The French should just be removed from the World Cup for all eternity.

In the 2006 FIFA World Cup Final that had France playing against Italy, Zinedine Zidane famously head butted Marco Materazzi, leading to Zidane being ejected from the game.  The Italians went on to win the tournament, but many people questioned what was going on with the French even at that point.

Yesterday France was playing against Ireland with the winner going to the World Cup in South Africa next year.  The match was tied 1-to-1 and went into overtime.  In the 103rd minute of the match, William Gallas of France kicked in a goal to make it 2-to-1, sending France to South Africa, and Ireland would be staying home.

Yay for France … right?

Wrong.

Before the ball went to Gallas, the ball came within range of Thierry Henry, and as the ball was about to pass out of bounds, he put up his left hand and batted the ball back into play.  For those of you unfamiliar with soccer (football to the rest of the world), the only member of either team ever allowed to use their hands are the goal keepers, no other player on the field is ever allowed to use their hands under any circumstances.

Apparently the referees did not see the handball, and the goal was called as good.  Ireland immediately lodged a protest, and there have been calls for FIFA to replay the game, but thus far FIFA has not said one way or the other.  To his credit, Henry has admitted the handball, but has also said since the referees did not call it, what was to be done.

Even French sports teachers are crying foul over the handball, saying that this sets a bad example for young athletes everywhere that all that matters is winning.

It doesn’t matter that Henry has admitted the ball, he says it stands.  FIFA is sitting on their thumbs and in the meantime the world cries in outrage over such a flagrant violation of the rules.  There is no more basic rule of soccer than “no hands”, and when you are playing on the world stage, you should know it.

Of course, the refs also failed here and claim they didn’t see it.  To be honest, as crowded as the area was (video below), I tend to believe them.  This whole issue raises again the big issue as to why FIFA does not currently have video replays, and the subject has now come up again over this play.  Somehow I doubt it will happen, but you never know.

For now, FIFA, do the right thing, replay the match.

If this rant sounds familiar, it’s because it is.

Last December I ranted about how Sunday football games were constantly throwing CBS’ Sunday night programming into chaos.  At that time I was complaining about a 32 minute delay to the evening’s programs, but that was nothing compared to tonight’s whopping 71 minute delay.  Thank you New York Jets and Buffalo Bills for throwing the game into overtime and then changing possession 500 times!

So,CBS has opted to play 60 Minutes in its entirety, meaning that Amazing Race, the show I’m waiting on, will not start until 8:11 my time.  Well, my TiVo still shows it as airing from 7 – 8, and that is when it will record, leaving me without one second of the show.

Well, I’m lucky in that I also get West coast channels, so I can still catch the show at its specified time, but since I wrote the original rant, I have learned of something that exists that would fix all of this.  Apparently there are signals that channels can send out in some countries and tell the DVRs that a show is running late and it will shift the schedule on your DVR for you automatically.  So say a show is starting 5 minutes late, the network sends out a signal and your DVR will change the settings from 7 – 8 to 7:05 – 8:05.

Why don’t we have this here?  I can’t imagine it is the complicated to do, and the technology already exists, so why isn’t it here?  Instead, people that watch any show on Sunday night on CBS are totally hosed if they set their DVRs and left their houses for the evening.  DVRs are now accounting for approximately 39 percent of all television viewing, so shouldn’t a bit more concern be given to making sure they record at the right time?

The person behind the now infamous Erin Andrews peephole video has not only been discovered, but he is now in custody.

Back in July of this year, controversy erupted over the Erin Andrews peephole video that revolved around a popular female ESPN correspondent being filmed naked in her hotel room through a peephole.  At the time there was no indication of who had shot the video, but authorities did begin looking into it.

CNN is reporting that 48-year-old Michael David Barrett was arrested yesterday at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, Il on a charge of interstate stalking.  It seems Mr. Barrett followed Ms. Andrews to at least two different hotels, and at a hotel in Nashville, TN he checked in after her and requested a room adjacent to hers.  It appears that this is where the video was shot through an altered peep hole.

It seems Mr. Barrett had originally intended to sell the multi-part video to celebrity gossip site TMZ.com, and in the end it was employees of that very site that assisted in tracking down the man.

If convicted of the charge, Mr. Barrett faces up to five years in a federal prison.

There is no word of any comment from Ms. Andrews.

