England Wins!

Ah yes, jump on the bandwagon! Rugby has given England its first chance since 1966 to celebrate winning a world championship in any sport.

And let's just say that the accomplishment is enough to merit knighthood. England's coach, Clive Woodward, is already being called Sir around these parts, as is the nation's biggest hero, the soon-to-be, Sir Johnny who is rapidly replacing footballer David Beckham as England's biggest sports marketing entity.

Of course, Becks and Sir Johnny have already worked together doing Adidas commercials so, who knows, maybe they'll like, rule England if England win the Euro 2004 Championships in Portugal this summer.

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The World Values Survey is a worldwide investigation of sociocultural and political change. It is conducted by a network of social scientist at leading universities all around world. The survey is performed on nationally representative samples in almost 80 societies on all six inhabited continents. A total of four waves have been carried since 1981 allowing accurate comparative analysis.

The World Values Survey has produced evidence of gradual but pervasive changes in what people want out of life. Moreover, the survey shows that the basic direction of these changes is, to some extent, predictable.

According to surveys, Nigeria is the happiest nation in the world, (could it be the joy of all letter writing? After all, the Nigerian's are famous for their Nigerian Spam Blog, while the United States is only 16th on the list for overall satisfaction. Actually, England has leapfrogged everyone since Saturday afternoon's victory over Australia and by now, must rank number one happy, as they say in Chinese carry-out menus everywhere.

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If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands. Otherwise, you might end up on the FBI Shit List for malcontents and protesters who refuse to love the beloved leader, George W. Bush and his beloved wars.

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If you want to stay off of the FBI Shit List, perhaps it might be handy to memorize these 25 Rules For Being a Good Republican

1) You believe that drug addiction is a moral failing and a crime, unless the addict is a millionaire conservative radio jock which then makes it an "illness" and he needs our prayers for his "recovery".

2) You believe that those privileged from birth achieve success all on their own.

3) You believe that the US should get out of the UN, and that our highest national priority is to enforce the UN's resolutions against Iraq.

4) You believe that government should stay out of people's lives but it needs to punish anyone caught having private sex with the "wrong" gender.

5) You believe that pollution is okay, so long as it makes a profit.

6) You believe in prayer in schools, as long as they don't pray to Allah or Buddha.

7) "Standing Tall for America" means firing your workers and moving their jobs to India.

8) You believe that a woman cannot be trusted with decisions about her own body, but that large multi-national corporations can make decisions affecting all mankind with no regulation whatsoever.

9) You believe that you love Jesus and Jesus loves you, and that Jesus shares your hatred of homosexuals and Hillary.

10) You hate the ALCU for representing convicted felons, but they owed it to the country to bail out Oliver North.

11) You believe that the best way to encourage military morale is to praise the troops overseas while cutting their VA benefits.

12) You believe that group sex and drug use are degenerate sins that can only be purged by running for governor of California as a Republican.

13) You believe it is wise to keep condoms out of schools, because we all know if teenagers don't have condoms they won't have sex.

14) You believe that the best way to fight terrorism is to alienate our allies and then demand their cooperation and money.

15) You believe that government medicine is wrong and that HMOs and insurance companies have your best interests at heart.

16) You believe that giving free health care to all Iraqis is sound government policy but giving free health care to Americans is socialism.

17) You believe that tobacco's link to cancer and global warming are "junk science", but Creationism should be taught in schools.

18) You believe that waging war with no exit strategy was wrong in Vietnam but right in Iraq.

19) You believe that Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush's daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney was doing business with him, and a bad guy when Bush needed a "we can't find Bin Laden" diversion.

20) You believe that government should restrict itself to just the powers named in the Constitution, which includes banning gay marriages and censoring the internet.

21) You believe that the public has a right to know about the adulterous affairs of Democrats, while those of Republicans are a "private matter".

22) You believe that the public has a right to know about Hillary's cattle trades but that Bush was right to censor 28 pages from the Congressional 9.11 report because you just can't handle the truth.

23) You support state rights, which means Ashcroft telling states what locally passed voter initiatives he will allow them to have.

24) You believe that what Clinton did in the 1960's is of vital national interest but what Bush did in the 80s is "stale news" and "irrelevant".

25) You believe that trade with Cuba is wrong because it is communist, but trading with China and Vietnam is good for business.

Source: unknown