Darrow "Duke" Tully, the former Arizona Republic and Phoenix Gazette publisher who faked an elaborate military career and resigned in disgrace, has died of complications from a stroke in Tampa. He was 78.
Tully was publisher of The Republic and Gazette until December 1985, when he resigned after learning that his political enemies were investigating his war record.
Tom Collins, Maricopa County attorney at the time, planned to have a news conference to expose Tully, who claimed to have been an Air Force combat pilot in the Korean and Vietnam wars.
As publisher of the state's largest newspaper, Tully is credited with launching the political career of Sen. John McCain.
He and McCain, a Navy pilot, swapped war stories and even flew planes over the desert. In reality, Tully, although a skilled pilot, had never served in the Air Force.
"Duke was a smart, smart guy and a very smart businessman, but he was consumed with his need to be something that he wasn't," said Pat Murphy, who succeeded Tully as publisher.
Longtime friend and employee Bill Shover said Tully's dual existence was driven by his need to win his father's approval.
"He was rejected by the Air Force because he had bad vision and flat feet," said Shover, former director of public affairs for Phoenix Newspapers Inc., which owned The Republic and The Gazette during Tully's tenure.
Tully's brother was killed in World War II during a training mission and his father criticized him for not becoming a war hero, Shover recalled.
That's when Tully turned his sights on newspapers and was told he could curry favor with a small Indiana paper if he pretended to be a veteran.
From there, Tully's stories about his military exploits escalated.
Tully's media-management career spanned more than 40 years and included television, radio, newspapers and direct mail.
In 1978, he became vice president, publisher and general manager of The Republic and The Gazette. The Gazette stopped printing in 1997 and The Republic was bought by Gannett Co., Inc., in 2000.
"At that time, the publisher of The Arizona Republic was the strongest person in Arizona," Shover recalled. "He brought us into the 20th century, with all the technology. He was smart and he had a magnetic quality about him."
After leaving Phoenix, Tully joined Wick Communications and was involved in newspaper operations in North Dakota, Montana, California and Arizona.
Herman Chanen, another longtime friend, said he wants Tully to be remembered as a smart and powerful figure who shaped the Valley.
"I'd like him to be remembered for being one of the most successful publishers that The Republic and Gazette ever had. He ran good papers, and they were very successful," Chanen said, adding, "He absolutely loved to fly airplanes. That was his big love and his big weakness." Attn: Mods. This SOB doesn't deserve an RIP. He claimed to be a Lieutenant Colonel combat pilot in the Korean and Vietnam Wars. He claimed he had received the Purple Heart, Distinguished Flying Cross and the Vietnam Cross of Gallantry.
Rolling Stone's advance of an article with controversial remarks by Gen. Stanley McChrystal about President Barack Obama's prosecution of the war will be on the screen for days to come. Apparently the general opened up to a freelancer and held little back when it came to deriding vice-president Joe Biden and ambassador to Afghanistan Karl W. Eikenberry. Eikenberry retired from the US Army as a Lieutenant General.*
But war correspondent Michael Yon had begun to ask questions about the leadership in Afghanistan weeks ago.
The Washington Post said McChrystal is quoted in an upcoming profile in Rolling Stone magazine as saying that Karl W. Eikenberry, the U.S. ambassador to Kabul, had betrayed' him by sending a diplomatic cable to Washington last fall dismissing Karzai as not an adequate strategic partner.' The cable came as McChrystal was recommending that President Obama increase U.S. forces and ties with the Afghan government.'
Long before Rolling Stone published the story, war correspondent Michael Yon had also levied criticism at McChrystal. Yon came under fire from some milbloggers for his dispatches, and at least one military blog came close to character assassination because of what Yon wrote about McChrystal.
Yon has consistently turned out major stories about the war that others missed, such as the Canadian Brigadier General who not only fired his weapon negligently but also was accused of having an affair with a female staffer. The military and media lagged in that coverage.
Yon also pinpointed a serious blunder that left a vital bridge unsecured in Afghanistan, leading to deaths and injuries for soldiers and civilians.
In a dispatch on Yon's Facebook Fan Page where approximately 35,000 fans read his posts, he wrote: If a Colonel under General McChrystal's chain of command publicly dismissed General McChrystal in a major magazine, McChrystal would be forced to fire him or appear weak and not in control.'
