World Cup Miracle

[Phil Bunch]

New York Times empathizes with the Dutch people regarding the World Cup:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/opinion/11bakker.html?ref=todayspaper&pagewanted=print

Excerpt:
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We are supposed to have the best soccer players in the world, but we are also a very small country, with the feelings and sentiments that go with that. The Netherlands has been in only two World Cup finals before, and both times we lost. In 1974, we were beat by West Germany — a trauma beyond comprehension, handed on from generation to generation, because the Germans are, well, Germans. And in 1978, we lost to Argentina — which left us with no trauma at all, Argentines being people from another continent, across a huge and very deep ocean, who make a lot of noise and are cocky and handsome, and so are nothing like the Dutch at all.

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

I hope mostly one thing: that the game will be fair, pretty, and worthy of the high standards that a World Championship should bring. In such a case, there is no loser. Else, there are two losers.

Oh, give or take a billion.


Jeroen

[Phil Bunch]

The vuvuzelas are really annoying, even with a moderate sound level on my TV...  

I may have to turn the sound off and turn the text captions on instead, but that takes away much of the feeling of participating in a sports event as a spectator.  It must be unbearable to be in the stadium.  One wonders if the TV people could filter out most of this sound...or maybe they are!

Moderately interesting article on the vuvuzela at wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vuvuzela

I am an admirer of the Netherlands as a country and a culture, and hope they come away with a good, strong victory.

[torrence]

Spain super, psychic cephalopod supreme

Not pretty, chances for both sides, but Spain finally nailed theirs.  I feel for the Dutch, but one has to admit that a couple of the yellows in the first half should have had a more up-spectrum hue.  Congratulations to a new World Cup winner.

Time to start planning the qualifying campaign for Brazil  

Cheers,
Torrence

[Will]

I was more impressed by Paul the Octopus than by Spain or the referees. Paul is 8-0 this year!

[James Lacey]

Only one team turned up to play football today...The Dutch were an absolute disgrace - particularly in the first half when they should have had two reds.

So glad it didn't go to penalties.

[Peter Lang]

I hope mostly one thing: that the game will be fair, pretty, and worthy of the high standards that a World Championship should bring....

Both teams had a tremendous pressure to win the cup. When I remember the match in 1974 (Dutch-German - I was a 13 year old boy) there also was a lot of foul play. But this was really sad to see. Especially the Kung Fu artist.  http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-56994-10.html

At the end of the match I was glad that the German team was not in the final.

Peter

[Avi]

Simply heart breaking.

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

Just four years to go!

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

At least "we" did something nice to get them home.






PS. The F16 did not have real Sidewinders, I was told.

[OKD]

haha....that's patriotic...

just take a look at the flexing of the wings tilting upwards...beautiful B777....but still can't beat the lovely 744....!!

[Will]

That's the best paint job I've ever seen on an F16.  From this angle though, the lion just looks like a crazy orange camouflage scheme.

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

one team ... one mission ... one F16  :mrgreen:

[martin]

Misschien they were not honour-escorting so much, but rather keeping an eye on the guys and/or sending them a message?
One notes that the colour of the F-16 is composed from Orange (=yellow+red) and Red...
 

[Phil Bunch]

I can't think of a less camouflage-effective paint scheme than this brilliant Netherlands-orange art work.

Am I correct in assuming that it was painted orange to celebrate the successes of the Netherlands team?  In other words, am I correct in assuming that the whole air defense system doesn't use orange?!?!

[Will]

That might actually be the whole air defense system.

[Shiv Mathur]

LOL, Will !!

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

J-015 has been painted orange in 2009 as the (solo) F16 demo fighter for airshows and other special occasions. It is present at nearly all occasions where the Royal Netherlands Air Force wants to project their presence for marketing reasons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Netherlands_Air_Force

We have about 90 F16s currently. Our military/politicians decided to go "air mobile" two decades ago and we nearly integrated air and land forces to be rapid-deployable. This leads to an overweight number of aircraft for such a small country: next to the fighters we have a large helicopter fleet (Europe's largest heli base is 5km from where I live, viva el Chinook) including plenty of Apaches, and even two KDC10 tanker aircraft (plus a DC10 nontanker). However it is not directly clear how many flight hours they are allowed to burn over the next years...


Jeroen

[Will]

Paul the Octopus may be traded to Spain!

"In what may prove to be the biggest transfer story this summer, negotiations have begun to bring Paul the psychic octopus to Madrid after he correctly predicted Spain's World Cup final victory. Madrid's Zoo Aquarium says it is prepared to trump any other offer Germany's Oberhausen Sea Life Centre receives for Paul, certain that the world's most famous cephalopod will attract thousands of visitors.  At present no cash is on the table, and the zoo says it is trying to negotiate an exchange of animals..."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/15/paul-the-octopus-madrid-transfer

[Richard McDonald Woods]

Typical Guardian!