Yesterday, news hit the press of a new breakaway soccer league forming in the U.S. and Canada, a league using some of the top teams from USL-1 including Vancouver Whitecaps FC. News of a breakaway soccer league is big enough, that that news includes the league being a Division II system instead of something to compete directly with the MLS is suggestive in and of itself. That this new league will include Vancouver Whitecaps FC would seem to up the possibility of a relegation system within U.S. soccer greatly.

Now before you go off and roll your eyes at this speculation, hear me out. I think most soccer fans agree that the state of soccer in the U.S. could most charitably be described as rather stale. Sure the addition of expansion teams every few years adds a bit of new life but can we honestly expect that each new expansion team will be another Seattle? Let’s be honest, with average league attendance (excluding Seattle) figures somewhere in the 10k-20k range more needs to be done to bring in fans. So far as I am aware, the U.S. is the only “major” league that doesn’t use the relegation system common in the international world of football. I personally believe the addition of such a system would be good for the league not just in terms of competition but also in fan attendance. With relegation there is a greater sense of drama as every match is important whether you’re vying for a playoff birth or trying to avoid dropping to a lower league by finishing in a bottom position. Additionally, the current playoff system to determine league champions is compatible with a relegation system (though im not a fan of the playoffs). That compatibility allows the league to retain the playoffs for the upper tier teams while at the same time giving the lower teams more to play for. The fact that the lower teams have more to play for will help induce the fans of those teams to be more supportive in order to keep their guys up. More fan support equals greater ticket and merchandise sales which equals greater profit for the league. It simply makes sense from the league and owners perspective to put such a system in place. Hell, I even heard chatter not to long ago about the NFL looking at a relegation system for similar reasons.

So the financial reasoning is there, lets look at the possible signs of this actually happening. Okay, so this probably isn’t the first time a breakaway league has formed but look at how its being structured. This league is being setup as a Division II outfit and it includes most of the big names from USL-1. Why bother forming a Division II when the teams you have are clearly capable of competing with MLS sides as evidenced by the U.S. Open Cup and the CONCACAF Champions League (read Montreal Impact). Why not form a league to compete against the MLS rather than one that will be subservient to it with that kind of talent? Then look at the teams joining this new league. In addition to Vancouver which has already agreed to join the MLS in 2011, you have Montreal, Miami and St. Louis, all markets the MLS has looked at breaking into with the next few expansions. Another benefit offered by a relegation system is that it makes expansion fairly easy really. A new team can join one of the lower divisions, build up its market and fan base as well as talent working its way up the ladder. Once it joins the MLS, it’ll have an established fan base and be set to compete.

I think the inclusion of Vancouver is especially telling as it gives the perfect opportunity to jump right into a relegation system come 2011 (assuming Vancouver signing up for this league doesn’t break its MLS contract which i don’t think it would). Sure this may just be speculation or even wishful thinking by some standards, but you have to admit, it’s certainly not outside the realm of possibility!

Ah corporations, you gotta love them, always so incredibly anally protective of their brand identities to the point where even their fans and supporters start to dislike them. The same appears to be true nowadays for Maranello unfortunately with Ferrari coming down hard on the little guys.

Off and on for the last few years, I’ve been part of a small online community of racing enthusiasts known as Batracer. Basically, it’s a place for racing fans to geek out with talks over goings on in F1, FIA GT, Touring and other racing series. Batracer’s big draw though is its statistical racing simulations which allow players to manage a racing team of their own or a historically accurate team and participate in a variety of racing disciplines. Now these historically accurate teams just happened to have included depictions of various Ferrari’s among with a number of other manufacturers vehicles. When I say that Batracer depicts these vehicles, I’m not saying they give the full technical specifications of each machine, far from it. Essentially all that you see of the machines is a little mostly accurate picture and some info on the engine size and hp. That’s it… seriously there’s not much else. Yet Ferrari saw it fit to threaten to file suit against the owners of Batracer for this CLEAR affront to their brand image (<– sarcasm), unless of course Batracer removed any reference to Ferrari from their site.