The military doesn't take kindly to public criticism that runs bottom to top.
Apart from Yon, however, many conservatives have been troubled by the prosecution of this war in accordance with demands from the left and from media, and complaints about the dilution of the Rules of Engagement have been vocal in some quarters. Troop deaths rose sharply this year in Afghanistan, but national media, sympathetic to Obama, rarely make note of that. When President George W. Bush was in office, however, troop deaths were noted daily and above the fold.
A general feeling among national security conservatives is that even before Obama took office, leftwingers and allied media had actually prolonged the war and endangered troops just as they did during the Vietnam era. Another general feeling is that Obama lacked the experience to manage the war, even if his Democrat political base would permit it. The president is already behind the timetable he claimed he'd meet on troop withdrawal during his campaign.
Perhaps as a result of the attention Yon receives from branded media and from fans, it's fathomable why some bloggers would launch personal attacks.
It appears Yon's criticism of the general was prophetic. Yon also wrote on Facebook: Unless McChrystal basically denies the article, he must be fired. If he is not fired, I will start calling him President McChrystal because Obama clearly is not in charge.'
Obviously Yon was ahead of the curve.
Yon's embed was recently canceled and he has been filing dispatches from Thailand. His widely acclaimed book Moment of Truth in Iraq' has just been released in paperback.
[Ed. Note: Yon actually began to crit the general sometime in April.
#1
The military Omama doesn't take kindly to public criticism that runs bottom to top
FIFY
He'd better start taking some criticism, he's here to represent us and is doing a lousy job.
Posted by: Anna Sasin ||
06/22/2010 18:50 Comments ||
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#2
If the ROE were imposed on McChruystal from above, he should've resigned then and there. If they were his, he should resign. The "no night" attacks pushed by Karzai is a joke and will get US troops killed. I would've threatened to publically remove all US security and training to Karzai's security if he imposed that ROE on us. Let him suffer the IED or Tali-attack fate of his people
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/22/2010 18:50 Comments ||
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I don't give a tinker's damn about Yon or his rants and allegations. He'll never stand among honorable men in the history of this country I assure you.
There is a lot of uproar about Gen. Stanley's McChrystal's disrespectful comments about his civilian bosses in the Obama administration, and President Obama would be entirely justified in firing McChrystal for statements McChrystal and his subordinates made to Rolling Stone. Obama is a deeply flawed commander-in-chief who doesn't want to be fighting a war on terror, but he is the commander-in-chief. He should have a general who will carry out his policies without public complaint until the voters can decide to change those policies.
But the bigger problem with McChrystal's leadership has always been the general's devotion to unreasonably restrictive rules of engagement that are resulting in the unnecessary deaths of American and coalition forces. We have had many, many accounts of the rules endangering Americans, and the Rolling Stone article provides more evidence. In the story, a soldier at Combat Outpost JFM who had earlier met with McChrystal was killed in a house that American officers had asked permission to destroy. From the article:
The night before the general is scheduled to visit Sgt. Arroyo's platoon for the memorial, I arrive at Combat Outpost JFM to speak with the soldiers he had gone on patrol with. JFM is a small encampment, ringed by high blast walls and guard towers. Almost all of the soldiers here have been on repeated combat tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and have seen some of the worst fighting of both wars. But they are especially angered by Ingram's death. His commanders had repeatedly requested permission to tear down the house where Ingram was killed, noting that it was often used as a combat position by the Taliban. But due to McChrystal's new restrictions to avoid upsetting civilians, the request had been denied. These were abandoned houses,' fumes Staff Sgt. Kennith Hicks. Nobody was coming back to live in them.'
One soldier shows me the list of new regulations the platoon was given. Patrol only in areas that you are reasonably certain that you will not have to defend yourselves with lethal force,' the laminated card reads. For a soldier who has traveled halfway around the world to fight, that's like telling a cop he should only patrol in areas where he knows he won't have to make arrests. Does that make any fking sense?' Pfc. Jared Pautsch. We should just drop a fking bomb on this place. You sit and ask yourself: What are we doing here?'
#1
McChrystal sounds like an Obama man all the way with his ROE.
