World Cup one liner

Home advantage matters.

The real sacrifice

It's a sign of the currently accident-prone nature of the Irish government that they've wandered into a controversy on an issue where the plan was to stay as quiet as possible. That issue is embryonic stem-cell research, which was the issue that in summer 2001 George Bush had convinced himself was the most pressing one facing the nation. The rest is history.

Anyway, the Irish version of the problem is whether to install an explicit ban on the research in Ireland, but the Minister for Enterprise and Employment, Micheál Martin, went seriously off-message on a trade mission to China -- almost as bizarre, in the parochial context as if, for example, the finance minister started holding forth on policy regarding the nuclear deterrent. Martin made two statements that sound very reasonable: that the science contains many unknowables, and that in the long-term it could lead to cures for diseases [Irish Times, subs. req'd]:

But I said that if it emerged in the future that it could be of value in treating very debilitating and chronic diseases such as multiple sclerosis, motor neurone disease or Alzheimer's, then I would have an open mind.

In saying so, however, he ran up against the a la carte ethics that represent current policy:

A spokeswoman for the Department of Enterprise and Employment in Dublin said yesterday that the official policy in relation to embryo stem-cell research, as set out by the Minister, was that the Government wanted to maintain the position of "ethical subsidiarity".

She said he had said that this meant that Ireland did not tell other countries or seek to influence what other countries did in terms of research programmes and research projects.

This matters because Ireland contributes to European Union pots of money that could be used for stem-cell research, so their position is that there can be no stem cell research in the country, but that they may passively finance it elsewhere. This is the inverse of the George Bush position, in which the research is allowed but federal government funding is prohibited. The Bush position fails the simple consistency test of: if you really think it's wrong, why aren't you banning it?

But the official Irish position is, if anything, more hypocritical, since it contains no commitment not to use any medical gains that arise from the research. Thus the unpleasant stuff can be dumped off to other countries, while the outcomes thereof are cherry-picked. It does provide the unintentional comedy that comes from combining 1950s and 2000s government policy on moral issues:

According to recent reports, Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern told Pope Benedict that the Republic intended passing legislation to ban such research. Asked about plans to do this, Mr Martin said he had no knowledge of such proposals.

Nice segue

George Bush, in a brief news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi today, soon after the Supreme Court stunner:

PRESIDENT BUSH: We've agreed to take two questions a side. Walking in, I reminded the Prime Minister of one of Elvis's greatest songs, "Don't Be Cruel" -- (laughter) -- so keep that in mind, Hunt, when you ask your question.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. You've said that you wanted to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, but you were waiting for the Supreme Court decision that came out today. Do you intend now to close the Guantanamo Bay quickly? And how do you deal with the suspects that you've said were too dangerous to be released or sent home?

Also known as the German Democratic Republic

Note the capital letters, exactly as they appear now on the White House website

President Bush to Visit Chancellor Angela Merkel in East Germany Prior to G-8 Summit

Hitch to dissenters: Drop Dead

Perhaps as evidence that Christopher Hitchens doesn't drink quite as much as his reputation suggests, consider this maliciously clever phrasing in which Hitch can dodge the accusation that he's suggesting that Congressman Jack Murtha should be killed, but comes oh so close to saying so. Hitch is yet again on the warpath -- not against Gitmo or Abu Ghraib, presidential "signing statements", warrantless wiretaps, or incompetent war planning -- but the anti-war left. And amongst his challenges to them:

What happened to the human shields? I didn't think it was wise or principled of certain activists to go to Baghdad in 2003 and swear to put themselves between Iraqi civilians and undue harm ... But the idea of witnessing for peace in this manner has its attractions. That new hero, Rep. John Murtha, repeated a familiar slur the other day, attacking Karl Rove for supporting the war from an air-conditioned office—as if a person with a White House job has no right to an opinion on the war. But would not now be the ideal time for those who hate war to go to Iraq and stand outside the mosques, hospitals, schools, and women's centers that are daily subjected to murderous assaults? This would write an imperishable page in the history of American dissent.

