It has to be the best ever - because I say so. It appear that we are in the era of the say so and we might as well join in, when anyone can make anything up and call it science, patriotism, ethics or law and divide the nation with consequent calls to action. Now is the hour to join the fight to mislead, I say!

• I was struck by this the other day thinking about listening to what US talk radio and political blogs I could bear - so unpatriotic and self-serving, driven by a need to rearrange the deck chairs of pointless inward looking thought - ring tone pluck. Others severed off, labelled and castigated though to no end but self-satisfaction in failure while intangible infrastructures rot. When you think of the strengthening mass media has provided in truly tough times, it is odd to realize that in the same tools in these good times become voices of division, parroting the doomsday vision of a fifth rate Bruegal.
• That feels better. Now - soccer. Listening to Deutsche Welle, I heard a piece on positive patriotism in Germany triggered by the World Cup:

  One can be wholeheartedly Bavarian or Swabian, European even, but not German. The problem is that Germany needs this national self-confidence to work its way out of an economic slump...

  It is interesting to consider that this is the one path Canada may be moving towards, where individual provinces seek their own wealth to the derision of others, where both smaller local and larger international cultural and economic bonds become more important than the national. Is sport the only thing left that really keeps one interested in the nation?
Well, that one wasn't really about soccer - but how about something actually interesting out of Alberta?

Many companies across Canada offer their employees so-called flex days, or one-day vacations, but there is a big difference with the Calgary approach. Since virtually everyone has the day off, there's no worry about getting stuck with the workload of absent colleagues -- or being left out of the loop. "It makes it easier to kick back and relax, knowing that there aren't things going on that you should be a part of, and will end up having to catch up later," Imperial spokesman Pius Rolheiser said...

The origins of Golden Friday aren't entirely clear, but several theories abound. One is that the practice is a creation imported from Houston, where the energy crisis of the 1970s sparked a move to squeeze the five-day week into four days. Another possibility is that the defunct Dome Petroleum Ltd. introduced Golden Friday in the early 1980s, a byproduct of the oil boom of that era. Suncor began its version in the early 1980s, when it offered staff every Friday afternoon off.

That's funny. I thought that the reason Alberta was wealthy had everything to do with working hard, not on a four day week. It is strange, though, how Friday generally in the office world has taken on the feel of Saturday from when I was a kid twenty years ago starting out working in a shop. I blame clothiers myself, creating the need for dress-down Friday to ensure the need for men to buy a greater variety of work uniforms. But - unlike the missing jet pack - we were promised that technology would increase leisure and maybe this is the way protestants can live with less work.
• Now to soccer. Who is playing today?
  • Argentina vs. Serbia and/or Montenegro at Gelsenkirchen
  • Netherlands vs. Ivory Coast at Stuttgart
  • Mexico vs. Angola at Hanover

  This should be a bingo-bongo we are in the Congo with the Argies, the Dutch and Mechicho winning. It may be odd having your nation dissolve itself mid-tourney so you have to have to feel for the players or perhaps those they play given the number of yellow cards given out in the last Serbian last game. Ivory Coast (and not Angola and let us all shed a tear for the draw Ghana faces) is the best hope for an African second rounder this year but they just got a tough draw. So I make it 3-1, 2-0 and 4-0 respectively.

• Dan the Dandy Man in Venezuela sent me this link to a Foxfire (or is it Firefox) browser extension that makes your open source browser all world cuppy like this:
  

  I now have my internet viewing tube (yours is a tube, too, right?) all done up in Dutch colours. It is a Nike Joga.com thing so if you are the sort of person with pictures from the Battle in Seattle on your rec room walls, well, I warned you ok. Your beef is with the suits, not with me. Zall'm'sayin'.

• I am heading south this weekend and may try to catch some of the USA v. Italy game Saturday afternoon before meeting up with Gary for supper. The US soccer folk must be driven insane when they consider the luck of their draw compared to the cakewalk England has had through the first round, no matter how hard the south Britains have made their work against the giants Paraguay and Trinidad and Tobago. The game for both the US and Italy is a must win and if it is lost each program will be dealt a crushing blow. I am picking the US to win as Italy's soccer system is already reeling from crisis after crisis and it may well be that these guys are demoralized. But that is a wild card.