Oh, Thursday.

* Water discovered on Moon.

It's not a lot of water. If you took a two-liter soda bottle of lunar dirt, there would probably be a medicine dropperful of water in it, said University of Maryland astronomer Jessica Sunshine, one of the scientists who discovered the water. Another way to think of it is if you want a drink of water, it would take a baseball diamond's worth of dirt, said team leader Carle Pieters of Brown University.

I can't wait to drink bottled moon water. Delicious.

* NeilAlien has some good links about the Kirby heirs' attempt to reclaim their Marvel copyrights in the wake of the Siegel heirs' successful lawsuit against DC.

* Naomi Klein interviews Michael Moore about who hates America more.

* For every newly converted vegetarian, four poor humans start earning enough money to put beef on the table. In the past three decades, the earth's dominant carnivores have tripled our average per capita consumption; in the next four decades global meat production will double to 465 million tons.

* Salon on the end of oil and the era of extreme energy.

* Moammar Gadhafi vs. the World Cup.

I caught The Other Final tonight as part of Duke's "Soccer Politics" series. Personally I thought the movie actually flinched a bit from the difficult political issues it (briefly) raises, especially those regarding race and coloniality—but it's good fun anyway. Must-watch for soccer fans. Unbelievably, the film seems not to have a U.S. distributor, but it is (for now at least) on YouTube.)

Some upcoming events that might be of interest to my fellow Durhamites:

* The Mountain Goats kick off their fall tour with a performance at the 2nd annual Durham Be Easy festival. (Thanks, EH!)

* Laurence Dubois will be running a very cool soccer and politics series all semester at Duke, including screenings of Zidane and The Other Final. (Thanks, DF!)

In non-Infinite-Summer blogging, our fantasy soccer league is just about to start up again. Last year beloved gerrycanavan.blogspot.com reader B T walked in off the street to take second place, knocking me down to a paltry third after a truly spectacular late-season collapse. (It was all Manchester United's fault.)

Email me or leave a comment to get our league code.

By the way, if you're a MetaFilter reader, they'll be using the same site this year. Their code is at the link.

Truly this is a summer of infinite linkdumps. Things will only get worse once summer camp starts.

* Glad to see pseudo-liveblogging tenure denial II has the happy ending I was expecting.

* Raleigh slime monster update.

* The Universal Translator is here! This is pretty amazing.

* Push is a simple sidescroller with a unique "cosmic distortion" gimmick.

* 'How Beckham Blew It': Inside the L.A. Galaxy.

* Bank runs, Amish style. Not a hoax, not an imaginary story.

* Yo La Tengo rocks the Twitter.

Confederations Cup liveblogging: I'll be watching the finals of the Confederations Cup in a bit and posting excited exclamations whenever the U.S. scores against the hated and villainous Brazilians. (Early projection: 10-0 U.S.) Game starts at 2:25 EST.

2:13 Summary of ESPN pre-show: "U.S., you need to play good."

Spoiler alert and assorted observations behind the [+/-].

0:00 And we're off.

1:00 Congrats to the U.S. for keeping Brazil scoreless through the first minute of the game.

9:38 DEMPSEY SCORES! Dempsey again, God bless 'em. U.S. 1-0.

10:00 Announcers say that this is the first time Brazil has trailed in the entire tournament. I suspect their spirits may have been broken.

12:00 Nice save from Howard. U.S. putting the pressure on—they barely stopped Davies on a breakaway.

21:00 More informed match-tracking from the New York Times.

24:00 Another nice save from Howard. Things are getting physical.

26:00 U.S. defense generally looking good under pressure.

26:52 Donovan scores! Up 2-0!

34:10 Another miraculous save from Howard. He's doing great today.

45:00 + 1 Brazil having terrible luck with their shots so far today. U.S. very lucky. Game goes into the half with the US up by two.

45:45 Brazil scores 45 seconds into the second half. That's a bad sign.

58:00 U.S hurting, though still up by one. Lucky save just now.

60:00 EVEN MORE LUCKY SAVE FROM HOWARD. God. That really looked like it was in. (On replay it looks like it was kind of definitely in.)