Don't get me wrong, I completely understand protecting the brand from the likes of rip off clothing and copying of technical information by other manufactures among a number of other things. But this? Seriously? We are talking a community here of less than 150,000 and a website that is by and large not for profit, what money they do take in from donations goes to maintaining the website and its servers that all really. The owners of Batracer without hesitation of course complied with the warning seeing as how they really couldn't afford to go to court over this. Yet to my mind, Ferrari threatening suit over Batracer does more to hurt Ferrari's brand image than Batracer could have ever hoped to have done. Suffice to say, I won't be supporting Ferrari anytime in the near future.

Example of a bad pun

Is it just me or does the sports media love to use terrible puns all the time? Recently with the World Series going on between the Yankees and Phillies, it seems that everyone has forgotten the letter “f” and replaced it whenever possible with the “ph”. Why? It’s far from clever and completely unnecessary. I’ll admit I do enjoy a good pun but they are so infrequent that I’m surprised when they come along. It’s like you spend your life target shooting tin cans and never see any game and all of a sudden a giant bull moose appears and you’re like “whoa that’s crazy”. Being a fan of a soccer team named the “Gunners” the media seems to want to use the term as often as possible. Such as “Is Cesc gunner leave?” or “Arsenal gunning for the Title”, it’s almost insulting that someone would think to themselves, yes that is the best title I can possibly think of for this article. It just blows my mind. I am begging anyone and everyone “please! STOP IT!!” Think of the children, they already have enough problems spelling and when they ask you why feat is spelled “pheat” just tell them the author is dumb and save them the talk about what puns are.

The World Rally Championship(WRC) recently ended their season with the Wales Rally. The race culminated a barnstorming battle this season between rivals Sebastien Loeb and Mikko Hirvonen. Loeb being the 5 time consecutive rally champion coming into the season was expected to win once again. And he started brilliantly by winning the first five rallies of the year in Ireland, Norway, Cyprus, Portugal, and Argentina. It looked like he was going to run away with the title and have his best year yet. People were even murmuring about him possibly winning every rally in the calendar year.

Loeb's mangled car after flipping in Greece

But then something strange happened, Loeb, who has been known for his ability to avoid mechanical trouble, became cursed at the Rally Italy. While playing cat and mouse games with Hirvonen, Loeb got a puncture and had to change it in the middle of the stage losing many valuable seconds. To add insult to injury, Loeb was charged with an additional time penalty due to his co-driver, Daniel Elena, unbuckling his safety harness before the car had come to a complete stop. Hirvonen also had some problems with dust clouds and had to finish second to his fellow Finn and teammate Jari-Matti Latvala(Mr. Enigma). Then in the Acropolis Rally in Greece, Loeb flipped his car and had to retire gaining no points and his rival getting all 10.  Again in the next rally, Rally Poland, Loeb had to retire again after hitting a hidden tree stump on th edge of the road. He was able to restart the next day but had to lean on the kindness of his other Citroen drivers to finish 7th. But the damage was done and Hirvonen took the Championship lead by a single point. Then came Rally Finland, Mikko Hirvonen’s home rally, where the Finn delivered a win for his fans, though Loeb finished second narrowly escaping incident with a damaged tire. The curse continued with Rally Australia. Loeb finished ahead of Hirvonen, but the victory was short lived when it was discovered that the Citroen team had irregularities in their roll bars. And thus were penalized a minute from their time, giving the victory and a larger points lead to Hirvonen. 4 consecutive rally wins for the Finn. With only two rallies left and five points behind Hirvonen it was looking like Loeb’s reign in the WRC was over.

But Loeb had other plans…

Sordo in action saving Loeb's bacon

The second to last rally of the season was in Spain, a tarmac rally. Loeb is bar none the best tarmac rally driver in the world, but even if he won both the last two rallies and Hirvonen finished second, Hirvonen would win the Championship. So Loeb called on his teammate Dani Sordo, a Spaniard, to hold off Hirvonen for second place. And that’s exactly what he did, Sordo even out-drove Loeb for much of the rally, pulling out the best performance of his young career. The plan came to fruition, it ended Loeb 1st Sordo 2nd Hirvonen 3rd. So it was going to come down to the last rally. Rally Wales.

In a winner take all scenario, no one knew what to expect. Both Loeb and Hirvonen had won Rally Wales in the past, and both were going to be driving at the very limit of grip. It was bound to be historic. The conditions were traditionally Welsh, rainy and muddy, which made it likely mistakes would be made.

