I scanned the results of the latest GOP debate and while it didn't turn up anything earth shattering, it speaks volumes that in the current GOP, Newt Gingrich is the humane voice. I'm not sure if he was ever an anti-imigration partisan, or if he's genuinely not a nice, likeable person. But when he led the Republican house in the 90s, I recall a lot of anit-immigrant sentinement too. In fact, its what finally motivated my family to get our U.S. Citizenship. For additional weirdness, lets create a "red card", which to most non-Americans, means you're getting expelled from a soccer game.

Today's washington post looks at the tug of war between MLS' Academies and High School soccer for elite players. Each kid should make the choice that is best for him. But for those that want to play at the highest pro levels, that will increasingly mean forgoing High School and College soccer programs in favor of developing in a professional stadium. US Soccer is making progress toward developing players as it is done in the rest of the world.

I've long been a fan of Bobby Convey, and was glad he was included on the 2006 World Cup squad, along with another favorite of mine, Ben Olsen.  He did it again, last week, making D.C. United fans everywhere happy by knocking New York out of the MLS Playoffs.  Given the lack of options on the left side, anyone else wish he'd come back to D.C. instead of San Jose?

I don't think any other player could be a fan favorite both in NY/NJ and in D.C.

Fascinating details about how the NYTimes interactive team built 3 online features for the 2010 World Cup and how they solved some of the challenges faced.  The live match tracker is an interesting exercise in ingesting data real-time from multiple sources and also re-distributing it to thousands (millions?) of clients.

Refereeing a soccer game is not much different than regulating the financial industry.  There are a lot of parallels in how you would want to set up both systems to be fair and efficient.