Two Ours Traffic

I mentioned on Facebook once about how European hockey tournaments always have cars - specifically Skodas - on display. That is, just beyond the boards in the corners, on stands that I presume are over top of seats. That's a sad commentary on the popularity of the sport: Presumably Skoda pays more for this space than tourney organizers could get selling the seats. There's no way that would make financial sense here.

This week, while watching the World Hockey Championships, I noticed that the message board under one of these cars was displaying the hashtag #itsourgame. I had that experience of not being sure where the words begin and end - surely there's a word for that, it happens with hashtags, e-mail addresses, URLs and so many things in our world. So I misread it as, "it sour game." Okay, sure, Slovenia-Norway isn't one of the more important games of the tourney, but there's no call for ridicule from the main sponsor.

Quickly, I realized it was supposed to be "it's our game." Is it too much to ask that you capitalize the words so it's easier to read? (#ItsOurGame) That does have a name: CamelCase.

Anyway, I've mentioned before about how Canadians have a neurotic need to tell everyone who will listen that hockey is our game, even if "everyone who will listen" is usually just us. And we love being reassured that it's our game so much, that we'll even hear it from foreign brands.

But wait a minute - Skoda doesn't sell on this side of the Atlantic. They were sending out that claim on the sport's ownership to their fellow Europeans. It's not often you see that. Whenever Canadians have proclaimed that "this is our game," I always wondered who was arguing against us, and now I finally know.

I wondered what form this argument might take, so I went on Twitter and looked up the #itsourgame hashtag. I wasn't sure what I'd find. Boorish Swedes that mirrored our Canadian hockey blowhards? Maybe a huge flame war as Canadians took umbrage with the claim?

Actually, it was mostly Skoda promoting the tournament and various games within it. A few Europeans of different nationalities had picked it up and were using the hashtag to check-in that they were watching it too. There were indeed a few Canadians using the tag, but they mostly seemed oblivious to its use with the World Championship. (Interestingly, one of the Canadians was referring not to hockey, but to the CFL.)

While reading one tweet from a French fan that used the hashtag, it hit me: the tag is in English. I know, what did I expect, Esperanto? Of course, they have to choose one language and go with it, and English is the most universal alternative. (Although from what I’ve seen of the European Union, I’m surprised there isn’t some regulation that hashtags have to be translated into all members’ official languages.) English is a widely spoken second language in Nordic countries, which probably account for a lot of the tournament’s audience, so I get it. But the situation still demonstrates just how complete the domination of English is: To reach European hockey fans, they’re using a language whose only European speakers are fond of neither Europe nor hockey.

Countdown To The Final, With Europe

The World Cup of Hockey is over.  Going into it, there was much talk about the two oddball teams, North America (Canadians and Americans under 23) and Europe (people from outside the countries that got their own teams, Sweden, Finland, Czech Republic and Russia.) The concepts weren't very popular when they were introduced a year-and-a-half ago. I was actually pretty surprised that the  NHL (organizers of the tourney) went through with it.

But the big surprise was how the fans really came around on the new teams.  The North America team was predictably fast and exciting, and fans couldn't help cheering for their enthusiasm.  There was much disappointment when they narrowly missed the knockout round. It was also a good showcase for the talented young players in the league, which was presumably the driving force behind the idea.  And the Europeans outperformed expectations, finishing as runners-up, and they probably offered the champion Canadians their biggest challenge. They took their underdog status and turned it into motivation as great as the national pride the other teams had.  The only downside was that they were hard for us in Canada to hate.  Even beating Finland in 2004 was more satisfying.

So what's going to happen in the future? Let me be the first to suggest: seven-game series, Canada vs. The rest of the world.  Also, let's have a Soccer World Cup team featuring the best from outside Europe, South America, and Africa.

The other change is that now, hockey fans will admit that they were too quick to reject a new idea, and will have new respect for the leadership of the NHL.  Ha, I had you going there for a moment.  Of course not, they'll just go back to hating everything. It's too bad, because the fandom's hatred for Commissioner Gary Bettman has really gotten out of hand. I don't really like Bettman either, but booing him at absolutely every public appearance is pretty childish.