The story behind the Erin Andrews peephole video is just getting silly at this point.

I have to admit that before the story about her peephole video broke, I had no clue who Erin Andrews was.  I’ve never been big into sports, and couldn’t tell you the last time I turned on ESPN, so my lack of knowledge of who she is was to be expected.  All of that changed as stories of this video cropped up online and her name appeared on every major blog out there.

For those who have somehow missed the story, Ms. Andrews is a well known personality on ESPN both for covering stories and being an attractive woman.  While in an unknown hotel room, getting ready for work, she was curling her hair and going about her business while naked.  Unbeknownst to her, there was a peephole in her room and an unknown person was shooting video of her.

The video hit the Internet, and while her identity wasn’t confirmed at first, ESPN’s legal department got involved and the video became one of the most sought after on the Web.  The first site to have it, NSFWpoa.com, removed it, but it was too late, the cat was out of the bag and the video started showing up all over the Internet now that her identity had been confirmed.

While all of this is bad enough as it is, now some pundits are saying that she brought this on herself.  I shall not name who they are as they don’t need any more attention heaped on them for their words, but there has been more than one person saying that they feel the way she dresses provoked this, and if she didn’t wear such skimpy clothing while on TV this wouldn’t have happened.

There are two issues with this train of thought, the first being the peephole, as far as can be determined, was not drilled specifically for her.  There appears to be other victims of this pervert and she just got caught up in his slimy little racket.

As for the people saying the way she dresses as to blame… you are idiots.  Are you the same people who sit around and say that women who dress a certain way and then get raped deserve it?  Most of these people have now come out and said that they’re sorry this happened to her, but… But nothing!  No one deserves to have their privacy violated in such a way.  I don’t care if she showed up at work in a bikini, this does not give anyone the right to violate a person’s privacy in this manner.

Nothing like criticizing the victim who has not done one thing wrong except to be an attractive woman who happens to work on television.  This woman has been violated, and you choose to lay part of the blame on her.  Classy people… really classy.

I know I said the other day I had Final Thoughts On The Olympics, but then you run in to a story you missed that is just jaw dropping.

A Cuban Olympian, Angel Valodia Matos, was participating in the Olympic taekwondo men’s +80-kg tournament for the Bronze medal.  He was leading 3 – 2 when a time out was called to tend to an injury on his foot.  According to the rules, participants have one minute to attend to any injuries, if this is exceeded, the match is to be awarded to the opponent. When Matos exceeded the time limit, Swedish judge Chakir Chelbat called the match for Arman Chilmanov of Kazakhstan.

Matos argued the call with the judge, while his coach raced out to also argue it and ended up punching the judge in the chest.  Then came the coup de grace as Matos decided to kick the judge in the head.  Other judges raced out to seperate the three men, and Matos was dragged off by staff as he continued to scream.  Within 30 minutes of the incident both Matos, who won the Gold medal at the Athens games in 2004, and his coach received lifetime bans from all World Taekwondo Federation (WTF) events.

Fidel Castro, the former President of Cuba, defended Matos in a column he wrote for a newspaper, saying that he couldn’t control himself since there had been attempted bribes of his coach.  He did not offer any further information on this aspect of the story, but it sounds fishy to me.

Remember folks: Usain Bolt was rude to celebrate too much, the Chinese gymnasts appear to have done nothing wrong… and, oh, we had an athlete kick a judge in the head?  Funny how I can’t find any comments on this from Jacques Rogge, the head of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).  Did it somehow slip past him?

Say what you will about Usain Bolt being cocky in his win, at least he didn’t kick anyone in the head.

The Olympics are finally over, and I have a few parting thoughts on the whole thing.  (I know you’re all shocked by this.

NBC

NBC, the broadcaster of the games here in the United States has nothing to be proud of.  Yes, they had a record number of viewers, but the way this was handled doesn’t justify them crowing about it.  I’ll even ignore the fact that they white-washed everything abotu China, presenting us with nothing but fluff pieces about how warm and cuddly China is, I am sure they were mindful of censors, but it was the way they tape delayed everything.

Mind you that back in 2006 they asked the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to move certain events so they would air in primetime in the USA, if things weren’t moved, they just tape delayed it.  At around 12:30 AM on August 24th, the United States men’s volleyball team was playing for the gold medal against Brazil.  This was a high profile game due to the fact that the the father-in-law of the coach had been killed early in the games by a random knifing, and his mother-in-law was seriously injured, but lived.

