what is all the crying about?

so the US lost against the czech team today at the football world cup. there was a lot of built up here in the US for this game. somehow expectations were quite high for the US team to win. but why was that? pretty much because the team did quite well during the last world cup in Japan/Korea. but the problem is that four years ago they were a novelty, they were pretty much unknown, they played a refreshing football, and there were little expectations.

all of this changed this year. but one thing didn’t and that is that european and south-american teams have just way more experience. and that was visible today. the czech didn’t necessarily outplay the US team, but they played smarter. they were able to dictate the speed of the game and where the game was played — mostly in the middle and not too much infront of the Czech goal. at the same time the US team just wasn’t agile and smart enough to change the way it plays and adopt to the situation (in part due to inability). and so the game, against one of the top teams, ended quite expectable in a loss.

looking forward everyone is now talking about the Italy game on saturday, which the team “has” to win. yes, if they want to stay in the tournament they have to win it. but again, they will face one of the better teams out there, a very experienced team with players from the top european teams, and the chances are pretty low they will win. so let’s cut expectations and be realistic here. would it be great if they win, yes, is it going to be likely, no (especially not the way they played today).

the story of the bear chasing cat

among all of the craziness in the world … well something crazy …
Jack the cat chases black bear up tree

“After about 15 minutes, the bear descended and tried to run away, but Jack chased it up another tree.”

40,000 women and children being trafficked into germany …

the washington post is having another story about the world cup in germany and how all these prostitutes are being smuggled into germany. the article Soccer With a Side of Slavery says that “It is estimated that more than 40,000 women and children will be imported to Germany during the month-long competition to provide commercial sex in the “mega-brothels,” “quickie shacks,” other legalized venues and vast underground networks that exist in Germany.”

now, while i agree that slavery in any form is absolutely inexcusable and that the law should go after those that traffic women and men, one has to take a look at this story and use some logic. this is a story which seems to create a lot of attention here in the US. but first of all i have so far not seen how anyone who is mentioning this number of 40,000 women and children has come up with it? if someone does please let me know. but despite that, 40,000 people is a large number, especially in a country like germany, where the border is much more populated than here in the US. and having 40,000 people cross over without being detected would be quite something, after all those women and children would probably not be brought into germany months before the world cup but fairly closely to the even. plus german border patrols have been stepped up for months with few incidents.

second, the article says that they would end up in the mega-brothels and quickie - shacks. prostitution is legal in germany that doesn’t mean that it is only allowed but also regulated. these mega-brothels do not have pimps, there are tax collectors as well as health inspectors, the same goes for those shacks which have been put up in most cases by cities. the women in those places have to be registered just like any other business. this makes it actually much easier to identify illegal behavior.

while there is a large global problem of people being trafficked into slavery which needs to be addressed and hopefully solved, it does not help a lot to push a story for publicity sake but ignore reality.

did you ever wonder how important football is to the rest of the world?

did you ever wonder how important soccer is? well it is way more important than the war on terror, or some new vaccine against cancer …

(home page of the BBC … today june 9th the first day of the 2006 world cup)

comparing two web sites

i went to the site of the german chancellor today to download her weekly video podcase. and when i looked at the site i was actually quite surprised how clean it looked, how easy it was to navigate. then i thought i wonder how the site looks of the president that still gives weekly radio addresses. and what i found there was a thrown together chaos. different colors, fonts, all kinds of stuff.

interesting contrast those two pages … maybe they also mirror the the design philosophies of the two countries.

to take a look for yourself …
http://www.bundeskanzlerin.de/
http://www.whitehouse.gov/president/

taking a global view on nsa wire tapping

great post discussion how the nsa wiretapping would stand up against european data protection laws: The NSA Phone Call Database: The European Perspective

you might wonder why care, but the article makes a good point in arguing that by non-confornment with european data laws the US is jeopardizing possible help from european sources if they need them. kind of the same that happens with the extradition of some criminals because of the possibility of the death penalty here, or the exchange of information around prisoners held in guantanamo.

selling off the constitution

mid-term elections are a couple of months out, voters are not really happy with the president, and after trying to buy votes by handing out $100 gas gifts, the republicans now play the gay card again.

the topic of gay-marriage and the possible constitutional amendment was pretty much off the table. the presidential elections were won and the topic more or less served its purpose: electrify the right win christian nuts to win the election. no one probably thought that the president would do as badly as he did and now with all time lows in support bush, rove and the rest of the republicans are getting scared; they could loose the mid-terms. how could that happen? well, i guess we all know. arrogance, incompetence, and ignorance … and maybe some good old stupidity thrown in for good measure.

that leads us to this week where Bush Calls for an Amendment Banning Same-Sex Nuptials: “President Bush on Saturday urged Congress to pass a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, saying in his weekly radio address that marriage “cannot be cut off from its cultural, religious and natural roots.”"

i guess american voters might be stupid enough to fall for this, but what pisses me off the most here is how the administration is just using the constitution as nothing more than a cheap carrot to lure voters. a change to the constitution should be done after thorough debate it should be done as something unifying, not as something that splits the country. but the last couple of years have already shown that this administration doesn’t really care about the constitution: patriot act, abu ghraib, guantanamo bay, iraq war, and all the recent wire tapping cases …