And let's face it: it's not because of anything he's done, but who he is. I've always been amused by how people involved with hockey have unending trust in "good hockey guys." And that seems to be their answer for everything, we need to get some good hockey guys to handle it.  Gary Bettman is not a hockey guy.  Not literally - he cut his teeth in the NBA.  And he definitely doesn't seem like a Hockey Guy: he's short, American, intellectual, and a lifelong big-city dweller. He seems like exactly the person who destroys the sport in Don Cherry's nightmares.

Cabbie Presents Baseball

I just read that drivers in Russia have bought thousands of baseball bats to protect themselves in disputes. And apparently a lot of taxi drivers in particular have them. (You can search Youtube for the videos of Russian cabbie fights if you so desire.) This is one of those stories that's weird on so many levels. For one thing, this won't help the taxi drivers to fight their biggest threat, unless they're headed to Silicon Valley to take some swings at the Uber servers. And no offence Russians, but I still prefer the approach of American Taxi Drivers.

But it also brings up a question I've always wondered about: who are these psychos who sell baseball bats in Europe? This isn't the first time; you'll often hear it after a riot or a clash between soccer hooligans that they had baseball bats. It's never cricket bats: I assume that would be undignified.

Doesn't it occur to anyone as a little suspicious that people are buying equipment for a sport that's not very popular? It's not like they're buying gloves and balls to go with them. Imagine if we suddenly sold ten-thousand Scottish shinty clubs. Wouldn't someone ask some questions?  Why not have some sort of test before you buy a bat in Europe.  Say, you have to explain the infield fly rule in under a minute, or no bat for you.

Did You Lie When You Spoke To Me?

The United Kingdom voted to Brexit rather than Bremain, and now there's a lot of Bregrets. Many people were horrified to find that the second most popular Google Query from Britain the day after was "what is the EU?" This comes as Nigel Farage admits that his claim about the amount of money going to the EU was wildly inaccurate and pro-leave campaigners are admitting that immigration levels won't really go down. I'm left wondering how much of this big decision was actually based on any real facts.

(As an aside, I was surprised that the New Yorker cover somehow linked Brexit to John Cleese. So it wasn't just me.)

Now there are several news reports coming in of "Leave" voters who regret their vote. I suppose it's understandable that a person will question a big decision, but some are coming right out and saying that they didn't actually want Britain to leave, even though they voted for it. So if, like me, you wish the referendum had gone the other way, you can at least console yourself with the knowledge that these morons will get exactly what they deserve.

By the way, I wish the media would be more responsible and not broacast things like that. There could be aliens listening in, studying us. If they hear humans say, "I wouldn't have voted for X if I'd known X was going to win," it not only reduces the chances the aliens will see us as worthy of communication, it greatly increases the chances that they'll finally decide we're too dangerous and just nuke us from orbit.

These voters with Brexiter's Remorse help to explain what happened in the vote. Many were confident that "Remain" would win, even though the polls kept showing it as a dead heat. So why did they think that? You might think it was just the arrogance of "The Elites" who are supposedly the only people in favour of European integration, and forcing it upon everyone. And that's the interpretation that some journalists have decided to accept. But the sudden market corrections that came after the vote show that people who had a financial stake in predicting the result got it wrong anyway. Again, you might say that even though they had incentive to get it right, they were still elites out of touch with the common person. Well, fine, but there was another group that had a financial interest in getting it right, and are not part of these devious elites: The bookies. They still had "Leave" as 4:1 underdogs right up to the end.

The reason for the over-confidence was that voters tend to shy away from more radical stances in the last days of a campaign. I once heard a Canadian pundit call it the "NDP Swerve." The voter tells pollsters that they're mad as hell, and going to vote for the NDP, then gets in to the voting booth, and says, "what am I thinking, I can't vote for the NDP!" And goes back to the same party they always vote for. Along similar lines, there was an assumption that the "Leave" campaign was going to lose a few percent at least from whatever the polls were showing.

But it didn't happen. There was no swerve. And judging from the comments of regretful voters, it's because those angry voters didn't have their big change of heart in the booth, because they didn't think it would matter. I suppose it shouldn't surprise us: There have been lots of times recently when voters seem to be voting to "send a message" that doesn't really correspond to what they're actually voting on. They may use a referendum to pass judgement on the current government, rather than the actual issue. And various Quebec elections and referendum votes have been based on messages to various governments or grabbing leverage, rather than the (seemingly important) issue of separation.