Of course, we fought an entire war in Viet Nam with those kinds of crazy crap restrictions in place.
There are no civilians in an "asymmetrical" conflict. They either aid you or they aid the enemy and if they are in areas controlled by the bad guys, they are part of the problem.
Screw em all. If they are not actively fighting the Taliban, they are the Taliban.
Posted by: James Carville ||
06/22/2010 10:52 Comments ||
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#2
Having a Combat Outpost named for you is pretty impressive, JFM. Congrats.
#3
"[Combat Outpost] JFM is a small encampment" > so was BEECHER's ISLAND FIGHT, ADOBE WALLS, + many other sites of major battle.
So was R Lee Ermey's FIREBASE GLORIA flick.
IMO the core issue wid GEN. MCCHRYSTAL is broadly that once US = US-NATO withdrawal formally begins in 2011, EVERYONE KNOWS THE MILITANT GROUPS WILL LIKELY ATTEMPT A RETURN TO VIOLENT INSURGENCY, where the US GOVT-DOD + ALLIED is uncertain of the final outcome.
Its 1973 - Ala WATERGATE the US has signed a peace deal wid NVN whereupon the bulk of NVA + VC forces is left in-place throughout SVN, soon to become NIXON RESIGNATION, Year 1975 + FALL OF SAIGON,SVN PART II???
* POST-SAIGON VIETNAMESE, etc. BOATLIFTS = POST-2012 "GREAT AFGHAN/AFPAK CAMEL-LIFT" + Boatlift to GUAM [now also CNMI, etc.]again???
CONGESTED GUAM-CNMI > MUSLIM, etc. REFUGEES + 2014 MARINES RELOC FROM OKINAWA???
#5
Joe.....
Not only do I fear that you are absolutely correct, but I also have a sinking feeling that we are ever accelerating toward that end.
I would like to suggest the term "GOAT-LIFT" vs 'CAMEL-LIFT may be a little more appropriate in your prediction.
[Asharq al-Aswat] Just days after the Al Qaeda organization incited the Yemeni tribes against the Sana government; a new attack took place on Saturday, this time against a Yemeni intelligence headquarters in Aden. This is not to mention the large number of militants who have begun to gather in Yemen from all over the world, including America, Europe, Africa, and of course, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, amongst other countries.
All of this means that Yemen represents a genuine battlefield against Al Qaeda, and may even replace Afghanistan [in this regard] which is what the Americans currently believe. Saudi Arabian security officials have been warning that Al Qaeda is gathering in Yemen, and that Yemen represents the coming threat for a long time, however nobody paid attention to this at the time. However today this threat is real, and is something that can be seen clearly in Yemen, even to those who take little interest in news of Al Qaeda.
Yemen's problem can be seen in the complexity and inter-relation of its internal issues, which of course is something that Al Qaeda desires as it allows the organization to operate in the region once more, especially after it received a number of painful and wounding security and financial blows in Saudi Arabia. Al Qaeda is also receiving heavy blows in Iraq, particularly following confrontation with the Iraqi Sahwa movement in Iraq's predominately Sunni areas, and this is not to mention the violent strikes being delivered to Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, meaning that Yemen represents Al Qaeda's safe haven today.
Al Qaeda is benefiting from a number of crises in Yemen; such as the Huthi crisis, the southern Yemeni crisis, as well as the political and religious conflicts, and Yemen's tribal reality, not to mention the existence of geographic regions outside the government's control. Therefore, any foreign intervention to confront Al Qaeda would only serve to further complicate and inflame the situation, however intervention could be justified by the fact that the Yemeni authorities are in dire need of training and equipment, especially to its [intelligence] agencies, which represents the best weapon in counter-terrorist operations. However Al Qaeda would benefit from this intervention by inciting the [Yemeni] tribes and religious figures.
Ignoring Yemen would also be a disaster for everybody, and we can recall that the African youth who almost blew up an American airliner last year was a student in London who received his training in Yemen. In other words, Al Qaeda's evil represents a threat to everybody, although its primary target is Saudi Arabia. Al Qaeda wants a region close to Saudi Arabia where it can attract and train fighters, and from which it can launch attacks. We must also not forget that the terrorist who attempted to assassinate Saudi Deputy Interior Minister Prince Mohammed Bin Naif was also traveling from Yemen.
