I can't believe I have to write this...

Wait, actually, I definitely can.  Before I even get started on my main point I will throw it out there now.  Those of you who know me know that I'm pretty libertarian on social issues.  Moving on, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer vetoed the proposed legislation that would allow businesses to deny gays and lesbians service based on their religious beliefs.

It is truly mind boggling to me that this is something I have to write in the 21st century - in what I at least thought was a civilized society.  I honestly don't even know where to begin with this.

First of all, this is not even something that should be debatable.  I can honestly understand why there is a debate over gay marriage.  People view marriage as a deeply religious institution and they see the State as degrading that by allowing gay people to be married.  I disagree, but I can see where the argument comes from.  I simply cannot see where any argument can be made that this is an issue of religious freedom.  I went to Catholic school from 5th to 12th grade.  I went to Sunday school before that. I know Christianity pretty well.  I don't remember a part of the bible or any Christian faith whose major tenets include no serving gay people at your establishment.  How is serving a gay or lesbian at your restaurant inhibiting the free exercise of your religion? I cannot see any way that it does.  Even if I were to accept this, the second problem with a bill such as the proposed Arizona law is the social impact of this bill.  As Governor Brewer rightly says, "...it could divide Arizona in ways we cannot even imagine and no one would ever want."

The second and far more troubling specter the bills creates is that of a deep societal schism.  How do proponents of this bill determine who is gay and who is not? Is it a matter of asking every pair of men or women who come in if they are gay? I cannot imagine anything much more degrading than the host of a restaurant asking "Are you two just friends or gay?" We can do this in a more simpler way - we'll issue some badges so we know who is gay before they even walk into a restaurant.  No wait... I remember another group of people doing something similar - that's right - the Nazis and parts of Europe in the Middle Ages.  It is simply ridiculous - will we allow the owner of an establishment to turn someone away because they look gay to them?

Even if I were to concede that not serving a gay or lesbian is a fundamental part of your religious beliefs, how do you determine if someone is gay without creating a fundamental societal schism by labeling gays and lesbians in a way that marginalizes them? Simply put, you can't.  This is a fundamental part of someone's individual identity.  Put bluntly - this bill, were it to become law - would be persecuting a smaller segment of society because we simply don't like them.

In closing, I'll quote Governor Brewer again, "I understand that the long held norms about marriage and family are being challenged as never before."  Regardless of your opinion, there can be no argument that there is a movement to take us away from the traditional view of what a marriage or family is.  That is not the issue is here.  The issue is far simpler (and more fundamental) - how do we interact as a society?

The great leaders of the civil rights movements worked to bring us together as a society because we are all equal.  Sixty years later we're trying to redraw lines that they fought so hard to abolish.  Instead of allowing discrimination based on race, this bill would've allowed discrimination based on sexual orientation.  Discrimination is discrimination and it simply isn't right.  Not in an area so fundamental as where you eat, spend the night, or shop.

No Wonder Europeans Hate Americans

At first... I was really excited to see the influx of American owners into the English Premier League. I was even under the overly optimistic impression that it would pick up the interest of (proper) football in America if owners of American sports teams got involved.

I've changed my mind. Don't get me wrong, in terms of ownership, Cleveland Browns owner Randy Lerner has done a fantastic job since he bought the Aston Villa Football Club. The quality of player, coach, and performance of the club in general are all up and I believe he serves as a model owner.

My main problems are with the Glazers, who are owners of Manchester United and with Tom Hicks and George Gillett, soon to be former owners of Liverpool. Both of these owners brought significant amounts of debt into these clubs and that debt continues to grow. Both are also refusing to accept the offers of prospective new owners who would completely relieve them of their debt and leave the clubs in a better place.

Hicks and Gillett are the principal offenders in my crosshairs today. Hicks and Gillett, through the Kop holding company, which manages LFC's operations, owe the Royal Bank of Scotland 240 million GBP on the principal note they took when they bought the club, as well as 40 million GBP in late fees, which culminate in an October 15th deadline to pay the note off or the club will enter administration (bankruptcy proceedings). In the last week a circus has played out, in which Hicks and Gillett have, after entering into a contract with RBS to allow new chairman Martin Broughton to find a suitable buyer and sell the club, with which H&G would not interfere.

Early this week, it was revealed that Broughton and the LFC board had accepted a 300 million GBP offer from NESV (New England Sports Ventures), a company owned by Boston Red Sox owner John Henry. After the Premier League found that he was an acceptable owner, Hicks and Gillett attempted to block the sale, in blatant violation of their contract with RBS. They found that the club was undervalued by half of what it's worth, while NESV offered money to pay off the note and add money to the club's severely lacking transfer budget. Is the club really worth twice what the debt is when you're carrying liabilities like that? How can H&G honestly expect to make a profit on a business loan they're nearly defaulting on (and in fact already have defaulted). This is a simple case of greed, where the owners are looking for money where none is deserved or probably exists at all.