So that's why some people are serious about wanting a second, this-time-we-mean-it referendum. Personally, I don't like that idea, even if it would be a second chance at the outcome I prefered. Aside from, you know, principles and crap like that, there's the dangerous precident. This referendum has shown everyone on Earth what happens when you don't take your votes seriously. A do-over would give flaky voters the confidence to make more silly votes they don't mean with whatever imagined intentions behind them. Whatever else it is, the Brexit vote is a great teachable moment for democracies everywhere. It's unfortunate we had to sacrifice a large country to do so, but if it convinces Americans not to protest-vote for Trump, it will be worth it.

Having said that, here's a scenario that wouldn't surprise me: The British government now has to negotiate a departure from the European Union, while also negotiating new treaties with countries and trading blocs around the world to maintain the same access to markets they had in the EU. That's probably going to take longer than expected, especially when you consider than the EU is probably going to make the negotiations difficult to make an example of the UK for any other countries thinking about their own exits. And there's the problem that the next British government(s) are going to have to make a lot of painful changes to get ready for separation. Let's say this all takes five years instead of the two that the pro-Brexit crowd has planned on. After such a long time, and with negotiations probably taking place under a new government, there might actually be a reasonable case to have a second referendum on the completed deal.

Would there be a different result on that one? It's hard to say. They will have seen a preview of what the UK economy will be like outside of Europe, and the initial signs are that it won't be pretty. But the flip side is that a sinking economy could just increase the anger and fear that the far right thrives on. If any of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland separate, that will remove a whole lot of "Remain" voters (note that England voted to Leave by a fairly large margin.) But then there's the age demographic. A few more years will allow demographics to shift a little more towards the younger, pro-EU voters.

Ich Bin Ein Ausländer

There's a lot of talk about the refugee crisis in Europe. The now famous photograph of a three-year-old child who drowned trying to get to Greece is being haled as a turning point in people's attitudes. I've mentioned before how pictures change people's perceptions in relation to violence against women, but in international aid, it makes an amazing difference. I've heard aid workers in the past despair that we can't be proactive about famine because of the power of pictures. Famines aren’t surprising; we can see the problem coming. But we can't do anything until it starts, because the West won’t give money until they’ve seen the pictures of the starving African kids. That makes me wonder how much effort there is going to be to get that photo at future crises. Never mind Doctors Without Borders, we need Photographers Without Borders.

Of course, in today’s polarized world, public opinion doesn’t completely change, it just alters the spin and moves the goalposts. We’re already seeing the adaptation by the nationalist politicians (which in Europe, is really big.) The talking point of choice seems to be to emphasize that there is a difference between refugees fleeing conflict, and economic migrants, who are looking for better opportunities. So remember, there is a difference between people whose fear of violence drives them to take a dangerous journey to a foreign land, and people whose fear of starvation drives them to take a dangerous journey to a foreign land.

I’m actually pleasantly surprised by Europe’s reaction. I’d started to think of even mainstream Europe as kind of racist, But now we’ve seen some public and widespread expressions of tolerance. I mean, who expected that when foreigners with a different religion needed help, it would be the Germans who were most enthusiastic about taking them in. But on the other hand: Hungary? Who knew they were Europe’s Arizona? Hungary’s hardline reaction seems out-of-proportion for something that’s mostly going to trouble the rich countries the refugees are trying to get to. Though the Czechs also get a dishonourable mention for writing identification numbers on migrants’ arms, up to the point someone pointed out that such practices have a really bad precedent in that part of the world.

I can understand why the Hungarians would feel at least a little hard done by. Countries that migrants pass through do incur costs and inconveniences. Whatever benefits these people will give, it will go to their destination, not countries en route. So it is unfair. Not quite dust-off-the-fascist-practises unfair, but a little unfair. The best example of this problem is how the Italian navy spends a lot of time rescuing migrants in the Mediterranean, even though the migrants are trying to get to Northern Europe. Journalist Gwynne Dyer pointed to a creative solution to this: Italy could just give all the migrants automatic citizenship. It would be no trouble to the Italians: thanks to the European Union’s laws, such citizens would then be free to travel and work in any part of Europe. So they’d just go to Germany or the UK, and Italy would never see them again, and it would no longer be their problem.

So if the Hungarians were smarter and less angry, that’s something they could try: give free citizenship to anyone who asks for it. Rich Europe would be flooded with Syrian-Hungarians, and thus be forced to do something about the problem. Something surely more effective and humane than just building a wall.

