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Over the weekend I read a nice and straight to the point article on the Bleacher Report. 50 reasons to improve the worlds most popular sport, some are glaringly obvious, while some aren't really necessary. However many improvements would instantly expand its reach into North America.

I know reading has now become a weak point for this generation, but these points are made within 1-3 paragraphs so it shouldn't put too much strain on your brains.

Here are the first 5, so enjoy!



1. Introduce Goal Line Technology
Quite possibly the most talked about issue in football today, goal line technology has been on the minds of fans, officials and executives right throughout the sport for a number of years now.

Frank Lampard's goal that was never given (and for that matter his recent "goal" that was given against Tottenham) just proves how much the sport is calling for some high quality goal line technology.

"Hawkeye" has worked wonders in tennis since it was introduced, and while the sports are obviously considerably different, there is still a good chance that similar technology would be very welcome in football.

2. Introduce Video Replays
Again, similar to the goal line technology, but video replays could well be used for decisions referees are uncertain on.

Quite how it would fit in to the sport is a problem for people to think about once it's been welcomed in already, but for now it's easy enough to say that video replay technology would give officials and governing bodies the chance to overturn wrong decisions.

It works in the NFL and while, like with tennis, the two sports are very different, they could still share a similarity in Video Replays improving the game.

3. Introduce a Salary Cap
Salaries are one of the most talked about problems with football nowadays, and it is a difficult one to argue around.

Players earning far more in salary contribute far more to a country through taxing, and without salaries as high as they have been, it's difficult to see how governments could afford the upkeep of key public sectors.

On the other hand, the amount many players earn after tax is still a phenomenal amount and it's always difficult to justify that, even with the tax argument. The best solution would quite possibly be a cap on salaries at an agreed upon and fair amount.

4. Introduce a Transfer Fee Cap
Much like the salary cap idea (and yes it is another picture of the most expensive footballer ever), a transfer fee cap would stop bids from becoming absolutely outrageous.

It doesn't matter how good Cristiano Ronaldo is, there isn't a player in the world that justifies an £80 million transfer.

A limit on transfer fees would ensure that there are no more outrageous sums of money paid out for one player.

5. Replace Sepp Blatter
Slightly controversial to some, but believe me it has very little to do with England losing the World Cup bid. It does however, have far more to do with Russia and Qatar winning the bids.

While Sepp Blatter may have made one or two positive moves for football during his (overly) long term in office at the FIFA Headquarters, his recent record of decisions and quotes has proven that he may not be the man for the job anymore.

This isn't supposed to be a slide to discuss the controversial decision to award the World Cups in 2018 and 2022 to the two most oil rich countries bidding, and I'm not going to suggest any conspiracy, but Blatter is not the leader he used to be, and the world knows it.

Click here to read the remaining 45

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US combat forces are scheduled to leave Iraq by year's end, but the State Department will still need security. So it's planning to add thousands more private contractors.

Why?

Why not have US soldiers who are under their jurisdiction do this work instead of a private company? Who will these private contractors report to? I just find it odd that a delicate matter like this is farmed out. It was contractors who murdered Iraqi's in 2007 and then tried to claim it was an ambush? The same company was responsible for the killing of two Afghan's in 2009.

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1. Republican's want to give FREE drilling permits to Big Oil.
2. By doing this the majority of Republican's are letting them take the oil out of the ground at no cost to local governments or states. Meaning that whatever they find, we get nothing for it.
3. And instead of using what is found within the US - including off-shore drilling - they are then permitted to put it on the world market. To the affect that this lets Wall Street run the price per barrel sky high through speculators and the commodity market. Again, we make nothing on that.
4. From this they sell, WHAT THEY TOOK FREE out of our ground back to us at inflated prices.

FINALLY, the politicians want to continue giving them subsidies for doing all this. Big Oil then have the audacity to state that if we cease to do so prices at the pump will continue to increase. They go onto to say that any future research and development will come to a stand still. So let me get this straight, you get it for free, sell it for bank, make a killing at the pump off of hard-working citizens and every quarter you release numbers that forecast profits in the Billions of dollars? Now there is the threat that if this tax breaks/government subsidies cease the price at the pump will go higher and further exploration will stop of slow considerably. Am I getting this straight with all that was written? So technically the good hard-working citizens are paying for any/all research and development along with ongoing exploration with the continent? To which Big Oil makes serious money and shares none.

BP who's drilling platform caused severe damage to the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, posted quarterly profits of $5.481bn, down just 2% from the same quarter last year.

So tight, you got to love politics.

From the people and not for the people.

Ca$h
Rules
Everything
Around
Me

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Liberals claim that the founding fathers separated church and state, while conservatives argue that the founders made faith a foundation of our government. Both sides argue that America once enjoyed a freedom to worship that they seek to preserve. Yet neither side gets it right. As we marked Passover and Easter, let's end some misconceptions about religion and politics in America.

