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It wasn’t a bad game, even if it did end up at penalties, as far too many second-stage games are prone to do. The Italians were better in the first half, the French in the second, as Lippi had an unexpectedly bad game as a manager. Why the Italians didn’t keep Grosso and Camoranesi bombing down the sidelines to win corners once the French revealed their weakness on set pieces I’ll never know.

The French goal was given on a weak penalty, but it was fair punishment for a stupid move by the defender. Yes, it was a dive, but you have to know that if you clip a defender from behind like that, he’s going to go down and the ref is going to give a penalty. I also thought that Toni was onside on the disallowed goal… regardless, there should be no offsides calls on set pieces, it’s a senseless rule.

Zidane’s sending off was the hallmark of a rather weird final. Strangely enough, Domenech was right and the French captain should not have been sent off despite the obvious illegality of his action because it was the fourth official making the call off video review; while this will likely be the catalyst for a positive rule change, there’s no question that it was against the rules in force last night.

But for all its lamentable taint on the end of a great career, the sending off changed nothing. France was not going to score in the last eight minutes of extra time and Trezeguet was going to take a penalty whether Zidane was in or not. The Azzurri were the better team last night, they were one of the better teams throughout the tournament and they well deserve to return to the chaos that is now the world of Italian calcio as reigning world champions.

Well-connected public figures report that they have been told recently by Rudolph Giuliani that, as of now, he intends to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008.

The former mayor of New York was on top of last month’s national Gallup poll measuring presidential preferences by registered Republicans, with 29 percent. Sen. John McCain’s 24 percent was second, with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich third at 8 percent. National polls all year have shown Giuliani running either first or second to McCain, with the rest of the presidential possibilities far behind.

I don’t know how this fits with my notion that Pataki has been seeking anointment, but it would slide rather nicely into securing a sixth consecutive Bush-Clinton term. Nominating an East Coast anti-gun, pro-abortion, pro-homosexual “Republican” – a breed better known in the rest of the country as “Democrats” – is one sure way to inspire conservative rebellion and ensure Hillary’s victory.

It will be interesting to see how the mainstream conservative commentariat will attempt to explain away this sacrificial lamb strategy should it come to pass. Will they go with the usual “secretly conservative at heart” line or the neocons’ preferred “national security uber alles” approach?

That was a rather timely death, wasn’t it? I didn’t know him particularly well, but I did know him well enough that, unlike the media observers at his trial, I wasn’t in the least bit surprised by his behavior. Instead of behaving in the contrite and repentant manner that would be becoming in a man whose foolish, but innocent mistakes cost thousands of individuals their livelihoods and retirement plans – that was his version of the story, of course – he strangely tried to bluster his way out of it. I suspect that up until the verdict was pronounced, he thought his big-name, one-time friends would engineer a graceful exit for him.

I mostly remember him being casually arrogant and a little sarcastic towards those he considered unimportant while openly fawning on those more famous and important than him. For example, I can’t recall him ever addressing me by name, only as “the Flash”, which he seemed to have coined as a vaguely slighting reference to my running track. (Just how it was supposed to be belittling, I never knew.) Lay didn’t strike me as a bad man or a brilliant one, just an ambitious guy of above-average intelligence who understood how the power games were played, who the players were and how to ride their coattails.

From my perspective, I strongly doubt he was the thief or cunning mastermind that some of his critics made him out to be. I think he was mostly a weak man who enjoyed the trappings of power more than the substance itself, who quickly learned to look the other way whenever the bright boys came up with one of their shadier setups.

I could certainly be wrong, but that’s the impression I had of him, anyhow. For what it’s worth, I think the “faked death” scenario is absurd, as I’m pretty sure he was already scraped off the shoes of the power brokers with whom he once hobnobbed, and who presumably would have been the ones to orchestrate such a charade. Some men would neither notice nor care that they’d been kicked out of the inner circle, but Ken Lay’s ambition and pride was such that I imagine it was his belated recognition of that humiliation that killed him in the end.

One wouldn’t think that anything could push the upcoming World Cup final out of the front pages of the newspapers, but it looks as if the not-so-secret American kidnapping program could be the next issue to blow up in the Bush administration’s face. La Repubblica reported today that Marco Mancini, the second highest-ranking official in Sismi, Italy’s military intelligence organization, was arrested yesterday for helping American agents kidnap an imam named Abu Omar in Milano in 2003.

I don’t know much more about it at the moment, but it’s a fairly big deal as it is claimed that Italian law was broken by the director of counterespionage and the head of Sismi’s northern operations in the “rendition” of Omar, presumably at American request. The Bush administration has been outspoken about its supposed right to break American laws outside the United States, but it’s not hard to understand why other governments might take a rather dim view of such cavalier lawlessness occurring on their own turf.

The Italian press is particularly interested in this because it appears that the two arrestees also ordered the wiretapping of two journalists at La Repubblica who were investigating them. Interestingly enough, Mancini has denied kidnapping anyone, but not the wiretapping. (At first I thought that he denied ever raping anyone, which seemed like a rather bizarre defense, until I remembered that “rapinare” is “to hijack” or “to rob”, not “to rape”.)

