Unbelievable! Could the defending champions fail to make the second round?

Pape Bouba Diop gave Senegal a surprising 1-0 win over defending World Cup champion France as the curtain came up Friday on the World Cup finals in the South Korean capital.

And so, it begins… not with a whimper, but with a bang.

Playing on a global stage, chances are Mathis will create a buzz around US team

Can Mathis help the US to make it to the second round? His record sure says that it might be possible.

He can’t exactly tell you how it happens. It just happens. The amazing hat trick against the Kansas City Wizards last year. The 60-yard mouse-in-a-maze run against Dallas. The touchdown pass to Josh Wolff against the Mexicans. The two goals against the Germans in March.

Sounds good to me! Now, let’s see you do it against Portugal next Wednesday!

The World Cup starts today.

Well, it’s time for the world to whip up its quadrennial fit of nationalistic passion and watch the only true world championship in all of sport, the [[World Cup]]. It’s taken four long years, and many matches for these 32 teams to qualify, and now’s the time for each to show what its made of.

Carolyn Frail married Neal King in a wonderful ceremony among friends and family.

##Some Great Pictures

As those of you who were there undoubtedly know, I took *many* pictures while I was there. Some of them came out great, and some poor. Here are some of what I consider to be the best.

The pictures below are thumbnails… click on them to see the full size picture.

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##Unfortunate Accident

One of the discs that I had some pictures on somehow became scratched and I haven’t been able to upload the pictures from it. It contained a picture of all ten cousins together for the first time in 25 years! I’m trying to figure out a way to buff out the scratches, and if I’m successful, I’ll add the pictures to this page.

Stay tuned.

Sam Snead, the golfing great known as **Slammin’ Sam** who used the sweetest swing in the game to win seven major championships and a record 81 PGA TOUR events, died Thursday at age 89.

[[sam_snead]]

He was famous for his straw hat, cocky grin and homespun humor. A three-time Masters champion, Snead had been an honorary starter since 1983. He would jaunt to the first tee, show off that flowing, flawless swing and then tell stories outside the clubhouse.

I remember several interviews he did with Peter Kessler on [[The Golf Channel]] and he always had a story to tell and a twinkle in his eyes. His was the first of what is now known as a classic swing, and there was never one smoother.

Israel really has no choice.

Maps of *Palestine* on the walls of Arafat’s offices – occasionally seen in news photos or television footage – are actually maps of Israel… It would take far more room than I have here to list all of the Palestinian agencies, publications, organizations, and Web sites in which Palestine is shown as encompassing all of Israel….
On the day he signed the first Oslo accord at the White House in 1993, Arafat told an interviewer that the agreement *will be a basis for an independent Palestinian state in accordance with the Palestine National Council resolution issued in 1974.” He was referring to the PLO’s ”phased plan,” which was adopted in Cairo on June 9, 1974. It calls for establishing a Palestinian state on any Israeli land that can be acquired through negotiation, then using that territory as a forward base for ”liberating* the rest of Israel by force.

If somebody tells you that they are going to kill you (which hopefully will never happen), will you let them, or will you fight back and try to stop them? You’d probably fight back. In that case, who is the only one that can actually stop the violence? The one that issued the original threat.

There it is. If you support the Palestinians, you support the complete destruction of Israel.

Every time [[Tiger]] tees it up it seems, he’s setting a new record or chasing an old one.

Nothing better explains the magnitude of Woods’s domination of professional golf, perhaps, than this reality: Still just 26 years old, he steps into the history books almost weekly.

Case in point: This weekend’s bid to win a fourth straight Memorial would put him in select company. Only Gene Sarazen (Miami Open, 1926, ’28-30) and Walter Hagen (PGA Championship, 1924-27) have won the same tournament four times in a row.

The entire tour seems to be caught in the headlights of the on-rushing [[Tiger]].

Sports Illustrated seems to think so.

Before you scoff at an American magazine’s World Cup picks, bear in mind: People snickered when SI tabbed host France to win its first World Cup four years ago. This time around the French may be cofavorites (with Argentina) to repeat as champions by taking the final in Yokohama, Japan, but we’ll cast our lot instead with Italy, a veteran group fully capable of cashing in on the kindest draw imaginable.

This sure makes my friend Raffaele smile with pride (he’s from Italy :-).

The part that I’m happy about is that they also predict that the U.S. will make the second round.

Vote the Bums Out!

**D**on’t

**P**oliticians

It really is that simple. We have political leaders that are drunk with power, and it’s our own fault. If we had the collective guts, we’d keep voting these bums out until we got a group that truly represented our best interests instead of their own desire to get re-elected.

We get the government we deserve.

Has anyone looked into cutting unnecessary spending first?

The state Senate is set to approve the entire $1.06 billion tax package passed by the House and may raise additional taxes to help pay for increased spending on education and health care, Senate President Thomas F. Birmingham said yesterday.

In the elections this fall, don’t forget to [[DRIP]] on the State House!