From the Bee: "Pride Month Comes To End After Extra Time"

Congratulations to the excellent FOAT writers at the Babylon Bee for managing to skewer two sacred cows in one short article. Click here to read it. 

If you decide to subscribe (and we do recommend that you do so), tell `em Walt sent ya!

Profundity of the year, heard today during a World Cup match

In case you haven't noticed (and why would you?), the FIFA World Cup is being played for at venues all over North America. National teams from the likes of Cabo Verde, Côte d'Ivoire and Chad are showing off their football (which is what foreigners call soccer) skills, providing spectators (Sid and Doris Bonkers) with exciting moments such as this.

"Oooooh! You've stepped on me toes, you 'ave!"

That's way more exciting than golf isn't it? Some TV networks in the US of A and Canada seem to think so, and are spending big bucks to bring us all the drama of The Beautiful Game live and in living colour.

No telecast would be complete without the incessant prattle of play-by-play announcers and their sidekicks, the colour (and sometimes coloured) commentators. For some reason, North American sports channels bring in boatloads of Englishmen to fill those roles, presumably because we are too stupid to understand the subtleties of the game without informative and insightful comments such as this one, heard on Canada's CTV Sports during the Canada v Maroc match.

You can't win if you don't score.

As Johnny Carson used to say to Ed McMahon, "I did not know that!" Well, only three months until hockey season....

Seen today on the Internet. [Is this right? Ed.]

Seen of BBC.com landing page. That's all ye know and all ye need to know about the Once-Great Britain.

Petition to FIFA to take 2018 World Cup away from Russia

Mrs Agent 5 has sent us a message saying that, in support of the Ukrainian people and for world peace, she has signed the following petition to Joseph Sepp Blatter, President of FIFA:

"Russia has invaded a foreign country, Ukraine, with the pretext of protecting its foreign nationals. This was the very same reason that Adolf Hitler used to invade Czechoslovakia which started World War II. To protest this violation of international law I believe we should petition FIFA to move the 2018 World Cup to another country and give Ukraine host status as a show of support."

Please sign this petition, she asks, and circulate it far and wide. Walt doesn't give two hoots about football or soccer -- what kind of "sport" is it where you can't use your hands? -- and thinks the petition has two chances of success -- slim and none -- but has signed it anyway, in solidarity with the Ukrainian people! Please do the same!

Nepotism and the N-word in southern Africa

From the Cape Times (a South African newspaper) comes a report that the exclusive and lucrative contract to sell FIFA's World Cup hospitality packages in Zimbabwe has been awarded to president Robert Mugabe's nephew, businessman and former Zanu PF MP Philip Chiyangwa, who is the subject of international sanctions.

Chiyangwa's business consortium is called the Native Investment Group (NIG). Walt wonders what they call t hose who belong to the group? Surely it couldn't be NIGgers? Noooo...

Although only 546 tickets to the World Cup had been bought in Zimbabwe by the beginning of February, and ticket prices are being slashed in South Africa to fill stadiums, Chiyangwa has claimed his NIG is doing boffo b.o. FIFA's hospitality packages -- including premium match tickets, catering, entertainment and travel packages with "dedicated hostesses" -- are managed internationally by Match Hospitality, which appoints regional agents and sub-agents such as NIG.

Match Hospitality is run by FIFA president Sepp Blatter's nephew Philippe Blatter, through his sports marketing company Infront. So it seems Africa is not so different from the ROTW after all. Connections mean a lot!