Therefore the most effective solution to confronting Al Qaeda in Yemen must come from internal Yemeni action that is not based upon formulistic action so much as it is based upon genuine and practical solutions, otherwise the threat is not just against [governmental] installations and police stations and others, but against Yemen as a whole, and the region.
Therefore, the grand battle in confronting Al Qaeda in Yemen would be in convincing Sana of the necessity of putting forward real solutions to block Al Qaeda's path, for the threat is not just in what Al Qaeda is doing, but also from the extent of their infiltration and the level of their deployment.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/22/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
Another multi-sided ethnic/religous civil war. The only good thing about a Western military intervention in Yemen is it would make the disasterous Afghanistan war look better in comparison.
Richard Cohen, Washington Post One of the great masters of liberal conventional wisdom, a card-carrying member of the herd of independent minds (and the guy who cuckolded Peter Jennings), takes a hard look at Obama and sees . . . well, here, let him tell you:
It can seem that at the heart of Barack Obama's foreign policy is no heart at all. It consists instead of a series of challenges -- of problems that need fixing, not wrongs that need to be righted. As Winston Churchill once said of a certain pudding, Obama's approach to foreign affairs lacks theme. So, it seems, does the man himself.
For instance, it's not clear that Obama is appalled by China's appalling human rights record. He seems hardly stirred about continued repression in Russia. He treats the Israelis and their various enemies as pests of equal moral standing. The president seems to stand foursquare for nothing much.
This, of course, is the Obama enigma: Who is this guy? What are his core beliefs?... Now, while Mr. Cohen may be the perfect example of a standard-issue Mk.1 Mod 0 factory-spec conventional Washington liberal who parrots all the "right" thinking, he's actually on to something here (emphasis added):
Fortune has not smiled on Obama's presidency. His one uncontested attribute -- a shimmering intellect -- has become suspect. I wouldn't call it "uncontested," but go on.
A world of smart guys has turned against us. Everyone at Goldman Sachs is smart, but they seem to have the amorality mocked by the songwriter Tom Lehrer in his sendup of the celebrated American rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, a former Nazi (" 'Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department,' says Wernher von Braun"). The oil industry is full of smart people, and so is the mortgage industry. Smart people seem to have brought us nothing but trouble. Smarts without values is dangerous -- threatening, scary, virtually un-American....
Posted by: Mike ||
06/22/2010 09:33 ||
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Hetreats the Israelis and their various enemies as pests of equal moral standing. Not really.
#4
Fail. Two years behind the times. Enroll Cohen in the remedial journalism class.
Posted by: ed ||
06/22/2010 11:40 Comments ||
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Obama's empty intellect, empty heart, empty suit, inept, clumsy and lazy. It is time for him to resign. Before something happens where we need a true leader, he should resign. There is a difference is saying, "I'm the President" and actually doing a job as the leader of the country
During an amphibious assault exercise at Camp Pendleton, Marines appear rusty. They haven't made such a landing since the Korean War and some leaders wonder whether they will ever do it again.
#2
"In a speech last month, Gates said rogue nations and nonstate movements such as Hezbollah now possessed sophisticated guided missiles that could destroy naval ships, forcing them to stay well away from shore and making any sort of beach landing by Marines extremely dangerous.
Countries including China and Iran have guided missiles and other defenses to deter a beach landing, said Andrew Krepinevich, president of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, who has written skeptically of traditional amphibious landings. Minor powers, meanwhile, could hardly resist the kind of landing the Marines practiced in Dawn Blitz, he said."
Very interesting analysis - with Iranian backing Hizballa (a declared shiite terror organization) now has enough anti-naval missile power to defeat American naval marine assults.
And what has Mr. Gates done up to now to deal with this threat ??? - declare the marins obsolete ? Interesting response.
This problem should have been solved long ago by US/IL cooperation ( by dismantling Hizballah).
In the coming war, the US army is going to have some nasty problems because of being allowed to sit quietly without any military or political maneuvers to decrease the power of Iran's proxies.
The price for indolence will have to be paid by blood - fortunately for Mr. Gates it will not be his blood but some poor Marine's blood or some Israeli soldier not realizing they have been sold out by their "peace loving" leadership.
