“Bread and Circuses”

By restricting private health care choices, the NHS and other beloved single-payer systems were doomed from the start.

In summer 2012, about 27 million Britons tuned in to the London Olympics’ opening ceremony, dreamed up by the Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle. Central to the show was an homage to the National Health Service (NHS), the United Kingdom’s single-payer health care system, that featured hundreds of volunteer nurses dancing around bedridden children. Transcending political affiliation, support for the NHS may be the strongest uniting force in the United Kingdom. As the Conservative Party politician Nigel Lawson put it in a thinly veiled shot at the Church of England, the NHS is “the closest thing the British have to a religion.”

He’s being described as a “Martyr.”

The French authorities confirmed the death of 14-year-old boy after being run over in #Montpellier. Southern France, During the ongoing Riots in Mainland France following France vs Morocco semi-finals match at FIFA Football World Cup in Qatar pic.twitter.com/R2TzN2o6Na

— www.anoncandanga.com (@anon_candanga) December 15, 2022

Paris is bracing itself for ‘civil war’ on the Champs-Elysees tonight as France take on Morocco in the World Cup semi-final.

Officials say the famous avenue in the French city centre could turn into a ‘battlefield’ for the highly-anticipated clash to see who will face Argentina in the final.

France has the world’s biggest Moroccan population outside of the North African country with an estimated 1.5million people, and the countries have a testy history with Morocco a former protectorate of the European nation.

The Banlieue will erupt either way I suspect.

If only the Iranians fired as many shots as their journalists.

In the build-up to this one the Americans had to put up the barricades in the press conference. Player and coach were asked all sorts of confrontational questions, from school shootings and the US fleet in the Persian Gulf to their country’s issues with racism and women’s rights. Indeed Gregg Berhalter was told, at one point, that his country cared more about inflation rises than his team.

England fans dressed as Crusaders have been turned away from World Cup matches in Qatar as their costumes are ‘offensive to Muslims’.

Two fancy-dress knights were allegedly seen on social media trying to get through security before England’s match with Iran on Monday. They were wearing chainmail and helmets bearing St George’s Cross.

It is claimed that the pair, who were also carrying novelty swords, were escorted away by four officers at the security gate before kick-off.

But woke soccerism has made Qatar 2022 even worse.

In the run-up to the World Cup, the nations of an entire continent voted to boycott football’s biggest tournament, to take a stand against racism and inequality.

But this was not a protest against homophobia and oppression in Qatar, controversial host of the 2022 World Cup. Despite all of their pious posturing about Qatar, there is no chance of football nations sacrificing cash and kudos by boycotting the tournament this time. (Although some might wish they had taken the ethical high ground if they’re knocked out early.)

Two days before the start of the 2022 soccer World Cup, host nation Qatar is kicking fans.

Sure, Qatar is happy to provide political cover for China in its genocide of Uyghur Muslims. A clear betrayal of Qatar’s responsibility to the Ummah, or global Islamic community. Sure, Qatar was happy to seize the passports of migrant workers and force them to work in soaring heat without sufficient water. Thousands died to build the stadiums for this tournament. Sure, Qatar demands that gay fans hide their nature just as Qatar holds back the freedom of its women.

The limited and temporary availability of beer, however, is where Qatar crosses the line.

The World Cup, like the Olympics is just another scam the elites use to line their pockets at public expense.

‘I feel gay, disabled … like a woman too!’: Infantino makes bizarre attack on critics

Fifa president accuses western critics of hypocrisy and racism

The Fifa president, Gianni Infantino, has accused critics of Qatar’s human rights record of staggering hypocrisy and racism in a bizarre and incendiary attack on the eve of the 2022 World Cup finals.

In an 57-minute diatribe which frequently drew gasps of astonishment, Infantino claimed that western nations were in no position to give morality lessons to Qatar given their past and current behaviour.

A leading sports official has spoken of an endemic culture of bribery and corruption in the Olympic movement, claiming he was involved in paying bribes to committee members to secure taekwondo’s place at the Games as well as handing out $500,000 in cash to rig an election.

In an interview with The Times, the official has detailed a culture in which payments were made in exchange for gold medals in World Championship and Olympic boxing. He says bribes of as much as $1 million were demanded to guarantee Olympic boxing gold at Athens 2004, and that Azerbaijan paid $10 million in the form of a loan after being offered a gold medal at London 2012. He also has photographic evidence of cash he was offered to fix World Championship bouts.

Due to advances in technology, there is now renewed interest in manned space flight. I hope I’m not alone in asking, “What’s the point?” For extraterrestrial scientific discovery, robots do a much better job at a significantly lower cost.

Tom Wolfe, in The Right Stuff, laid it all out. Sending astronauts up into space, during the Cold War, was a return to the medieval practice of single warrior combat. Rather than having whole swarms of fighters slashing and bludgeoning each other, the two opposing forces would, on occasion, send only their best champions to fight, one on one, while the rest would just watch and await a symbolic victory.

The Cold War, however, is over.

One of the most persistent myths about taxpayer investments in sports is that pumping public money into stadiums and arenas or hosting big international events generates enormous economic returns for communities. We got another repeat of that fairytale recently, when mayors and governors around the country touted the benefits that the World Cup would bring if soccer’s international governing body named them as host cities for the 2026 North American tournament. The fantastical sums thrown about—at a time when NFL franchises are asking cities to pony up for the next generation of subsidized stadiums—are a reminder that the public purse is never off-limits to popular pursuits like sports.