Tomorrow morning, in the tenth game of the World Cup and the first one that actually matters :), the United States plays the Czech Republic.

I kid, but it actually is a very important game for Team USA, considering the Czechs, at #2 in the world, are the highest-ranked team in Group E. (America is #5 — and widely considered overrated. Italy is #13, and Ghana is #48.) A tie would, it seems to me, be an excellent result for Team USA under the circumstances. A win, and the Americans would be sitting pretty, looking golden for an appearance in the second round. A loss, and their backs would be pretty much against the wall heading into the game against Italy on Saturday — which, incidentally, BrendanLoy.com World Cup Correspondent Nick Surmacz just found out he’ll be attending!

Anyway, ESPN has more on tomorrow’s game here and here. The latter article declares, “In many respects, the challenge couldn’t be more daunting, and a victory would be perhaps the Americans’ most impressive result ever in a World Cup.”

Game time is 9:00 AM MST (noon EDT) on ESPN2. I guess this means I need to find some work that I can plausibly do in the attorney lounge. :)

P.S. I should invite Arash over! Surely he could fit an attorney lounge into his World Cup Pub Blog…

P.P.S. The USA-Czech game will be liveblogged here.

P.P.P.S. There’s something that bugs me about the World Cup, and it’s not nil-nil draws or bright yellow jerseys or dark stadium shadows. It’s the way ties in the group standings are broken. According to this article, in a two-way tie, the head-to-head result is the third tiebreaker, after “highest goal difference” and “most goals for.” How does that make any sense?! Consider, for example, the following scenario:

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As of 2am EDT (11pm MST), Tropical Storm Alberto is still with us, and still at tropical-storm strength — though the latter conclusion is based on a generous assumption, as the NHC admits in its discussion: “THE 40-KT INTENSITY IS BASED ON THE ASSUMPTION THAT THE RECON AIRCRAFT MAY NOT HAVE SAMPLED STRONGER WINDS TO THE EAST OF THE FLIGHT TRACK WITHIN SOME OF THE STRONGER CONVECTION.” Translation: “the objective data doesn’t support the conclusion that this storm has the winds we’re saying it does, but we’re going to ignore that for the moment.”

According to the official forecast track, landfall is expected to occur around midday Tuesday near Cedar Key, Florida. But as Hurricane Track points out, “Because the center of circulation is currently not covered in deep thunderstorms, the passage of it will be anti-climactic. Most of the weather associated with Alberto will impact Florida tomorrow and tomorrow night.”

Hurricane Track’s 10:50 PM EDT update also states, “Once past Florida, there is some question as to what happens with Alberto. You don’t even want to know what the afternoon run of the famous GFDL model showed. It was absurd.” Naturally, I was curious, so I checked it out, and saw that the GFDL’s 18Z run had Alberto strengthening over land into a borderline Category 1-2 hurricane in south-central Georgia. Heh! (The 00Z run makes a little more sense, showing Alberto nearly falling apart, then getting his act together and making landfall as a Cat. 1 hurricane, then weakening over Georgia and then — presumably after transitioning to an extratropical storm — exploding into an intense storm as it exists the North Carolina/Virginia area, and becoming a major nor’easter off the New England coast. All very interesting, and less “absurd” than what the 18Z run showed… but still probably pretty unlikely.)

I’m going to bed now, and will be working (and thus not blogging) all day tomorrow, but hopefully my hurricane guestbloggers will be able to post a few updates… and in the mean time, I encourage everyone to check out the sites on my “hurricane blogroll” at right. Most of them are posting Alberto updates at least a few times a day.

Iowa voters — perhaps realizing their colossal mistake in anointing John Kerry (”the one candidate who might through sheer force of his own unappealing personality lose the race to a vulnerable incumbent“) rather than picking the vastly preferable John Edwards — want another crack at it, and this time, they’re backing the right candidate:

A new Iowa Poll conducted for The Des Moines Register shows that Edwards, the runner-up in the Iowa Democratic caucuses two years ago and a frequent visitor to the state since then, is the choice of 30 percent of Iowans who say they are likely to take part in the January 2008 caucuses.

