A Solution to the Israel-Lebanon Crisis

A lot has been said about the recent conflict (or should I say, the recent flare-up in a longstanding conflict). My take is rather simple: All people, regardless of nationality, religion or ethnicity have the right to live in peace and prosper. Anyone seeing that happening anytime soon? Yeah, me neither.

The French have been desperately seeking a solution to the crisis, but I think it's time for them to bring out the big guns. They have a secret weapon so immensely powerful it could very well end terrorism as we know it and bring about everlasting peace.

You all know what I'm talking about, right? Yep, you guessed it: Zinedine Zidane. Here's my proposal: We send Zidane to Lebanon, where he proceeds to seek out Hezbollah leader Nasrallah and headbutt him straight in the chest. Hezbollah will be powerless against the ZCD™ (Zisou Chrome Dome™). Crisis solved! Then it's on to Afghanistan to seek out Bin Ladin.

To spare the civilians, my other proposal is that the UN flies in vast amounts of bicycles, and whatever the hell Floyd Landis injected up his ass. There is no rocket or bullet the civilians won't be able to outcycle.

Now, no need to thank me, but this December I better be the recipient of a prestigious award in Oslo, Norway.

Giving Head

So you're one of the best football players in the world. You've won a World Cup, a European Cup, a Champions League, the Spanish League, the Italian League, and numerous individual player accolades. You're in another World Cup final, which also happens to be your last game. The game is dead even and you're one of the key players, if not the key player. Your place in football history being secure, how do you go out in style, in a way people are not soon to forget?

Apparently you lunge head first right into an opposing team member's chest. I don't know what Materazzi (the lungee) said to Zidane (the lunger), but clearly it must have been the mother of all insults. My theory?

Materazzi: - Yo momma so ugly even the US team could score on that ass!

The moral, if there is a moral to be had, is that sports really does bring out the best in all of us. Or not.

World Cup Fever. Don't Catch It.

So we got two finalists. Ample time for petit moi to jump on the football bandwagon!

I always thought Germany would get to the finals, unless they met Brazil on the way there, but I guess it just wasn't meant to be.

As for France, I thought they were down for the count until they beat Spain. Then, after beating Brazil, there was little doubt in my mind they'd make it the finals. Don't get me wrong, I was definitely rooting for Portugal in the semifinals. We all love the underdogs.

Also, as for football being the world's sport, looks more like it's Europe's sport, after both Argentina and Brazil getting the boot in the quarter finals.

So, for the finals. I'm rooting for France. No particular reason why, other than to stick it to all the France bashers out there.
And then I can go back to not caring about football for another four years. Or two, the Eurocup is coming up...

Internet Apocalypse Now?

Via Slashdot^[1] I found this disturbing article:

World Cup streaming to cause network meltdown

The BBC's decision to stream all its football matches live on the internet has been greeted with joy by UK fans, but could cause massive headaches for the country's network managers.

...

"This will generate a huge surge in network traffic, eating into the bandwidth available to run business-critical applications effectively."

This is becoming a bit silly. It's bad enough most of the entire world^[2] screeches to a grinding halt every four years to watch a spherical object being kicked around. Now I won't even be able to check my mail everytime Romarionaldona gets a yellow card?
I'm probably sounding more negative to football than I actually am. It's enjoyable to watch, I suppose. But not at the expense of the world turning! I'm drawing a line in the sand here, people!

Proud Finn as I am^[3], I have to point out how ahead of the curve we were on the issue of Internet destruction. Professor Hannu Kari of Helsinki University pinpointed 2006 as the year the Internet would end already in 2001, according to this Ars Technica article. Although, Dr. Kari seems to credit the predicted demise to assorted malware and spam rather than football.

Of course, this could all be propaganda from the anti-network neutrality lobby. In the interest of being fair and balanced, the pro-network neutrality lobby, aka the good guys, are over here. I'm sure you can't tell whose side I'm on.

^[1] Yeah, yeah, whatever. I'll read /. if I want to.
^[2] Save for the US, but you guys got the Superbowl.
^[3] Well, after Tony Halme/Ludwig Borga won a seat in the Finnish parliament, I typically pretend I'm Swedish.