Germany has been a soccer superpower just like Brazil and Argentina. I have been taking Germany seriously. This morning Germany made England look like it were North Korea.
France, Italy, England: three former soccer heavyweight countries are by the wayside now.
You got to watch Ozil. That dude can give one killer pass and tilt the game. Ask England.
Argentina had a field day today against Mexico. I was hoping for a 3-0 victory, but that was not to be.
I went ahead and bought myself a soccer ball afterwards, and went to a park nearby. I was able to touch the ball 38 times before it hit the ground. I guess I am in decent soccer shape.
Brazil's defense is like a castle, Argentina's like a whip.
When Messi dribbles it is like the entire field is mud. The ball is stuck until he commands it to move. And he likes to give short, quick commands.
Now Argentina meets Germany next. I am just a little nervous. I want Argentina to win, but I know the German team is in decent shape. I think it will be a close call, but Argentina will prevail. It will squeak by to meet Portugal in the semi-finals.
The scenario I am seeing is one where my two favorite teams - Brazil and Argentina - meet in the finals. It will be hard to pick the one to root for, but Diego might win me over. I might end up rooting for Argentina.
This post totally speaks to me. I think of the number 1.25 billion out of 6.7 billion people online the way Fred perhaps thinks about web services, his domain expertise. As someone who grew up in the Global South, I think of Internet Access - Internet as in broadband with full size keyboard - as the voting right for this century. This is the Internet Century.
When I started reading this post, I was thinking of Brad's post (that I read when it came out) before I had finished the first sentence.
The Al Qaeda is not a state, it is not even an organization any more. The Al Qaeda embodies two big trends - the Internet and Globalization - the way not even Kiva does. Bush went after Saddam instead of Bin Laden because, well, if the medicine I have is for cough (the nation state as an enemy), I am going after cough viruses, the facts be damned, don't tell me the diagnosis is for AIDS.
Fred and I might not be the best people to talk of security issues, but there are plenty of cyber security issues. Maybe that is worth a post. For all its promises, the Internet is just the newest platform for the age old fight between good and evil.
On the War On Terror, I do have very clear thoughts, unlike Fred. One, it is the same scale as the Cold War. Two, it will only conclude once all Arab countries have been turned into democracies. Three, there's the swamp part, and there is the mosquitoes part. I am not going to argue let the mosquitoes be, but I think draining the swamp is the real battle. The best way to introduce democracy to a country is the way we did it in Nepal in April 2006, through a mass movement. People who are not worried the mullahs in Iran might get pissed off if you impose sanctions talk like they are worried the mullahs might get pissed off if they give total support to the protesters in Iran. Beats me.
This tussle also reminds me of the capitalism-communism tussle, and you have to go all the way back to Lenin. When that dude did his 1917 thing, America had not seen FDR yet. FDR had to reinvent both democracy and capitalism to prepare the country for a fight with communism. A pre-FDR America could not have beat communism. Some synthesis happened.
Similarly the War On Terror will conclude through two types of transformations. One, all Arab countries end up being democracies. Two, America ends up a non-racist country. I know that is a loaded term for many people, but I am using it on purpose. A country where calling someone - Obama - a Muslim is passed on as calling him a name like happened in 2008 is still a racist country. If four Muslim young men in New Jersey were to talk violence in the privacy of their apartment, they are a cell, and will be thoroughly dealt with, but the Republican nominee competing against Harry Reid in Nevada is openly calling for violence, and I don't see law enforcement people getting excited about that. Is that a double standard or is that a double standard?
She has a permit to carry a concealed .44 Magnum and brags about bringing it to campaign events. But her passion also leads her to make troublesome statements: "The nation is arming," she said last month. "What are they arming for if it isn't that they are so distrustful of their government? They're afraid they'll have to fight for their liberty in more Second Amendment kinds of ways. That's why I look at this as almost an imperative. If we don't win at the ballot box, what will be the next step?"
I have lost count of how many times I have been subjected to a dirty look or an outright dirty Q&A by some law enforcement officer this past decade, and I am not even Arab. The day 9/11 happened, I was in a small town in Kentucky. The locals called the cops on ME!
Timothy McVeigh was a motherfucker before he was a terrorist. That makes you a motherfucker. That is the angle I like to come from. So much for racial profiling.
America had its 9/11, India had its 11/9. But that 11/9 would be 9/11 because in India they put the number for the month second. The Islamists' tussle is with democracy itself, and India is the biggest pot.
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