Posted by: Elder of Zion ||
06/22/2010 5:26 Comments ||
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#3
Thought the Marines were into assaults whether on the beaches or not? So the article says the Marines will not be used for assaults? I don't think so. Fallujah has been forgotten by the msm?
#4
"forcing them to stay well away from shore and making any sort of beach landing by Marines extremely dangerous."
Right. Like Tarawa wasn't.
Posted by: Matt ||
06/22/2010 8:37 Comments ||
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#5
" . . . do any task assigned to them."
That pretty sums up the distinction between the armed forces and our political leadership. While particularly true of the USMC, it goes for all the services.
#6
very few nations don't have a neighbor or two that could provide a land route. I suspect in the future the fleet will serve as a possible invasion route to keep the beaches fortified while assets move in from other directions.
#7
Everyone is 'rusty' doing things they haven't done for a while (or ever). A couple seconds of 'action' tends to 'free up the parts', however.
1st Battalion, 7th Regiment has been HQ'd at Twentynine Palms for a bit and that area doesn't really have a nautical component or an 'ocean view'.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
06/22/2010 15:06 Comments ||
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#8
Too bad the Marines didn't take over Fort Ord. It had some nice stormin' beaches.
Posted by: ed ||
06/22/2010 15:26 Comments ||
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#9
The price for indolence will have to be paid by blood - fortunately for Mr. Gates it will not be his blood...
Gates and the rest of his ilk will be most fortunate if they escape having their blood shed. I would imagine that some of these people are going to be hunted like rabid dogs if things go really bad. Maybe even by their own people. I do not see how we're going to get through 2.5 more years of this A-hole in the White House.
Posted by: Secret Asian Man ||
06/22/2010 20:29 Comments ||
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#10
1st Battalion, 7th Regiment has been HQ'd at Twentynine Palms for a bit and that area doesn't really have a nautical component or an 'ocean view'.
Camp Pendleton's usefulness has been become restricted over the years.
Twentynine Palms is an excellent place for armor, combined-arms and live-fire exercises.
Pity it doesn't have oceanfront, but California for some reason won't let us flood the dry lake beds.
...is liberal socialist democracy evil or incompetent, or just plain wrong?
Are political opponents evil or wrongheaded? Are Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, both Liberal Democrats, part of a malicious conspiracy? Their objectives are pretty clear and plain. If Liberal Democracy is a conspiracy, it hasn't done much of a job of hiding its objectives. They've been clear since the days of Beatrice and Sydney Webb. So have their tactics: there is no enemy to the left. Solidarity forever. The union makes us strong. George Bernard Shaw was aware of Stalin's starvation tactics and the Ukraine famine, but chose not to say anything about it because Solidarity was a guiding principle. So were many others, for the same reasons. Being a communist fellow traveler was quite fashionable among intellectuals. It took the Hitler Stalin Pact to break the subservience of American intellectuals to the Popular Front, and even then many stayed with the communists. Recall Fred Pohl: An intellectual friend, well known in science fiction circles of 1940, brought the news of the Fall of Paris to the Germans to Fred and other editors.
He bought us wine, held up his glass, and proposed a toast: "To the liberation of the bourgeois capital by the people's forces of socialism." I drank his lousy wine. But it lay sour in my stomach while I brooded in my office all that day.
Was that incompetence or malice? Was it incompetence or malice to drink the lousy wine and brood?
I do believe that socialism is entirely antithetical to the Constitution of 1789 as Amended. For a very long time the Supreme Court of the United States believed that as well. Now the Court is divided on the subject. A majority of the Congress is held by a party that doesn't purport to believe in socialism, but which elects a leadership that enacts laws based on the socialist philosophy. Government ought to take care of people. Government should spread the wealth around. You are entitled to benefits not because of your virtues, and the wealthy are obligated to pay for your entitlements. It's their duty and your right.
Is it malice to believe that? I would say a great many of the academics in these United States believe it, and many more do not dare dispute it because those who do believe it make it dangerous for anyone in academia to dispute the consensus. Are they all malicious? They certainly believe that those who oppose them are malicious.