So a single paragraph to defend Karl Rove's honour, link Murtha with the 2003 human shields campaign, and suggest it be revived. Even if he's not specifically suggesting that Murtha go, he may well have thought better of a phrase like "a killing field of dissenters" but we can't know how much he had to resist temptation. Note the article's title: Peace and Quiet.

Wealth

With not a hint of irony, the Wall Street Journal editorial page (subs. req'd) is concerned about the influence on society that comes with having huge amounts of wealth -- in the context of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, now further beefed up by Warren Buffett's money:

We'd also note that the foundations he [Buffett] is donating to may well become "dynasties" in their own right. In addition to his Gates Foundation gift, Mr. Buffett also said he will give major donations well north of $1 billion each to separate foundations run by his three children and another in the name of his late wife. These gifts, too, will be shielded from taxation and will allow his heirs to wield power and influence long after the 75-year-old has gone to his just reward. With their tax-sheltered assets, modern foundations have no expiration date and have become hugely important players in policy debates, the culture and even politics.

Ironic because the WSJ, which staunchly opposes just about any tax, including the "death" tax (estate/inheritance) would have no problem with the descendants having access to exactly the same amount of money as an untaxed inheritance. But somehow, when it's a foundation, which sounds suspiciously touchy-feely, it's a problem. And there's more:

But since giving free advice is our business, we'd suggest that they put at least a smidgen of their money back into strengthening the foundations of the free-market system that has allowed them to become so fabulously rich. There's something to be said for reinvesting in the moral capital of a free society and trying to sustain and export free-enterprise policies.

This is only a hop, skip and jump to the philosophical case for taxation -- that even rich people, who've convinced themselves that they made it "on their own", couldn't have done so without the institutions that the state provides. But this logic goes AWOL when the Journal does its usual editorial fulminations about the taxation system. Anyway, a few sentences later:

On that score we were encouraged by a report this week that the Gateses thanked Mr. Buffett for his gift by presenting him with a book from their personal library: Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations."

Now given the WSJ's view that the Gates foundation should be voluntarily funding certain of their pet causes, let's see what the great Glasgow man would have said:

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we can expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.

Indeed.

UPDATE: Jonathan Chait at The Plank points out that the WSJ also seems confused about what a foundation is.

The NatWest 3

We're adapting Andrew Sullivan's quote of the day, from Edmund Burke, for a different purpose: as an apt comment on the plight of the NatWest 3, likely facing extradition to Bush country from charges in the Enron collapse -- even though the actual alleged crime was against NatWest, was committed in England, and the extradition is being done under anti-terrorism legislation:

A person is brought hither in the dungeon of a ship's hold; thence he is vomited into a dungeon on land, loaded with irons, unfurnished with money, unsupported by friends, three thousand miles from all means of calling upon or confronting evidence, where no one local circumstance that tends to detect perjury can possibly be judged of;—such a person may be executed according to form, but he can never be tried according to justice.

UPDATE: More from the WSJ Law Blog. And here's a previous post of ours on the three; we also reiterate the disclosure that we're related to one of them.

UPDATE 5 JULY: The Daily Telegraph is at the centre of the campaign to stop the extradition. An editorial and an open letter, accepting signatures.

FINAL UPDATE 9 FEBRUARY 2008: The essay from which the Burke quote is drawn surfaces in a John McCain speech.

But who's Josephine?

It's a point of comparison that just won't go away: Napoleon. For some reason, the GWoT comparisons have been most frequent to George W. Bush , but it looks now like the American Enterprise Institute is anxious to get someone more Evil stuck with the tag. So, as the Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire informs us:

As AEI puts it in an announcement for a July 20 lecture by [Frederick] Kagan at the think tank’s offices: "For as there have been international norms, there have been states that have refused to play by the rules. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has embraced this role for Iran, but he is merely the latest in a long line of leaders to attempt to revamp the international system."

