spain ends 44 year drought; beats germany to take euro 2008 crown

with the king and queen as well as the prime minister of spain looking on, the spanish team beat germany 1:0 to take the trophy for the euro 2008 championship. fernando torres scored the winning goal in the first half. spain never let germany in the game. it was a virtual replay of the spain russia game.

barcelona make 23.5m offer for arshavin

according to the l.a. times which is quoting the spanish media, the football team, barcelona, has made an offer to zenit st. petersburg for russia’s andrei arshavin. that’s 23.5 m usd. translation. about 11.7 pounds

bill clinton hopping mad at barack obama

the telegraph headline reads ‘bill clinton says barack obama must kiss my ass for his support.’ this coming from the man (aka, hillary clinton’s husband) who got less votes than both john kerry and al gore in both the elections handed to him by ross perot.

clean energy companies want to fleece your tax dollars

apparently, over 100 solar energy companies (aka clean energy/environmental) companies want the u.s. government to lease them public lands to build solar energy plants. now they’re pissed off because the government feels that it should take at least 2 years to review the possible environmental impact.

labour finishes fifth in byelection

when will gordon brown be forced out of office? and who will replace him? the only person within the party at the moment with any semblance of a personality is jack straw. but he’s got a lot of baggage, like, the iraq war he led the uk into while he was foreign secretary.

spain beats russia 3 to 0

spain has spent euro 2008 breaking curses. first, they beat italy for the first time in 88 years. second, they moved beyond the quarterfinal phase of the european championship for the first time in 24 years.

at 56 minutes spain leads russia 1:0

the second bit of the semis for euro 2008 is being played out today. at the moment, spain is leading russia 1:0. in terms of natural talent, spain is probably the team. but the russian team is talented too and the players have worked very hard to get to the semis. so its not over yet.

lahm pulls out a winner at 89 minute mark

philip lahm, who survived germany’s disasterous 2004 european championship foray, pushed in the winning goal at the near 90 minute mark to help germany break the tie with turkey and avoid playing extratime and possibly a penalty shootout.

will this lead to a heinz boycott?

a new ad by heinz’s uk devision has been pulled because it uses a non-traditional family with 2 men as parents and a little girl and a little boy. it finishes with a kiss. wonder if teresa (that’s tereeza john kerry) heinz is behind this. click here for more information.

chelsea wants deco and arshavin

according to highly reliable sources like the sun and the daily star, chelsea may be putting in a bid for portugal’s deco and for russia’s andrei arshavin. for quite hefty sums.

spain breaks 24 year curse

it’s been 24 years since the spainish football team has made it past the quarterfinals in a tournament. they beat italy 4:2 in penalties, having played to a 0:0 draw in regular play and extra-time. spain meet russia in the semi-finals and germany play turkey.

arshavin at barely 5ft 8 seals the fate of holland

russian, andrei arshavin, who sat out the first 2 matches of euro 2008 due to a suspension, came back in the game against sweden to score the winning goal that took the russian team into the quarterfinals. in the game against the netherlands, the man who stands but 1.72m scored russia’s third goal in extra-time. guus hiddink, the dutchman who also coached the best out of australia and took the country to the quarterfinals of the last world cup, will most likely catch shit from his countrymen.

russia rolls over the netherlands

the russia team beat the netherlands 3:1 in extra time. they led 1:0 up until the 86th minute when van nistelrooy scored although he was off-sides. roman abramovich turned up in the VIP boxes for the game.

new york times culture writer gets berlin all wrong

if you were to travel to berlin and follow the new york times’s guide, you would never get out of west berlin. the completely dead part of the city. the writer seems to think kruezberg is part of east berlin and never ventures beyond museum island or friedrichstrasse in mitte.

turkey routes croatia in penalty shootout

in the second game of the quarterfinals of the euro 2008 football championship, turkey and croatia played to a 0 : 0 tie. in extra time, Klasnic scored a goal for croatia at 118 minutes, 2 minutes later, right at the bell, semih tied the whole thing up. then the two teams went into penalty kick mode. turkey won the penalty shoot out 4:1. perhaps the croatian team should’ve watched this video on the guardian website about how to take a spot-kick.

turkey are set to play germany in the semi-finals this wednesday.