Perhaps the Italian intelligence agency should take a page from President Bush and announce that they’re only violating the nation’s freedoms in order to defend those freedoms from those who hate them. Seriously, if you’re still falling for that infantile crap, you should be embarrassed.

France looked rather tired tonight, although they were still much better than a very shady Portugeuse team. I counted no less than six yellows that should have been given for “simulation”, as the Portos were going down untouched in the box every time a ball came within eight feet of them. I did enjoy the way in which Ronaldo was roundly booed every time he touched the ball from start to finish, it’s clear that he is the villain of this World Cup.

This will be a repeat of the Euro 2000 final, which France won when Trezeguet scored in extra time. However, I don’t think France can do it a second time because Lippi is a much better manager than Domenech. You could see the difference between the two managers rather clearly by comparing the way in which the Italians continued to push forward and finished off the last two minutes of the extra time with how France sat on a one-goal lead for an entire half. As happened in Korea, they nearly came to grief at the end with an ill-timed combination of blunders; had it not been for a poorly timed offsides run by Pauleta, they would have found themselves in extra time as well.

Domenech’s worst move was substituting Louis Saha for Thierry Henry with five minutes left. Instead of putting in David Trezeguet, a serviceable striker from a little club called Juventus of which you may have heard, he puts in Saha who is already on a yellow! Naturally, being a striker called into defensive duty, Saha commits a stupid foul, picks up a yellow and is out for the final. Brilliant… but good for the Azzurri.

The French do have the experience, but the Italians not only want it more, they need it more considering what they have waiting for them upon their return home. More than half of the national team players may not even be in Serie A next year, so winning the World Cup is the only way they’ll be able to separate themselves from the Moggi scandal and the madness that is calcio today. But then, Zizou and Henry have already shown that it is dangerous to count them out, so it should be an entertaining game regardless of how it ends up.

UPDATE: By the way, I forgot to mention one thing. You may not have noticed it, but Zinedine Zidane demonstrated again why he is one of the coolest men on the planet. After the England game, the Portuguese keeper Ricardo said that he had seen fear in the eyes of the England players before the penalty kicks started. (This was entirely credible, given how the entire English nation was dreading the possibility even before the game started.) Now, understand that a player taking penalties almost never looks at the goalkeeper in order to avoid giving him a clue as to where he’s going to put the ball.

But Zidane, after placing the ball on the spot, took one step back then deliberately looked up and met Ricardo’s eyes. It was as if he asked the question: “Do you see any fear here, my little friend? I don’t think so.” One step, bang, and despite Ricardo making a great move on the ball, it was in the back of the net.

I love Zidane. Not only is he a world champion and the author of the most unconsciously arrogant statement in sporting history, but he constantly demonstrates that all-too-rare mixture of grace, class and skill. Enjoy his last international game on Sunday, in victory or defeat he will long be remembered as one of the great ones.

In which an amusing link is brought to our attention:

Sarah believes one of the emotional flaws of Alpha women is that beneath their corporate armour, they are riddled with low self-esteem, which makes them more vulnerable when the gamma man turns on them.

‘Many successful women have low self-worth which they are always trying to over-compensate for in their career,’ she says. ‘They strive to be successful because deep down they never feel quite good enough, so they are easy to undermine, especially in a domestic situation.

That’s a concise explanation of why Alpha women simply don’t exist. The Alpha Male isn’t Alpha because he’s successful, he’s simply dominant by nature. This may make him successful in some environments or it may create problems that cause him to fail completely in others. Success can certainly be related to social dominance but they are two entirely different concepts that are not necessarily connected.

This story is particularly amusing because of the circuitous manner in which it reveals the obvious – “Alpha” women, like all women, want Alpha males. This demonstrates their fundamental lack of dominance, or else they would not eventually find themselves craving domination and the abdication of responsibility it entails. It is interesting, however, that a few people are beginning to recognize that the friction between high-income women and low-income men is not primarily the insecurity of the men, but rather, the refusal of these Beta women to accept the Gamma males as they are and have always been.

On a tangential note, one silly thing about these social dynamic discussions is that everyone tends to discuss Alpha status as if it is something that can be sought, or even should be sought. (I still remember somebody’s amusing fantasy of the “stealth Alpha”, that’s about as credible as the Alpha Woman.) But fundamentally, social dominance can no more be synthesized than intelligence or musical ability; the military probably does the best job of creating a functional facsimile, but as anyone who has ever hired a military officer knows, that facsimile doesn’t hold up very well outside the environment for which it was developed.

Jonah Goldberg complains about the media poohbahs:

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll has suggested that the Republican attack on the New York Times is a cleverly anti-Semitic campaign because “many members of the president’s base consider ‘New York’ to be a nifty code word for ‘Jewish.’”

Considering how Joel Mowbray and other NROniks like to whine that “neocon” is a nifty code word for “Jewish” and that everyone insufficiently enthusiastic about neoconservative plans to invade and forcibly install democracy in [insert country name here] are therefore anti-Semites, this strikes me as a rather strange point. In fact, I think everyone should feel free to make use of the tactic.

