Rowdy throngs of British fans flocked to Stuttgart, Germany, to smear bright paint on themselves, run around piss-drunk, and (if there was time) view the World Cup games. Close to 500 fans participating in violent riots were arrested last weekend after some guys from one country kicked a ball better than some guys from another country. England even sent over some “hooligan experts” to help Germany survive the invasion. I’m not certain what the official education requirements are for a hooligan expert, but I assume they have advanced training in native and immigrant hooliganism, traditional hooligarian rites/rituals, and psychohooliganity.

Funny how people will turn out in droves to protest things like a soccer loss or an Islamic cartoon, but when young men are videotaped having their heads sawed off, there’s nary a painted chest nor a trampled demonstrator to be found.

The beginning of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, along with the deaths of five teenagers in a gang shoot-out last week, serves to reassure New Orleans residents that the city is finally returning to normal. In 2004, for every murder committed in New York, eight people were murdered in New Orleans. Determined not to let Hurricane Katrina change their lifestyle, New Orleans criminals are well on their way to not only meeting, but exceeding pre-Katrina crime rates. Meanwhile, officials continue to point out that crime rates are down overall. Which is just super… then again, there isn’t really much to steal or deface, is there now?

**BREAKING NEWS UPDATE!** In a shocking, completely unexpected turn of events, New Orleans police have revealed that the deaths of the five teenagers may have been drug-related.

A Missouri woman, furious that her Chihuahua puppy died after being sold to her much too young, forced her way into the dog breeder’s house and attempted to dash to the basement for a new puppy. The breeder was able to wrestle her onto the front porch, at which point the grieving dog-lover assaulted the breeder by hitting her over the head repeatedly with her dead puppy. She then got in her car and drove away, all the while screaming threats and waving the dog corpse out her sunroof.

The next day she continued threatening the breeder and her family by phone. Police have not specified the nature of the threats, but they must have been terrifying. If a woman comes at you brandishing a dead Chihuahua, you know you’re in trouble. Because if she doesn’t kill you the first time, you can bet she’ll be back with an even deadlier assault weapon, like maybe a dead schnauzer. And when you see her backing up to your house with a catapult and a lifeless Burmese Mountain Dog in her pickup bed, all you can do is pray for a quick death.

Thanks to the CSI craze, yesterday’s media was all a-flutter about the “crime scene students” who found a real dead body. Of course, it’s much, much less interesting than that. A Ford Lauderdale teacher, attempting to exploit the inexplicable popularity of network television, sent a bunch of pimpley, squeaky-voiced high schoolers to investigate a fake crime scene set up in the park. During their adventures, the kids stumbled onto the body of an unfortunate homeless man whose claim to fame is that he was found by high schoolers studying a flavor-of-the-week subject glamorized by T.V. shows featuring beautiful actors lifting fingerprints from stylish martini glasses, collecting semen samples from casino orgies, and eviscerating murdered bikini models.

(This moving obituary has been brought to you by Cultural Elitism. Don’t leave home without it.)

A Hong Kong DJ and his producers publically apologized to outraged legislators and citizens after posting a poll on the radio show’s website asking people to vote for which female celebrity they would most like to rape. Crazy feminists.

This comes as China works hard to clean up it’s image in preparation for the 2008 Olympics, arresting jay-walkers and fining people who cut in line. A smoking ban is in the works, and since the Chinese are apparently exceedingly fond of hawking loogies — in the street, on hotel carpet, wherever — volunteers have hit the city sidewalks with free “spitting bags.” After eradicating these terrible offenses, I assume China will get around to focusing on minor etiquette violations like genocide, state-sanctioned torture and human trafficking.