This became a team of great interest to Americans for the way our hearts went out to them, so of course them going for the gold against the number one rated team in the world is a big deal.  It just so happens I know someone who lives in Rio, and she instant messaged me last night when the game began so we could watch it together and root our countries on.  Except there was a small problem in that NBC chose not to show it to me live.  Instead I got to see it a full 15 hours after it had ended so that NBC could show it during prime time.

Sure, you can say they wanted to get their money’s worth out of it, but mind you Brazil was seeing it live at slightly after 2 AM their time.  That seemed to work for Brazil, why not here?  I was in Japan during the 2004 summer games, and all the events for Japan were shown live no matter what the hour.  So why is it that America can’t suck it up and show the events live?  The rights for the 2014 and 2016 games are coming up for auction soon, and according to the New York Times, ABC wants the games, and they are also promising no tape delay if they should get them.  HUZZAH!

I know some peopel will complain about the idea they don’t get to see the events in full, but from my perspective, I hate watching tape delayed sports.  I don’t like spending my day dodging results so it will be new to me.  Anytime something is done live, I think it should be showed live.  Record it if you want to watch it on your schedule, but some of us want live or nothing.  NBC also has enough netwworks to their name they could have a tape delay channel for those who want it, but I for one want live.  Like the opening and closing ceremonies ran a full half-day late here, I just didn’t care by the time they aired because I had seen so much online just from my normal surfing around.

You have two years to the 2010 winter games, NBC… shape up.

The IOC

The IOC has been slow to respond to criticisms that some of the Chinese female gymnasts appear to have been under the eligible age of 16.

While the Chinese government continues to state that the girls were of legal age, pretty much anyone with working eyeballs could see that a few of them were clearly under the age of 16.  While the paperwork for the girls supports this, past registries for other events show specifically that gymnast He Kexin was born on January 1st, 1994, meaning she was not of the correct age to participate this year.  According to the International Herald Tribune, after these descripancies were brought to light, the sources of the information have either been blocked or altered.

So how does one determine the age of someone if the paperwork, which is easily altered, says another thing.  The answer, dear friends, is as easy as an x-ray.  The Los Angeles Times ran a piece on this the other day, and it truly is as easy as x-raying a few bones and they can tell by growth how ole the patient is.  Since the IOC has numerous drug testing requirements, why should x-raying be such a problem?  The answer is simple, it shouldn’t be a problem, and I can’t believe they haven’t asked for this yet.

In my personal opinion, yes, the girls were underage and China cheated, end of story.

What really got my ire up about this whole thing is that Jacques Rogge, head of the IOC, seems more disturbed by a little showboating by Jamician sprinter Usain Bolt than he is by the Chinese possibly cheating.  He said that he felt Bolt should show more respect for his fellow athletes, comments he reaffirmed when he spoke with the Inquirer, “I gave Usain Bolt what I believe is fatherly advice. I stand by what I said.”  He went on to add, “but I repeat what I said – he should show more respect for his opponents. I also said he was a young man of 22, and he has time to mature.”

Well, I have some ‘fatherly advice’ for Mr. Rogge, do not choose Communist countries to host your games, and you may not have issues such as this one with the gymnasts.  Obviously there is a certain embarrassment factor by having to confront your host country about a potential cheating scandal, but get over it, and get with it. Don’t worry about a showboating 22-year-old when there were even more egregious incidents throughout the entire game by many other athletes, some who didn’t even go on to win.  Bolt is fast, he will mature, drop it and look at the more serious issues.

The IOC has spent years now fighting doping scandals, and now it would appear it is time to fight age issues.  Figure out a policy and get it enacted now so this won’t ever have to come up again.

In Closing…

I am sure some of you thought this part wouldn’t come, but here it is.  The Olympics are coming to a crossroads I believe.  Are they a world-unifying force for peace, or are they insanely large business with billions of dollars floating around?  I think the unification factor happens in spite of the business side of things, but the corporate side is getting bigger, meaner and seemingly a whole lot less considerate of what goes on around it.

