Such is the nature of man,

that for your first gift – he prostrates himself;

for your second – kisses your hand;

for the third – fawns;

for the fourth – just nods his head once;

for the fifth – becomes too familiar;

for the sixth – insults you;

and for the seventh – sues you because he was not given enough.

G.I. Gurdjieff, “Life is only real, than, when ‘I am’”

An interesting look at refereeing at this World Cup.

World Cup saga: Crime and punishment – International Herald Tribune

[#M_Expand Extract Inpost|Close|

By Rob Hughes

Published: June 28, 2006

BERLIN This World Cup, like others, started with the rulers resolving to protect quality players and rid the game of thugs, cheats and protesters.

Since appealing to the better nature of players and coaches is like getting turkeys to vote for Christmas, it was agreed that the referees would impose fair play.

It started well. The arbiters kept up with the players, who discovered there would be no leeway for brutish fouls and nothing less than a yellow or red card for haranguing the referee. But as the games went by, the standards dropped. Have referees simply become bad, or rotten? Are they making mistakes, or is it corrupt? In every sense, the heat is on the men in the middle.

There was an elementary error by Graham Poll, England's top ref, who showed the same Croatian defender three yellow cards. (Two result in a red card and expulsion from the match.) Valentin Ivanov, a Russian, broke all the records by giving 16 yellow and four red cards in the Netherlands-Portugal brawl. Something smelled foul in the 93rd-minute penalty given to Italy in its match with Australia by Luis Medina Cantalejo, a Spanish referee. Poll and Ivanov were dropped from the tournament Wednesday; Cantalejo was given one of the quarterfinal matches.

Most referees started off zealously against the violent use of elbows, the tackle from behind, the clowns who dive to try to gain a penalty or get a fellow professional sent off. But as they wilted under the sun, they lost that sharpness. If a ref runs 13 kilometers, or eight miles, in a game, and if he's made to do that several times a week in this climate, surely his mind is impaired. Who is to blame for that?

FIFA - that's who deserves a red card. By selecting 23 instead of 32 referees this time around, and by teaming refs with two linemen from the same country or who at least speak the same language, FIFA hoped to improve the communication. There was evidence of it working. But two referees had dropped out - an Italian because of the match-fixing investigation in the country's top league, and a Caribbean because his fitness did not satisfy FIFA.

A week before the kickoff, I asked a top official if having just 21 referees was not alarmingly few, especially given that FIFA threatens to send home any arbiter whose performance falls blow requirements.

"No," he said, "we're paying these guys plenty and we intend to work them hard."

The officials are being paid $40,000. In cool conditions, fair enough. In 27 degrees Celsius, or 80 degrees Fahrenheit, and 60 percent humidity, not so good. Unlike the players, many of these referees have day jobs - electrical engineer, school teacher, salesman, tax collector, maritime officer. Players could be rested by team managers. Referees tried to plod on, under dire warning that FIFA would humiliate them or fire them if their performance fell below par.

_M#]

Link to full article.

Still on the World Cup, get a load of this clown:

BEIJING – The “hysterical” ranting of China’s most popular soccer commentator on live television during the broadcast of a World Cup match this week has sparked an outpouring of emotion in a nation where strongly felt opinions usually are sublimated.

Popular soccer commentator Huang Jianxiang lost his cool during a match between Italy and Australia, shouting himself hoarse in an outburst seen by millions of people.

“Italy is victorious! Long live Italy! . . . Great Italy!” Huang shrieked during the match broadcast by state-run China Central Television early Tuesday morning as Italy won the game on a dramatic penalty kick. “I don’t like the Australian team,” he shouted, adding with glee that it “should go home.”

..

Huang described the Australian team as “full of naturalized Australians who play and live in Britain. I don’t want to see Australia have good results in the World Cup.”

I think someone is a little worried about Australia playing in the Asian Cup next year, and from there onward. Someone whose team came second at the last Asian Cup. Someone who sees a whole new world of football pain just around the corner. See ya in 2007.

UPDATE: The rant has now been released as a ringtone, Reuters reports.

The full version went like this:

“Goooooal! Game over! Italy win!. Beat the Australians! … Italy the great! … Happy birthday to Maldini! Forza Italia!”

