Soccer News
The European and British seasons are about decided, while the Major League Soccer here is just getting cooking. In the Premier League, Arsenal succeeded in wresting the championship from Manchester United a few weeks ago, having gone without a single loss in league play. Hard to beat that. The battle for second place (and a Champions League spot without qualification matches) is held by Chelsea, who are 4 points clear of United and have 2 remaining games. Chelsea play United this Saturday in a match that will surely determine who gets that 2nd place. The remaining two Champions League spots are being hotly contested by Newcastle, Liverpool and Aston Villa. Getting into the Champions League means an extra half a million pounds for the club, so there's a lot at stake besides prestige. The three teams relegated to nationwide Division One football are Wolves, Leeds United, and Leicester City. The three clubs gaining promotion to the Premiership are Norwich, West Ham, and West Bromwich Albion. Good luck to them.
Since Leeds are going down, the sale of their few star players is inevitable. Alan Smith is on the auction block for 11 million pounds, and leading striker, the Aussie Mark Viduka, is also for sale. Viduka's stupid play last week which netted him a red card was the final nail in Leeds' coffin. Elsewhere, Bolton is preparing to sign Brazilian World Cup 2002 star Rivaldo, and Real Madrid is feverishly trying to purchase Ruud Van Nistelrooy from Man Utd. How would Real Madrid afford such a high-ticket item? By selling Ronaldo and David Beckham to one of the many premier teams angling for them. Read about transfer speculation, here, from BBC Sport.
Allegedly Ruud got into a bust-up with French striker David Bellion during training and refused to apologize, for which manager Alex Ferguson left Ruud out of the side that lost to Liverpool. Fergie loves cutting off his nose to spite his face. This on top of Ruud having a clash with club captain Roy Keane. Keane has decided to return to international duty with Ireland, further upsetting Fergie, and has mentioned finishing out his career at his boyhood heroes Celtic of Glasgow. Keane has never really figured out that he is a player and not the manager. One thing is certain, Fergie needs to rebuild Man Utd practically from scratch for next season, and letting Keane go would be one place to start. Keane has been an anchor but at 33, his playmaking abilities really did not show at all this season. He's a solid midfielder, and when surrounded by Juan Veron and David Beckham, his control shined. Since those lads are gone, we've got all traffic cop and no speeders. If Man Utd are serious about retaking the title, they need to dismiss Nicky Butt, Quentin Fortune, David Bellion, Eric Djemba-Djemba, Phil Neville, Kleberson, Diego Forlan, and put Wes Brown and Fletcher in reserves until they figure out how to pass a ball, then buy 3 attacking midfielders with legendary reputations. If Ruud does indeed fly the coop, Utd will need a world-class striker to take his place (Ruud scored over 100 goals in 3 seasons). Man Utd should buy Ronaldo (THE Ronaldo, not the Portugese winger Christiano Ronaldo), pickup someone like Pavel Nedved from Juventus, Milan Klose from Bayern Munich, or Wayne Rooney from Everton, give them midfield support from a bright player like Chelsea's Frank Lampard, and find some real defenders who can stand alongside Rio Ferdinand (who will be back next season, having served his 8 months suspension). The truth is that Man Utd were in deplorable form all season, and when Ferdinand got suspended it became the straw that broke the camel's back. Ferguson time and again fielded the wrong 11 players and used attacking strategy that failed miserably. Witness the defeats to Wolves, Portsmouth, Southampton, Manchester City, Blackburn, and the draw with Leeds. Expect a radically different team next season.
Monday, May 03, 2004
Two Kinds Of People
There are two kinds of people in this world and you can sort them out by how they react when presented with weakness. One type sees every instance of weakness in another person as an opportunity to pounce, exploit and manipulate. The other kind sees a weekness as a moment to help and heal. These days, the Republicans are fully a party of the cutthroat whatever-it-takes-to-make-a-buck capitalism, including laying off American workers to transfer jobs to third world countries with no workers' rights, laying off workers to post higher profit earnings, exploiting weak environmental laws overseas to pollute and contaminate people too powerless to stop them.
Another way to delineate these two groups is how they react to the photos showing US and British troops abusing Iraqi detainees, and to photos of American war dead coming home. The exploiters think that showing these photos is a traitorous activity, somehow undermining the "legitimacy" of the war and sapping the God-given royal power of the President. Those who seek to help view these photos as evidence that our leaders have blundered horribly, irreversibly, and that the only solution is a change in government. The problem isn't that there are photos of Iraqis being tortured or that coffins draped in American flags are showing up in photos in newspapers, the problem is that this information has been suppressed because everyone knows it would provide energy to the anti-war sentiment.
