The NyTimes has managed to produce an awful “article” — read more of an opinion piece by Rob Hughes on the Ghana v. Germany match in the World Cup on June 23, 2010.

Misguided or not, Ghanaians, like a lot of Africans, put English players on false pedestals. They grow up watching English soccer on TV and wanting to emulate the players there.

The Ghanaian players, however, dismissed any thought of settling for second. “It was a very difficult match,” Andre Ayew said. “We fought and we also had opportunities, but the important thing is that we went through.”

NYTimes B.S.

Unfortunately, this is an absurd bit analysis that is borderline neo-colonial over-think. Ghanaians definitely grow-up watching English and European (German, Italian, French, Spanish); however, there is an incredibly strong affinity for the Ghanaian (Essien, Appaih) and African (Eto’o, Drogba) players. However, Hughes misses the fact that almost anywhere you go children wish to both emulate their national sides best players and the best players in the English Premiership League — EPL is simply the best Football League on the planet for Anglophone countries. Therefore it is obvious children — and even young adults will wish to emulate the best competition they watch on television. In Ghana, I would say it is of particular importance because of the gap in salary and acclaim between the domestic league and the EPL.

Do you think kids in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand etc. grow up wanting to play for MLS (over EPL)?

Ghana and Germany are tied at half!

Australia and Serbia are tied at half!

At the Daily Dish, Andrew Sullivan catches some classic institutionalized racism.
Pathetic display by John Derbyshire

Derbyshire’s thoughts here…

“At some level, I’ll agree, this is not our business. North of five million people have been slaughtered in the Congo this past twelve years, and nobody much (no, not me—how about you?) has lost a wink of sleep over it … [But] the Congo is nothing to me. Israel is something to me. It’s an outpost of my civilization, organized on principles I agree with, inhabited by people I could live at ease with. They defend themselves, their borders, their interests, with the kind of vigor and thick-skinned determination I’d like to see my nation display. (If only!) I admire them and wish them well.

There’s an affinity. In some tenuous sense, they are me, and I am them. The Gazans? I’ll care about them right after I start caring about the Congo.”

Emphasis by Sullivan.

If what Derbyshire says is an accurate observation of how foreign policy should be determined by countries, isn’t obvious what will happen to as the demographic power shift occurs in this century?

Brasil is an emerging as a huge economic powerhouse with a population of 200MM and over 50% of that population people of color (who recently sided with Turkey on a few key UN votes).

Turkey already a NATO powerhouse and teetering on the edge of the Middle East and European …

More interestingly, what happens as the demographics change sharply in the United States?

General McChrystal is relieved of command it’s fascinating…

Here is the amazing Rolling Stone article about the “Runaway General”

So, I’m basically live blogging the relief of command by General McChrystal.

I don’t think that any General, (non-founder) CEO or worker should ever be so central to a company or service that they can not be replaced.

It seems like an awful lot of mission “rah rah.” Nothing major.

I’m starting to get disgusted with CNN’s lopsided coverage of the oil spill.

Rather than examining the claims of different parishes, and comparing their claims to the reality of the situation, they have descended into a non-stop complaints and foolish emotion-heavy vignettes with very few actual bits of information.

New plans, new machines, and new ideas are great; however, do they actually work? Anderson Cooper rarely asks if the proposed technology is actually affective and if the technology is actually worth the time and effort. Additionally given the volitale nature of both oil and toxic chemicals, he doesn’t bother to back-up the Coast Guards concerns that the ships might be incredibly dangerous given the oil, toxic fumes and electronic equipment (I would think this would be an obvious concern).

At the same time LA Republicans are complaining about the response, CNN seems to ignore the role that Republicans — particularly Bobby Jindal had in creating the current regulations on the books. The current regulations place a significant amount of the planning and expertise behind the clean-ups in the hands of oil companies like BP. In fairness to BP, the congressional testimonees showed that every single major company relied on similar clean-up plans.

As a result, the same people complaining about the response by both BP, the Coast Guard, the Federal Government, allow no burden on the state and local government who have both pushed for expanded drilling without regard to safety (before the BP spill), and now are pushing for drilling to continue without any sort of review of existing platforms.

Anderson Cooper’s show is particularly egregious, as he both shamelessly panders to local officials, without bothering to critique the fact that they are the main people pushing for more offshore drilling.

Bobby Jindal is grandstanding in front of television cameras — taking interviews, and walking along shores in hard hats day after day. Oh yeah — he’s busy criticizing everyone else instead of taking his own huge share of the blame.

1.) It turns out Jindal has only bothered to deploy 1,100 out of 6,000 National Guard members to handle LA coastline.

It also was revealed that the state has called up only 1,100 of the 6,000 National Guard members authorized for the spill clean-up efforts, Peterson said.

2.) Also Jindal hasn’t yet dispersed the 25 Million in funds BP provided as a grant to assist LA immediately.

Peterson said that at a meeting Thursday with BP officials, coastal Louisiana legislators and representatives of the Jindal administration, it was disclosed that the state has spent only about $3 million of a $25 million BP grant for spill-related expenses, and that it has not yet issued a contract for BP’s $15 million grant to promote tourism attractions threatened by the spill.

NOLA’s article on what Jindal is really doing

All this time Southern Republicans have been pounding a drumbeat about both “states rights” and “drill baby drill” ; yet, when a direct outcome of those policies causes a massive accident, rather than having a state-level response, there are nothing but complaints.

Jindal himself is uniquely responsible for this current calamity — In 2006, Jindal sponsored the Deep Ocean Energy Resources Act (H.R. 4761), a bill to eliminate the moratorium on offshore oil and gas drilling over the U.S. outer continental shelf.

This is hilarious, Obama should avoid trying to sound tough and definitely stick to calm, cool and reserved. Take a listen to this hilarious auto-tuned song based on the Matt Lauer “ass kick” interview.

One of the many surprises from Tuesday’s Primary night was an unheard of black candidate winning the South Carolina Democratic nomination for Senator.

Theroot.com has begun to unwrap what many would call the strange case of Alvin Greene:

Alvin Greene, a 32-year-old, unfunded, unemployed veteran who is black and lives with his mother in Manning, S.C., ran away with the Democratic nomination for the Senate in the Palmetto State last night. In the November general election, he will face first-term GOP incumbent Sen. Jim DeMint, who many expect to seek the GOP presidential nomination in 2012.

TheRoot.com Alvin Greene

Alvin Greene himself was able to put his win into historical perspective:

Greene, who is completely unknown to Democratic officials in South Carolina or anywhere, put his win in dramatic historical perspective: ”I want to thank all my supporters for making history in South Carolina,” he told the Greenville News. ”It’s been over 100 years since a black has won the nomination of a major party to the U.S. Senate from this state.”

However, I think this says a lot about Greene’s unlikely candidacy’s ability to succeed and the lack of Democratic machinery in South Carolina.