His role model? Perhaps Napoleon. "Idolized by many for his military successes and domestic reforms, he has also been accused of carrying out a "criminal" foreign policy and blamed for the decade of wars that marked his reign," AEI says.

The funny thing is, you can read the blurb and not have it be a stretch that it's actually talking about Bush -- "refused to play by the rules," "revamp the international system," and of course "idolized by many." Also noteworthy is that the discussant for Kagan's talk at AEI is Bill Kristol, meaning that the seminar room would be not a bad place to detect what Bush's Project for a New American Century backers really think about the current direction of his foreign policy.

World Cup one liner

Well, the tournament needed a team to hate, so Portugal qualify in that regard.

UPDATE: Under FIFA's new rules, the referee's decision is final, except when it isn't. [see also Goal Post]

Tomorrow's clarifications today

Sunday's New York Times Magazine has a long article by Christopher Caldwell about Londonistan. It's worth a read, and not simply because it manages to make Melanie "Scary Spice" Phillips seem respectable. But one paragraph needs some elaboration:

Abdel Bari Atwan ... edits Al Quds al Arabi, an international Arabic-language daily. Its offices are upstairs from a housing authority in Hammersmith, where the redeveloped part of King Street peters out into hairdressers and used-clothing shops ... Atwan interviewed Osama bin Laden at his hideout in Afghanistan in 1996 and recently wrote an authoritative history of his movement. When Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the March 2004 Madrid bombings, it was to Atwan that the claim was faxed.

Well, there's a story behind that. The claim of responsibility came not from al Qaeda per se, but from a group within its propaganda orbit, the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades. This is a group that has twice embarrassed the GWOT, once by endorsing George Bush in 2004 election, and once by being the basis of a US terror warning via a threat that lacked any substantiation.

UPDATE 5 JULY: On the topic of whether al Qaeda actually endorsed George Bush in 2004, Mike Power has a relevant link.

Well, he probably pats Brown on the head in the same way

Ron Suskind, explaining to the Times (UK) that there's no mixup of two different Mohammad [middle name] Khans underlying his book's claim that the 7 July London bombing ringleader was known to US intelligence as a danger:

Mr Suskind said last night: "My sources are plain. There’s no case of mistaken identity here. Everyone involved knows the difference between the two guys.

"For somebody who is an expert in terrorism to mix these men up is like mixing up Tony Blair and Benny Hill.

"In America the sources are clear. There’s not any doubt about it being Mohammad Sidique Khan in this particular incident discussed in the book."

No wonder it's the inflight magazine of Air Force 1

What is it with the New Republic's online contributors tossing around the term fascist these days? On the Culture (sic) blog, Lee Siegel:

It's a bizarre phenomenon, the blogosphere. It radiates democracy's dream of full participation but practices democracy's nightmare of populist crudity, character-assassination, and emotional stupefaction. It's hard fascism with a Microsoft face.

On the Goal Post blog, where a couple of days ago there was some connection between Peter Crouch and the liberation of Auschwitz:

With the U.S. out of the tournament, many of us may not quite know which flag to wrap ourselves in for the duration of the Cup. (I only know it won't be the flag of the air fiddling, cry baby, possibly fascist, greasy-maned Italians.)

Truly, truly, charming. But then again, the fish rots from the head.

UPDATE: More comments on Siegel here. And Brad DeLong collects pieces of TNR's War on Blogs in one place. And a Kos diarist (a feud with Kos being the excuse for the taunting about fascism) elaborates.

Media Minute Men?

Powerline's "Trunk" on the New York Times reporting on US surveillance of international financial transactions, a program whose details are classified:

The Times and its likeminded media colleagues will undoubtedly continue to undermine and betray the national security of the United States until they are taught that they are subject to the same laws that govern the conduct of ordinary citizens, or until an enraged citizenry decides, like Bill Keller [editor], to take the law into its own hands and express its disagreement some other way.