We Come From The Land Of The Ice And Snow

There's an election coming up in Britain.  Any election means there's going to be a variety of campaign handouts to promote the parties' platforms.  Here's one from the left-leaning Labour Party that's been getting a lot of attention:

When you see that, a number of questions may occur to you.  Can a liberal party win over the centre successfully with a few highlighted promises? Will they lose the support of their base?

But probably, you're wondering what kind of a stupid campaign gives out mugs?  Whatever happened to pamphlets?  You'd think that if you were going to use any beverage vessel to win over xenophobic Britons, you'd go with a teacup.

As an aside, here are some of the other images that came up when I searched for the mug picture.  I don't know how Bieber got on there, though Google might just group all the embarrassing mug shots together.

As political strategy, it (the promise, not the mug) doesn't make sense. At a time when the Conservatives are facing a big vote split with the even-further-to-the-right UK Independence Party, Labour just needs to get its base to turn out in big numbers.  Instead this has really alienated them.

But more to the point, it's incredibly bad timing.  While Labour is trying to harness the fear of foreigners, Europe's migration problem has taken a turn for the tragic.  Europe and its constituent countries have scaled back patrols of illegal migration in the Mediterranean this year, and at the same time the situation in Libya and other parts of Africa and the Middle East have gotten worse.  The result has been a huge increase in deaths during attempts to cross the sea.

Something that's really bothered me about the coverage of the migration crisis is the way the recent history of it has been explained.  The usual story is that Europe cut-back on patrols in the hopes that the lack of a safety net for desperate, dangerous journeys in the Mediterranean would discourage attempts.

To put it in terms the locals will understand: Bollocks.  This wasn't some clever strategy to discourage migrants, it was European leaders doing the only thing they ever seem to do: ignoring a problem and hoping it goes away. Usually that just makes a few investors nervous, but this time a thousand people died.  With their economy still poor and far-right anti-immigrant parties making gains, spending money on illegal immigrants isn't popular, so they did the easy thing, whatever the results.

Europe is going to have to face the fact that its bigotry is dangerous.  Usually we think of the problem as caused by a small number of Neo-Nazis. I have no idea how prevalent they are, so I can't comment on the seriousness of that problem.  But the fact is that the mainstream fear of foreigners is beyond what you should see in a civilized society.  Of course, this is an issue everywhere, but the amount of social-acceptance of it, the quickness to scapegoat, and the number of politicians cashing in on it, is a serious problem with real consequences.

Google Divided By 2

Officials of the European Union has suggested that Google should be broken up for competition reasons.

Personally, I don't see the reason for it. I am okay with the idea of government limiting business, but that's if there's cause for it. With Google, that cause isn't there.

I was in favour of the U.S. Justice department's attempt to break up Microsoft in the nineties; in that case, they were clearly using their monopoly to eliminate competitors.

Google has made some clumsy attempts to use their position in one area to gain an advantage in another. The Google search feature on Android phones is a good example. But I think they're a few reasons this is different from Microsoft's situation.

For one thing, it's doubtful that Android has really helped Google's search business. After all, Microsoft's near-monopoly in PC operating systems hasn't helped Bing dent Google's hold on the market. Google would probably still lead in mobile search even without Android. After all, it's not hard to switch.

And that's another thing that's changed: it's easy to switch. I remember during the Microsoft case, some pro-business pundit ridiculing the idea that bundling Internet Explorer with Windows would cut use of Netscape. She characterized the government as treating the public as children, too stupid to download the competing browser if they wanted it. I disagreed with that; for one thing, in those days downloading software was a multi-hour proposition. Free vs. two-hour download was hardly even footing.

But today, switching software is easy and fast. People are a lot more comfortable with technology, and it's hard to herd people into decisions, no matter how much of their electronics you control. I'm not saying it's impossible - there may come a time when it makes sense for one of the super-powerful tech companies to be broken up. But that's far less likely now, and the day just hasn't arrived for Google.

Once again, European lawmakers are choosing their battles awfully: add with the "right to be forgotten" ruling, they're going to great lengths to solve problems we don't have. Is sad given the huge number of tech problems we do have, and could use help from a powerful trans-national body to solve:

• Privacy (from both government and business)
• Identity theft
• Bullying and threats
• Spam & phishing
• Spyware

Eruptions Of Anger

It seems like there's so much going wrong on Earth right now, that we can't take another problem thrown our way.  But apparently the Earth itself thinks otherwise, because there's danger of another volcano eruption in Iceland.  That's not a danger for the people of Iceland - they're used to this sort of thing.  But you'll remember that the last eruption in 2010 spewed a plume of ash that greatly reduced air travel in Europe.

