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1. The Dutch are in phenomenal form. Van der Sar is strong in goal, their midfield is dominant and their strikers are finishing with clinical efficiency. The defense is the weak point, but with the midfield controlling the ball and Van der Sar backing them up, they may prove sufficient. Robben was the only Dutch player who looked good in the World Cup; he’s maintained his high level of play and those around him have raised theirs. Van Persie is playing very well in a substitute’s role, which should come as no surprise to anyone who’s seen him play with Arsenal over the last few years.

2. My suspicions of the French, particularly their strikers, were correct. Riberry is the only effective French player, but he’s a ball-controlling midfielder with the typical midfielder’s inability to finish. Henry can still be occasionally dangerous, but he’s lost both his scorer’s confidence and finishing touch. That silly attempt to lob Van der Sar was a classic “I’m one-on-one and I have no idea what to do” shot.

3. Without both Cannavaro and Maldini in back, Italy’s defense is in disarray. Had Buffon not saved Mutu’s penalty, the Azzurri would be out already. Another thing I really dislike about Toni; he’s always offside. No striker worth his salt should ever be caught offsides more than once per game, it’s really bad because it kills an attack dead on the spot and it’s simply not necessary.

4. Nevertheless, Italy should still make it through to the next stage, since a tie or a win against France will almost surely be enough to do it. Romania plays hard, but I don’t see them keeping it particularly close against the Dutch.

5. I knew the Dutch were quite amusing when their team is losing, but they’re even funnier when their team is winning. SB was on the phone with the Dutch Girl after every goal; when I called the Plastic Man to congratulate him on the Orange going through, he announced “I am so happy… my whole body is sweating!” I’m still supporting the Azurri, of course, but I wouldn’t mind seeing the Dutch finally claim a big tournament again.

6. Spain and Holland look like the two teams most likely to claim the crown, with Portugal the dark horse.

Isn’t it a bit strange that there still hasn’t been any news released on the result of yesterday’s vote by the Irish people on the European ConstitutionLisbon Treaty? If the result of the referendum had been Yes, I expected there would be triumphal headlines trumpeted all across Europe this morning. Instead there’s… total silence.

So, what happened? Have they hired Mugabe’s vote counters for this one? All I’ve seen so far is some early commentary on turnout being low, which is presumably good for the No vote if history is an accurate guide. Here’s hoping the Irish had the good sense to kill the Imperial Europe dream for the third time in three centuries.

UPDATE – Good news… for now. But, unsurprisingly, the Bonapartistes Nazis Eurofascists aren’t about to quit trying to force the Irish to vote and vote again until they have no right to vote anymore:

Ireland has voted No to the Lisbon Treaty, plunging the European Union into a new crisis. With results coming in from across the country, a final result of 52 per cent against and 48 per cent in favour of the treaty was rapidly hardening. A final declaration is not expected until after 4 pm…. The senior figure admitted that in spite of Brian Cowen’s assurance on the eve of voting that a rerun – as happened after the Irish rejected the Nice treaty in 2001 – would not occur, it was now much more likely.

It’s also outrageous how the media is complaining about 3 million voters deciding the fate of nearly 500 million people. They would do much better to point their finger at the political elite that has lied and schemed and plotted to prevent the other 497 million from being permitted the chance to vote on their own fate… and ignored the clear wishes of the French and Dutch voters.

1. I told you that Germany wasn’t as good as advertised. I still can’t figure out how so many people had them as the pre-tournament favorites. Podolski and Schweinsteiger are the only two that I consider to be real quality players; as an Arsenal fan, I know all too well how vulnerable Jens Lehman can be in goal. And Schweinsteiger is out with a red card now. Why do people still consider Ballack to be a great midfielder? I mean, when you think of the Chelsea midfield, do you think Ballack or Lampard? I won’t be at all surprised if Big Phil sells him before the start of the next Premiership season.

2. 47 seconds, 15 passes, and every single Croatian player touched the ball without Germany ever getting in the way. That’s incredible teamplay and it ended in a really nice, aggressive goal by Srna. The whole of the Croatian team is greater than the sum of its parts.

3. Yes, the second Croatian goal was lucky, given how it rebounded off the post right in front of an empty net. But it doesn’t happen if Olic isn’t rushing the goal; if he was just sitting and watching the result of his teammates shot like so many players do, he doesn’t net an easy score.

4. With six points already, Croatia only has to tie Poland in order to clinch the group. That means even if Germany beats Austria, they have to face Portugal in the knockout stage. Deutschland, Deutschland gehe nach hause….

5. I didn’t watch Poland-Austria. It was that or watch my fingernails grow and I figured the latter would be more exciting.

Amazingly, some researchers have concluded that gazing at your own navel and talking endlessly about yourself may not be the best way to learn anything after all.