"Trunk" is a lawyer, so one assumes that this sentence was carefully constructed to not actually be what it comes very close to, a threat.

Tradition

Just under 2 weeks ago, Wall Street Journal columnist Daniel Henninger made a complete fool of himself on Fox News (where else) by arguing that gay marriage was the slippery slope to people being able to marry snakes. Really. The argument was skewered by Stephen Colbert [see the item Marrying Snakes]. Anyway, back in his regular Friday slot (subs. req'd; alt. free link) he writes of the importance of tradition, specifically: golf. Here are the key paragraphs:

These clubs are famous havens of fustiness. Most still ban denim and only recently, as at Baltusrol and Winged Foot, allowed shorts anywhere. But there is purpose here too. "When the children of new members come to Winged Foot," says Bill Fugazy Jr., a member for 30 years, "they learn club etiquette, attire, the rules of golf and then how to hit a golf ball." When a junior team showed up at Washington's Congressional in cargo pants several years back, the club refused to let them play. This code in turn ensures civility on the masterpiece courses, such as A.W. Tillinghast created for Winged Foot. It deters, says San Francisco's Butch Berry, "people who don't uphold the traditions of the game: a cheater, a bad sport, a club thrower, a vile character."

To Doug Steffen, the head pro at Baltusrol, golf's social contract is clear cut: "When people join one of these clubs, they know what the rules are; then they join the club or they don't."

Take a second to ponder what's missing from his list of things that golf clubs have banned for most of their existence. Although snakes (heterosexual ones only) could probably get in on their own.

Eyes on lunchbreak

New York Times website headlines just before 2pm eastern time:

Bush Compares Iraq War to Hungry's Uprising

Widlfire Continues to Spread North of Sedona

UPDATE: They caught the misspelling of Hungary but still have wild rhyming with the German supermarket chain.

World Cup one line (request)

If the US soccer team manages a miracle qualification for the last 16 and George Bush decides to "pop-in" to visit them and injured soldiers at Ramstein Air Force Base, can the media please not describe this as a surprise visit?

Mention the war

Showing the power of Gawker, blogger Susie Gelber converted a Gawker-linked post complaining about The New Republic's World Cup group blog, Goal Post, into a gig at said blog. To bring us stuff like this:

I don't want to risk England not facing Germany. Want to see Germany try to get past England's secret weapon: Peter Crouch. Because the man who makes Beckham's wife look like she could stand to lose a few is a good player, but an even better walking, kicking memorial to the liberation of Auschwitz.

10 readings later, that last bit still makes no sense (aside from being moot since England will play Ecuador). Apart from anything else, Auschwitz was liberated by Soviet troops.

[UPDATE 22 June: if someone over at Goal Post happens to read this, can you close that damned italics tag?]

Trojan phones

It's taken a long time but finally an American newspaper has done extensive reporting on the bizarre mobile phone bugging case in Greece; unfortunately it's a Wall Street Journal article, behind subscription. It explains how the bugging operation required such high level technical capability that very few institutions other than Ericsson and Vodaphone (whose equipment was infiltrated) or a national intelligence agency could have done it.

The key part of the trick was that calls to over 100 phones were simultaneously routed to a set of 14 pre-paid cellphones, so that someone could listen in. It involved a higher level of interception than simply cloning the SIM card of the targeted mobile phones -- so not simply a matter of that cool scene in The Bourne Supremacy. But speaking of US intelligence agencies, here's how the article ends:

ADAE's [Greek telecoms watchdog] technical experts also say the interceptor phones were in contact via phone calls and text messages with various overseas destinations, namely the U.S., including Laurel, Md., the U.K., Sweden and Australia, according to the ADAE preliminary report. Some of these calls and messages were initiated and received directly from the 14 interceptor phones and some were relayed via a second group of at least three other prepaid phones that also were in contact with the 14 interceptor phones.