U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York follows on Edwards’ heels with 26 percent in the Iowa Poll. …

U.S. Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, who used his victory in the 2004 caucuses as a springboard to the Democratic presidential nomination that year, is a distant third in the Iowa Poll with 12 percent.

As an aside, if you click the link it will become apparent that the photo editor of the Des Moines Register is not one of the 26 percent who support Hillary. :)

Anyway, this is the first time a major poll of Democrats has produced a non-Hillary front-runner. Perhaps Iowans have learned from their costly 2004 error, and they don’t want to pick a poisonous, unelectable, sure-loser nominee in two straight elections!

Via SportsCrack, here’s the video of Notre Dame safety Tommy Zbikowski’s pro boxing debut at Madison Square Garden last night, which ended in a 49-second knockout of his opponent:

Regime Change Iran covers the political aspect of today’s Iran-Mexico game — specifically, the fact that, even though this guy was at the game, “tens of Iranian fans” (which, admittedly, doesn’t sound too impressive when you put it that way) “cheered their team but also staged a significant anti-regime protest” by waving the country’s old, pre-Revolution flag. Particularly poignant (and hot!) was the sight of Iranian women — who are banned from showing skin and from going to sports stadiums in Iran — waving the old flags and cheering for their team:

(Hat tip: Charles.)

If it’s a choice between those Iranian fans and this Mexican fan, I’m totally pulling for Iran. :)

Then there were the Iranian fans wearing Israeli flags, which is sort of like being an Irish Trojan… as if such a thing even exists! Oh, wait…

Group C
I covered Argentina’s victory over the Ivory Coast last night, and today I’ll add my observations on the Netherlands 1-0 victory over Serbia and Montenegro. Call it the vans vs. the ‘vics. Not only did the vans win, but their bright orange jerseys are put them in contention with Sweden’s all yellow jerseys for the Human Highlighters contest. The Oregon Ducks would be proud.

The Dutch more or less controlled this game. While they had trouble finishing, their dominance of possession and constant creativity on transition and attack unsettled Serbia and Montenegro’s vaunted defense. Serbia and Montenegro are not a bad team; they went through World Cup qualifying ceding only one goal and finishing with no losses. However, they lack creativity and inspiration on attack in the first half, and they played real tight today–tactics which earned the coach scorn from some of his players.

The second half was a bit of a different story. Serbia and Montenegro played more aggressively, disrupting Holland’s control-oriented style but also earning them four yellow cards, which could come back to haunt them in the next two games. While they couldn’t find that elusive equalizer, they were able to penetrate the Oranje’s defense and test the goalkeeper. Unfortunately, they weren’t able to overcome their one defensive gaffe in the first half, and many are wondering if Serbia and Montenegro might have been able to salvage a tie if they had their star defender, who was forced to miss the World Cup opener because of a red card in their final qualifying match.

Meanwhile, though I was very impressed with how Holland was able to dictate the pace of the match, I can’t shake the impression that they are not quite equals with Argentina and are potentially vulnerable to an upset by the Ivory Coast. Without a doubt, this group is this year’s Group of Death (the Americans’ group is no biergarten picnic either). I also can’t shake the feeling that, although Serbia and Montenegro are a much tougher squad than I expected to see, they will nevertheless be incredibly lucky to earn a victory in group play and will likely go home early.

I don’t see Holland advancing as far as many are claiming they will. While their ball control is superb and they have quite the attack, I still think their defense and goalkeeping is highly suspect. I’d give Ivory Coast a better than 50/50 shot at pulling off the upset, and I simply don’t think they can hang with Argentina. If the Dutch can’t pull off at least a draw with Ivory Coast, the Oranje may need more than a tie against Argentina to advance in the last match of group play.

