As the Senate gets ready to vote on a new bill to stave off economic disaster, and Sarah prepares (feverishly) to debate, and George Will joins the ranks of those who see her as unqualified to serve ... and some (unfortunately) find themselves feeling sorry for the lipsticked pitbull ... my thoughts turn (feverishly) to [. Click to continue reading...

 So Rachel Maddow's new show premiered last night and while I didn't see the whole thing (had a meeting) and didn't see Boltgirl there (not yet, that is), what I saw I liked a lot (not surprisingly).  Way to go Rachel! Ariana Huffington has written about Sarah Palin as the Trojan Moose who distracts the electorate [. Click to continue reading...

Germany-Japan are underway and Japan is looking goo so far (17th minute). meanwhile, I can't imagine what the USWNT must be feeling right now. Hopefully they are focused and confident. Their making it to the gold medal match is a wonderful accomplishment and, at the very least, has brought the eyes [. Click to continue reading...

Seeing Nicole Petignat on Monday reffing the USWNT-Japan game brought back some really, really bad memories. Having a moment or two, here, I thought I'd Google her and see what came of it. I found, as one might expect, that she's probably human, and probably interesting, and probably not the evil (or at least unnecessarily [. Click to continue reading...

If you're reading this before 6AM or after 11AM, check out this excellent Blog post on Climate Counts by a summer intern from Bates whom we all know and love! If you're reading this between 6 and 8M ... you should be watching Brazil v Germany and saying novenas for the USWNT. If you're reading [... Click to continue reading...

First (from The Writer's Almanac), a wonderful poem by Marge Piercy to start your day with something introspective - before diving into the usual sports-centric deluge! This poem runs along the thought-path I was pursuing last night just before sleep. Guess it may be time to get reacquainted with myself . Click to continue reading...

First, congratulations to gymnasts Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson on their gold and silver in the all around, and to Michael Phelps on his 6th gold and 6th world record. On the Browne front, I love it that Jackson Browne is suing the McCain campaign for stealing his music. How dumb are they? Another [. Click to continue reading...

Yup - Michael Phelps won another gold in world record time. Just amazing! And yup, here we go with game three of the preliminaries, starting with Germany v North Korea and Brazil v Nigeria - both interesting match-ups - both now underway. Then, starting at 7:45 the remaining 4 matches get underway. Click to continue reading...

Grant Wahl has another excellent article on SI.com - this one focusing on Heather Mitts. Who knew that she ran with the bulls at Pamplona? ... and from the St. Petersburg Times, another take on this evolving USWNT - this by John Romano. He offers a nice summary of the challenges faced by [...]SHARETHIS. Click to continue reading...

On the USWNT front, Lindsey Dolich has posted a nice preview on ESPNsoccernet about this post-Abby team. Abby's injury "forces the issue" as far as the USWNT's transformation goes. And I have my suspicions that the "liberating" aspects of the change may be quite strong for this team that has played laborious and [. Click to continue reading...

Quick roundup of scores to know:

The U.S. Under-20 women's team qualified for the World Cup with a 4-0 win over Costa Rica in the CONCACAF semifinals. If you missed seeing Tony DiCicco in world championships, you'll get your chance again. The Olympic and World Cup-winning coach is in charge of this team before taking his new duties with the Boston Breakers next year.

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The overall objective of the National Goalkeeping Diploma is to explore the tactical components of goalkeeping and the specifics of training and developing goalkeepers. The emphasis of the course is on the tactical role of the goalkeeper within the team framework.

All candidates wishing to take the National Goalkeeping Diploma must have the State and Regional Goalkeeping Diplomas or equivalent (NSCAA/USSF Level I and Level II Diplomas).

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