63:30 Two good shots from the U.S., but no dice. U.S. fans on Twitter seem a little embarrassed about The Save. I make no apologies.

70:30 Howard again. Hero of the match.

73:31 Time to break Fabiano's leg. 2-2. Ugh.

84:00 Brazil gets its third goal off a header. Looking very bad. It's clear now that God is punishing Tim Howard for The Save.

89:30 U.S. just can't find the equalizer.

90:00 Three minutes stoppage time.

90:00 + 3 Amazing first half balanced by a terrible second half. At least we made Brazil work for it. See you in 2010.

Thursday Night Links 2.

* Nate Silver crunches some more numbers, this time on the environmental indifference point.



* Neoconservatives against American soccer. More from Matt Yglesias.

* When will the MSM force Obama to take responsibility for what he did to Mark Sanford's marriage?

* On a more serious note, Larval Subjects has a nice rant on a subject I touched on earlier, namely the ugliness of the media's silly obsession with the details of Mark Sanford's love life and in particular Olbermann's insufferable behavior on his show last night.

* AmericaBlog has an idea for some political hardball: bring the DOMA repeal up for a vote this week.

* Neo-Whorfianism: How does language shape the way we think? Via MeFi.

Follow me to Pormpuraaw, a small Aboriginal community on the western edge of Cape York, in northern Australia. I came here because of the way the locals, the Kuuk Thaayorre, talk about space. Instead of words like "right," "left," "forward," and "back," which, as commonly used in English, define space relative to an observer, the Kuuk Thaayorre, like many other Aboriginal groups, use cardinal-direction terms — north, south, east, and west — to define space.1 This is done at all scales, which means you have to say things like "There's an ant on your southeast leg" or "Move the cup to the north northwest a little bit." One obvious consequence of speaking such a language is that you have to stay oriented at all times, or else you cannot speak properly. The normal greeting in Kuuk Thaayorre is "Where are you going?" and the answer should be something like " Southsoutheast, in the middle distance." If you don't know which way you're facing, you can't even get past "Hello."

Tivo alert: As yesterday I'm settling down to watch the heroic South Africans upset the hated Brazilians and I may or may not have some comments to make about what I see. I'll put everything behind this [+/-], but try to stay away from my RSS feed if you're taping the game.

Game is starting now. Updates are live as the game progresses. [+/-]

12 min: Brazil just got off their first shot, saved by the goalie, Itumeleng Khune. But Brazil is getting around South Africa's defense fairly easily—after the shot you could see Khune gesticulating angrily at his defenders.

29 min: South Africa picking things up—heartbreaking save by the Brazilian goalie on a penalty kick a minute or so ago.

36 min: Brazil actually a little bit on the defensive here.

42 min: Geez, that one was close. Kaka just got unlucky.

43 min: And South Africa matches with a shot of their own that was thisclose. Amazed to see South Africa keeping Brazil scoreless at the half.

45 min: Spoke to soon? Tsepo Masilela hit with a yellow card, Brazil gets a free kick right at the start of stoppage time.... Blocked!

60 min: Still scoreless. What a game from South Africa.

74 min: Still scoreless!

87 min: Shit! Brazilian goal off a penalty kick with three minutes to go.

Heartbreaker. Tough luck for the US for Sunday.

Soccer: Click the [+/-] to catch the fever.

USA up 1-0 over Spain at halftime in the semifinals of the Confederations Cup.

UPDATE: Spain looking pretty tough in the opening minutes of the second half. Shoot; miss; get the ball back five seconds later; repeat.

Also, sorry for the lack of spoiler alert...

UPDATE: Dempsey! I love that man. I always pick him in my fantasy league and he never lets me down. Great goal.

UPDATE: USA! USA!

Wednesday 3.

* First Read considers the curse of the 2012 GOP candidate, noting that only Mitt Romney has avoided total credibility implosion. But stay tuned: it's a long way to Iowa, and I believe in the Mittpocalypse.

Of course, it's also worth noting that Obama's political opponents tend to be cursed in this way: consider that his main opponents for Illinois State Senate were pulled from the ballot for insufficient signatures, that his original run for Senate was facilitated by the scandal surrounding the divorce of Jack and Jeri "Seven of Nine" Ryan, and that his opponent for the presidency actually thought Sarah Palin was a credible vice presidential candidate.

