I speak, of course, of Italy in Euro 2008.

When I got to Bathurst and College, overtime had just ended.

I got to my old haunts of College and Clinton in time to watch the shootout (the strip was swarming with fellow soccer tourists).

Unfortunately for Italy, the feet and legs of Spain's kickers were better than the reflexes and instincts of Italian goaltender Gianluigi Buffo.

Spain drove home four goals (with one complete miss) to Italy's two. Buffon only had one save. Iker Casillas, Spain's netminder, had two.

Here's the BBC game report.

The final four are Germany vs. Turkey and Russia vs. Spain.

I will go out on a limb and predict a Germany-Spain final in one week, with Germany taking the title.

Sorry, Germany.

PS

The cops were discretely ready for post-game rowdiness in Little Italy. They had the cavalry on standby a few blocks south of College on Ossington.

The Toronto Star's Haroon Siddiqui spoke with veteran Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid, who is out flogging a new book -- Descent into Chaos. Rashid believes the troubles of Afghanistan are tightly wound into the Gordian knot of Iran, central and south Asia.

From an NYT editorial:

It was almost inevitable that a combination of $4-a-gallon gas, public anxiety and politicians eager to win votes or repair legacies would produce political pandering on an epic scale. So it has, the latest instance being President Bush’s decision to ask Congress to end the federal ban on offshore oil and gas drilling along much of America’s continental shelf.

This is worse than a dumb idea. It is cruelly misleading. It will make only a modest difference, at best, to prices at the pump, and even then the benefits will be years away. It greatly exaggerates America’s leverage over world oil prices. It is based on dubious statistics. It diverts the public from the tough decisions that need to be made about conservation. ...

... The Congressional moratoriums on offshore drilling were put in place in 1981 and reaffirmed by subsequent Congresses to protect coastal economies that depend on clean water and clean coastlines. This was also the essential purpose of supplemental executive orders, the first of which was issued by Mr. Bush’s father in 1990 after the disastrous Exxon Valdez oil spill the year before.

Given the huge resources available to the energy industry, there is no reason to undo these protections now.

From the BBC:

National Geographic has produced a film based on the book

A book about global warming has won this year's Royal Society prize for popular science writing.

Mark Lynas' Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet has already been turned into a TV programme and is now almost certain to experience a jump in sales. The book explains how Earth will change for every degree rise in temperature - from droughts to mass extinctions.

Mr Lynas was presented with the winner's £10,000 cheque at a ceremony hosted by the UK academy of science.

The award is one of the major publishing events of the year in the UK. Previous winners have included Bill Bryson, Stephen J Gould, Roger Penrose, and Stephen Hawking.

Six Degrees uses published scientific data and interviews with leading researchers to illustrate the changes we could witness in a warmer world.

Professor Jonathan Ashmore, the chair of the judges, described the book as "compelling and gripping".

"It presents a series of scientifically plausible, worst-case scenarios without tipping into hysteria," he said.

"Six Degrees is not just a great read, written in an original way, but also provides a good overview of the latest science on this highly topical issue.

"This is a book that will stimulate debate and that will, Lynas hopes, move us to action in the hope that this is a disaster movie that never happens. Everyone should read this book."

Mark Lynas, author of the 2007 book Six Degrees, argues that to get world governments to take the climate issue seriously, a disaster might be needed sometime in 2010 or 2011.

At a session in Stockholm, Lynas and other climate experts tried to envisage some scenarios: "Agree and ignore," where governments admit there is a problem but do nothing, and "Kyoto Plus," which would be committing to new, stronger targets but not really getting emissions to stop rising before 2030.

And then there's "step change."

I was fishing off a bridge just outside Wabasca, Alta. in the summer of 1985 (the area is known for its terrific walleye fishing).

At one point, an ambulance went screaming by me. It was heading out of town towards Slave Lake, about 120-plus kilometres to the southwest.

I wondered out loud what that was about.

"Oh, that was Joe," said a boy in a strangely matter-of-fact voice. "He shot himself in the head this morning."

It's always haunted me that some children grow up in environments where suicide is almost normal.

From the NYT:

Across broad swaths of the South, Southwest and the upper Great Plains, the combination of low incomes, high gas prices and heavy dependence on pickup trucks and vans is putting an even tighter squeeze on family budgets.

Here in the Mississippi Delta, some farm workers are borrowing money from their bosses so they can fill their tanks and get to work. Some are switching jobs for shorter commutes.

People are giving up meat so they can buy fuel. Gasoline theft is rising. And drivers are running out of gas more often, leaving their cars by the side of the road until they can scrape together gas money.

The disparity between rural America and the rest of the country is a matter of simple home economics. Nationwide, Americans are now spending about 4 percent of their take-home income on gasoline. By contrast, in some counties in the Mississippi Delta, that figure has surpassed 13 percent.

As a result, gasoline expenses are rivaling what families spend on food and housing.

In the Independent last Sunday, British pundit Johann Hari spared a grudging word of support for his old adversary -- conservative commentator Mark Steyn.

CBC's The Current had four guests on about the current dustup before the B.C. Human Rights Commission between the Canadian Islamic Congress and Maclean's magazine over the Mark Steyn article The Future Belongs to Islam.

I'll offer some notes below, in order of appearance. For the most part, I'm summarizing. For exact quotes, listen to the items (click on part two):

Ryerson j-prof John Miller takes a run at the notorious 2006 Maclean's article ("The future belongs to Islam") by conservative polemicist Mark Steyn.

Actually, writing at thejournalismdoctor.ca, Miller also uses the p-word: