March Madness

Sweeping out the random crumbs building up in this here Breadbin:

Can anybody explain to me just what it is about college basketball that inspires so much passion in a sizeable subset of Americans?
Better yet, why do Canadians play along?
I can understand rooting for your alma mater: I'm guilty of that myself on occasion. And as an inveterate homer, I can stretch my definition of 'alma mater' to 'school located in or near your hometown'...in a pinch. But so many people are so wrapped up in collegiate hoops...including people who have always lived hundreds or thousands of miles away from any American academic institution...that there simply has to be another explanation.
Damned if I know what it is.

After a good fifteen years of banging my head against the wall, I finally read an explanation for why the majority of criminals in this country don't serve their full sentences. According to Macleans, the Canadian philosophy is to reintegrate offenders into society before their terms are up, while the State can still impose conditions such as avoidance of areas where children may congregate or regular check-ins with parole officers. In the American system, you serve your full sentence, and then walk scot-free.
Humph. Since everyone but the crooks and (it seems) the judges agree that sentences are far too lenient, the obvious solution is to lengthen the sentences. This ain't exactly rocket surgery, is it, folks?
Let's say you molest a child. In the Canadian justice system, you'll get anything from house arrest to maybe a few years in prison. In the fixed-up Canadian justice system, you'd get a sentence of, let's say, minimum fifteen years--twelve of which must be served behind bars. (Of course, you'd be castrated; that goes without saying.)
And premeditated murder--by which I mean 'any wrongful death requiring thought and effort to bring about' would automatically mean life in jail..."life" being that period which precedes "death". (In special cases, where there are several witnesses or you're such a sick freak that you've videotaped the whole sordid mess--you get one trial, one appeal, and then immediate execution, say in a little room off the courtroom.

Ever since the big blackout of 2003, we've had the odd person wander in to our store and ask us why we aren't doing our bit for the environment. Remember how, in the days following the outage, stores used only half of their light fixtures, throwing their aisles into permanent twilight? I think that's what these folks want to see.
We replaced all our fixtures with new ones that use 80% less energy. Oddly enough, they're brighter. But the amount of energy we're spending lighting the store is twenty percent of what it used to be.
Of course, the amount of energy we spend lighting the store is minuscule relative to the amount of energy it takes to run the tills, the computers, the fridges and freezers and walk-ins. I don't think you environauts want to see us cut back in that department. Not unless you want a little something extra in your food.