Eideard

At San Siro on Friday night, a lesson for all supporters with an axe to grind. The most effective way to ensure your message gets heard is neither to trail it behind a low-flying aircraft nor to enlist the aid of a celebrity on Twitter. Instead of wasting your time with protest marches through city centres or assaults on a club’s training ground, simply allow your frustrations to be expressed through the words of a child.

“Could you win?” read the polite banner held aloft by the nine-year-old boy with the Inter scarf and the mousey brown hair at the front of the Tribuna Arancio. “Otherwise at school they will make fun of me. Thanks, Filippo.”

Unfortunately they couldn’t, Inter imploding yet again as they lost 3-0 to a Bologna side who started the weekend in 17th. But unlike the supporters who waited outside the stadium at full-time to aim kicks at the car of Ernesto Paollilo, Filippo could at least be sure that his feelings had registered with the club. On Saturday the owner Massimo Moratti ordered team officials to identify the boy and invite him to attend training the following day.

There he would receive a personal apology from the players, led by the captain Javier Zanetti, as well as a new replica shirt. He would also be interviewed by just about every news organisation in the peninsula. “The manager [Claudio Ranieri] came to shake my hand and I asked him to win again soon,” he told Gazzetta dello Sport. “But I wanted to ask him why the players haven’t been shooting much lately. If you don’t shoot much then you won’t score much.”

I know the feeling, kid. Growing up in New England, I have been a Red Sox fan all my life.

 
Demba Ba and Papiss Cisse are two of my favorite footballers – even if they play for Newcastle United. Demba Ba in particular has a shot like a cannon.

But, I got to thinking about the difference in sophistication likely between the UK and the US. Americans get all woo-hoo over Tim Tebow and his Christian prayer pose. That’s just as common among athletes in Europe. Except oftimes those athletes aren’t Christian – they’re Muslim. Their celebration means as much to them as do the poses of Christian athletes.

So – you think there aren’t any Muslims in the NFL? Think, again. Do you think maybe it’s been suggested that for their own safety they shouldn’t kneel and face in the direction of Mecca when they score a touchdown? Tell us what you think would happen?

Daylife/Getty Images used by permission

A year and a day after she set out to sail single-handed around the globe, Dutch teenager Laura Dekker finished her 27,000 mile voyage on Saturday night.

Miss Dekker, who is 16 years and four months old, has cut six months off the unofficial record set in 2010 by Australian teenager Jessica Watson, who was days away from her 17th birthday when she completed her own non-stop voyage…

“There were moments where I was like, ‘What the hell am I doing out here?,’ but I never wanted to stop,” she told reporters. “It’s a dream, and I wanted to do it.”

Miss Dekker has had to cope with weeks of solitude, ocean storms and a fear of pirates while navigating and sailing a 38-foot yacht called Guppy, all the time trying to keep up with her schoolwork…

Miss Dekker fled abroad in 2010 when Dutch child welfare authorities took legal action to try to stop her making the voyage. She later won a 10-month court battle, promising judges she would buy a bigger boat with advanced navigation equipment, take courses in first aid and coping with sleep deprivation, and enrol in a special correspondence school…

Unlike other youthful round-the-world sailors, Miss Dekker made several stops at ports to ensure her vessel was properly maintained, and to brush up on her studies…

On Friday night she wrote: “I do not want to be totally negative about Holland, I know I have many supporters there. I feel sad for them that I am not sailing into either Hoek van Holland or Ijmuiden. That would have bene a great party for everyone…”

She now expects to go back to school, Mr van Erp said, though not necessarily in the Netherlands.

Miss Dekker said in blogs written during her voyage that she was so tired of the controversy it had aroused in Holland that she might move abroad. She holds a New Zealand passport as she was born in New Zealand waters – on a boat – during a seven-year voyage made by her parents. She also hopes to work for conservation, after using her voyage to raise funds for the charity Sea Shepherd.

Bravo! The aura of money that surrounds her sport doesn’t minimize her courage or her apparent ability to communicate with the world about what she does and thinks and feels. Though I endorse government’s responsibility to aid safe and nurturing environments for all children – I don’t think that requires bureaucratic opposition to the spirit of adventure.

A new poll suggests Canada may have reached the tipping point and a 66-per-cent majority favours legalizing marijuana…

The prohibition and a 40-year-long “War on Drugs” have led to pot being more widely accessible, taxpayers considerably poorer, gangs richer and thousands upon thousands of otherwise law-abiding citizens branded “criminal.”

Another 50,000 or so Canadians are busted every year for possession; throw in 20,000 or so traffickers and producers and this so-called war is costing us as much as $400 million annually in law enforcement, court and corrections.