Loeb got off to a good start on day one by winning the first three stages only to see Hirvonen close within a few seconds of the world champion by the end of the day’s racing. However, there was a problem in the Ford camp. For some reason their drive shafts were failing, with Jari-Matti Latvala and Khalid al-Qassimi having to stop before the end of the day. Was Hirvonen’s car going to hold up? That would be seen in day two.

Mikko Hirvonen got off to a good start on day two as he beat Loeb in the first stage to get even closer to the lead. Things weren’t looking all that good for Loeb, Hirvonen was snapping at his heels and seemed to have all the momentum.  Sebastien Loeb then showed why he is considered by many to be the best rally driver in history and pulled away from Hirvonen by 25 seconds in the next two stages. Hirvonen was just left shaking his head and blaming some phantom problem with the car. He had some serious work to do in order to get back into contention and it showed in the following stage as he won but almost crashed a couple times pushing to the very limit. Loeb answered by winning the next two stages to take a 30 second lead into the third day.

Hirvonen's hood coming off blinding him

Day Three, the day the champion would be crowned. Would it be a Frenchman or a Finn? Mikko Hirvonen got off to a good start by winning the first stage, but didn’t gain enough time to put a large dent in Loeb’s lead. Then in the second stage, Hirvonen took a big chunk out of Loeb’s lead almost halving it. Loeb was having problems with his turbo. At this rate Loeb would lose his lead on the very last stage of the season to his rival. Hirvonen knew something was wrong with Loeb and pushed especially hard. Then a miracle happened, the Driving Gods came down from the heavens and presented Loeb with the greatest gift he’s gotten as a driver. Hirvonen’s hood came undone after landing a jump, practically blinding him from seeing the road. Disaster for Hirvonen. The only option was to get out and frantically toss the hood away without losing too much time. But the damage had been done. Stopping had cost Hirvonen more than a minute, an eternity in rally racing.  And that was that, Loeb was able to get to the end and celebrate.

Loeb the 2009 Champion

A sixth consecutive Driver’s Championship as well as winning the Manufacturer’s Championship a week prior. Sebastien Loeb is quite simply the best driver in the world right now. I’m one of those people who doesn’t like watching a team or a person endlessly winning and I’m not Loeb’s biggest fan(Petter Solberg fan), but I recognize true greatness when I see it. The greats like Michael Jordan, Ted Williams, Joe Montana, Tiger Woods, Roger Federer, Michael Schumacher, and Sebastien Loeb.

You can get more info at the wonderful WRC.com

Also a note, our Gymkhana friend Ken Block will be participating in a number of rallies next season in the WRC. So we can look forward to that.

So I hope next season will be as exciting as the last. And it starts again, this time in snowy Sweden in mid February. Will Loeb win it again? I wouldn’t bet against him.

Below is an exchange I had with an acquaintance over the health care debate currently raging in DC. Feel free to contribute to the discussion as you see fit. All comments were lifted directly from the debate, the only edits being for spelling. The original context of the commentary was in response to the post “Health Care for One, Health Care for all”.

Commenter:
Hospitals are forbidden by law to turn away someone in need of medical care. Taxpayers should not have to incur 50 million uninsured people at $7000 dollars of medical care per person annually. That’s 350 billion each year.

Myself:
That’s true that hospitals are required to admit anyone who enters the emergency room. However, that is the most expensive form of medical care one can receive. Does it not make more sense to insure people that way they can see a doctor before their issues become so bad as to force them to use the ER?

Commenter:
This is where free clinics would come in handy. Many hospitals are beginning to start this type of trend. If the people of this nation are worried about the uninsured, they should donate to start these types of clinics. Healthcare should not be left in the hands of the government. Americans need to step up and solve their own problems, not rely on a wasteful government to take care of everybody.

Myself:
Here’s the problem though, our society is not full of philanthropic individuals, in fact human society in general is very greedy. Health care to the poor and uninsured cannot be guaranteed unless the government is involved. To me the right to life/the ability to live is encompassed in health care and being a right should therefore be provided for by the government as with all our other rights irrespective of cost. If by me paying slightly higher taxes we save more children and others than would otherwise be saved in our current “private” system, then by all means have at my taxes.

Commenter:
We have stumbled on some fundamental differences between left and right wing politics. Just don’t forget that the government is not a single powerful being that is supposed to solve all problems, rather a combination of people elected to serve the people of the U.S. Federalized healthcare would be a step in the direction of socialism, which is not a system our forefathers fought and perished for. They died for freedom, capitalism, and free enterprise. Also, a vast majority of the uninsured are not American citizens.

