US defeats Spain in the Confederations Cup, 2-0.

Story on the geopolitical angle from Foreign Policy today. And it’s better than any story you’re likely to find in a major newspaper, too.

What’s Chinese for cultural destruction?
Over the next few years, [Kashgar] city officials say, they will demolish at least 85 percent of [the city's Old Town, a] warren of picturesque, if run-down homes and shops. Many of its 13,000 families, Muslims from a Turkic ethnic group called the Uighurs (pronounced WEE-gurs), will be moved.

For a small break from Brussels and the economic crisis:
Nothing fades so quickly or so tackily as a Soviet resort.
One of the lighter observations (on p. 139) from The Spirit-Wrestlers by Philip Marsden, a journey across southern Russia and the Caucasus in search of various religious non-conformists who fell afoul of both Russian and Soviet [...]

He should have turned 80 last week.

On the other hand, he came within a sneeze of dying after being stabbed in 1961, and he achieved a thing or two in those seven years.

The doctrine of double effect has bugged me for some time. It probably doesn’t help that double effect is usually tagged as Catholic, and in that connection we have Blair’s Catholicism … and Iraq … and the self-exculpatory speechifying, and now the middle east peace envoy business. Double effect: it’s all mixed up in there [...]

It is good to know that in these times of economic crisis our spiritual leaders care for our well-being. From the International Herald Tribune:
Pope Benedict said Monday that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour was just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction.
Too bad the article does not elaborate on just how pope [...]

In America, “I’ll take my lane in the middle” is a figure of speech. In Georgia, it’s a way of life.
That is all.

Osama bin Laden is still at large.
If you haven’t read 110 Stories, you should.
Last year. Edward, in 2004.

Any other recent world champions Holland can take apart?
Also, short of beating the Dutch, is there any way that Romania can advance? That would be kinda neat.