That incident introduced one of humanity's more embarrassing tendencies: the belief that if nothing went wrong, then any steps to prevent anything from going wrong were unnecessary.  Since there were no plane crashes due to the dust sent into the atmosphere, that means we didn't need to cancel all those flights.  The added irony was that some of those inconvenienced travellers were business leaders who had campaigned to remove financial regulations since we hadn't had any depressions lately.

And sure enough, people are already looking for excuses to not cancel flights this time.  If they can do that because of improved technology, great.  I just hope they aren't going to cave to pressure from the impatient.  Hopefully any stranded passengers will use their free time to read about what happens when a plane flies through volcanic ash.

Who Are We? Madrid! Who Are We Going To Beat? Madrid!

This Saturday is the final of the Champions League, the top championship of soccer teams in Europe. It has extra interest this year, because for the first time, both teams are from the same city: Real Madrid versus Atletico Madrid.

Having not grown up in or near a city with multiple sports teams, I've always wondered how people in such a city choose their team. Plenty of places do have that choice: Real vs Athletico, Mets vs Yankees, AC vs Inter, Cubs vs White Sox, City vs United, Angels vs Dodgers, Rangers vs Celtic, Jets vs Giants.  In some cases, it's based on areas of the city, that accounts for, say the many soccer teams of London. But what's really odd is that for so many of those pairs of teams, one is historically more successful than the other.

So what sort of person chooses the Mets over the Yankees, given that the Yankees have won twenty-seven World Series, while the Mets have won two, both of which appear to have been by divine intervention? Sure, some people are just drawn to the underdog. And I guess some are turned off of the top team by the many posers who are drawn to them. It says something that so many people far from New York and Madrid choose to be Yankees or Real fans primarily to be associated with the winning team. And really, that seems to be how more people choose their sports teams: they look for a winner, even if it's far from home.  So voluntarily cheering for the lesser local team shows quite a dedication to the disadvantaged, or just a sense of sadism.

And speaking of the disadvantaged, in some cases the choice of team is based not on the part of the city you're from, but the class you're in. In Madrid's case, Real is reported to be the team of the upper class, while Atletico is the team of the working class. That's all too fitting, since Real's on-field success comes from their bigger budget. It's part of the great sporting irony that American sports leagues feature socialist measures like revenue sharing, luxury taxes, and salary caps, while European leagues are highly unregulated, offering a laissez-faire atmosphere that Americans prefer in any area of life except sports. I've always wondered why European sports fans haven't risen up to demand more equal sports. But now that I find out that their teams reflect their real-life situations, I can't believe we haven't seen a revolution. "Real" even means "Royal"; what more promoting do they need to grab the pitchforks and storm the castle/stadium?

We Can Forget It For You Wholesale

The European Union court has ruled that people have "the right to be forgotten" online. And as such, they can demand that Google and others leave out the search results relating to a person, if that person so demands. (Though the original information elsewhere on the Internet is not affected; this ruling would only prevent people from searching for the it.)  And fortunately, there's a stipulation that it doesn't apply to a public figure whose actions are part of the public record. So sorry, Silvio Berlusconi, you can't demand that all your exploits be forgotten.

Every now and then European courts put out an idealistic ruling like this. Sometimes it seems like a good counterweight to the U.S. and it's laissez-faire attitude. But other times they seem rather out of touch, offering up impractical judgments for dubious benefits.

This seems to be in the later category. I find it hard to see why a person has the right to be forgotten.  After all, we don't have that right in real life.  I heard your embarrassing clarinet recital in grade six, and there's nothing you can do about it.

Having said that, it is dangerous to extrapolate personal morality to the scale allowed by modern technology.  An example that comes up in surveillance discussions is that just because it's acceptable for a police officer to walk down the street comparing people to a wanted poster, that doesn't imply that cameras on every street should identify every person in public. So try that reasoning: Although you can't count on being forgotten by the people around you, the effect of having so much information about every aspect of your life available online is unfair.

I still don't find that convincing.  I'm all in favour of forgiveness, and allowing a person to have a second chance in life.  But that's not really the same thing as a right to be forgotten. 