While I still watched the entirety of the games, I was not thrilled with the location, and when NBC decided to do their fluff pieces about the wonders of the country, it only served to sicken me.  Instead of doing things you knew the censors would let through, just don’t do the fluff pieces at all.  Trying to give a warm & fuzzy spin to a country that everyone knows violates human rights on a whim was just nauseating, and that blame falls squarely to NBC.

The IOC needs to get its priorities straight, and fast.  You handed out 100,000 condoms this year, so obviously you care about pregnancy and STD scandals at the games the sexual health of your athletes, so why not the morality of cheating, no matter what form it takes?

I am sure I will be watching the 2010 winter games, but I sure hope to see some changes made.

Found a great article on Mental_Floss yesterday that talked about twelve sports that used to be Olympic sports, but have been removed over the years for various reasons.

As we’ve been watching the summer Olympics this year, my family and I have been commenting on some of the sports that are seemingly missing from the games, but yet we get things like race walking.  (my hips hurt after just watching these people for five seconds)  While some of the sports that are mentioned on the Mental_Floss list make sense as to why they got cut (tug-o-war… really?  Was it played by kids at summer camp and they got medals?), I have often wondered why golf, rugby and cricket aren’t included.

Cricket and rugby aren’t exactly popular in the United States, but are hugely popular in other parts of the world.  Just like soccer, which I personally love, got next to no air time on the American broadcasts of the games, it is included due to its popularity in the rest of the world.  So where are these two super star sports?  Cricket might be a challenge due to how long a game could last, but why not rugby?  It makes no sense to me.

Golf is the one that truly blows my mind.  Despite my family working in the golf industry for 29 years, it isn’t a sport that thrills me, but I understand the allure it has to other people.  How in the world can this not be in the Olympics?  Table tennis is still included for crying out loud, but not golf?  All I can figure is that it’s because there are already so many tournaments, but there are just as many, if not more, for soccer.

They’ve announced that squash and karate are being added in 2012 for the London games, and from what I hear, rugby was on the short list, but didn’t make it.  I understand that they have to judge a game’s appeal to the masses for inclusion, but come on, we got BMX racing this year, you can’t tell me that one wasn’t included as an attempt to grab attention away from the X Games, because I can pretty much guarantee you it will be cut in 4 or 5 Olympics from now.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is obviously not that much in touch with the regular world of sporting, and that’s a shame.

Well, what can you really say? Eight chances to medal, and he walks away with eight gold medals in one year.  The record of seven had been owned by Mark Spitz since Munich in 1972, but now Michael Phelps stands alone as an eight time gold medalist in one year.

His total gold medal tally is fourteen, also a record, and that one may be challanged some day, but eight golds in one Olympics is going to be tough to beat.  He had to swim seventeen races to accomplish it, and kept a schedule that may have destroyed some other athletes, but he pulled it off as if it was nothing.  The schedule may be what actually keeps him from ever being challanged, or it may just be that no one else can ever be this good at any given sport.

So, congratulations to Michael Phelps on his amazing feat.  Now, go get some sleep, I think you’ve earned it.

Yes folks, it’s already time to talk about the Olympic beach volleyball uniforms again.

The other day when I talked about the Olympic women’s baech volleyball uniforms, it was more from the angle of how it was unfair that the men have to play in more annoying outfits, and how they wish they could remove their shirts, but Olympic rules won’t allow them.  Meanwhile, the women are pouncing around in bikinis which allow them the maximum amount of comfort, but Heaven forbid the men take off their shirts!  The horrors!

Well, Luis from BlogD left a comment on the article that said:

I used to visit the Yahoo News Photo page. As I recall, whenever there were sporting events like the Olympics, the women’s beach volleyball always got enormously unrepresentative coverage, but just in photos–and, as you point out, very few action shots. It always struck me as being equivalent to soft porn.

Which, he’s right, it’s always been a bit over-the-top, but the women don’t seem to mind, so I thought, “no biggie, just drop the subject and move on.”

Well, then up pops Mark “Rizzn” Hopkins, one of my coworkers at Mashable, to just throw more fuel on the fire.  It seems NBC is running a 20 picture slideshow entitled “Cracking the code” which is all about helping you figure out the finger code the women use on the court to tell the server what to do.  However, it tells you they use a finger pointing system to do it… but no idea what each signal means.  What follows is the same caption on each of the 20 pictures which add nothing to your knowledge, it is, you guessed it, 20 butt shots.  The caption reads:

Hand signals are frequently used by beach volleyball players to communicate to their partners.  The signals — one or two fingers down, closed fist, etc — generally let their partner know who should attempt a black at the net on their opponents’ return.