Some Greek politicians note that one of the U.S.'s principal spy agencies, the National Security Agency, is based near Laurel, Md. The agency recently has been in the spotlight, with some members of the U.S. Congress criticizing the Bush administration for monitoring, without a warrant, calls between people in the U.S. and suspected terrorists overseas. Agency spokesman Don Weber said the "NSA takes its legal responsibilities seriously and operates within the law." As for whether the NSA or other U.S. authorities were involved in the Greek incident, he said the agency doesn't "discuss ongoing or pending investigations."

UPDATE 24 JUNE: The separate revelations about the US Treasury/CIA snooping on international financial transfers includes this detail:

Intelligence officials were so eager to use the Swift data that they discussed having the C.I.A. covertly gain access to the system, several officials involved in the talks said. But Treasury officials resisted, the officials said, and favored going to Swift directly.

Prime Ministerial insults

Compare and Contrast:

(1) Dominique de Villepin, to Socialist leader Francois Hollande:

"Mr. Hollande, I denounce your facile approach - and I will even say this looking you in the eyes - the cowardice in your attitude," Villepin said. "I'll say it again: cowardice."

(2) Taoiseach Bertie Ahern to Socialist TD Joe Higgins:

"You have a failed ideology, you have the most hopeless policy that I ever heard pursued by any nitwit,” Mr Ahern said.

"You are a failed person, you were rejected and your political philosophy has been rejected and you’re not going to pull people back into the failed old policies that you dreamt up in south Kerry when you were a young fella. Now go away."

It depends what the meaning of leadership is

In what it looks like his last bit of office work before he left for Vienna, George Bush sent some minor amendments to the Geneva Conventions to the Senate for ratification. Now while minor, they do reveal one side benefit from the US eagerness to have the Iraqi government nominally in charge of combatting the insurgency. One amendment brings certain restrictions on weapons that are unusually harmful to civilians into domestic conflicts, but Bush's letter is keen to emphasize

It does not change the legal status of rebel or insurgent groups into that of protected or privileged belligerents

In other words, they won't have to go to the bother of classifying captured Iraqi insurgents under the non-existent "enemy combatant" Gitmo designation, because the Iraqi government can continue to do it for them. Second, about those pesky weapons that have to be cleaned up afterwards:

CCW Protocol V provides for the marking, clearance, removal, and destruction of such remnants by the party in control of the territory in which the munitions are located.

And who happens to be in control of the territory where all Saddam's conventional weapons were located (but not secured after the invasion) and where the US military now pursues a mini "Powell doctrine" in pursuit of Iraqi insurgents? The Iraqi government!

Finally, in urging the Senate to ratify the amendments (the other of which allows Israel to join the Red Cross), Bush concludes:

These treaties are in the interest of the United States, and their ratification would advance the longstanding and historic leadership of the United States in the law of armed conflict.

Trebles all round!

UPDATE 11 JANUARY 2007: It looks like part of the above took till now to work its way back to Bush insofar as it was a law requiring his signature; the press release announcing the signature again gratuitously notes --

It reflects the commitment of the United States to international law, including the Geneva Conventions.

Lord of the foreclosed manor

Even with the media empire gone, Conrad Black just can't stay out of the news, which also sustains the possibility that some of the vast rightwing conspiracy personalities to which he's connected might go down with him. The latest revelation from Patrick Fitzgerald's prosecution of him is the bizarre state of Black's finances, in which the lifestyles of the rich and famous are financed at the interest rates that might even embarrass the toughest urban bail bond agent.

Black is securing his bail with a house in Florida, but Fitzgerald suspects that Black views the house as a millstone -- with good reason -- and would be happy to dump it into the government's hands; with the bail forfeited he could then just remain in Canada and battle any further proceedings to get him to appear in court in Chicago (WSJ, subs. req'd):

The government is seeking a forced sale of his oceanside Palm Beach estate because a payment due June 15 wasn't made on a $10 million promissory note that is secured by the mortgage on the property, the documents say. As a result, the interest rate on the loan was pushed up to 26% from 21%, and the government's ability to eventually recover equity from the property has been jeopardized, according to the documents ...

