Manchester United 1 Lille 0

This Champions League tie was no classic, to say the least, but it did provide plenty of spectacle. It began with the United away fans being nearly crushed by inadequate seating provisions, and was followed by two contentious decisions on the pitch.

The first of these was not really so contentious after all. If you're a Lille fan, you might see it differently, but Peter Odemwingie clearly fouled Nemanja Vidic as the two struggled for position. Odemwingie headed the ball into the back of the net, but replays prove beyond a shadow of a doubt, no matter how ardent a Lille fan you are, no matter how biased and perhaps stupid you are, that Odemwingie shoved Vidic in the back, forcing him down onto the pitch.

If you are trying to head a ball and suddenly another player shoves your head 3 feet out of position, you are going to miss the ball. This is exactly what Odemwingie did. If it had been the other way round, if Vidic had shoved Odemwingie, it would have been a clear penalty, and those babies in Lille would still be crying about it.

The second contentious decision has a little more solidity. When a 20 yard free kick was being lined up, Wayne Rooney quickly placed the ball and Ryan Giggs stealthily struck it, before the Lille keeper was on his line and ready. Tony Sylva, the keeper, is neither the sharpest nor the thinnest tool in the shed, but a tool he is nonetheless. (For a recent match with his national side, Sylva flew 8000 km home and then learned that the match had been moved to 240km from his house in France. That's stupid.) Sylva was shown a yellow card for his protest, but you know what, you fat goon? In Sunday league football, one of the first things you learn in a deadball situation is to stand in front of the fucking ball so the other side can't take a fast free kick. Force the referee to mark out the 10 yards.

If the ref has not signalled that play can't begin until he blows his whistle, it's anything goes. If there is a foul anywhere else on the pitch, the play can begin immediately without a whistle, so near the penalty area should be no different. The Lille side moaned predictably and then the home fans rained paper and trash on the United side, followed by most of the Lille team walking off the pitch. They came back on to finish the game, but really, every one of those players deserved a yellow card, because that is protesting and intimidating the ref a little too much.

Still, at the end of the day, we (Man Utd) can't really expect to get very far in this tournament if we can't even bag a few against a pennyante side like Lille. No more excuses Ferguson, figure out how to field a side that can score goals in Europe or get the fuck.

While it's true that Manchester United have the best goals tally in the premiership, they have often come up short playing in European competitions, including going out the last two years because they couldn't score a single fucking goal away from home. That is not champions league form, and if Ferguson thinks that type of play is going to get us past AC Milan and Barcelona, he's even more drunk than he looks.

Frankly, I've still got a major bone to pick with the old geezer. Yes, United were nothing before he took over, but explain to me some of his primadonna decisions, his ruthlessness when someone challenges him, even to the detriment of the club? Explain, if you can, what the fuck he was thinking in chasing off Roy Keane, one of the best holding midfielders in the entire world, and Ruud van Nistelrooy, the leading scorer in the Champions League and also at the time the leading scorer in the EPL in the same season - without replacements!

This follows Ferguson offloading Beckham to Real Madrid over another spat (Ferguson benched Beckham, who was the captain, for no reason), and follows Ferguson getting rid of Jaap Stam, one of the best defenders in the world. Every time someone questions the mighty wisdom of Ferguson, they get the boot. In Beckham's case, this was literal.

Now that Henrik Larsson has refused an extention at Old Trafford, we are again facing a striker shortage. As the match versus Lille showed, Saha and Rooney can't get the job done by themselves. Allen Smith is still getting back to top speed, and we've got no one else. No one. The January transfer window came and went. Our billionaire owners haven't got a clue. We didn't even make an offer for any of the mass of Italian players who jumped ship when their clubs were relegated in the Serie A scandal last year. Asleep at the fucking wheel.

Libby Trial Closing Arguments

Juries have been wrong before. Juries have reached impossible conclusions and returned verdicts that prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the criminal justice system is deeply flawed. What will happen to Scooter Libby?

Essentially, the Libby defense team botched their defense. All along they had promised that Libby and Cheney would take the stand, but at the 11th hour, the lawyers decided not to call them. Why? Probably because they are both guilty as sin. Probably because Cheney orchestrated the entire thing and having him on the stand would open a whole new Pandora's Box of evil.

In the end, prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald proved to any reasonable mind that Libby lied to the Grand Jury. It appears that Libby gleefully went about as a hitman for his boss, Cheney, and like many others in this administration, they believe that whatever the means, the end is justified because they are the Christian Right. Now Libby is on the hook because, apparently, like a total fucking dumbass, he lied to the Grand Jury. He's facing 5 felonies, and Fitzgerald is no dummy. He never would have brought those 5 charges if he couldn't make them stick. And stick they have. Libby is going to prison, for a long time.

And what happens next?

Bush, like a chimpanzee wearing a suit, got up in front of the press and boldly declared that anyone involved in the Plame leak would be gone like a bat out of hell. Yet, after weeks of testimony, it's been proven that Cheney was the mastermind of the leak. Yet, Darth Cheney still roams the halls of the White House? What, the, fuck? Can't Bush keep any of his goddamn promises? Is he so addle-brained that he forgets day to day what he said the previous day? Why won't someone hold his feet to the fire on this one?

There really is no clear path ahead of America if we don't impeach Bush and Cheney. We have to show future presidents that they are in fact subject to the law, and to the constitution.