Balotelli's Violin

The world's most mercurial player, Mario Balotelli, singlefootedly lifted Italy over favored Germany in the Euro2012 semifinal, 2-1, thereby making your Bloguero's day. Balotelli scored twice; Germany goes home. That is so very gratifying.

Sunday is the Euro2012 final, world champions Spain v. Italy. 2:30 pm ET. If you're in the US it's on ESPN. If you're somewhere else, just turn on the telly. This will be a great, exciting game. Do not miss it.

Spain v US: How Embarrassing Will This Be?

I'm sorry. Just because the US managed to beat Egypt and managed on negative goal differential to make the semis (by one minus point) does not mean that the US team is an adequate, international team. It's not. Stop fooling yourself about this. The proof of inadequacy is coming on Wednesday at 2:25 pm ET on ESPN2 when the US team play Spain.

The commentators can say anything they want about the passion of the US team when they played Egypt. Playing Spain is a different matter. This is not a team ranked 45 in the world. I expect it to show that the US is dreaming to believe it will make the round of 16 in the world cup next year with this team. I expect it to reveal to all who watch how very lost this team is. You heard it here first.

La Liga And Manners And Psychokinesis

Eduardo Alves sets out the rules for conduct during Spanish La Liga games:

As I was watching the match, I remembered the set of unwritten rules of behaviour I learnt through decades of attending to football matches in Spain: you shall never arrive late at the start of the first or second half; you shall never take pictures standing during the match; you shall not initiate nor participate in The Wave (exception: national team matches, full of fair-weather fans); you shall not leave your seat during the match for any reason (hunger, thirst, severe stomach disorders, etc.); and of course, you shall NEVER leave the stadium until the match is over, even in the event of a humiliating defeat.

Breaking this code always gets you told off by neighbouring fans. You have to be completely focused on the match, from the start until the final whistle, as if the result depended on each fan's concentration. Incidentally, this is probably why any Spaniard watching a baseball game becomes desperate just after the top of the first inning, as one would think those two teams with bats and gloves are just an excuse to eat, drink, take pictures and wander around the stadium.

The key here is to behave "as if the result depended on each fan's concentration."

Even in a 0-0 game, as we all realize, there's still plenty to watch, and most of it is not going to be in any of the highlights shows or on videotape replays. So you have to concentrate on what you're seeing. Because it's only going to happen once, and then it's going to happen quickly. But, of course, because everyone else is doing the same thing, you have to do this in a way that doesn't disturb anyone else's concentration.

Concentration, you will recall, is how Uri Geller, who was Hungarian/Israeli and not Spanish, bent forks with mind control. Singing and yelling don't disturb concentration; only standing in front of someone who's trying to concentrate and blocking the view of the field.

Of course, we all know the limitations of concentration and futbol from the same Uri Geller:

After in 1997 trying to help Coca Cola League 2 football club Exeter City win a crucial end of season game by placing energy-infused crystals behind the goals at Exeter's ground (Exeter would eventually lose the game 5–1) he was appointed co-chairman of the club in 2002. The club would be relegated to the Nationwide Conference in May 2003, where they were to remain for five years.

Gitmo: The Gift That Keeps On Giving

This morning's New York Times reports that Spain will investigate whether a previous government permitted Spanish territory to be used in transporting prisoners to Gitmo. One thing is obvious. Yes, Spain permitted its territory to be used to transport prisoners.

According to The Times

Spain will investigate whether a previous government allowed Spanish territory to be used to transport captured terrorism suspects to Guantanamo Bay, the Foreign Ministry said Sunday.

The ministry said in a statement it had not been informed whether the government of Jose Maria Aznar, in power from 1996 to 2004, allowed CIA flights carrying captured foreigners to use Spanish air space or runways.

The newspaper El Pais said in a report Sunday that it had obtained a government document showing that a U.S. official asked the Foreign Ministry for such access in January 2002. El Pais published the document -- labeled MUY SECRETO, or top secret -- in its paper and Web site editions.

The request was communicated to Josep Pique, who was foreign minister, hours before a CIA flight landed at Moron air base in southwest Spain, the El Pais report said.

The story in El Pais is here (en Espanol), and the documents are here: part 1 (pdf) and part 2 (pdf). All are in Spanish.

The important part (my translation from the El Pais story, for which I apologize in advance):

The USA is going very soon to initiate flights to transfer Taliban and Al Qaeda prisoners from Afghanistan to the Guantánamo, Cuba base", Aguirre de Cárcer wrote. "These flights will be carried out with long distance airplanes and, consequently, without stop overs," it continued. "Nevertheless, if for unanticipated reasons, like the necessity of a forced landing, the Government of the USA wants to obtain authorization from the Spanish Government to use some airport in our country". "The Government of the USA," he emphasized, "Assures that these stop overs would be for the time minimum essential to transfer to another airplane at the airport to continue the flight and that, to this end, the US would have prepared airplanes in reserve in the region to move immediately if necessary. At any moment, the USA would be responsible for the security of the transported people".

So this is how it's done. The US serves up at the last possible minute a fait accompli with some seriously misleading terms and voila! the flight can land in Spain. Among the seriously misleading parts are who the prisoners are, where they might be from, where they're going, and on and on, the entire litany of black holes, extraordinary renditions, illegal extraditions, kidnappings, torture. None of that is disclosed.

Is it any wonder that there is no trust of the present Administration across the world.

A first step to remedy some of this? Close Gitmo. Find out who's there. Try those that can be tried in federal courts. Release everybody else. Put a period at the end of this ugly chapter from our national story. Prosecute those who are responsible.