A financial affidavit provided by Mr. Black at the time of his bail arrangements disclosed four Canadian bank accounts. But Mr. Black may be holding back on disclosing all of his assets, prosecutors argue. He recently paid taxes of about $460,000 on the Palm Beach house and made a donation of 500,000 Canadian dollars (US$446,000) to the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto, according to the documents. Mr. Black's bail conditions allow him to live in Canada, with trips to Chicago for court dates

One possibility is that Lord Black is just not that good with money, which might be his planned defence for when the case comes to trial. But we still attach some weight to the possibility that one of these months, he's going to pop up in London, having carefully disposed of all his Canadian assets, and rely on the very tricky US-UK extradition laws to keep him free of Fitzgerald's courtroom.

[Here's a free link from the Chicago Sun-Times, via Romenesko]

UPDATE 27 SEPTEMBER. We've been meaning to revisit this post. Under the current UK-US extradition arrangements, Black is probably better off staying in Canada and making his court appearances in Chicago. If he went to Britain and then fought extradition, he would lose and then be forced to remain in the US until his trial date, assuming he could even get bail at that point. However, the UK parliament may yet suspend cooperation with the US on extradition, a consequence of the outrage over the NatWest 3. Anyway, Black appears to be working on a Plan B -- he is trying to get his Canadian citizenship reinstated.

Mr America enters the Miss World contest

A George Bush memo to Condi today:

Pursuant to section 503(a) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended (22 U.S.C. 2311), and section 3(a)(1) of the Arms Export Control Act, as amended (22 U.S.C. 2753), I hereby find that the furnishing of defense articles and defense services to the Kingdom of Swaziland will strengthen the security of the United States and promote world peace.

There they go again

It appears that the White House's summer PR offensive includes a subtle recalibration of their persistent inference -- that they back away from when directly challenged -- that Saddam was connected to 9/11. It was used by George Bush in a speech to the Merchant Marine graduates this morning:

As we saw on September the 11, 2001, the actions of a repressive regime thousands of miles away can have a direct impact on our own security.

The regime is not specified but one assumes it's the Taliban. However, the 9/11 attacks were conceived in various Asian countries, the logistics were run from Germany and Spain, while the preparations, training, and of course implementation took place in the United States. While the Taliban were implicated through harbouring Osama Bin Laden, this was only possible because of a previous lack of state capacity to enforce law and order (as is now unfolding in Somalia) -- not what one thinks is the problem with a Saddam-style repressive regime. But the fact that it takes a few sentences to explain this makes it an excellent line from the White House perspective.

Sometimes a match is just a match

We had hoped to keep all our World Cup postings to a single sentence each, a kind of adjustment for all the excess bloviating that the tournament is otherwise drawing. But we'll go into a longer post to acknowledge what is surely a once-off event -- our complete endorsement of this post from Powerline. In it, "Hindrocket" provides the valuable service of extensive excerpts from a WSJ article offering Henry Kissinger's insights on watching the World Cup. And thus providing the evidence that the whole phenomenon of relating soccer to geopolitics has officially hit bottom.