Bearing in mind a million dollars a year buys roughly 12 new cops, 14 teachers or public health nurses, ask yourself: Couldn’t all that money be better spent..?

Across the country today, more and more people agree.

Conducted Dec. 13 by Toronto-based Forum Research Inc. and released Tuesday, the latest poll…showed that residents of B.C. were the most likely to support pot-law reform, with 73 per cent wanting change.

Quebec had the lowest support for reforms at 61 per cent…

Who’s leading the way? Those aged 55 to 64.

The War on Drugs has been a useless waste of taxpayer dollars – in Canada, in the United States, in any nation that chose to waste their efforts supporting morality instead of simple science.

RTFA for a great deal of research and reference to other nations that have walked away from another unproductive war.

As a result of the campaign by sportsfans.org and others – the FCC is asking for public comment over the next month on its sports blackout rule. The FCC’s rule props up the leagues’ own blackout rules by prohibiting cable and satellite carriers from carrying a game if local broadcasters are prohibited from carrying the game because of league blackout rules. Sports Fans Coalition and other groups have asked the FCC to eliminate this rule because we think the government shouldn’t be in the business of supporting counterproductive and unethical blackout policies.

SFC is currently creating a website to make it easier for you to submit comments to the FCC, but in the meantime, if you’re chomping at the bit to put in your two cents, please see below. Remember that your name and comments will be visible to the public, so please be respectful. But feel free to share the details of your own frustrations with blackouts.

To submit a comment:

1. Your message will need to be in the form of an attachment, so just open up a Word document, write your message and save it.
2. Click here to be redirected to the FCC’s electronic filing system.
3. Where it says proceeding number, enter 12-3.
4. Fill out the required information and attach the saved Word document with your message.
5. That’s it!

Need help with what to say? Feel free to copy or adapt this example for yourself:

It’s time to end to the sports blackout rule. It is an unnecessary and anti-consumer regulation that only benefits team owners. Fans and taxpayers have already heavily subsidized professional sports, so blackouts are unethical and punish fans who can’t afford the high cost of attending games or who don’t have the right TV provider. The government should not be in the business of propping up sports leagues’ counterproductive blackouts. Keep the games on the air!

Overdue. And a terrific example of citizen pressure on the government getting the beginning of a result. The rest is up to you…

Stéphane Peterhansel celebrated his 10th Dakar win, representing at the same time the MINI ALL4 Racing’ and the X-raid Team’s first triumph in the gruelling event! Just 14 months after the unveiling of the German squad’s latest vehicle, the off-road racing crown was secured by the Trebur based team…

But the success story didn’t end with Peterhansel’s win, as all the five MINIs ALL4 Racing entered by the team made it to the top 10. Nani Roma (ESP) ad Michel Périn (FRA) impressed by celebrating three special-stage wins and finished runner-up, thus giving the Monster Energy X-raid Team a one-two, in the 2012 Dakar. Meanwhile, Russia’s Leonid Novitskiy and his German navigator Andi Schulz demonstrated that consistency is the right approach for being successful. They won the first special stage and afterwards, they successfully avoided getting involved in any major problems. Finishing fourth in the overall rankings represented the well-deserved reward – and the best Dakar result ever secured by a Russian driver in the Dakar’s car ranking. In addition, Novitskyi also was the best-place semi-professional driver in the 2012 edition of the event.

For a long time, Polish-Belgian pairing Krzysztof Holowczyc / Jean-Marc Fortin also proved to be a factor in the battle for a top-three position. In the 10th special stage, however, their ORLEN MINI ALL4 Racing encountered problems that cost them their chance of making it to the podium. The fifth Monster Energy X-raid Team pairing, the Portuguese Ricardo Leal dos Santos und Paulo Fiuza, completed the outstanding team success by taking their red MINI ALL4 Racing to eighth position in the overall rankings.

And the Monster Energy X-raid Team did not only convince by this fantastic Dakar success but also by outstanding reliability. Other than expected by many pundits, all the eight vehicles entered by the German squad – five MINIs ALL4 Racing and three BMWs X3 CC – survived the entire event and made it to the finish in Lima. “Apart from our win, this is the biggest success for our team,” added Quandt. “Our engineers and mechanics did a fantastic job preparing the cars on every single day, thus laying the foundation for this success…”

Dakar record winner Peterhansel switched to Team x-raid following the 2009 Dakar. Up to that point in time, Mr. Dakar had celebrated 6 motorbike wins (1991, 1992, 1993, 1995, 1997, 1998) and three on four wheels (2004, 2005, 2007), in the legendary event. Now, by his first win in South America, he added triumph No 10 – by delivering in his well-known style. Peterhansel celebrated three special stage wins in this year’s Dakar and convinced – as usual – by consistency and a matured style of driving. Thanks to this approach, he avoided getting involved in any major problems and on day three, he took the lead for the second time to defend it until the rally was over…

I’ve followed the X-Raid team for a decade, now. This year’s victory – their first in the Dakar – succeeded beyond wildest expectations. Essential to their effort has been the reliability of diesel racing engines. This year’s 6-cylinder, twin-turbo BMW powerplant running flawlessly throughout. The all-wheel-drive Minis were stellar.