1. The Constitution has always protected religious freedom.

Many Americans believe that the First Amendment’s separation of church and state safeguards religious liberty. But when the First Amendment was ratified in 1791, it did not apply to the states and would not until well into the 20th century. As a result, the First Amendment did not prevent states from paying churches out of the public treasury, as Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut and South Carolina did when that amendment was written. And those states that did not fund churches still favored Christianity. Blasphemy was forbidden in Delaware in 1826, and officeholders in Pennsylvania had to swear that they believed in “the being of a God and a future state of rewards and punishments.”

American federalism gave states enormous power to regulate the health, welfare and morals of their citizens. Because many thought religion was the foundation of American society, they used their power to imprint their moral ideals on state constitutions and judicial opinions for much of American history. Even today, these laws linger on the books. I still can’t buy beer on Sundays in Atlanta.

2. The founders’ faith matters.

Christians who consider the founders saintly won’t have much luck backing that up. Thomas Jefferson wrote a version of the New Testament that removed references to Jesus’s divinity. Ben Franklin was a deist. And George Washington may not have taken Communion.

But whatever the founders’ religious beliefs were, the First Amendment merely preserved the church-and-state status quo. There had never been an official religion in the 13 colonies, and the new states favored different faiths. The South was traditionally Anglican but had a growing Methodist and Baptist population. New England was traditionally Congregationalist, but evangelicals moved there nonetheless. The middle colonies mixed Lutherans, Catholics (in Maryland), Presbyterians and Quakers. A small number of Jews lived in early America, as well.

So the framers punted the issue of religion to the states, promising only that the power of the federal government would not be used to advance, say, Congregationalist beliefs over Presbyterian ones. This was a pluralistic vision of sorts but one that still allowed states to declare official religions and grant privileges to specific denominations.

3. Christian conservatives have only recently taken over politics.

Christian partisans mobilized early in U.S. history, seeking to impose an interdenominational — but still Christian and, more specifically, Protestant — moral order on the new nation.

Initially, Christians were more successful in exercising political and legal control at the state level. They passed blasphemy laws. They required Sabbath rest on Sundays. In Massachusetts, they mandated devotional exercises in public schools, a practice that spread to every state with public education.

In time, however, the faithful found a federal audience for moral reform with the passage of the 18th Amendment in 1919, a national experiment in prohibition. These moral campaigns anticipated many of the political disputes over religion that have emerged in recent decades, and they weren’t any less divisive than debates about the death penalty, abortion or gay marriage.

4. America is more secular than it used to be.

The American Revolution was actually a low point in American religious adherence. Sociologists have shown that no more than 20 percent of the population in 1776 belonged to a church. Then, under the influence of evangelical expansion during the Second Great Awakening in the early 19th century, church membership grew rapidly until, by 1850, more than one-third of Americans belonged to a church. In 1890, after another round of Protestant evangelization and Catholic immigration from Ireland, Italy and elsewhere, the proportion rose to 45 percent. And in 1906, church members became a majority — 51 percent of the population.

The trend continues. In 2000, 62 percent of the populace belonged to religious institutions, if not specifically Christian churches. Evangelical Christians still lead this expansion, and their influence has become more pronounced, not less, over the past two centuries. The presidency of George W. Bush — the most evangelical commander in chief — testifies that Americans are becoming more religious, not less.

5. Liberals are anti-religious.

In 1947’s Everson v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court demanded a more thorough separation of church and state. States could no longer endorse specific religions, and prayer and Bible reading in schools and blasphemy laws went on the chopping block. This led religious conservatives to accuse the high court — as well as liberals in general — of, well, irreligion.

But liberals such as Justices Robert H. Jackson and William Brennan argued that they sought to honor the multiple religious traditions that had been repressed in the United States. They pointed out that Catholics had been made to recite the Protestant version of the Ten Commandments in public schools; that observant Jews labored at an economic disadvantage because they had to close their shop on the Sabbath; that Buddhists, who could not swear that they believed in God, were banned from office in several states; that Jehovah’s Witnesses were made to say the pledge of allegiance in violation of their religious beliefs; and that secular humanists could be drafted without regard to their conscientious objection.

Liberals on the court sought to do away with this heritage of official discrimination, but they did not seek to do away with religion. As Jackson wrote in 1952: "My evangelistic brethren confuse an objection to compulsion with an objection to religion. It is possible to hold a faith with enough confidence to believe that what should be rendered to God does not need to be decided and collected by Caesar."

Amen to that. (Sauce)

*Author of this piece David Sehat is an assistant professor of history at Georgia State University and the author of "The Myth of American Religious Freedom."

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