Pictured above is Kerri Walsh of the American team, and it is one of the few pictures tame enough to go on this blog.  To the left, also thankfully safe… who knows who she is!  Nowhere does it tell you on each picture who the girl is, let alone what country they play for.  The only time you figure that out really is on picture #20 that the woman is from Brazil as it is written across her backside.  Make no mistake, this is exactly what Luis said it was: soft porn.

This photo set has nothing to do with expanding your knowledge of the game, but everything to do with getting eyeballs on their website and seeing their ads.  I wouldn’t even be that bothered by it if they simply said, “Look!  Very fit women’s asses!”, but I am skeeved out by the fact they tried to mask it under the guise of teaching you more about the game and how it works.

I am glad the women themselves are not bothered by the way they are portrayed in these uniforms, but when even NBC will stoop to these levels, it shows me that these athletes are not being taken seriously, and that is a shame.  There is no doubt these women work just as hard as any other athletes to get where they are, and all you ever see or hear about them is just these blasted outfits.  How many people know that Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh are on a run of nearly 100 consecutive wins as a team?  Does that matter?  Oh who cares, slap some more butt shots up there!

Again this brings me back to the question that launched the original post, “why can’t guys take their shirts off?”  Seriously, someone needs to explain to me why the men have to wear uniforms they dislike and would like to see the rules changed, while the women get this treatment.  It honestly is at the point of silly, and makes me suspect that the Olympics are exploiting these women, but that is a personal judgment call for all to make.

In the meantime, shame on NBC for such a thinly veiled excuse for posting all of those photos.  Yes, I know I posted two of the pictures, but I was very careful in the ones I chose, believe me… these are the tame shots.

Everyone seems to be in a tizzy over the fact that the voice we heard come out of 7-year-old Lin Miaoke during the Olympic Opening Ceremonies was actually that of Yang Peiyi, another 7-year-old.

Um… hello?  It’s China.

For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, here is the video of the offending song, “Ode to the Motherland”.

According to a radio interview with the musical director of the ceremonies, Chen Qigang, on state radio in China, it was decided that Peiyi had the voice, but wasn’t cute enough. On the other hand, Miaoke had the face they wanted, but not the voice, so upper level officials made the call to have the cuter girl lip-sync the song.

“The reason was for the national interest,” said Qigang.  He went on to add, “the child on camera should be flawless in image, internal feeling and expression. … Lin Miaoke is excellent in those aspects.”  Was it his decision, though?  No.  “We had to do it. We’d been through several inspections. They’re all very strict. When we rehearsed at the spot, there were several spectators from various divisions, especially leaders from the Politburo, who gave the opinion it must change.”

I think I’m more surprised at the reaction than the actual act.  No, that doesn’t mean it was the right thing to do, but, come on, it’s a Communist nation, of course they want to portray a vision of perfection.  This is also not that uncommon in music. Anyone remember C + C Music Factory? Zelma Davis appeared in their videos lip-syncing the vocals of Martha Wash as Ms. Wash was heavier than the image the group wanted in their videos. This was only revealed after the whole Milli Vanilli debacle where it was revealed that Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus hadn’t sung one word of “their” hit album.

Again, none of this makes it “right”, but it isn’t especially shocking either.  I’m more shocked/surprised it even got revealed because this reaction isn’t to be unexpected.  China has the eyes of the entire world on it right now, and everyone is looking for things to pick on.  The fact the music director got away with revealing it on state-run radio is far more interesting to me than the story itself.  How did this happen?  Was it intentional?  Was someone just not paying attention?  Will there be ramifications against Qigang?  The interviewer?  All of that is the real story here, and I am dismayed by the lack of follow-up by professional journalists to go to that part of the story.  No no, it’s far easier to just point a finger and go, “A-ha!  See?!? The Chinese are deceiving us!”

Heaven forbid journalists actually ever WORK for a story.

In the end, it’s been revealed, the true singer has gotten her credit, and I think that is a good thing far more than I think it is a bad thing.  Sure, it would have been nice to hace seen the true singer out there, but it’s over and done with, just stop playing shocked by it!

Could someone please explain the uniforms of beach volleyball to me?