There are two kinds of people in this world and you can sort them out by how they react when presented with weakness. One type sees every instance of weakness in another person as an opportunity to pounce, exploit and manipulate. The other kind sees a weekness as a moment to help and heal. These days, the Republicans are fully a party of the cutthroat whatever-it-takes-to-make-a-buck capitalism, including laying off American workers to transfer jobs to third world countries with no workers' rights, laying off workers to post higher profit earnings, exploiting weak environmental laws overseas to pollute and contaminate people too powerless to stop them.
Another way to delineate these two groups is how they react to the photos showing US and British troops abusing Iraqi detainees, and to photos of American war dead coming home. The exploiters think that showing these photos is a traitorous activity, somehow undermining the "legitimacy" of the war and sapping the God-given royal power of the President. Those who seek to help view these photos as evidence that our leaders have blundered horribly, irreversibly, and that the only solution is a change in government. The problem isn't that there are photos of Iraqis being tortured or that coffins draped in American flags are showing up in photos in newspapers, the problem is that this information has been suppressed because everyone knows it would provide energy to the anti-war sentiment.
Iraq Withdrawal In 6 Months
Unless you're an ostrich with your head in the sand listening to Rush and Sean and Bill on your headphones, you know that the situation in Iraq is a total disaster. The Shia and Sunni Muslims for the first time in history are united --- against us. Bush's ineptitude and his Dr. Strangelove advisors have wrought what no amount of slogannering could: America now stands in stark contrast to all Muslim nations as the enemy. The world is not safer. There are more terrorists now looking to score against the USA. Our international standing is now we're the global village idiot. Because Bush and Rumsfeld et al thumbed their noses at the UN, the UN's usefulness is now questionable. Now, Bush and company are talking about some messy political solution to Iraq, whereby "both" sides can claim victory, and a hasty pullout in six months. That would be October, right before the 2004 election. An article on BBC News, today, discusses this and more, here. And in case you've forgotten, Bush made a deal with the House of Saud to drop oil prices drastically in October, therefore allowing the Bush campaign and the RNC to claim low gas prices as a spoil of the Iraq adventure. Does this not sound like brokering deals with foreign countries to unduly influence American elections?
Unless you're an ostrich with your head in the sand listening to Rush and Sean and Bill on your headphones, you know that the situation in Iraq is a total disaster. The Shia and Sunni Muslims for the first time in history are united --- against us. Bush's ineptitude and his Dr. Strangelove advisors have wrought what no amount of slogannering could: America now stands in stark contrast to all Muslim nations as the enemy. The world is not safer. There are more terrorists now looking to score against the USA. Our international standing is now we're the global village idiot. Because Bush and Rumsfeld et al thumbed their noses at the UN, the UN's usefulness is now questionable. Now, Bush and company are talking about some messy political solution to Iraq, whereby "both" sides can claim victory, and a hasty pullout in six months. That would be October, right before the 2004 election. An article on BBC News, today, discusses this and more, here. And in case you've forgotten, Bush made a deal with the House of Saud to drop oil prices drastically in October, therefore allowing the Bush campaign and the RNC to claim low gas prices as a spoil of the Iraq adventure. Does this not sound like brokering deals with foreign countries to unduly influence American elections?
Australia Told To Expect Refugees From Global Warming
An article on Space Daily, here, today mentions that Australia should expect to have refugees from all the low-lying islands near them, as a result of global warming causing hurricanes, tornadoes, and affecting sea levels. Wait, didn't Bush say that global warming was just some "fuzzy science" thing that didn't exist? Isn't global warming just some lefty plot to keep all the good Christian polluters of the world from wringing every last buck out of the earth without regard to social cost or consequence?
An article on Space Daily, here, today mentions that Australia should expect to have refugees from all the low-lying islands near them, as a result of global warming causing hurricanes, tornadoes, and affecting sea levels. Wait, didn't Bush say that global warming was just some "fuzzy science" thing that didn't exist? Isn't global warming just some lefty plot to keep all the good Christian polluters of the world from wringing every last buck out of the earth without regard to social cost or consequence?