“The victory belongs to Italy, to Grosso, to Cannavaro, to Zambrotta, to Buffon, to Maldini, to everyone who loves Italian soccer!… (Australia) should go home. They don’t need to go as far away as Australia as most of them are living in Europe. Farewell!”

I didn’t realise crack was such a big problem in China.

Still on the Guardian, just a week ago they informed us about a poll that shows “Muslims in Britain are the most anti-western in Europe”:

.. the poll found that British Muslims represented a “notable exception” in Europe, with far more negative views of westerners than Islamic minorities elsewhere on the continent. A significant majority viewed western populations as selfish, arrogant, greedy and immoral. Just over half said westerners were violent. While the overwhelming majority of European Muslims said westerners were respectful of women, fewer than half British Muslims agreed. Another startling result found that only 32% of Muslims in Britain had a favourable opinion of Jews, compared with 71% of French Muslims.

What could possibly explain these “startling results”? Ironically The Guardian offers a couple of answers today.

An academic who tells us that British Colonialism is “a tale of slavery, plunder, war, corruption, land-grabbing, famines, exploitation, indentured labour, impoverishment, massacres, genocide and forced resettlement”.

And a musician who “equates Osama bin Laden with Che Guevara”. We are of course to assume that being compared to Che Guevara is a good thing.

People in Britain are anti-western? Who would have thought! Here’s a bold prediction for another poll that compares readers of different newspapers, instead of citizens of different countries: People who read The Guardian are more anti-western than readers of other papers. A shocking conclusion, I know.

The Guardian today ponders the concerns and dillemmas of the “sole Jewish MP in Iran’s 290-member Majlis (parliament)”, Maurice Motamed (a popular Jewish name, usually shortened from Motamedstein). Mr Motamed represents Iran’s 25000 Jews, who are guaranteed a seat in the Majlis by the Iranian constitution, along with the Armenians, Zoroastrians and Assyrians.

One of Mr Motamed’s concerns is the welfare of oppressed Jewish minorities in Europe.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Best Of 1990’s European MMA

Download | Link

Duration: 12:34

Created: Thu, 24 Nov 2005

Producer: infinitemma.com

Australia Vs Italy: 0-1

Awesome spirit from the Soccerroos, fantastic defence from the the Azzurri. One bad ref decision against the Italians, one against the Aussies. On the day luck was not on our side. But the Socceroos gave it everything and then some. Well done.

Football has just gotten a lot of new fans, and this truely is the beginning of world class football in Australia. There is a feeling hanging around that glory was snatched out of our hands and Australia was left with a hangover of an unsatisfied hunger for victory. So where to now? Well, now it is on to winning the Asian Cup next year. I’ll make the bold prediction that we have that one in the bag. The Asian Cup will be held in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam (first time several nations are sharing in the hosting) and this will actually be the first time Australia will play in this tournament, after joining the Asian Football Confederation on January 1, 2006.

The final qualifying round is under way and we’re playing in group D with Kuwait, Lebanon and Bahrain. We have to play each of the teams in our group once at home and once away. So far we have won the away game against Bahrain (played on 22 February this year), 3-1. We have the following games coming up:

• 16 August 2006: Australia – Kuwait, Aussie Stadium, Sydney, Australia
• 1 September 2006: Australia – Lebanon, Adelaide Oval, Adelaide, Australia
• 6 September 2006: Kuwait – Australia, National Stadium, Kuwait City, Kuwait
• 11 October 2006: Australia – Bahrain, Aussie Stadium, Sydney, Australia
• 15 November 2006: Lebanon – Australia, Beirut Municipal Stadium, Beirut, Lebanon

Quick look at the teams we’re playing in this round:

Bahrain are ranked 54th in the world and came 4th in the last Asian Cup in 2004.

Kuwait won the Asian Cup once in 1980 and are ranked 74th in the World.

Lebanon has never qualified for the World Cup, and only once qualified for the Asian Cup, in 2000 and are ranked 122nd in the world.

The strongest teams in the Asian Cup are Japan (18th in world), who won the last two, Iran (23rd), South Korea (29th), Saudi Arabia (34th), all of whom just played in the World Cup without making it through to the final 16.