euro 2008 portugal scores at 86 mark to get within striking distance of germany

portugal scored at the 86 minute mark trying to push germany into extra time during the quarterfinals of the euro 2008, european championships in basel switzerland. germany wins 3:2.

germany vs. portugal european championships 2008 quarterfinals

at half-time in the quarterfinals of euro 2008, germany leads portugal 2:1. yogi löw, coach of the the germany team has been relegated to the audience for his over-exuberant coaching during the austria game. both he and the austria coach were tossed into the rafters during that particular game.

thomas sowell on tim russert

thomas sowell is a conservative journalists and intellectually two things which are sometimes mutually exclusive, he wrote an obit on tim russert that is actually exceedingly positive. at the close of his piece, sowell writes: ‘How people treat those who cannot do them any good or any harm reveals a lot about their character.

turkey scores 3 goals in last 10 minutes overtakes czech team

turkey scored 3 goals in the second half (plue ovvertime) of their first round match with the czech team, winning the match 3:2 and miraculously finding their way into the quarter finals. switzerland beat portugal 2:0, exiting the tournament with 3 points.

spain wins in overtime watch euro 2008 live online

spain lands a second goal in overtime to beat sweden 2:1 today in euro 2008. at the moment, russia leads greece 1:0 in the first half. spain has 6 points, sweden 3.

you can watch a live stream of the match for a fee here on the uefa website.

clintons off tim russert

tim russert, host of meet the press, cheerleader for barack obama, and arguably the man who knocked hillary clinton off her pedestal, has died at the age of 58 of an apparent heart attack. but we’re not really blaming the cintons for killing tim russert. why would they want to kill russert? maybe metaphorically, but not literally. because you know, the billary aren’t criminals

the netherlands demolish france

the netherlands completely dominated france with wesley sneijder scoring a 4th goal in the last 30 seconds of extra time. hollands advances to the quarter final with a 4:1 win.

mobile phones and depression

are you addicted to texting? do you feel down when your incoming calls are non-existent. do you think this means you should be carted off to a mental hospital?

romania italy tied 1-1

at the moment, romania is tied with italy, 1:1. it looks like italy might be making a first round exit. a replay of 2004.

update. game over. mutu, from romania missed a free kick –fabulous save by italian torhutter buffon. each team gets one point. italy has 1 point overall, romania 2 points, and france 1 point. the netherlands are leading this group, also known as the group of death, with 3 points.

austria scores goal at 93 minutes

austria tied poland 1-1, effective (it seems) lifting germany into the round of sixteen as german effectively played poorly losing 1-2 to croatia

portugal avenges maddie

portugal crushed the czech republic 3:1. cristano ronaldo scored his first goal of the tournament. the czech republic always starts off strong. but then when the going gets tough, communism kicks in and they forget how to play like a team. this leaves an opening for switzerland if they are able to beat turkey today as switzerland is down one point and turkey is down two. it would be nice to see at least one of the host teams move past the first round. alexander frei, capitan of the swiss football team is playing today. frei was last seen crying on the pitch after suffering an injury during opening play.

kerstin fritzl takes first steps

19 year old kerstin fritzl, who until recently, had spent her entire life in a dungeon like area below her grandfather/father josef fritzl’s house has taken her first steps and is set to recover. she was hospitalized for organ failure.

greece down 2 goals spain cleans up

six and a half minutes left and greece is down 0:2 to sweden. it was a bad sign when greece, the defending champions (euro 2004), failed to qualify for the 2006 world cup. in the many years i’ve lived in europe, i’ve never witnessed sweden score one goal.

the spainish team always starts out strong and then peters out. they beat russia 4:1. torres, as always is a really exciting player. will add links later.

football daily podcast of euro 2008

if you are somewhere in the world where you can’t watch the european championships in real time but would like to hear play-by-play. you can try the guardian newspaper’s football daily podcast.

the match line-up can be found here. today spain plays russia at 6pm CET and greece, the defending champions play sweden at 8.45pm CET. on this page on the right-hand side you can select your favorite team or group (A, B, C, D) and their respective schedule will be automatically added to your outlook calendar or ical (if you’re on a mac).

netherlands pulls ahead in group of death in euro 2008

third day’s a charm. holland crushed italy 3:0. goals scored by ruud van nistelrooy, wesley sneijder, and edwin van der sar. romania tied france 0:0. all 4 teams are in group c, also known as the grouop of death. the guardian calls it, the opening ceremony of the tournament.