And of course it's not all that clear cut to begin with. Most of those who voted for Obama didn't believe that he believed all the tenets of academic Liberal Socialist Democracy. Are all those who voted for him malicious? Is it malice to be seduced into hoping that Hope and Change were real, especially given the past history of the Creeps who were in charge?
Liberal Socialism is wrongheaded. I think its end results are terrible. It's also seductive. Most Liberals I know believe they have good intentions, and that so long as they have good intentions they cannot be called malicious or evil.
I believe that the upcoming election is the most important election in decades, and that its effects will be felt for decades to come. What's at stake are the very principles of this nation. Surely that's clear enough? Clearly I believe that those who voted in this government were mistaken. I want those people back on our side.
Posted by: Mike ||
06/22/2010 11:26 ||
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Worse, it's suicide.
Posted by: ed ||
06/22/2010 11:44 Comments ||
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Fall of Paris to the Germans to Fred and other editors.
He bought us wine, held up his glass, and proposed a toast: "To the liberation of the bourgeois capital by the people's forces of socialism."
Note that before history was rewritten, the Nazis were socialists.
#3
Good intentions... my a$$. Road to hell is paved with good intentions and greased by banality of evil. Socialism (Liberal, which is quite illiberal, or not so Liberal) is not wrongheaded. It is evil. 100 million souls are witness to that.
#4
What's at stake are the very principles of this nation. Surely that's clear enough?
True enough, but not clear to most thanks to the last five decades of public education (socialist indoctrination). No one who can do so effectively is going to make this case explicitly. And if they did, the media (shocktroopers of socialism) would immediately do everything possible to make the person tappear to be a right wing wacko nut job.
#8
Clearly I believe that those who voted in this government were mistaken. I want those people back on our side. How to make that happen is the task before us.
"Maria" @ "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?"
Trumwill at Hit Coffee has a good post up today about the obnoxious 'soccer scolds' who keep trying to bully us stubborn, backwards Americans into embracing the global game, soccer. And how us stubborn, backwards Americans just refuse to play along, despite a massive public relations campaign that even pulls out the daisy cutter of propaganda ploys, the charge of racism' (lobbed at us by the sort of pwecious people who listen to NPR as if any of them are actually fans of any sport) because we don't want to hold hands and sing We are the World' while watching a sport that is beloved by our moral superiors, European socialists and Third Worlders....
The soccer scolds don't understand that American football is something that grew up organically, out of a specific culture, at a specific time and place. That doesn't make it either superior or inferior to soccer, it just makes it our game. Those hundred-year-old chants and ancient rivalries serve the same purpose as all other cultural traditions: they build valuable social capital.
Or maybe the soccer scolds do understand. Maybe it's just one other aspect of the Kulturkampf attack on American exceptionalism. No wonder NPR has taken up the desperate cry that football must be replaced by soccer....
We're Americans. We play football. Our ultimate sports accolade is winning something called the Lombardi Trophy, not the World Cup. And to paraphrase the great Vince, come September in the United States of America, football isn't everything it's the only thing.
Posted by: Mike ||
06/22/2010 08:55 ||
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On the other hand, I like soccer. It is a sport where the need for instant gratification that so characterizes Americans will probably not be satisfied, since a goal requires intense and continuous effort, variations, and, for want of a better term, art. And where a tie has meaning. Also, it is interesting to see the US compete in the only sport that is truly international.
It is similar to baseball in some ways -- little things finally adding up to scores.
Being a soccer enthusiast does not mean that one disparages baseball or football or basketball, or even hockey. It merely means that one appreciates its different skills and stragegies.
#2
I good running stiff arm will take care of them. If not, a power hit that flips them 270º surely will.
Posted by: ed ||
06/22/2010 10:57 Comments ||
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#3
Hmmm so Highlander says he doesn't want to disparage American sports, only Americans: for the instant gratification that so characterizes Americans
And what characterizes the Scots? Getting their ass kicked by the English. Perfect soccer analogy.
Posted by: regular joe ||
06/22/2010 11:46 Comments ||
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#4
Meterball has two close relatives - hockey and basketball.
Hockey is everything soccer wants to be without the prissy boy flopping which especially dominates the Euro style.
NBA basketball has been so bad with flopping they now have to call fouls for it. I blame the influx of European players.