Seeing as the original Patriarchs were all Jewish, it is obvious that “Patriarchy” is a nifty code word for “Jews”, so therefore feminism is nothing but a particularly ugly face of anti-Semitism and all feminists hate Jews. Shame on you, Amanda! For shame, Lauren and Zuzu!

Fred hits the target again:

It is curious. Ancient Rome had little disposable income, and ancient Greece less. Building a Parthenon required great effort, as did the Gothic cathedrals. Yet they were built, and statues carved, and fountains made to play in the downtowns. Emperors built these things to glorify themselves, rich men to impress. Whatever the motive, they were built and adorned their times.

Today, with resources thousands of times greater, with bulldozers, steel, and unlimited money, we build little but square boxes and freeways. Our civilization is become a sprawling eyesore.

What is there to say? Small-hearted, short-sighted people build ugly monuments, or perhaps monuments to ugliness would be a better description. Indeed, the poverty of late 20th century art leads one to wonder if it is even possible for a godless, hedonistic society to produce great art. One has to see the new Guthrie to believe it, in fact, it is all but impossible to view so much as a picture without bursting into derisive laughter.

Italian Football Federation prosecutor Stefano Palazzi requested that champions Juventus should be sent down to Italy’s third division, and that AC Milan, Fiorentina and Lazio all be relegated to Serie B.

I think that’s a bit harsh on Fiorentina, which is struggling to make its way back from bankruptcy, but it won’t matter much for Milan since next year was looking difficult without Sheva anyhow. Gilardino It’s not as if Berlusconi is going to permit them to languish in Serie B for long.

Lazio deserves to be sent down simply for being a bunch of Fascists, and by Fascist I mean the literal Mussolini-style capital-F ideology of Giovanni Gentile Fascism, I’m not using it in the modern American sense of “people I neither like nor understand”.

It’s the thought of seeing Juve play in Serie C that enchants me so. I’ll delightedly go hours out of my way to see the insufferable Torino giants playing on patchy fields surrounded by rickety wooden stands that only hold 5,000 people. It’s just so fitting that their uniforms resemble prisonwear.

Busting these teams down is essentially just a mammoth fine. Neither Qaddafi’s son nor Berlusconi is going to stop playing top salaries, so both teams will be back on top of Serie A in the time it takes to play through the necessary season(s) and get promoted. But it has to be done, and if nothing else, the sting of the humiliation should last for some time.

It was a very entertaining game, although the Germans hung with the Italians rather better than I’d anticipated. No one was looking for another 4-1 walkover as in their last friendly, but I did think Lippi would have the Azzurri looking to shoot early and often as he did against Ukraine. This time, they were looking for too many crosses and tricky little penetrating passes that all too often fail to come together against competent defenders.

But the Italians controlled the wings throughout, except for when Odonkor came on towards the end of regulation, and Gattuso and Pirlo had the better of Ballack in central midfield. I think the loss of Frings hurt the Germans as badly as expected, as Klose and Poloski played well, they just didn’t get enough of the ball.

Fabio Grosso did extremely well in again getting forward at a critical moment late in the game, although he and Zambrotta were constantly pushing forward and preventing Lahm from doing likewise. Pirlo’s discipline on the first goal was fantastic, as he hung on to the ball long enough to occupy four Germans before laying it off to Gross on the right. Jens Lehman did his best but he never had a chance.

I thought Lippi was too conservative on his substitutions, as Toni ran down and should have come off fifteen minutes before he did. I would have brought Del Piero and Inzaghi on rather than Gilardino and Del Piero, but then, I think Gilardino is somewhat overrated and I have far more confidence in Pippo. His shot off the post did beat Lehman, but with such a small margin for error, he should have pulled the ball back to a wide open Totti instead of trying to go nearside.

Cannavaro was the man of the match for me. Except for the one rather iffy foul call towards the end, he was calmly winning every ball and launching immediate counterattacks with smooth passes to the midfield instead of settling for moonball clearances like so many central defenders.

Now, here’s hoping France will keep it together tomorrow and finish off an eminently beatable Portguese squad. France-Italy made for an excellent Euro 2004 final, and while I’ll be pulling for the Azzurri, I wouldn’t shed any tears to see Zizou end his great career as a world champion.

Forza Italia!

UPDATE: And this is why teams have to start taking shots early instead of always looking for the little entry passes: Germany defender Christoph Metzelder claimed Pirlo’s ‘moment of brilliance’ made the difference. ‘Everyone was expecting him to shoot but he just passed,’ Metzelder said. ‘That was a moment of brilliance.

And why were all the Germans expecting Pirlo to shoot? Because the previous two times he had the ball in a similar position, he took the shot. It doesn’t matter what the sport is, to be predictable is to be defendable. It will be interesting to see if either France or Portugal decide to mimic Italy’s more aggressive shooting strategy after their recent success, as neither team has hitherto shown any sign of it.