Gotta Love Soccer Fans

The 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa will be fun to watch, soccer fan or not. The festivities have already begun. From a Yahoo soccer blog...

The tournament hasn't even started yet and already World Cup fever has taken hold, driving a group of sufferers to run through Cape Town in their underpants as part of an organized streak to somehow show support for the South African National Team on Thursday.

Once the matches actually begin, these tortured souls will continue their descent into madness, subsisting entirely on edible body paint and miniature flags. Their condition is incurable. You will likely be next.

I'd tell them that it's not really streaking if your wearing your drawers, but that might cause trouble.

And there's already been trampling of fans! This is gonna be great.

Your Government Wants To "Reinvent Journalism"

As Hot Air says, what could go wrong?

Seems the Federal Trade Commission has taken it upon itself to "save" American journalism. They've published a discussion draft of their work so far. It's horrifying. Truly.

Here's just a bit...

History in the United States shows that readers of the news have never paid anywhere close to the full cost of providing the news. Rather, journalism always has been subsidized to a large extent by, for example, the federal government, political parties, or advertising.

Advertising revenue is a "subsidy"?

And by government subsidies they mean reduced postal rates for magazines and the publication of legal notices in newspapers. That is precedent enough for some at the FTC to have the federal government allot public funds to non-profit "news" organizations through something they will call "Local News Fund Councils." Orwellian enough for you?

Here's the idea in their own words, in case you just don't believe me...

Establish a National Fund for Local News. One report recommends that: “A national Fund for Local News should be created with money the Federal Communications Commission now collects from or could impose on telecom users, television and radio broadcast licensees, or Internet service providers and which would be administered in open competition through state Local News Fund Councils.” The report notes that the FCC currently uses surcharges and other fees to underwrite telecom services for rural areas and the multimedia wiring of schools and libraries, among other things. These fees support the public circulation of information in places the market has failed to serve. If such a “Fund for Local News” were created, measures would need to be in place to reduce the potential for political pressures and interference as to how the money is distributed.

They also are big proponents of increasing the money given to the Corporation For Public Broadcasting, because as everyone knows, NPR is a great source of unbiased, fair news reporting. Good grief.

The whole report is about 35 pages long and is found in a PDF here. Please go read it.

Uh, No. No It Doesn't.

Check out this headline in the Washington Post,

Al and Tipper Gore's separation makes us fear for our parents, ourselves

Uh, no. No it doesn't. Unless you're Dad is a crazy, foaming at the mouth environmentalist loon, this shouldn't put you in mind of your folks' marriage breaking up. It actually gets worse than the headline,

So this doesn't just make us sad. It makes us scared.

It means that maybe marriage isn't something we can conquer. That you can have all the necessary ingredients -- romance, good morals, mutual respect and a healthy family -- and still see this precious thing, built over decades, crumble in the end.

It makes us frightened for our parents, our friends, ourselves.

It goes on to reference Tipper's "lively blonde spunk," but one can only take so much of this.

Maybe there is hope for the World's Happiest Couple. Once Al reads this report from CNET in 2007, he may reconsider. Here's the main idea...

As if the burden of divorce weren't bad enough, people with failed marriages can be blamed for global warming, according to a study by Michigan State University.

Divorced couples use up more space in their respective homes, which amounts to to 38 million more rooms worldwide to light, heat and cool, noted the report.

And people who divorced used 73 billion kilowatt-hours more of electricity and 627 billion gallons of water than they would otherwise in 2005.

Thanks to James Taranto's Best of the Web for finding that little gem.