Wednesday, July 02, 2014

Our broken system


It's a problem that the United States Supreme Court has a favorite religion. (Does anybody believe that the Hobby Lobby verdict would have been the same if the arts and crafts retail store wanted to install Sharia Law inside their stores?) But another problem is that the United States still has an employer-based health insurance system. So very asinine.

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I'm not sure I would label xenophobia the cause of soccer resistance in the United States. Just because many of us agree with Ann Coulter doesn't mean we agree with Ann Coulter. Somehow we should get excited about soccer? It's the signature sport of British imperialism run by one of the most corrupt organizations on the planet. We're supposed to respect the outcomes of the matches even though Europol reports that more than 400 European matches have been fixed, HBO's Real Sports reports that $1.7 trillion will be bet globally on the World Cup this year, legally and illegally, and a match-fixing scandal has actually broken out at this year's World Cup, even though it has gotten almost no play in the American media.

ESPN is a monolith, and they determine what is "important" in American sports, so it will be interesting to see how the sport fares four years from now when the U.S. telecasts move to FOX. Will ESPN bail on the sport like they did to hockey when those games moved to NBC/Universal? (And by the way, how will the sport fare during the four intervening years between Cups?) ESPN is certainly on board now, but why wouldn't they be when the matches air only during weekday afternoons. This is Texas poker all over again.

Another growth problem I perceive: Hipsters here like the sport because it's unpopular. If it gets popular, they'll move on. Rugby or cricket is up next.

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I like the show Game of Thrones, but I don't understand why these fantasy series have to be almost entirely white and the people speak with British accents. It's a fantasy world.
A hundred years ago today, an assassination touched off the war that would end all wars. It's still being fought in the Middle East

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New Orleans.

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