germany wins first euro match since 1996

the german football team beat poland 2:0 today, the second day of the european championships. the game everyone in the world refers to as football, with the exception of north americans. luaks podolski, originally born in poland, scored 2 goals. the bbc ran an interview with germany captain, michael ballack.

in the other game today, croatia, scoring a goal within the first 10 minutes, beat host team austria 1:0.

the dark knight featuring harvey dent

aaron eckhart plays two-face in the new batman film, ‘the dark knight.’ a lot of the focus seems to be on the joker and the deceased heath ledger. but if you’ve forgotten about two-face, a refresher.

too fat to fly in india

5 flight attendants in india filed a lawsuit against air india for grounding them for being too fat.

hillary clinton 30 million in debt

not sure why i’m not seeing this in u.s. newspapers. or perhaps this is an oversight on my part. but the germany scandal sheet, bild zeitung is reporting that hillary clinton’s campaign is 30 million dollars in debt.

switzerland and austria gear up for euro 2008 without the uk

the european football championship kicks off on saturday in basel, switzerland, i do believe. the swiss are celebrating early. the russian team makes its debut while the uk failed to make the cut.

dresden tries to replace berlin

dresden, aka the florence of germany, is not generally on people’s lips when they think of travelling to europe. those outside of europe generally think of visiting london and paris and then place berlin, rome or prague somwhere around choices number three, four, and five. berlin has a nice bar scene, but dresden is far prettier.

gillian anderson pregnant again

remember the first season of the x-files, brilliant piece of small screen cinema that it was, when scully was well, dowdie and shapless. she walked through the second half of the season in a trench coat. then it seemed like she spent the next 7 seasons trying to effectively erase that look. now that the second x-files film is due well, gillian anderson is pregnant with her 3rd child. let’s just hope the film is fantastic and it reverses all those horrible duchovny films we’ve witnessed since he abandoned the show in season 7 (or was that 6) like ‘things that we lost in the fire’.

sulu boldly goes where no gay american man has gone before

is james kirk invited to sulu’s gay wedding? according to the new york post, george ’sulu’ takei plans to marry his long-time boyfriend with walter (chekhov) koenig as his best man and nichelle (uhura) nichols as the matron of honor. leonard (spock) nimoy has also been invited but it looks like william shatner may have been snubbed.

ed mcmahon over 600k behind in mortgage payment

the man who used to be the voice of the ‘tonight show’ while johnny carson was the host, and who was a spokesman for american family publishers’s sweepstakes (which promised americans bits of the so-called american dream), is possibly faces foreclosure on his beverly hills mansion.

barack obama first non-white presidential candidate for major party

yesterday, barack obama crossed the magic line to become the first non-white presidential candidate of a major u.s. political party. the last time hillary clinton acknowledged that obama had won a primary or caucus was last january –almost exactly 5 months ago when he won iowa. even last night, hillary clinton failed to acknowledge obama’s win of montana or the nomination. how delusional is that?

the perfect voice a mix between alan rickman and jeremy irons

is this true? according to the bbc, for females (for brits, i image), the perfect voice is a mix which includes judi dench and honor blackman. both bond women. the perfect voice for men is a cross between alan (sheriff of nottingham/serverus snape) rickman and jeremy (i’ve fallen off the acting planet) irons. read the article here.

sex in the city boxoffice

the first day numbers were extraordinary. sarah jessica parker and company pulled in almost $27m in the u.s. –generally, when word-of-mouth on a film is good, the saturday numbers will ticket up far higher than the friday numbers. well with sex in the city, they declined 33.5%. i wonder how the film will perform in europe. the european championships, aka euro 2008, kicks off next weekend. and in europe, even chicks join in on the fun.

queen tells kate middleton to get a job

is it possible that prince william, heir to the british throne, might one day marry a careerless woman whose mother used to be a stewardess and presently co-owns a website called party pieces?

natascha kampusch gets her own chat show

natascha kampusch, the austrian girl who spent 8 years in captivity in a village outside of vienna, became the media darling of austria the day she escaped from her kidnapper. 2 years later, she is now the host of a new talk show that debuts today on austrian t.v..