* More on Kay Hagan and health care from Triangulator. Contact information for Hagan's Senate office is here.

* The MTA is trying to sell name rights for subway stations. Can't we get a court to bar this kind of silliness? "Atlantic Avenue" is a useful and informative name for a subway station; the name of a bank in London is not remotely. UPDATE: I'm 99% less outraged upon realizing that Barclay's is building a basketball stadium near that subway station.

* Michael Bérubé on the futility on the humanities. Said futility is not a bad thing.

* Žižek on Iran (at least allegedly).

And, last but not least, what this means is that there is a genuine liberating potential in Islam – to find a “good” Islam, one doesn’t have to go back to the 10th century, we have it right here, in front of our eyes.

The future is uncertain – in all probability, those in power will contain the popular explosion, and the cat will not fall into the precipice, but regain ground. However, it will no longer be the same regime, but just one corrupted authoritarian rule among others. Whatever the outcome, it is vitally important to keep in mind that we are witnessing a great emancipatory event which doesn’t fit the frame of the struggle between pro-Western liberals and anti-Western fundamentalists. If our cynical pragmatism will make us lose the capacity to recognize this emancipatory dimension, then we in the West are effectively entering a post-democratic era, getting ready for our own Ahmadinejads. Italians already know his name: Berlusconi. Others are waiting in line.

* Soccer in South Africa, at the Big Picture.

Wednesday 2.

* My North Carolinian readers should consider sending a letter expressing their displeasure to the offices of our senator, Kay Hagan, who as Facing South reports is currently one of the major stumbling blocks for health care reform.

Sen. Kay Hagan
521 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: 202-224-6342
Fax: 202-228-2563

You can contact her via email at her web site, but a snail mail letter is still best.

* Climate Progress analyzes the concessions made to Collin Peterson to get Waxman-Markey to the floor this week. Kevin Drum and Yglesias has more, as well as a teaser for how much worse the Senate version will be.

* Also from Yglesias: (1) a post on Asimov's novel The Gods Themselves that intrigued me enough to drop everything and read the book and (2) a report that the Iranian soccer players who wore green in solidarity with the protesters have been banned from the sport for life. The Gods Themselves, I can report, is a great read: in addition to the environmental allegory Yglesias highlights there's also some really intriguing queer sexuality stuff in the "how aliens have sex" section—very rare for Asimov—and a nice Star Maker-style cosmology regarding the origin of the universe and the fates of planets that don't solve their energy crises. I think Asimov's probably right that it's his best book.

* Squaring off on the suckiness of Transformers II. In this corner, Roger Ebert:

“Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” is a horrible experience of unbearable length, briefly punctuated by three or four amusing moments. One of these involves a dog-like robot humping the leg of the heroine. Such are the meager joys. If you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together. Then close your eyes and use your imagination.

And in this corner, Walter Chaw:

The worst summer in recent memory continues as Michael Bay brings his slow push-ins and Lazy Susan dolly shots back to the cineplex with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (hereafter Transformers 2), the ugliest, most hateful, most simple-minded and incomprehensible assault on art and decency since the last Michael Bay movie.

* And your webcomic of the day: Warbot in Accounting.

More evidence emerges of Obama's European-style communofascism: he plans to attend the opening ceremonies of the 2010 World Cup.

Friday links 2.

* Cinéma vérité vérité: Trailer for an upcoming documentary about Arrested Development. Via Kottke.

* What liberal media: Why would the Washington Post fire one of its best reporters and columnists? Glenn Greewald is on the case
(here's more), while Steve Benen takes a look at the amazing balance in evidence on the Washington Post's editorial page post-Froomkin.

* Still casting about for ways to pacify the LGBT community without having to actually do anything, the Obama administration has announced it is "looking for ways" to include same-sex couples in the 2010 census. Pam at Pandagon has a more in-depth rundown.

* ThinkProgress reports 'Iranian soccer players reportedly suspended for wearing green wristbands.'

* TPM catches Colbert out of character.

Ronaldo has left Manchester United for Real Madrid, and fantasy soccer owners everywhere breathe a sigh of relief.