Furthermore, the situations in which information about us can do the most unfair harm are not covered here.  A bad credit rating or placement on a no-fly list based on misleading or incorrect information, say.  Or to put it another way, when I worry about the effect of all the information about me in today's world, I worry about information deep in the servers of businesses or governments, not whether someone can Google me.

Every Continent Should Have A Guilty Pleasure

Today was day for the Eurovision Song Contest. Although I've been taken in by some of the cultural leftovers of my European heritage, this is one thing I never adopted, so it's as much a mystery to me as it is to any other North Americans. Basically, it's a kitschy music contest in which each country enters a song and someone to sing it, and all genres are welcome. And everyone watches even though they don't like a lot of it.

But in our connected world, it's hard to ignore anything that's popular somewhere in the English-speaking world. I've spent the day wading through cryptic tweets about the performances. It was a lesson in how we in anglo-North America must sound during events like the Superbowl. My apologies, rest of the world.

I find it interesting that the contest is such a modern thing: international, reality TV, audience participation, appreciated ironically. It's hard to believe this is the 59th year, so it's almost as old as commercial television itself. 

It's surprising no one else has picked up the idea. A world wide song contest would probably be unworkable: every independent country given, say four minutes to perform, that would be over thirteen hours. And I don't see a North Americavision Song Contest working - even Canadians are going to start channel surfing part way through the performances by all those little Caribbean island nations. 

But I bet Americans would love a state-vs-state competition. We've seen that they love televised singing competitions, and they also love state rivalries, whether they have their genesis in politics or college football.  And Canada could easily support such a province-vs.-province-vs.-territory competition. It would be nationalistic, cultural, and mainstream: a perfect storm for the CBC.

Spy Vs. Spy

I've been thinking about this latest more-or-less admission by the U.S. government that they've been spying on the leaders of supposed allies. It makes one recall the start of the Obama administration, when many - particularly in Europe - saw him so optimistically due to nothing more than the fact that he wasn't George W Bush. But, outside of not starting a war of choice, it's hard to see how his foreign policies would be any different.

The depressing part is that I don't really believe Obama is all that similar to Bush in terms of his priorities beliefs and tendencies. So I'm really wondering how much it matters who the President is.

I hate to say that because such it-doesn't-matter-who's-in-office sentiments usually come from either activists so radical that all others seem the same to them, or from the politically disconnected looking to justify their apathy.

But here's the most damning realisation of American behaviour: it really just comes down to what they can get away with. That is, there's no sense of a limit to morally acceptable behaviour. There isn't even a coldly pragmatic strategy to be nice to those who could turn out to be useful later. There's just an increasing drive to do anything that can be done until someone stops them. Or to put it another way, the U.S. had become the world's Tea Party.

Hey, Bale

The big new in the sporting world (and for once I do mean "world") is that Real Madrid is buying Gareth Bale from Tottenham Hotspur for €100 million. (Translation for North Americans who didn't understand a word of that: big Spanish soccer team pays $130 million to get up-and-coming star from biggish English team.  And I just learned Android phones do have a Euro key.)

And this is a regular occurrence.  As soon as a great player emerges , they'll be off to a bigger team.  My family's own Aston Villa has a budding star in Christian Benteke, and its already a foregone conclusion. That he'll be gone by next year.  It's like what happens in baseball but even faster.  Fans of the poorer baseball teams worry that they only get star players for four years before the Yankees snatch them up?  That's nothing: in European soccer your lucky to get one year.

So each country's league has only a few real teams that win each year.  Some have suggested that it would be better if these top few teams in each country left their domestic leagues and joined one pan-European league.  But even that wouldn't work, since the two Spanish leaders, Real Madrid and Barcelona have emerged as the dominant teams of the continent.  Even other massive teams like Manchester United are really just working with star players that couldn't quite make the Spanish giants.  I'm not sure why Spain emerged as the ultimate hirer of European talent .  They don't seem to be any more soccer-mad than, say, Italy or England.  And they definitely aren't awash in money.  Maybe it's just because their two teams are based around two dominant cities, representing two cultures.  That would concentrate fan loyalties - and thus, fan wallets - unlike more arbitrary rivalries.

Every time a player transfers from a feeder team to a big team, I think maybe this is the point that they're finally going to realize how stupid their system is.  But it appears that nothing will provoke a change, and we'll one day see the top twenty-two players on Earth facing off in a single game, arbitrarily representing the two largest cities in Spain.

