I think I could never love another girl

Some things that I never commented on when they happened:

– Go USA! Normally I don’t get too patriotic for international sports competitions but that all changes when it comes to soccer. Partly it’s because the US isn’t particularly good, and partly it’s because I’ve become pretty attached to some of the players from following them struggling to make it internationally for their club teams.

I was particularly glad to see Clint Dempsey (who hasn’t been super-impressive in World Cup qualifying) bring back the spark in the Confederations Cup, scoring a couple nice goals, and working hard every minute.

It was pretty amazing to see the US beat Spain, the best team in the world right now, hands down. Spain, remember, had been unbeaten since 2006 – a string of 35 straight games – and had won 15 straight. And it wasn’t even a fluke. The US simply played extremely well, had a plan, executed it, and left it all out on the pitch. Which isn’t to say the US is a world power or anything now. On any given day, you’d still expect us to get beat by any of the major nations. But it shows that when everything clicks, we can hold our own.

– Go Federer! Nadal is great, and the rivalry is really entertaining, but I’m definitely a Federer guy. It was awesome to see him complete a career Grand Slam by finally winning the French Open, and I’d love to see him win another Wimbledon. It would also be great to see him against Murray in the final, too.

– I keep changing my mind about this Don’t Ask Don’t Tell stuff. Or, rather, I keep shifting from nuance to nuance. I’ve always thought that it was a bit much to ask for him to work on it immediately. And I’ve always thought that he absolutely HAD to make this happen within the first year or two. But I’ve changed my mind a lot about how important it is to emphasize it. I’m trending back toward thinking that health care is going to be a massive fight in the next few months and being unsure that anything else should be allowed to interfere. But maybe I’ll feel different tomorrow.

– It’s always annoyed me when people insisted on referring to TARP as Obama ‘spending $700 billion dollars.’ That’s true in one sense, but not really very accurate given that a huge portion of it was likely to be made back once the loans and investments were repaid. The latest CBO estimates seem to confirm that idea. They say that in the end the total losses will be $159 billion rather than $700 billion. It’s still an enormous amount, of course, but less than a quarter of what people sometimes think.

– I’ve made clear my feeligns about Iron and Wine in the past (decent music, but I don’t get how far superior bands never got nearly as much love), but I have to admit I’ve really been loving this track:

Belated Promise Ring – Iron and Wine

It’s from Around the Well, a collection of B-sides and other non-album tracks from the past few years. Strangely, I like this record more than I do any of his other stuff. Go figure.