As I was doing my work on Saturday, I had the Olympics playing as my background noise as opposed to my usual cartoons.  As I was watching Womens US Beach Volleyball duo Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh go on to their 102nd straight win, their uniforms, or lack there-of, struck me.  I know these bikiniesque uniforms have been the norm for a while now, but it doesn’t make them any less striking in how little there is to them.

This was contrasted by later in the day seeing the Mens US Beach Volleyball team of Phil Dalhausser and Todd Rogers in their baggy shorts and tank tops.  Why in the world do the women basically get made into sex objects while the men look like any pair of guys just hanging out on the beach?

The Olympic rules state the men must be in shorts that are at least 10 centimeters above the knees and in sleeveless tank tops.  Todd Rodgers has even said there should be a petition to get the rules changed.  ‘I’m in. I’ll sign,” he told RTE Sports, “It’s more comfortable anyway in this heat.”  Outside of the Olympics, the men do play shirtless, but for some reason the International Olympic Committee requires the shirts.

The women do have the option of wearing one piece bathing suits, but apparently they become a problem when sand gets in them, so bikinis are the best option.  The rules say they shouldn’t be indescent or overly skimpy, but when they are as tight as they wear them, they are unavoidable.  If you do a Google Images search on the women, and all you get numerous provacative pictures of them and very few action shots.

This is not some burning desire on my part to see shirtless men, but I do think it is an odd disparity between two genders in the same sport.  There is no doubt our women’s team are amazing athletes, but this seems horribly over shadowed by them being extremely fit women running around in extremely tight bikinis.  True, the women don’t seem that bothered by it as Kerri Walsh told RTE Sports “I feel I’m empowered. I’m a sportswoman, I’m getting stronger all the time and this is my uniform.”  She went on to say, “I don’t feel exploited at all. Hopefully we’re just encouraging people to be fit and healthy. Our lifestyle is so wonderful.”

If Ms. Walsh feels more empowered, good for her, and I understand the complaint about one piece suits, so why are men forced to play in so much concealment and in a way they find uncomfortable?  Would it be so horrible for them to play shirtless?  Male swimmers such as Michael Phelps are walking around the swimming pool in nothing but a Speedo and skull cap, so obviously the Olympics have no problem with the concept elsewhere in the games.  There are full body suits that swimmers can wear, some of them even causing less resistance in the water as it gives the swimmers a smoother surface, and some of our male swim team does wear partially covering suits.

I guess it is just the double standard I am struck by.  Why not give the women the option of the baggy shorts with a tank top and sports bra?  Why only swimsuits?  Why must the men wear shirts?  This, on the surface would seem to be a subject about comfort, but the longer you look at it, the more the old saying of “sex sells” starts to creep into my head, and I think that is an awful disservice to all the serious athletes effected by these decisions.

Why does it take a sporting event such as the Olympics to make the people of the world get along?

I am not speaking to the fact that the games are in China, not the controversy this fact has bred, but I am speaking to the basic Olympic values and principles.  While watching the opening ceremonies last night, I wasn’t struck by the grandeur of the show, which was magnificent, but by the athletes themselves.  As each country would finish the parade into the stadium, and then stand in the center area, I was struck by the camaraderie of it all.

Different ethniticities, political backgrounds, upbringings, pretty much any difference you could think of did not seem to exist for these men and women who had gathered from 206 different nations of the world.  They mingled, took photos, shaking hands and sharing in the moment they were sharing.  You would see basketball stars like Kobe Bryant having his picture taken with other athletes, then when he was done he would shake their hands and though you couldn’t hear him, his body language that he was asking them their names.  Why?  At least to my thought process, it was just an example that he may be a megastar in the United States, but on the global stage he is just another Olympian.

Is this sugar coated sentimentality on my part?  Of course it is.  I have no delusions of everyone holding hands and singing campfire songs together, but couldn’t we at least try to get along this well all of the time?  Does it have to be a special event every two years at the various Olympic events?  At the end of the day we are all human beings, we just have differing beliefs, but that doesn’t mean one is necessairly better than the other, and this does nothing but demonstrate that when we can all get on the same page, we can all act like the brothers and sisters we are.  How about taking this thought process we show every two years and extending it through out every day?

Feel free to mock, I know this is me just being caught up in the moment, but that doesn’t make it any less of a good idea.