Night.

* Glenn Beck, lunatic, openly calls for secession.

You can't convince me that the Founding Fathers wouldn't allow you to secede.

The Constitution is not a suicide pact, and if a state says: `I don't want to go there, because that's suicide, they have a right to back out. They have a right -- people have a right to not commit economic suicide...

...Texas says go to hell, Washington, which by the way has been said before. I believe it was Davey Crocket...it's about time that somebody says that again.

He's riffing off some similarly histrionic language from Texas Gov. Rick Perry. When is Fox going to pull the plug on this guy?

* New York joins the future: Gov. David A. Paterson on Thursday will announce plans to introduce legislation to legalize same-sex marriage, according to people with knowledge of the governor’s plans.

* Roasted Peanuts: a blog devoted to the best of classic Peanuts. Via MeFi, which points one I'm rather fond of.

* Barack Obama, great president or greatest president? The president recently sent a video praising Chicago in its bid to hold the 2016 Summer Games. Now he has endorsed the United States’ effort to hold the World Cup of soccer either in 2018 or 2022.

* After two years of work of collecting, scanning, and tagging, the Government Comics Collection at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln library has gone live. This digital collection features "comic books affiliated with state and federal U.S. government agencies, as well as the UN and the EU (and a couple from Canada and one from Ghana)" and includes comics and art by Will Eisner, Scott Adams, Hank Ketcham ("Dennis the Menace Takes a Poke at Poison"), and more.

Random Friday Links, Politics Edition.

* McCain has finally stumbled on a winning message on the economy: "It's all Obama's fault!" Riiiiight.

* And judging from the above clip it looks like McCain's speechwriters are still trying to find a line that doesn't lead to a creepy smile.

* Turns out McCain doesn't know that Fannie and Freddie are private companies, either.

* Woody Allen says it will be "a disgrace and a humiliation" for the United States if Obama loses. Too right.

* But the disgrace and humiliation is already here: American democracy has a severe legitimacy problem in the face of a decade of Republican electoral malfeasance, as Ezra Klein shows.

* Obama hits back on the truly awful infanticide smear with the toughest ad I think I've seen him run.

* Kevin Drum and Blaney's Blarney take looks at our new nationally sponsored soccer team, Manchester United.

* And FiveThirtyEight.com shows that the probability of a 269-269 tie continues to increase, with most such scenarios centering on an Obama loss in New Hampshire. Come on, Omaha, don't fail us now...

We'll be driving all day tomorrow, so no posts until the evening. In the meantime, consider that there's only two days left to sign up for Premier League Fantasy Football, the best damn online fantasy soccer league in all of human history.

Trades only take a few minutes a week, and trust me, you don't need to know anything about the Premier League to do well and have fun.

Once you've signed up, our league code is 74135-58847. The deadline for the first week is Saturday at 11:30 AM BST / 5:30 AM EST...

Anyone out there interested in a fantasy soccer league? A group at Duke is doing Fantasy Premier League again, and I'd be happy to give out our league code to anyone interested in participating. Hit me in my email, gerryblog -at- gmail.com...

European Championship final today at 2:30 on ABC. Germany vs. Spain—should be a solid match. I get the sense that Spain is probably the favorite, but I don't know—I think with Spain's top scorer out to injury they'll have more trouble with the solid German side than people think. Fabregas is a good substitute, but he's both young and recovering from injuries himself—I know from my U.K. fantasy football league that he hasn't quite been the same since an injury and surgery mid-season.

So, prediction: Germany for the upset. That's my gut feeling. And it looks like that's what I'll be rooting for, a little bit despite myself.

After an incredible quarterfinals stage the European Championship moves to the semis.

Wednesday 6/25 @ 2:30 EST

Germany vs. Turkey

Like everyone else, I've counted Turkey out over and over again, and having been wrong so many times already I'm reluctant to count them out now—but with so many top players suspended during their squeaker victory against Croatia it's really hard to see how they can top a tough team like Germany.

Thursday 6/26 @ 2:30 EST

Spain vs. Russia

Russia got incredibly lucky against the Dutch in the quarters; I'd be shocked if they got that lucky again.

Spain vs. Germany looks like the final to me.