So onward and upward Australia! Asian Cup 2007. This truely is just the beginning.

For more World Cup coverage see the links in this previous post.

Read the rest of this entry »

Black swans in Centennial Park. The photos were taken with a phone camera.

Read the rest of this entry »

..and this time they are talking about the World Cup.

“The idea that these Australians could eliminate us from the World Cup seems a joke,” La Repubblica newspaper told readers yesterday on the news that Italy would face the Socceroos in the World Cup round of 16 match in Germany.

“Here’s some advice: for Australians, sport is a calling, practised en masse,” the paper said. “They have as many sporting fields as we have churches.

“They are born athletes who get better as they grow. They can excel in any discipline; all they need is someone who can teach them how to play. And in soccer, Guus Hiddink is that man.”

Hiddink, the celebrated Dutch trainer who is coaching the Socceroos, is renowned in Italy as “The Beast” – a reputation earned after coaching South Korea’s team, which knocked Italy out of the World Cup at the same stage in 2002.

Thats right. You should be scared.

UPDATE: Australians may be supermen in an unholy alliance with The Beast.. but the word has gotten out that the Italians have a few evolutionary advantages up their umm.. pantleg to boast about also.

Centre-back Alessandro Nesta – the linchpin of the team’s much-vaunted defence - injured a groin in Italy’s 2-0 win over the Czech Republic on Friday (AEST). Team doctor Enrico Castellacci said Nesta would not play against the Socceroos, with Italian radio reports also confirming Nesta was out of the game.

Surely he can spare one to injury, the rest of us only have one to start with, damn it.

Very clever PsyOps, Italy. But we ain’t falling for it.

UPDATE 2: This is starting to get a little creepy, but the love just keeps flooding in. Send a few cases to the Italian football team, Nicole. They’re gonna be needing it.

Charles Krauthammer is an Aussie fan.

And he’s not talking about the World Cup either.

I’ve got a bit of a post backlog happening at the moment, as I’ve been too busy with getting the site up and running to actually do much posting. I’m going to drag up a few things from the post queue that you probably read about a week ago, but I’m going to throw up here anyway, for posterity.

First up, a report from The Times, from June 11th, that caused a bit of a stir over some statements made by the British Rear Admiral Chris Parry at a conference the previous week, with the ever catchy title “Network Centric Warfare Europe 2006: Implementing networked operations to deliver enhanced information superiority and rapid synchronised effect in the joint battlespace”. The conference had representatives from the militaries of various countries in the EU, EU’s neighbours, the US, as well as representatives from NATO and Australia, described as “an unparalleled speaker panel of over 40 Military Transformation Leaders”. Transformers, for short. I think.

The Rear Admiral who caused all the controversy is the Director General of UK’s Joint Doctrine & Concepts Centre and was described by the Times as “the armed forces’ chief ‘blue skies’ thinker.”

Now, excuse my ignorance, but I had to look up the term “blue skies thinker”, so I may as well share. Seems to be a term popular over in the UK, and according to Lord Macdonald of Tradeston (someone in the UK Parliament, apparently) “”Blue-skies thinking” is a term often used for strategic thinking which starts from first principles, takes an independent approach, and results in new ideas.”

Anyway, I found all that terribly impressive, but the papers didn’t give any of these details, simply referring to it as a “conference”, which could mean just about anything. YearlyKos was called a conference too, in some circles.

Here are some extracts from the article, and then the juicy part – a rundown of the responses from around the known universe.

Beware: the new goths are coming

by Peter Almond

ONE of Britain’s most senior military strategists has warned that western civilisation faces a threat on a par with the barbarian invasions that destroyed the Roman empire.

In an apocalyptic vision of security dangers, Rear Admiral Chris Parry said future migrations would be comparable to the Goths and Vandals while north African “barbary” pirates could be attacking yachts and beaches in the Mediterranean within 10 years.

Europe, including Britain, could be undermined by large immigrant groups with little allegiance to their host countries – a “reverse colonisation” as Parry described it. These groups would stay connected to their homelands by the internet and cheap flights. The idea of assimilation was becoming redundant, he said.

Read the rest of this entry »