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The Storm Track predicts: “It is going to be very hard for more convection to fire up near the center of circulation. A quick look at the water vapor imagery shows the large mass of dry air over the Western Gulf of Mexico. At this rate Alberto may not survive the trip to Florida.”

HurricaneTrack speculates: “Recon flights in to the storm tonight might very well show that the season’s first storm has weakened back in to a depression. We will see.”

Given all the pre-storm hype, this is turning out to be quite possibly the most anticlimactic tropical event in recent memory. :) Not like that’s a bad thing, nor like we had any legitimate reason to expect otherwise.

In case anyone missed it, as it got quickly buried by all these posts about tropical storms and wild animals and sports, the day’s really big news is that Andrew and Bea are getting married!


Andrew and Bea at our wedding.

Hearty congratulations to the happy couple!

(For the uninitiated, Andrew is a friend of ours from USC, and my Best Man at Becky’s and my wedding last December. Bea, who we’ve known through Andrew since 2003 — well, actually, I technically met her in person before Andrew did, on a sort of scouting mission, hehe — was one of Becky’s bridesmaids. We love them both and couldn’t be happier for them!)

Andrew has promised details and photos of his proposal, so stay tuned for that. I know I will be! (There’s nothing quite like finding out about major news in your friends’ life from your own website!)

P.S. For the sake of simplicity and consolidation, I suggest leaving any and all congratulatory messages on Andrew’s post, and reserving this comment section for miscellaneous commentary such as good-natured teasing of the bride-and-groom-to-be. For example: the title of this post. :)

As of the 5:00 PM EDT advisory (2:00 PM MST), Tropical Storm Watches are up for the Florida west coast, from just north of Bonita Beach to Steinhatchee. But Alberto remains an unhealthy tropical storm:

SATELLITE IMAGES SHOW THAT THE BANDS OF HEAVIER SHOWERS HAVE BECOME DISPLACED FARTHER EAST AND NORTHEAST OF THE CENTER THAN THEY WERE THIS MORNING. INDEED…THE SYSTEM HAS SOMEWHAT OF A SUBTROPICAL APPEARANCE AT THE MOMENT. BECAUSE THE SATELLITE PRESENTATION HAS BECOME LESS ORGANIZED SINCE EARLIER TODAY…IT IS POSSIBLE THAT THE CYCLONE IS WEAKENING.

The official forecast calls for slight strengthening, from 45 mph to 50 mph sustained winds, but the NHC doesn’t sound too confident in that.

Notre Dame football player Tom Zbikowski made his professional boxing debut at Madison Square Garden last night (yes, that’s allowed by NCAA, so long as he doesn’t accept commercial endorsements), but if you blinked, you might have missed it: Zibby knocked out his opponent in 49 seconds. (Hat tip: Vicki from NJ.)

You’ve seen the bear. Now, here’s a whole gallery of photos of our trip yesterday to northern Arizona, where we visited Out of Africa Wildlife Park and the towns of Jerome and Prescott. Some highlights below.


Sometimes the King needs a nap.


For some reason, these guys kept babbling about how USC only won one national championship. Go figure.


“Hakuna matata!”

More after the jump.

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Prince Philip, the husband of Queen Elizabeth II, is dreading at least one aspect of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London: the opening and closing ceremonies. He calls them “absolute bloody nuisances” and says they “ought to be banned.”

I daresay some Brits would say the same thing about the monarchy…

Here’s what some weatherbloggers and meteorologists are saying about the first tropical storm of the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season:

Alan Sullivan: “National Hurricane Center decided to waste a name on this system after a reconnaisance flight found tropical storm force winds in convection far to the east of the center. With so much shear, Alberto has no real future, but it will give Drudge another headline.”

HurricaneTrack: “As we look at the status of our first tropical storm this season, I have to say that it looks rather poor. Strong upper level winds are literally removing the deep thunderstorms from over the low level circulation center. This is never an indication of an intensifying cyclone.”