Congratulations, folks, on a terrific team and a superlative victory.

Beer pong, or Beirut as it is called on many college campuses, is played with two teams standing at opposite ends of a table. At each end of the table, ten 16-ounce cups, filled with roughly 4 ounces of beer or another liquid, are placed in a bowling-pin formation.

Each team takes turns tossing beer pong balls (similar to table tennis balls) at their opponent’s cup formation. If a ball goes into a cup, the cup is removed from the game, and its contents are usually imbibed by the opponent. The first team to knock out all of their opponent’s cups wins.

Matt White and Ross Hampton learned to play beer pong the same place most people do — in college. It wasn’t until recently that the two started playing competitively and realized they were actually pretty good.

Their move from casual beer pong players to tournament competitors mimics that of National Beer Pong League co-founder Duncan Carroll’s decision to establish a competitive beer pong league. But he insists he and his business partners weren’t the first ones to think of organizing it. “We’re just the only people to actually carry it out,” he said, laughing.

The world series, in its seventh and largest year, has drawn more than 1,000 players (450 teams) from 48 U.S. states and 14 countries.

Organization of a sport which for many college students is nothing more than a mindless drinking game may sound a little far-fetched, but Carroll said it actually came quite easily to him and his college buddies, all members of the Carnegie Mellon swim team in the late 1990s.
“We played a ton of beer pong,” he said…

Carroll said the tournament attracts a “mixed bag” of people who all “happen to be good at beer pong.”

The National Beer Pong League’s latest development is an app for the Android smart phone that he says will bring competitive beer pong to even larger crowds. The most casual backyard beer pong player can log on and track their wins on the league’s website.

At the end of the day, Carroll said, “It’s really just a sport that happens to involve alcohol.”

In that respect, not especially different from air hockey or any other table games that have always been played in pubs. Cripes, I was good at a couple of them. At least, after sufficient beer I thought I was.

Bravo, Tim…

Dakar 2012 has a new twist for the competitors in all four classes: Bike, Car, Quad and Truck. Instead of the past routes taking them through Argentina to Chile and back, Peru has been added to make the event a coast-to-coast adventure in South America. In addition to the new route, one of the top teams in recent years has withdrawn. It is not surprising that changes occur to what is one of the most demanding endurance events: The Dakar!

The first Dakar was the brainstorm of Thierry Sabine who discovered that the changing landscape in Africa offered a unique challenge. He was lost during a rally event in Africa and upon his return to France, Sabine proceeded to design a rally raid that would start in Europe on a route to Algiers before crossing the Agadez and would take the challengers to Dakar.

Sabine commented on his idea that it would be “a challenge for those who go. A dream for those who stay behind.” Since the first event in 1978, the Paris to Dakar rally has seen changes and the start moved over the years. No matter its start, the ending was at Dakar until the organizers deemed it unsafe due to terrorists’ attacks in the African Continent and they cancelled the Dakar in 2008…

In 2009, the new route in South America became the “Dakar”. Argentina and Chile were the host countries but for the 2012 edition, Peru has been added to the 2012 route that over a 30 year span has seen 27 countries become a host nation for the legendary rally raid event. The historic event this New Year will cover territory in three countries with roads from soft sand to rocky trails. The route will take the competitors across the Andes mountains, the deserts, the rivers and, of course, a variety of sand dunes…

Read the rest of this entry »

We heard the rumors in Tokyo, but wouldn’t believe it until we saw it. And here it is. Toyota will be replacing its Axio racer with a Prius for next year’s SuperGT season.

The touring car Prius will reportedly run in the GT300 class against the recently released Subaru BRZ and Honda CR-Z, the latter of which – like the Prius – will use some kind of hybrid drivetrain in the championship. We don’t have any hard details on the powertrain just yet, but expect more to be revealed sometime in January.

Rock on, Prius.

Actually the new Prius Aqua is one of two cars we’re considering as replacement for my wife’s ancient Volvo 245 wagon – which still averages 24mpg btw. The other is the VW Golf diesel.