Add to this, that after the High Court found that the sale was to go ahead, the trouble twins got an injunction from a Federal Court in Texas to prevent the sale from going through. A blatantly dilatory tactic which the High Court today rightly found had no binding power on an English Court, and furthermore had nothing to do with Texas. In summation, there are really some fine American owners both at home in the broad, but Tom Hicks and George Gillett make them look practically horrible. Good luck to John Henry and the rest of NESV, I think it's evident from what they managed to do with the Red Sox that they are committed to creating a winning atmosphere.

F1 2010 Sucks... And I'll give you all of the reasons..

Where should I even begin? I admit it... I'm a total nerd... I was sitting on steam on September 21 waiting for F1 2010 to unlock... And then I played it...

First of all, I'll cop to the fact that I'm smarter than the average arcade racer. I've been simracing for the last three years, so I like cars that are both fun and a challenge to drive. F1 2010 did not fit that bill. Don't get me wrong, there are some very innovative features in F1 2010. I think the career mode mechanic itself is fantastic, the press conferences and near total immersion could make up for some shoddy game mechanics if that's all that there was. But that's not all that's wrong with this game:

1. Faked AI times in qualifying: Seriously? You really couldn't get this right Codemasters? The cars may circulate around the track but the times they post aren't actually the times it took the cars to go around that track. Why have them actually run at all? Why not have them just sit in the garage instead of come out and block me when there is no time for them to get around and start a lap. Then you expect me to believe that race lap times are not faked? Well how can that be any easier than timing qualifying? Here you have all of the cars on track and being timed at once.

2. Cartoony graphics: Yes, let's follow the trend of over saturation of colors in every game so we can have them as rich as possible. I don't want them as rich as possible. I want them as real as possible. Instead of putting in the maximum settings allowed by your engine (which was done by user created content), you made the most prestigious racing series in the world a cartoon.

3. Arcadey handling: Thank you for misleading us Anthony Davidson... you said you wanted the game to be both realistic and fun. It may be fun but it cannot possibly be realistic. If it were realistic, anyone could be an F1 driver. The cars always have some level of traction control on, no matter the level which is selected in the aids screen. The car feels like it's on rails... until you hit some magical limit on grip where it is impossible to save the car. Yes, I'm sure that's very realistic.

4. Horrible AI: My first season I started with Virgin Racing, one of the F1 new boys and the second/third slowest car on the grid. My teammate qualified 24th. I qualified 16th on the highest difficulty level. the AI got even worse in the race. I finished 4th. That constitutes a joke. The AI can take low speed corners pretty well. Medium speed, not very well, and I can go through high speed corners two gears higher. I won my first race at Barcelona... statistically my worst track.

5. What pit strategy? How is it that I can be fifteen seconds ahead of Heikki Kovalinen (in his Lotus) and he wins the race, when I make no mistakes and have a perfect pit stop. I'll tell you how... he doesn't pit. The biggest rule change for this year was no added fuel during the race, but you must change tyres. How do you not make sure the biggest rule change of the year happens to every car. Add to that, I can come in first, but because the AI cars can act like they're on rails, I lose out on the pit stops. Then, my team's stops are so piss poor, that I have to wait for every single car to pass me and leave in 24th. And oh by the way, the AI cars are ghosts in the pits. You can't hit them. If i can't hit them then why do I have to wait.

6. The completely messed up penalty system: No matter who the aggressor is, I will almost always get a penalty in the race. I slow down for a corner and get hit from behind, I get a penalty for causing a collision. Hell I got a penalty coming into the pits for blocking. Really? How does that work? The penalty system is pretty much completely broken. It's nice to know they tried, but it's sad to know they couldn't even get that right.

7. Wet weather driving: Okay, I race rFactor, a game with no rain, but I've done enough real life wet weather driving to know that the cars do not have more grip in the rain. Yet Codemasters seems to be under that impression. I can go from option (soft) tyres in a dry weather setup to full wets in a soaked track and have MORE grip. How does that happen? It doesn't, I mean, I enjoy the wet weather driving, mainly because the cars seems to have the level of trickiness they should have in the dry, but still, the first race I did after a wet qualifying, the car had less grip than in the wet.

8. Downshifting delay: one of my favorite sounds is hearing an F1 car downshift. You know it, the quick sound that you swear could be be a gun as it goes by. I have to take corners so much slower than I would in an rFactor mod such as F1RFT because there is a delay in shifting gears. Apparently people had trouble with losing grip and downshifting. Instead of adding yet another aide, they just made it so everyone had to deal with the same thing. On some corners I need double the space to slow down as I would in other F1 games/mods. It's... so ridiculous I can't find a word/phrase to adequately describe it's ridiculousness.

9: Multiplayer timing: I've seen cars 8 seconds faster on a lap and they don't know how it happened. It's like the timing gave that car a flux capacitor for a lap and it was able to somehow get quicker, without the driver doing anything. My personal favorite was when I won at a race at the Hungaroring and was put in second. WTF?

Okay... that's really all I have time for, and all that bearing in mind, I'm an F1 whore. I will buy next years game because it's an F1 game, no matter how much it sucks.