Football

I was amused by the reaction to Thierry Henry's "Hand of God" goal by football supporters.

The thing with football is that it is the sport most prone to luck of any sport out there. It has insuffient judging (considering the space), lacks episodic play (so it's not easy to check refereeing decisions) has low scoring and lacks scoring requires on confirmation of victory.

Its opposite is tennis. Tennis has judges, computer judging and the tournament referee can be called in. It has plenty of points and has 2 levels of confirmation (win game by 2 points and set by 2 points). So, the person who wins the match is extremely likely to be the best performer of the day.

Rugby doesn't have enough judging nor action replays, but does have high scoring. So the luck evens out across a match and while the best team may lose because of luck, they would still have to be quite close to the better team to win.

But the level of luck in football is its attraction. It's why fans will turn out for matches - their non-league club might, just might put that one goal in the net against a league club and win by defending for the rest of the game. It also, I believe, explains it's near religious and tribal following.

You Fucking Cockwipes

From This Is Surrey:-

A former soldier who handed a discarded shotgun in to police faces at least five years imprisonment for "doing his duty".

Paul Clarke, 27, was found guilty of possessing a firearm at Guildford Crown Court on Tuesday – after finding the gun and handing it personally to police officers on March 20 this year.

The jury took 20 minutes to make its conviction, and Mr Clarke now faces a minimum of five year's imprisonment for handing in the weapon.

An utter travesty of justice by the sounds of it. A badly worded law, police and CPS who want to raise their statistics and a judicial system that doesn't like jury nullification.

But I really do think the jury were also utter cockwipes in this case. You're going to take away a man's livelihood for 5 years for making what could best be described as an honest mistake? Had the police questioned him under caution about finding it, I'd understand. But it seems that there was no evidence presented of any criminal activity.

We need to have far more information given to juries about previous cases of jury nullification, where juries ignored the law and cleared people because the law was an ass and allowed the superior moral code to take precedent.

Acronym FAIL

From CBS:-

MANILA - US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday that she is optimistic a peace pact between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) will happen before President Arroyo steps down in 2010.

Might want to check what else that stands for

What the Fuck Fucking Fuckity Fuckwittering Hell???

From the BBC:-

A woman convicted of murder has gone on the run during an escorted visit to the shops in south London.
Patricia Gillette, 41, from Streatham, south London, was detained indefinitely in 2007 for killing Mark Murphy, 38, at his home in Streatham in August 2006.

Murderers going shopping? Presumably non-handcuffed murderers at that? Has the world gone completely batshit insane?

Question Time:-

Good:-

David Dimbleby is to miss Question Time for the first time tonight - after being knocked out by a bullock.

I don't wish ill on Mr Dimbleby, but I won't miss him on QT

Bad:-

John Humphrys, the veteran presenter of the Today programme, will deputise for Dimbleby on tonight’s episode of the political panel show

Fucksocks.

Seat Tipping - Labour's Potential Long Term Disaster

Reading Jackie Ashley's column where she stated that some Labour politicians got me thinking: how many Labour seats are going to "tip" to the Lib Dems.

One of the things about the 1997 election was how much tactical voting occurred. People who desperately wanted the Conservatives out chose the strongest opposition candidate in their seat, whether Lib Dem or Labour. It's one of the features of wretched First Past The Post voting systems.

Now, if Labour don't get their vote out, or if voters who are left-leaning decide that they can't stand Labour any longer, then the LDs will get that vote. Which could mean that following the election, a lot of seats may end up with the LDs in 2nd place, which could then lead to them holding a lot of 2nd places come the following election.

Could we see a hung parliament in 5 years time?

Pointless Climate Talks

From The Telegraph:-

In the latest round of UN climate change talks in Barcelona, the US said it was unfair to expect rich countries to cut emissions while developing nations like China and India continue to pollute.

It is the latest blow to the negotiations and puts any chance of a deal in Copenhagen at the end of the year in serious doubt.

 I'm sure that the left will find some way to blame this on Bush, though.