Schools and universities are producing a generation of “can’t do” students, who are encouraged to talk about their emotions at the expense of exploring ideas or acquiring knowledge, academics claimed yesterday. The strong focus on emotional expression and building up self-esteem in schools and colleges was “infantilising” students, leaving them unable to cope with life on their own, according to the authors of a new book, The Dangerous Rise of Therapeutic Education.

Dennis Hayes and Kathryn Ecclestone, of Oxford Brookes University, argue that this “therapeutic” approach to education is at odds with the acquisition of knowledge because it views the emotional skills associated with learning as more important than subject content or criticism. “Turning teaching into therapy is destroying the minds of children, young people and adults,” Dr Hayes told Times Higher Education. “Therapeutic education promotes the idea that we are emotional, vulnerable and hapless individuals. It is an attack on human potential.”

That rigorous academic field of women’s studies, on the other hand, is expected to yield some amazing benefits to the advancement of human knowledge, science, and technology any day now. It will be interesting to see how feminists of the 22nd century attempt to explain away the complete lack of women’s academic contributions to the human race in the 20th and 21st centuries now that they have become the majority of college graduates.

There are, however, a few signs of hope on the horizon:

One of Britain’s leading universities is to introduce an entrance exam for all students applying to study there from 2010 because it believes that A levels no longer provide it with a viable way to select the best students.

Curt Schilling, who knows just a bit about success in sports, observes Kobe in the wild:

From the first tip until about 4 minutes left in the game I saw and heard this guy bitch at his teammates. Every TO he came to the bench pissed, and a few of them he went to other guys and yelled about something they weren’t doing, or something they did wrong. No dialog about “hey let’s go, let’s get after it” or whatever. He spent the better part of 3.5 quarters pissed off and ranting at the non-execution or lack of, of his team. Then when they made what almost was a historic run in the 4th, during a TO, he got down on the floor and basically said ‘Let’s f’ing go, right now, right here” or something to that affect. I am not making this observation in a good or bad way, I have no idea how the guys in the NBA play or do things like this, but I thought it was a fascinating bit of insight for me to watch someone in another sport who is in the position of a team leader and how he interacted with his team and teammates. Watching the other 11 guys, every time out it was high fives and “Hey nice work, let’s get after it” or something to that affect. He walked off the floor, obligatory skin contact on the high five, and sat on the bench stone faced or pissed off, the whole game. Just weird to see another sport and how it all works. I would assume that’s his style and how he plays and what works for him because when I saw the leader board for scoring in the post season his name sat up top at 31+ a game, can’t argue with that. But as a fan I was watching the whole thing, Kobe, his teammates and then the after effects of conversations. He’d yell at someone, make a point, or send a message, turn and walk away, and more than once the person on the other end would roll eyes or give a ‘whatever dude’ look.

There’s no question that Kobe is a great basketball talent, quite possibly one of the ten greatest of all time. But man, something really appears to have screwed him up at some point in his development. It’s a pity that he never had the opportunity to play with a coach or an older player who was capable of kicking his ass and driving the concept of a team sport into his head.

1. The Swiss blew it. There’s no two ways about it, they had the game in hand and they just simply choked. Hassan Yakin’s error was the sort of thing I yell at my kids about; when the ball is coming across from the right at any angle greater than 45 degrees, you must use your left foot. I have the worst left foot on my team, but I score more reliably in that position than my far superior teammates because it’s simply a question of angles and redirection, not shooting technique. And failing to score on a 4-1 break is inexcusable at that level, you could see that they were hesitant despite the three-man advantage. But the biggest mistake was the manager’s decision to put Benaglio in goal over Zuberbuehler, who kept a clean sheet in four World Cup games. Benaglio has hesitant hands and I have no doubt whatsoever that Zubi would have saved that first Turkish goal.

2. It took Portugal a while, but they finally put it together to finish off the Czechs without too much trouble. The Czechs played reasonably well, but they simply couldn’t deal with the speed and firepower of the Portuguese midfield. Cristiano Ronaldo may be an annoying and arrogant cheeseball, but he really is as good as advertised. The Czech’s should make it through to the next stage, though, as I’d be surprised if they didn’t beat Turkey without too much trouble.

3. “What are your thoughts on Luca Toni? I read an article by an Azzurri partisan who thinks Toni is substantially overrated. This guy claimed that it’s well known that the defenses in the Bundesliga are significantly worse than those in the EPL, Serie A, and La Liga, and this fact played a major role in Toni’s huge season for Bayern Munich this past year.”