Palm Beach Post Storm Blog: “Nature proved last year that it can create powerful, enormous, beautifully circulating hurricanes — no need to go showing us all over again. I’d be really happy to have a season of tropical underachievers this time.”

SciGuy: “Alberto likely a blessing, not a curse”

The Storm Track: “The computer models are clearly locking onto Northern Florida for a future landfall if Alberto is able to survive that long. Considering this consistency in the track, it is surprising to note that Alberto thus far has been holding on the left side of the expected track. If this trend continues it would keep the center of the storm under more hostile conditions and bring it toward the northern Gulf Coast.”

Dr. Jeff Masters: “Alberto is a fairly typical-looking June tropical storm. The satellite presentation is not very impressive this morning, with most of the deep convection lying to the east of the exposed center. Strong westerly winds associated with the subtropical jet stream are removing the deep convection from the center. This wind shear is creating a very hostile environment for Alberto to survive in, let alone strengthen. With the shear forecast to strengthen, I would not be surprised to see Alberto ripped apart tonight. If this scenario does occur, the low level swirl of clouds associated with Alberto’s core will drift into the center of the Gulf of Mexico and gradually decay. The main moisture to the east of the center will separate and get pulled across Florida. If Alberto manages to survive, a strong trough of low pressure moving over the Eastern U.S. will recurve the storm over Central and Northern Florida, where Alberto will rapidly lose tropical characteristics and become a very rainy low pressure system. Alberto currently has tropical storm force winds of 40-45 mph in a very small area to the northeast of the center. The central pressure has actually risen 2 mb to 1004 mb since 7 am EDT this morning, proving that this is not a healthy tropical storm. I give Alberto a less than 5% chance of making hurricane status. It is far more likely (40% chance) that Alberto will get torn apart by high wind shear before making landfall on Florida’s west coast. The most likely scenario is that Alberto will hit the west coast of Florida as a weak tropical storm with maximum winds of 40 - 50 mph.”

AccuWeather: “The latest satellite imagery shows Alberto is trying to beconme better organized. Although southwest shear aloft continues to expose the west side of the depression, leaving the bulk of convection on the east side of the center of circulation, the latest images show that convection is trying to wrap around the center of circulation, suggesting that the shear may be relaxing some. … Although we think that this southwest to westerly shear being exerted on Alberto will continue to be a deterrent to too much strengthening over the next 12-24 hours, Alberto is moving to the north-northwest over waters that are warm and deep enough for strengthening, so it would not be out of the question that it strengthens a little more over the next 12-24 hours.”

P.S. Here’s another post, from a Florida blogger named Doyle at A Cool Change, written yesterday afternoon: “The media’s talking heads have been breaking in regularly since yesterday with ominous music, to report the same thing they did twenty minutes before. The earth-shattering news just broadcast is that the skies in Clearwater are clear <cue the ominous music> but that could change in the next few days.” Heh.

Heh.

In a game that must have severely tested the loyalties of the xenophobic far right, Mexico beat Iran, 3-1 — the first step toward rendering moot Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s threat to travel to Germany if the Iranian team reaches the second round. One more loss would likely eliminate Iran from contention. (It’s mathematically possible, but realistically unlikely, for a 1-2-0 team to qualify for the second round.)

Mexico is ranked #4 in the world; Iran is ranked #23. The Iranians next face #7 Portugal on Saturday, and then #57 Angola a week from Wednesday.

In other World Cup news, violent protests broke out in Somalia as hardline Islamic courts “shut cinema halls and barred residents from watching the World Cup.”

P.S. Less the loony far left go unskewered, a commenter says: “In the pub I was at, there were many moonbats of the extreme left who were cheering hard for the Iranians — ‘take that Bush,’ was the chant after Iran scored in the 36th minute.” Dumbasses.