Myself:
The health of an individual should not have a profit margin attached to it simple as that my friend. To live is a basic human right and one of the reasons we have governments is to ensure our pursuit of that life.

You say that government run health care would be a step in the direction of socialism yet i fear you do not realize that our country is not purely capitalistic as it is now. Medicare, the government run health care program for the elderly, while it does have its faults serves our elders to the point where most are afraid to lose it. The VA administration, put together to ensure our veterans are not forgotten when they return home from near and far is a socialist government run program. Then there’s social security, s-chip, police, fire, the faa, water and sewer services to name just a few among the many services our government provides.

There is not a single successful government in the world that is purely capitalistic or socialist, those are merely labels that distract from the real issues that burden our society. We should move away from such labels and concentrate on doing what is necessary to ensure that all who live here are guaranteed those most basic of rights, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Presenting for your viewing pleasure, the Bugatti Galibier concept car! To be honest, I don’t know a whole lot about it, as I only recently discovered this new metal. Just from looking at, I can’t really decide which segment they’re shooting for. Are they aiming to compete with the recent glut of four door supercars from the likes of Lamborghini, Aston Martin, Porsche and Maserati? Or are they alternatively looking to compete with the likes of Bentley and Rolls Royce? All I’ve been able to find on it thus far is that it will have a top speed approaching 217mph and it will be constructed to some extent from carbon fiber. Yet if you look at the interior, it suggests nothing the least bit sporty. So very confusing! Here’s a little more info though not much more.

Recently I watched Sonicsgate, a documentary about the events that led up to the Seattle Super Sonics moving to Oklahoma City. It was a very gut-wrenching experience watching the team, which started my interest in sports, leave town. But I thought the film was well done and would recommend it to any basketball fan, or even any team sports fan. The way in which a team can go from being a city favorite to leaving a city which seemed so fast is heartbreaking, but it happened to the Sonics. I would never wish it on anyone else.

The film can be viewed for free at:
http://sonicsgate.org/

Recently shown at the Seattle International Film Festival(SIFF)

Countdown with Keith Olbermann

I urge everyone, no I beg everyone to please watch the video at the above link from Keith Olbermann’s latest show. I know not all of you will agree with him nor me, but on this one issue, if not on any other, we must all stand together. If you have empathy, if you can feel for others, if you see the value in your fellow man or woman than you can not stand idly by while so many of your neighbors needlessly perish for lack of money or insurance. Life should not have a profit margin attached to it.

Work to inform those who are unaware, challenge those who espouse ignorance of the facts, pressure those who represent us at all levels of government to do not what is politically or financially correct, but what is right. If you have money, contribute to programs such as the one Keith mentions or the likes of Remote Area Medical who help to bring healthcare to those who need it most. Do whatever you can big or small to make a difference here, for all you know, you just might be saving a life.

I can’t speak for us all, but I can tell you, I myself would gladly pay more taxes if even one life more would be saved because of it.

The following is found on the schedule for this years 2009 Value Voters Summit in Washington D.C. Ostensibly, this is a Conservative movement meeting to discuss future plans.

THE NEW MASCULINITY – CONGRESSIONAL A
Dr. Pat Fagan, Senior Fellow and Director, Center for Family and Religion, FRC; Michael Schwartz, Chief of Staff, Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.); Dr. Matthew Spalding, Director, B. Kenneth Simon Center for Studies, The Heritage Foundation

Feminism has wreaked havoc on marriage, women, children and men. It is time to redress the disorder it has wrought and that must start with getting the principles and ideals for a new “masculinism” right. Such a “masculinism” will have its dovetailing counterpart in a new “feminism” for they mutually define each other and, in nature, are meant to be complementary. This panel will begin this exploration.

The above was found here

Now read this bit of commentary from Foreign Affairs

Economics of course is not the only reason to fight for the equality of women, but I thought i’d appeal to the conservatives wallets since that appears to be all they really care about. I think the feminist movement has been a wonderful thing, leading to great strides both within our society and elsewhere throughout the world. I myself fully support complete equality for women and indeed everyone no matter the color of their skin, their sexual preference or any other denominator. What does everyone think about the Conservative’s fighting against women’s rights?