FIFA is the establishment. Meterball is only so popular worldwide because every country produces short people.
Hows that? Besides we are a bit occupied with the ugly game of government, and maybe with all the crackpot shit going on in the world, maybe its a good thing Americans are not entranced by this bullcrap foux religion marketing ploy.
That being said, I am enjoying the cup play in spite of the boringly anticipated bad reffing for many games (there are many good refs as well, they are the ones we don't hear about which is most of the time) but I also have much experience with the game. Watched the CONCACF buildup. Here is how it breaks down, a play I like to call "The Greek Bailout". Greece's first game, a ball is played into the box. I see the goalie rightly think the ball was going to be headed and attempts a block to where the ball would have gone had it been headed. The casual once every 4 years viewer, since we are luckily not inundated with nothing but futbol futbol futbol all year long, just sees the goalie jump out the way of the ball like an idiot.
And thank goodness for Alexi Lalas in the commentary.
Ed, this is for you
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUjFRKWk6gQ&feature=related
#5
Soccer viewship, what, doubled in the first game?
Americans like winners. American are winning. And if, they beat Algeria tomorrow, I look around, and go - "broken field running." Who is the favorite at this point?
I posted a long essay on this on another site, but I will say here - if we win tomorrow, I won't be shocked if we make the Final Four.
#6
What a backstabbing cocksucker to ambush an unsuspecting player to do nothing but gravely injure him when the two are not even in play and the victim's defenses are down. Must be muslim or French. Or both.
That a knob gobbler such as Zidane is even allowed to glimpse grass anymore speaks volumes of the pussified nature of those who run the sport and the low life troglodyte fans who glorify him. They wouldn't know sport if it came up to them in steel cleats and kicked them in the crotch.
Posted by: ed ||
06/22/2010 14:10 Comments ||
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2 games have just pissed me off. The obvious US game where players were just getting mugged and the goal was called off. Its point one: the officiating system flat blows; Irish can you hear me? One official makes all the calls and is not obligated to even state why, and the chickenshit statement from FIFA who punted the issue.
Number 2 was Chile/Swiss. Normal jockey for position stuff in the box on a free kick, Chile player was getting his position then the Swiss player throws his hands over his nose and fakes an injury. Card on the Chile player misses the next game; Point two is as far as I know there is no penalty for obstructing the game.
Mizzou, I'm liking Uruguay. The talent to score, but the ball control is what caught my attention. Few turnovers, good teammate awareness. The US needs to stop playing from behind; actually flat out winning this next game vs. Algeria would be nice.
Thomas Sowell's prodigious intellect has long been at odds with intellectuals. Daniel J. Mahoney's thoughtful review of Sowell's latest offering, Intellectuals and Society, in the Spring 2010 issue of City Journal. A snippet:
Sowell vigorously defends wisdompractical reasonagainst an abstract rationalism that values ideas over the experience of actual human beings. Intellectuals, he argues, are particularly suspicious of the ties ordinary men and women feel to family, religion, and country. They look down upon objective reality and objective criteria' in the social sciences, art, music, and philosophy. Their systems' tend to be self-referential and lack accountability in the external world.
#1
ION WIMIN BHARAT RAKSHAK > CHINESE WOMEN SAY, SHOW ME THE DA BLING |CHINA'S HOUSING BOOM SPELLS TROUBLE FOR BOYFRIENDS.
Rising China's ECON-SAAVY, PRO-$$$ FUTURE PEG BUNDY's + COSMO GALS are refusing to marry unless their BF's + Fiance's OWN A
HOUSE(S), + also a CAR(S), thus are indir helping to create the Book of Revelation's 200 MILYUHN-MAN ARMY of WIFE-LESS CHIN SOLDATS EAGER + ANGRY + HORNY, ETC. TO FIGHT ARMAGEDDON???
#2
Joe, why would they fight armageddon? They have no "paradise wenches" motivation. Wimminz here and now. So, they would likely make expeditions to the less protected neighbors to fetch the wench. Whatever pretext necessary. Likely the Indochina would be a target, sweeping down through Laos, west to Thailand and Myanmar. Maybe Vietnam, but Vietnamese are tough SOBs--when China tried a couple of decades ago, they got beaten rather unceremoniously.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