Dr. K's insights are the kind of hackneyed cultural determinism that were getting John Motson laughed at 10 years ago -- it's not quite the "Teutonic efficiency/Latin flair" drivel but it's pretty close:

The traditional English style focuses on winning through athleticism -- kicking the ball deep and long and then outrunning the opponent, with defenders and attackers well-defined. With the European style, six players typically move forward and pass skillfully and four players remain back ... His favorite is the Latin approach, which is about style as much as substance ... Dr. Kissinger worries that globalization is "brutalizing" the Brazilians, who have lost some of their Latin panache

Now of course the World Cup is a tournament of nations, so aspects of the teams -- but moreso their supporters -- will reflect national characteristics, and so provide grist for the mill for The New Republic's Goal Post blog. But as Powerline's "Deacon" then adds to the post, this has nothing to do with what happens on the field:

In my view, the identity of a national team's coach (and how he perceives the stengths and weaknesses of his players) has more to do with how a team plays than the country's culture does. There have been World Cups (though admittedly not many) when Brazil has played cynically and Argentina has turned on the style, and World Cups when it's been the other way around. ... England often plays artistic football when Wayne Rooney is present and fit, but tends to revert to the long ball into the box when 6'7" Peter Crouch replaces him.

We can go on. Take for instance Argentina. If they win the World Cup, then it's going to be easy for the geo-footers to say that it's yet more evidence of a country showing that it has bounced back from the debt default and crisis of 2002 by doing things its own way. But if the economy was still in the tank, then they'd say that it's because sporting success is the only thing that the country has left.

Similarly, that supposed Latin flair of Brazil has been missing in action so far, and the usual cliche of African teams -- talented but technically deficient -- has been upended by Ghana who gave Italy a tough game and completely outclassed the supposed exemplars of the eastern European technical style, the Czechs. Playing their club football in England for Liverpool seems to have had no effect on Spain for Xabi Alonso and Luis Garcia -- contrary to Dr. K's theory -- who had plenty to contribute to Spain's demolition of Ukraine last week.

Last but not least: instead of asserting some claim about belated proof for the efficacy of the Atkins diet, as someone surely will, for Argentina's dazzling futbol collectivo, how about just using the explanation of a good manager and a superbly talented and enthusiastic set of players?

World Cup one liner

It crossed the line.

[yes, we're repeating ourselves]

World Cup one liner

The Thug of the Tournament award has been clinched already: Daniele de Rossi -- and (stretching the one liner a bit), the referee (Jorge Larrionda) follows up with his own bid for worst referee of the tournament.

World Cup one liner

Actually, a question: Why, exactly, are the Czech fans whistling when Ghana have the ball?

Mortally offended

It's not clear what motive former Fianna Fail minister Maire Geoghegan-Quinn has for drawing attention to an article in Le Monde that no-one in Ireland would have seen otherwise. It's their overview of Charlie Haughey's life and near the end it says:

Citant Othello dans son discours d'adieu, "Charlie" affirme "avoir rendu quelque service à l'Etat". Mais le dernier hommage pourrait revenir à Moira Geoghegan-Quinn, ancien ministre de son cabinet, qui décrit ainsi celui qu'elle appelait "Sweetie" : "C'était un personnage entouré d'intrigues, de mystères et d'argent, mais protégé par son populisme, son intelligence et son sens opportun du bon mot."

The "Sweetie" appellation indicating that they mixed her up with Terry Keane, and thus in her view, carrying the implication that she was his mistress; it's possible that an earlier version of the text was more direct about this. Anyway, she claims to already be in touch with lawyers who perhaps will advise her that French libel law is not the jackpot that Irish libel law can be -- or indeed that her current sinecure with the European Union is. If she persists, one might wonder whether she likes the story being out there.

World Cup one liner

We'll give it to Ian Wright on the BBC: "If Brazil scored that goal they'd be saying it was the best ever."

World Cup blogging related quiz

What's wrong with this sequence from Goal Post, The New Republic's special purpose World Cup blog?

The Suez Canal conflict of 1963 was Great Britain’s last attempt to bring back the Empire by trying to forge a stronghold in the Arab countries. However as the history books show, the Brits were humiliated and sent packing (as where the French) ... And this helped usher in a new era of football violence. The massive celebrations that took place after England won the World Cup three years later in 1966 was not, as the papers suggested, a celebration of the beautiful game. It was the emasculated male population expressing a sense of relief that victory was once again

UPDATE: He finally got the word that Suez was in 1956.