I ♥ Over-analysing Minutiae

Today i saw a minivan with a tiny little "I ♥ Europe" bumper sticker.  (If your browser choked on that last sentence, that's "I <heart> Europe.")

• I don't really understand how people decide to put on bumper stickers.  Sure, there was a time when it was common for a station wagon to have a collection of stickers chronicling the family travels.  Today you don't often see that, but occasionally you'll see a car with, say, one lonely Niagara Falls bumper sticker.  I can't figure out what inspires those people. There you are in the gift shop at Niagara Falls, looking at the snow globes and Inuit sculptures, and then you say to yourself, I think I'll immortalise this day with a bumper sticker.  But more amazing is that you don't change your mind on the way to the car.
• Why would you buy such a vague sticker?  It's not, "I ♥ Luxembourg" or whatever country he actually went to.  No, it's commemorating that he likes the whole continent.  You can't even find people in Europe who like the whole continent.  And I don't remember any "I ♥ North America" bumper stickers at Niagara Falls. 
• Part of the great tradition of bumper stickers is to commemorate road trips.  It helps to explain how they get on the cars: permanently telling everyone you went to Rock City may seem like a good idea when you've just been there, but not so much a week later when you're back home.  But this guy must have bought the sticker in Europe, flown home with it, then at some point hiked out to the garage to stick it on the minivan.  Meanwhile, I can barely be bothered to put the license plate stickers on my car.
• I can't believe they have bumper stickers in Europe.  Don't they get sucked off the car on the autobahn, or vandalized by Dadaists or something?  Though that would explain why it was a particularly small - to fit on their tiny cars.

A Horse Is A Horse And Main Course Of Course

Europeans are freaked out by the fact that a bunch of them have been unwittingly eating horsemeat as part of their frozen lasagne.  I say it's time for them to take a (meat-free) chill pill.

Food scandals are always big in Europe.  The premium many cultures place on food is a big factor in that, but there's another reason:  European countries are very protective of their farmers, but because of European Union regulations, they can't block other countries' food imports.  So any hint of dangerous food gives a government an excuse to keep their neighbour's food out and win a few votes in the rural areas.  It shows that Europeans are yet to embrace free trade as a core value, and that they don't realize just how pathetic their agriculture sector is on the world scale. It would be like us in Canada setting up regulations to protect our culture.  Oh, right.  Nevermind.

But is horse meat really such a gross thing?  Are they really so much more loveable than cows?  Okay, I perhaps have a unique perspective:  I grew up in a city that has a statue of a cow, and as an adult I've lived in a city where all the parks are full of ducks.  It's left me unable to stomach the idea of eating duck.  But I still eat beef - read into that what you will.

The other strangeness about the scandal is perhaps most obvious:  How much quality can you really expect from cheap frozen food?  Americans didn't worry nearly as much when they heard claims that Taco Bell put sawdust in the beef.  Horsemeat would be a step up from that.  Or, how much can we expect to know about food that gets whipped around from country to country and company to company and sold at rock-bottom prices?  If we want quality, inspected, documented food, we'll have to realize that we're going to have to pay for it.

The Declining Value of the Euro

It's European (soccer) Championship time again.  And with it comes the traditional claims that it's just as important as the World Cup.  Usually that's done simply by pointing out that many of the world's soccer powers are in Europe, and conveniently forgetting that Brazil isn't.  But this year the boosters have doubled-down and claimed that the Euro is actually harder to win than the World Cup.  This is justified by the idea that there are no weak teams in Europe, as opposed to the World Cup and their insistence on having three North American teams.

But when I think of your average World Cup, I don't really remember it as European teams dominating everyone else.  I remember it as Germany and one or two other European countries doing well, while the rest of Europe chokes against African and Asian teams.  So I looked up the 2010 World Cup results, and a quick sum of the records shows that the European teams had a record of 13 wins, 10 ties and 10 losses against non-European teams.  A winning record to be sure, but it hardly indicates that the European teams get a "break" when facing non-European opposition. 

So it's pretty clear that this attitude of Europe being head-and-shoulders above the rest of the world in soccer is out-of-date, and no amount of upsets against South Korea or Mexico is going to convince them otherwise.  Suddenly the continent's inability to face it's financial problems makes a little more sense.