A BBC story on Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai has some troubling observations about the Afghan national government's commitment to freedom of the press.

A new round of anti-terror arrests has reportedly been carried out in Miami. The early word is they were targeting the Sears tower in Chicago.

Apparently the suspects have no al Qaeda link. But to this point, authorities haven't said if they turned up any bomb-making equipment or similar evidence.

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales says a news conference will be held Friday.

Here are the CTV.ca, BBC and CNN stories.

I bought a record from Amazon.ca tonight. It's by French producer Bertrand Burgalat and is modestly entitled The Genius Of ... . Most of the disc is Burgalat remixing other artists, however, it became a favourite until  I lost it somewhere.

Oddly enough, Soundscape Records (the king of indie T.O. record shops) was having trouble tracking down the disc for me, but tonight, Amazon came through.

The number I would semi-dare people to "top" is the Amazon.ca sales track number, which is 97,151 for this disc.

If you've bought something recently with an even lower ranking, let me know!

Another question: I wonder what the absolute lowest ranking on the list is?

Pretty damned fun- and soccer-loving!

I watched the Brazil game at Cervejaria Bar and Grill (Ossington and College).

Brazilian fans come with a sense of manifest destiny (Oilers fans in the 1980s or NY Yankees fans at pretty much any any point in history know what I mean), so it caught them offguard when Japan scored first on a brilliant shot by Keiji Tamada from within the penalty box. Even worse, Brazil had been outplaying Japan to that point, but Japan's netminder Yoshikatsu Kawaguchi had a great first half.

All the better then, when Ronaldo -- accused of being a big, do-nothing, tub-'o-goo -- scored on a header early in the injury extra time of the first half.

That gave a litle more impetus* to the Brazilian samba-drum performance on College St. -- which ended pretty much to the second the second half started.

* And unfortunately, since people went nuts when Brazil scored, some news photographer felt he had to push me out of his way to get a better picture. There was certainly no post-rudeness excuse me from this guy. But then again, I guess some members of the news media don't wonder why people think they're assholes.

Brazil pulled away in the second half. Ronaldo potted a second, and two reserve players scored, making for a 4-1 final score.

With each subsequent goal, the noise level in Cervejaria grew louder and louder -- and not just peoples' voices, but drums and whistles too.

"BRA-ZILL!!" (thump, thump, thump)  "BRA-ZILL!!" (thump, thump, thump) was a favourite, as well as singing along with the Ole, O-le-o-le... song.

You can see some video of the place from CTV.ca Toronto. Look for 'World Cup Video' down on the right side.

For atmosphere, you can't beat them, although the Korea-Spain quarter-final in 2002, won by Korea in a shoot-out, may well be comparable.

Korea plays tomorow, so we'll see how their fans are in 2006. :)

P.S.:

At 4 p.m., the bar staff let people know they should move their cars off the north side of College or risk getting towed. There were lots o' cops to keep traffic moving. However, on Dovercourt, just west of the party area, there was another small mounted unit on standby at the intersection of Shannon St. and Dovercourt, just south of College (14 Division police station is just a few blocks further south).

At World Cup of Toronto.

Here's some other stuff:

Leap in the Dark: Viva Azzurri -- A look back at World Cup '82: How Italy's win galvanized the Italian-Canadian population in Toronto and made the quadrennial celebration of the world's game an integral part of Toronto's culture.

The Globe and Mail's World Cup blog

Victory pix of Ghana fans at GhanaWeb (H/T to WCT)

Rabble.ca -- A Socialist's guide to the World Cup: Writer Simon Black offers a class analysis of the beautiful game.

The Royal Theatre on College St. was put up for sale recently. Someone I know with connections to the place say it was purchased by the folks who used to run the Mount Pleasant theatre in mid-town Toronto.

These folks may have a plan to develop some of the massive office space upstairs into office space for film and video editing, and then continue to show movies in the evening.

Let's hope that's true!

Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai wants the coalition nations in his country to refocus how their conducting the war on terror, and while he didn't say the name out loud he also pointed a finger at Pakistan.

The Italy-Czech Republic match just ended. Newspaper deadlines aren't until sometime late tonight.

So why do some news shooters feel compelled to ask goofs to pose -- even giving them instructions -- at the corner of College and Clinton in Little Italy?

Wait five minutes, there'll be lots of chances for real news photos.

Incidentally, lots more police around than the last time I was present for an Italy victory. The bike cops and horse-mounted officers are in force, as one example, when they weren't last time. I wonder what will happen if Italy makes it to the final rounds?

P.S.:

Let's see if the Italian partiers have more stamina than the Portuguese. The car horns died after about 15 minutes when Portugal beat Mexico yesterday. :)

P.P.S.:

I watched the last half of the Italy-Czech game at Bar Azzurri. There was a guy in there who looked like Henry Rollins and who was yelling and carrying on like Henry Rollins on crystal meth. Somebody should have taken his picture. :)