over at Nieman:

Cooper wrote that the Bush White House “has very effectively expanded the scope and character of the signing statement not only to address specific provisions of legislation that the White House wishes to nullify, but also in an effort to significantly reposition and strengthen the powers of the presidency relative to the Congress.”

In fact, many of the objections the White House has raised in signing statements seem to be less about the specific legislation at issue and more about consistently resisting any limitations on executive power. For instance, any bill that requires a report to Congress sets off a signing-statement tripwire.

Consider Frist and Hatch and Cornyn and all the Republicans, un-American bastards all in a non-election year, mutant un-Americans in an election year in which they lead in the polls, rabidly un-American when behind, circle-jerking the flag. Jingoism is always distasteful, but we left distasteful behind long ago. Contemporary jingoism is like a plague, a contagion, and the disease's symptoms have rendered once decent Americans hankering for authoritarianism's disciplinary whip.

And there's an administration in place not only drooling for authoritarian power but actively seeking it.

I rarely agonize over a post, trusting that readers will either like or dislike and move on as they will. I understand the fate of Cassandra and keep my most dire prophesies to myself, usually. And I don't particularly care to post predictions that I dearly hope will be proved embarrassingly wrong. But.....

Ask yourself: What will America look like two months after a U-Haul filled with explosives detonates on the Delaware Memorial Bridge? It won't be America.

I do hope I'm wrong. I hope the attack never happens, I hope if it does happen the aftermath is not what I fear. I also have faith in America, and remind myself that the United States survived the Civil War and survived the Vietnam War - the National Guard has not, as yet, massacred war protesters, the moans of the Right's wetdreams notwithstanding.

And if I am wrong, and an attack happens and a police state doesn't result, it won't be because the un-American Right didn't try to make it happen. They're trying before the attack.

Left Blogs Are Mean. Am Not.

As many have noticed, much stormitude has thundered over Godfather Kos and his sway over Leftblogostan, which in turn has prompted much pondering by not only the Right but especially the established Left on the general nastiness and childishness and surliness and rudeness of we Lefty hordes of unwashed bloggers.

Therefore, to show my respect for the opinions of the established corporate heads of the Democratic Party, who have so successfully run congressional and senatorial and presidential elections since 1996 (really, their track record is remarkably consistent after all), I will not be mentioning that Rush Limbaugh was detained last night in a Palm Beach Florida airport (nor will I be providing a link to the article) for having a cache of unprescribed Viagra. Nor will I make any obvious flaccid or puny, pudly jokes that fail to rise to the seriousness of the situation.

That would be childish.

Separated at Birth
Sunday Edition

FIFA Referee Valetin Ivanov

Comedian Ryan Stiles

If you just watched Portugal v Netherlands, you'd know that Valentin Ivanov aspires to be an improv comedian too. Jeebus Cracker, the worse refereed game I've ever seen. Really.

Which is not to say that Holland didn't deserve to lose, the choking bastards. The first time I'm ever wrong about Holland is the year they win either Euro or WC.

DCU 1, Kansas City 0

Surely I would be smacked by fans of the other eleven MLS teams if I complained to them that these 1-0 victories are getting old, but DCU's inability to score a second goal's starting to concern me.

Troy Perkins was certainly man of the match, and if he hadn't been than Bobby Boswell would have. The Post article linked above at the score mentions that Rimando is scheduled to get, if not this start, one of the six games in short succession, but why? Kansas City had more and better chances than United - especially in one sequence in the first half when Perkins made two tremendous stops on Scott Sealy (note to KC: thanks for taking Sealy out of the game in the 71st minute). Perkins has earned the right to play until he un-earns it.

And at some point, probably starting this Wednesday, DCU is going to need two, and they've gone five games now stuck on one per. It's remarkable that a team can get eleven points out of five games scoring only five goals. Remarkable and probably unlikely ever again. For all the good that Clyde Simms has shown, the offense has sputtered since Ben left for Deutschland. The next bit of strategic juggling Nowak has to do is to find a way to work Olsen back in, maybe shifting Simms out to the midfield hole now being occupied by McTavish (who almost hit a brilliant goal in the first half from long distance - it would have gone in if Oshoniyi hadn't fingertipped it up off the crossbar) and Mediate.

The rain was fine - better that than 97 degrees in the sun - but the lightning delay sucked. I overheard someone saying they were told that once lightning is seen management is required to wait 20 minutes of not seeing another bolt before play can resume.

Oh, there was a new usher working the portal into 232 who heard some fans in the 300s bitching about people standing in 232. Someone (not me) told her that he would sit if she could get Barra Brava and Screaming Eagles to sit down. She tromps down to Barra, taps a guy in his 12 shirt on the shoulder and asks him to sit, and he looks at her as if she's from Mars. Oy.