the mire of football...

World Cup, been and gone. Heads placed firmly in chest. The moneyed-up merry-go-round of Professional soccer dwindles yet further into uselessness.
The three big Italian Clubs were facing realistic financial ruin a few weeks ago, when pretty severe sentences were handed down for the widespread cheating fiasco. Relegated to a lower division, and scores of points taken off them, some teams may not have recovered.
Good, I was thinking, finally the epidemic of protectionism in football has been broken.
Wrong!! The authorities in charge of this decided that was a bit too harsh, and decided to recede nearly all the important punishments that they had inflicted. For example, A.C. Milan, one of the main offenders in the case, have been allowed to compete in this year's Champion's League, thereby getting all the money that being there entails.

Be rich - get away with murder.

"Your car has been turned into a cube."

crushmy307.co.uk

Apparently taking direct influence from the Simpsons, a man has vowed to crush his Peugeot 807 into a cube, because of Peugeot's refusal to fix the problems in their car.
An interesting idea, but I would be more inclined to donate to his other suggested cause, Cancer Research.

Bill Gates - 21st Century Robin Hood??

Pogue's Posts - Technology - New York Times Blog - Reconsidering Bill Gates
It's a weird week when you are suddenly find yourself considering if Bill Gates is the new Robin Hood, but that's what I've just done.
Gates has recently announced his retirement from his current position at Microsoft, so that he could continue to concetrate on his charity foundation, which is dedicated to eradicated disease and increase education. Some have reported that he intents to give away 95% of his wealth.
This is a very positive revelation in my eyes. Many have been critical of Microsoft's business tactics over the years, myself included, and Gates was at the helm when this was going on. However, the fact that he has now decided to use his money productively is to be welcomed. The individual may not be entirely to blame for the corporation's behaviour (although, feasibly he could be, since he owned it), so let's see if he can prove all the sceptics wrong, and show that he really isn't as evil as internet conspirators would like to portray him.

iPod's are too robust

iPod Causes Pipe Problems At University - Softpedia
An amusing story has come to light about an iPod that accidentally got flushed down a toilet. Apparently, the plumbing team hired to relieve the blockage couldn't budge it - because it was "indestructible". It had managed to wedge itself in such a way that it could simply be pushed through, so they tried breaking it into pieces. However, the fiesty little bugger couldn't be chipped, and eventually they had to resort to flushing every toilet in the building. This inevitably led to the farcical slapstick moment of having an entire floor of toilets act as geysers.
Now, why couldn't they make flak jackets or something out of iPods?

The plants smell pretty strong these days

The Scum Online - News: Raid brothers' £38k stash
By now I'm sure that everyone has heard of the 250 police officers raiding a small terraced house under the pretence of terrorism-squashing. After all the expense, shootings and harrassment, it has emerged, much to Scotland Yard's embarrasment, that there was no bombs or terrorist equipment.
Now, over a week later, they say they have found a stash of £35,000 in cash in one of the men's bedroom. Surely, after such rigorous searching, £35,000 would have been spotted pretty quickly? Why do I get the feeling that they have planted this, the police in the U.K. aren't hesitant to do this when it comes to the propaganda war against terrorism, as the Guildford Four and Birmingham Six will tell you.
And of course, who is the first paper to break the news of the new 'find'? The Scum. Only the most Islamophobic of all the mainstream papers, who are guaranteed to frenzy it up beyond recognition of any of the 'facts'.