I have never thought Toni was particularly effective despite the fact that he has scored goals at an incredible rate at Palermo, Fiorentina, and now Bayern. He reminds me of a talented Irish player with whom I once played in the United States. I averaged about a goal per game, distributed pretty evenly regardless of whom we played. He averaged two goals per game, but he would always score three or four against the bad teams and never scored against any of the good teams. Toni is a big, physical striker and I think he is extraordinarily effective when he can simply overpower lesser defenders. But since that’s not possible at the highest level of international play, he’s of arguably less utility than a player like Inzaghi, Di Natale or Del Piero. For example, Inzaghi’s career scoring rate since 2001 is .43 in Serie A and .43 in international play. Since 2003, Toni’s is .68 in league play and .43 in international play, but his 15 goals have come in a hat trick against Belarus and in games against lesser teams such as Ukraine, Scotland and the Faroe Islands.

Rich demonstrates the essential humorlessness of so many atheists:

“Vox Dei, as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science.”
—CHARLES DARWIN, “Organs of Extreme Perfection and Complication”

This is a quotemine. It distorts the meaning of the original and is intellectually dishonest…. In the great Christian tradition, Vox starts his book with a lie. I saw no point continuing.

It’s not exactly a mystery why no one likes Dawkinsian atheists or they are so much less likely to marry and stay married. They’re so completely materialistic and socially autistic that they see everything through a purely literal lens. As I’ve said before, they’re the sort of men who will answer a woman asking “do I look fat?” by saying “yes, I think you need to lose ten pounds; that dress makes your butt look monstrous.” This social autism is highlighted by the observable fact that they’re completely mystified why even women without religious faith dislike them; they’re somewhat like engineers, if engineers were given to rabidly attacking everyone they meet.

Literally thousands of readers understood that this abridged quote from Charles Darwin – which also appeared in abbreviated version in Christopher Hitchens’s book – was a humorous and sarcastic means of referring to the way in which my supposed hatred for science somehow renders me sans credibility. It had nothing else to do with the chapter; it was merely a joke. Kelly of the Rational Response Squad, for example, clearly understood this. Indeed, she found the book’s sense of humor to be a little alarming even though it has nothing to do with the strength or weakness of the arguments contained therein because she understood the appeal of the approach.

I imagine it must be difficult to tell a joke when Rick is within earshot:

“So a rabbi, a priest, and an atheist walk into a bar-“

“Did they? How do you know that?”

“What?”

“When did they walk into the bar? What was the bar’s name? How do you know, did you actually see them or is this just hearsay? Were there any witnesses – not that eyewitness evidence means anything – but who saw them? And even if they did see three men walking in, how could they know the priest was actually ordained properly? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence!”

“Um….”

“What’s the point of beginning a story with a lie? It’s intellectually dishonest and distorts the meaning of the events being incorrectly described! I see no point in continuing!”

(Rich angrily storms off in search of his next victim. The joke-teller rolls his eyes, the two women who were listening to the joke when Rich interrupted watch him go with the same sense of frozen horror that causes commuters to stare at car wrecks, and they shiver with momentary disgust.)

“So, anyway, a rabbi, a priest, and an atheist walk into a bar….”

The reality is that Rich was looking for an excuse, any excuse, that would allow him to avoid reading something that systematically destroyed several of the foundations of his lack of religious faith. If he hadn’t found one in the chapter heading of the book’s first chapter, he would have simply manufactured another. This is typical atheist behavior, claiming to be unable to find that which they are resolutely avoiding.

In fact, given Rich’s rationale, he could have as reasonably abandoned ship with the beginning of the Preface. The quote from Tupac Shakur is even more severely abridged and is an even more blatant “lie”, considering that the book does not, in fact, contain a gangster party.

I had planned to deal with this guy’s chapter-by-chapter approach once Kelly got through with hers. But, since he’s repeatedly demonstrated a near complete inability to make a coherent rebuttal to anything I’ve written, it’s somewhat of a relief to know that I don’t have to bother:

As you may have heard, Vox challenged atheist blogger PZ Myers to an on-air debate on the subject of the evidence for God, in conjunction with the “Northern Alliance Radio Show.” PZ replied “Thanks but no thanks” (well, actually, he said “I don’t debate crazy pipsqueaks any more”), and Vox predictably pounced on this as proof that PZ was “afraid” to debate. Now, personally I don’t believe fear had anything to do with PZ’s response. Vox Day is to reasonable discourse what a fart is to a flower shop, and it’s no shame for PZ to turn down the “opportunity” to lend him any more time in the spotlight than he deserves.

It’s very typical of this double-digit champion of reason that he not only didn’t grasp the nature of the proposed subject matter, but actually thinks that PZ’s “counter-proposal” to post an argument on my blog is somehow a reasonable substitute for a form of discourse that would force PZ to put his reputation, such as it is, on the line. Gee, I can post to my own blog? Really? Brilliant! I’d never thought of that! But, since the clueless wonder declares that I’m incapable of reasonable discourse, there’s obviously no reason to bother with him anymore. John Derbyshire is one of the many atheists I know who feels otherwise, and I’d much rather engage in metaphorical fisticuffs with the good Derb anyhow.

