United to face Lyon

In the last 16 of the champions league, Arsenal may live to regret not finishing top of their group as they face reigning champs AC Milan
http://www.manutd.com/default.sps?pagegid={B4CEE8FA-9A47-47BC-B069-3F7A2F35DB70}&newsid=517103
Not the easiest draw for the scoucers either, Chelski appear to have the easiest draw.

United sign Angolan, another Quieroz signing no doubt. Angola was a Portuguese colony.
http://www.manutd.com/default.sps?pagegid={B4CEE8FA-9A47-47BC-B069-3F7A2F35DB70}&newsid=517365

Ronaldo hails Anderson in the mirror
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/2007/12/21/ronaldo-hails-anderson-89520-20261843/

2007 England's identity crisis exposed by David Conn
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/sport/2007/12/19/2007_the_year_that_exposed_eng.html

Liverpool's American owners face cash crisis
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2007/12/21/sfnliv121.xml

Something good from across the pond as the brilliant Coen brothers have a new film out, critics calling it a return to form, i haven't seen the last film so I'll take their word for it.
http://film.guardian.co.uk/interview/interviewpages/0,,2230352,00.html

No Kremlinologist needed, it's all about money, Russia is one of those unfortunate countries i was talking about yesterday. If not run by undemocratic and human rights abusing regimes like communism, it's been run by anti democratic aristocracies or nowadays corrupt business interests only interested in themselves and their money. Who cares about the Russian people
http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,2230924,00.html
I might be a bit alarmed to see Abramovitch in that article actually being seen to take sides in internal Russian politics, if i was a Chelski fan.
The type of regime Putin's Russian likes to do business with
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/david_shariatmadari/2007/12/winner_takes_all.html

Secularists the root of all evil
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2230954,00.html
Has there ever been a secular version of the Spanish inquisition or a fatwa. I know the soviet union tried to abolish religion, but it never succeeded, if they had gone to the same lengths as the inquisition maybe they would have done.

Financial hegemony slowly sinking away from New York and London
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/jill_treanor/2007/12/chinese_whispers_2.html
That will be bad enough for the yanks, but it will eventually be catastrophic for this country, the Thatcherite revolution will be shown to have been the absolute disaster for this country that it was. The idea that we could let manufacturing go to the wall, and that entepeneurship and the city would see us through, will be shown to be the sham it was, as we fail to pay our way in the world. In the history of the world over the last three centuries, it has been the countries that have made things that were the economic giants of the age. Britain in the 18Th and 19Th centuries, then we were overtook by the German and Americans at the beginning of the Twentieth centuries as they became more efficient and modernising than Britain. After the two world wars The Americans took over the mantle on their own, but unfortunately for them, they have been led down the same garden path as us. But even if they hadn't, once China and India have got their act together it will only be a matter of time before their hegemony ends. We should be looking at Germany, all through everything that has happened to them over the last century, they have always took manufacturing seriously, and despite what those on the right have led everybody to believe they are in far better shape to deal with the changing world than we are.

One law for them
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/david_hencke/2007/12/the_ministers_who_stole_christ.html