Weekend Upsets

• First, the Italians managed to get the home team off the finals yesterday in a game that only got interesting in the last half-hour of extra time. The first ninety minutes were boring. The Italian coach must have told them: I ain't losing to penalties, so attack, bambini, and so they did, quite spectacularly, shocking the entire German nation out of the prize. I only feel sorry for handsome Klinsmann, because he is the cutest coach ever.
This upset is good news, because the outcome is less predictable now, and the vying teams are going to fight like crazy for the title. Hopefully, they will play some soccer while they're at it.
Since I hate them all, I've decided I'm with France. I don't even understand why. Perhaps because everybody in that team is from somewhere other than France, (that is, from the former French colonies) and this should be teaching them a lesson on equalité and fraternité, at least. No, it's because I'm in love with Zidane.
I can't wait for the World Cup to end, my brain is mush and I can't take it anymore.

• Then Ken Lay bites the dust, never to afford the satisfaction to millions of duped investors and other innocent bystanders of witnessing him take his punishment. Of the two Enron bosses, he seemed the less evil one, and it certainly looks like the fall of Enron took a toll on him. For his family it must be a great tragedy, but at least he spared himself the further humiliation of a long stint in jail. Now Skilling is going to have to go it alone. Serves him right.

• Then of course, mañana is when will know who the hell won the Mexican elections. Because Mexico is a country of corruption and widespread, institutionalized cheating, everybody is suspicious of the very close outcome. Now it turns out that more than 2 million votes were "discounted". But they are going to count them back. They better. In Mexico, the last vote counts, there is no such invention as an Electoral College, and even if the margin is .64 percent for whoever candidate, that should be respected. This very close call is a wake up call to the ruling elites to stop pretending they are not exploiting anyone. Mexico is ready to grow into a better democracy, a more just country, with a better life for everyone, not just for the haves.