As for PZ, if he wishes to host a debate about the existence of gods on his blog, I’ll be there. If he wants me to host a debate with him on the same topic here, then we can do that. But I’m not about to permit him to play hide-and-snipe, where he only speaks up if he thinks he’s got something and feigns lofty ignorance when he doesn’t. Unsurprisingly, ER doesn’t understand the way in which PZ’s “counter-proposal”, if one can actually call it that, was designed to allow PZ to hide from being intellectually exposed. Considering how many times people have made fools of themselves by making baseless assumptions about my refusal to perform like a trained seal on their schedule, you’d think my critics would have learned by now that my refusal to show all my cards on demand has never, ever been an indication that I’ve got nothing.

The angry atheists can attempt to spin it all they like, but everyone else knows the truth: PZ runned away. Deal with it.

Women don’t understand there’s a very good reason why men are “boring”:

Recently, at a friend’s 40th birthday dinner, I sat between an advertising executive who expounded on his son’s musical talent and academic promise, and a commercial lawyer who was keen to drum home the possessive in the phrase “my team”. By pudding, I wanted to push back my chair and introduce them. “John, meet Josh. You’ve a lot in common. He’s an insufferable bore as well.” In the car afterwards, I asked my partner – who, as usual, had been a mainly silent presence – how his evening had been. Did he answer? It was blood from a stone if he did.

I find it very, very amusing when women complain about men being boring. Nine times out of ten, perhaps ninety-nine times out of a hundred, this says more about the woman’s inability to amuse herself or be interesting than it does about the men of whom she’s complaining. Women don’t seem to understand that the boredom goes both ways more often than not, and that frequently the reason the guy has nothing to say to you because he knows that you’re no more interested in his interests than he is in yours. My Dad is not the funniest guy in the world, but he had me in hysterics one evening when he and my mother arrived home from a big charity ball and I asked him how it had been.

“I was sitting between [chatty woman X] and [chatty woman Y]. Now I know what Hell is like.”

Women are interested in gossip and relationships. They’ll unhesitatingly launch into long and involved minutae about people you’ve never met, heard of, or care about within five minutes of meeting you. Men are interested in ideas and accomplishments. They’ll furiously lecture you about something you’ve never heard of, thought about, or care about before they’ve even told you their name. These are general statements, to be sure, but they hold true a lot more often than they don’t. If you want to be a good conversationalist with the opposite sex, then you need to be able to ask questions about things that normally hold zero interest for you. If you’re a really good male conversationalist, three-quarters of the women of your acquaintance should have no idea what you do for a living or what more than one or two of your primary interests are. If you’re a really good female conversationalist, three-quarters of the men of your acquaintance should have no idea what any of your siblings or relatives are called.

(Actually, they don’t anyhow, but only because they haven’t heard a word you said. The point is that they shouldn’t have had to ignore your pointless genealogy in the first place.)

So, women, if you find yourself being ever so charming and delightful to a boring guy who doesn’t have much to say to you, keep in mind that there’s a very good chance he’s thinking “Won’t this idiot airhead ever shut up about her sister’s cousin’s niece’s grandson? Sweet Natural Selection, take me now!”

The reason guys used to be charming is because they wanted something from you. They were flirting with you and motivated to entertain you. A married man or guy who is uninterested for any other reason isn’t going to bother; if you’re not going to meet him halfway, then why shouldn’t he abandon you to your own devices?

The Sports Guy’s long-held theory about the league’s meddling in the NBA Playoffs are supported by Tim Donaghy’s testimony:

NBA referees, influenced by cozy relationships with league officials, rigged a 2002 playoff series to force it to a revenue-boosting seven games, a former referee at the center of a gambling scandal alleged on Tuesday. Without identifying anyone or naming teams, Tim Donaghy also claimed the NBA routinely encouraged refs to ring up bogus fouls to manipulate results but discouraged them from calling technical fouls on star players to keep them in games and protect ticket sales and television ratings.

I don’t think this comes as any surprise, given how Simmons was often able to predict which referees the NBA would assign to critical games depending upon who they wanted to win. It’s rather like point-shaving; all that’s necessary is to tilt the scale a little bit. It’s not likely to be an accident when you can accurately predict which team is going to be getting the major benefit of the calls before the game even tips off.

Notice the non-denial by the NBA official where he talks about Donaghy being the only one who committed criminal activity. But that’s not what’s being alleged, there’s nothing criminal about the league arranging the game results to its liking.

UPDATE – The Sports Guy comments on Game 3:

The Lakers took care of business at home in a must-win situation, which was something any quality team would do. Bennett Salvatore and Joey Crawford were about as impartial as Aaron Spelling when “90210” was casting the Donna Martin character in 1990, which was what you’d expect from “reliable” referees.