Friday, May 30, 2008

Euro punditry

If only I had put some money on Man United winning the Champions League by the time I predicted it, I would've struck gold. Alas my Premier League punditry was not precise but not so far either - I missed the point at Liverpool, Spurs and Wigan, got it right for Everton, West Ham, Sunderland.

Anyway. Now let's turn the page for a different tournament. It's Euro time.

This is not the most relaxed of times for me (loads of work) so I'll be brief:

Out of Group A: Portugal, Czech
Out of Group B: Germany, Croatia
Out of Group C: Italy, France
Out of Group D: Spain, Russia

1/4 finals: Portugal def Croatia, Germany def Czech, Russia def Italy, Spain def France

Semi finals: Germany def Portugal, Spain def Russia

Finals: Spain def Germany

Spain champions

(yeah, I know that's bold, even more with them defeating the French... anyway that's my guess)

Monday, May 26, 2008

It's my city and I just love it

This great São Paulo tourism ad is showing every now and then at CNN int'l.

It's great and reflects how amazing my city is.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Now this is a well-designed website

I think Uefa has struck gold with the new website for Euro 2008. It encapsulates many good things seen in other trend-setting news sites (my personal favorites The Guardian, Slate Magazine, NY Times, Ig standing out) - large hi-res photos; crisp interactive features; clean background; various layouts in each session; extra bits (team buses design is great) and so on.

I definitely see myself browsing it a lot in the next weeks.

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Only in America

I don't know what strikes me most in this report from Huffington Post - if it's the American craze about number crunching in elections, or the fact that people would do such a thing as vote for Clinton, being a McCain supporter, just to mess up the Democratic race.

Actually, neither comes as such a surprise to me.

Exit Polls: Limbaugh Effect Seems To Rear Its Head

Did Rush Limbaugh actually impact the Democratic primary?

The loud-mouthed radio talk show host has been encouraging Republicans to vote for Sen. Hillary Clinton to continue the "chaos" in the Democratic race. And a sampling of some key exit poll information suggests he may, to a certain extent, be having an effect.

Thirty-six percent of primary voters said that Clinton does not share their values. And yet, among that total, one out of every five (20 percent) nevertheless voted for her in the Indiana election. Moreover, of the 10 percent of Hoosiers who said "neither candidate" shared their values, 75 percent cast their ballots for Clinton.

These are not small numbers. By comparison, of the 33 percent of voters who said Sen. Barack Obama does not share their values, only seven percent cast their ballots in his favor. Basically, more people who don't relate to Clinton are, for one reason or another, still voting for her. These are not likely to be loyal supporters.

On a broader level, among the 17 percent of primary goers who said they would choose Sen. John McCain over Hillary Clinton in a hypothetical general election match-up, 41 percent of that group came from Clinton's own camp. In essence, roughly seven percent of Clinton support in Indiana (40 percent of 17 percent) said they would defect to the Republican should she end up the nominee. That would be a difficult punch to stomach in November. In 2004, nearly 1 million Indianans voted for John Kerry. A seven percent defection rate would have meant 70,000 less votes.

By contrast, if the general election is between Obama and McCain, 19 percent of the Indiana Democratic primary goers said they would support the Republican. But only 12 percent of that group (2.28 percent) would come from Obama's camp.

The numbers suggest one of three things: A) Clinton's support in Indiana, while clearly there, is not entirely solid; B) a large swath of Indiana primary goers simply didn't like the nominees and thought of Clinton as the lesser of two evils; or C) Limbaugh's hatchet plan could be having political ripples.

Perhaps it's a mix of all three.