The next World Cup (wait, can we say that?) soccer tournament begins in less than two months, and it looks like some folks are already lining up the excuses for when their team underperforms on the pitch. The latest one: blaming the use of iPods and video games for preventing teams from building a "collective spirit." An English coach started the riff by saying, "I'm not a big fan of these big earphones on the way to games," and that "my thing with the iPod generation is that when they leave the ground and go away to their closeted little lives they shouldn't forget what's got them where they are and what impact they can have." It should be added that his team currently lies near the bottom of the top English league, and their problems likely run much, much deeper than their players' headphones. But hey, just like when your nation fails at the World Cup, it's a lot easier to blame technology than anything legitimate, like at the last tournament, when Brazil's poor performance was blamed on Ronaldinho's interest in scoring on his PS2 (and his girlfriend) rather than for his team. This pining for the good ol' days also ignores the idea that technology can deliver some benefits to players and their teams as well, and that the current generation of players might be more effective at bonding over some video games than beers, cards or whatever else their forerunners got up to.

It seems you can blame the internet for just about anything these days. Some conservationists are now blaming the internet for increasing the threats to various endangered species. The argument is that because people can buy and sell such endangered species online, it's increasing the threats to those animals. Of course, it's easy to blame the internet, but why not focus on actually blaming those individuals responsible for the trades -- and rather than lashing out at a communications platform, why not look for ways to use the internet to help stop such illegal trades? If this is happening online, that also means a record is left and it's easier to track down those responsible.

Richard Corsale writes in to let us know about how popular electronics e-commerce site NewEgg apparently received 300 totally fake Intel processors and at least some of them were sold. They're not processors at all. They're just made to look like them from the outside. NewEgg's initial response was to claim that its supplier shipped them demo boxes by accident -- but Intel is claiming that's not true, and the boxes are not official Intel demo boxes, but counterfeit demo boxes. Then, to make the story even odder, many publications reported that NewEgg's supplier for these fake processors was a company called D&H -- and D&H's response to all of these stories is to send out legal nastygrams to anyone reporting on the story and mentioning D&H. Perhaps it's worth giving D&H the benefit of the doubt, but why not just come out and say "hey, it wasn't us," and get NewEgg to confirm or deny who provided the fake processors before sending out a legal threat?

At the very end of an NPR story about the decade since Napster there's an amusing quote from Eric Garland of online music tracking firm Big Champagne, where he says:

A decade from now, executives may be longing for the days--when they could blame piracy for all of their problems.

Indeed. "Piracy" makes for an easy -- if totally incorrect -- scapegoat. The reality is far different. As we've seen over and over again, those who learn to properly use file sharing to their advantage don't see any "problems" from file "piracy," but actually see it as a huge opportunity. That, alone, makes it clear that piracy has never been the problem, only a failure to adapt. And yet, as we've noted repeatedly, the industry itself is actually thriving. So that raises a separate question. A decade from now, what will industry execs be blaming their problems on? Or, will the old "blame game" execs have moved on, and we'll be in a new industry that doesn't even think of the challenges it faces as problems, but as opportunities?

It was rumored recently that some politicians were going to investigate Wikileaks for some leaked documents that were posted there. The details weren't clear, and I was hoping something was lost in the translation, and they meant that the politicians would be investigating the leaks not the site Wikileaks for posting it. No such luck apparently. Three Congressional Reps have apparently asked Homeland Security what can be done about sites that post leaked documents, including not just Wikileaks, but Cryptome as well. In the letter to Homeland Security, they basically suggest that if needed, they'll put forth legislation that would make reposting such content illegal, which could create one hell of a First Amendment legal battle at some point. Either way, these politicians are focused on the wrong things. The problems aren't these sites, which are just service providers for the information. The problems are the leaks of info themselves.

sinsi alerts us to a bizarre lawsuit in Australia where shooting victim Michael Trkulja is suing Google, claiming the search engine has some liability for his getting shot. The reasoning? Apparently searches on his name would take you to pages suggesting that Trkulja was involved in organized crime operations. It doesn't appear that he has any other info linking his shooting to this particular webpage or to the fact that the shooter may have done a Google search. It also does not appear (at least from the article here) that the guy is blaming the website in question -- just Google for leading people to it. Not sure what sorts of laws there are in Australia concerning such liability, but it's hard to think of a scenario under which this lawsuit should make sense under any legal system.

Pickle Monger alerts us to a CNN story suggesting that a Facebook group "may have lead to the beating of a 12-year-old" boy. Really? Facebook could do that rather than a group of kids who are bullies? The "group" in question was apparently a group (potentially inspired by a South Park episode) for a national "kick a ginger" (redhead) day. There was actually some controversy about this last year as well. It seems bizarre to blame Facebook (or, for that matter, South Park) for this at all, and so Pickle Monger went and checked out the actual Facebook group and noted: "There doesn't seem to be any outrageous comments. In fact most comments are in good humor, some by readheads. The event has one confirmed guest - assumingly the creator, who seems to be readheaded (assuming it's his photo on the profile). The event has two people awaiting reply." Kids do stupid things, and sometimes the stupid things they do involve hitting other kids. That's not the fault of Facebook.

I recognize that NPR news analyst Daniel Schorr is well into his tenth decade of life, and plays the role of the "senior statesman of journalism" on NPR at times, but as a bunch of folks have sent in, he seems to have totally lost it with his recent piece suggesting the internet should share some of the blame for the Ft. Hood shootings done by Maj. Nidal Hasan. The reason? Hasan apparently communicated via email with an "extremist cleric" whom he had met years ago (in person) at a mosque in Northern Virginia. One wonders if they had corresponded by telephone, if Schorr would be questioning if AT&T was to blame. Or, if by pen and paper, if Bic was at fault. Of course, Schorr doesn't even know what was in the emails sent between the two, so his speculation is based on even less than nothing. However, even if his worst fears are true, and the cleric somehow pushed Hasan to carry out his attack, the fault remains with Hasan, and potentially the cleric. Not the internet.

Reader cKarlGo points us to a story in Florida of local police arresting 28 women and six men on prostitution-related charges, after finding them all on Craigslist. They then used phone and email to negotiate with the women in order to confirm that they were selling sexual acts. Afterwards, they made the arrests. But here's the kicker: the sheriff is still blaming Craigslist:

"How can Craigslist allow this kind of content on their (Web) site and then state "We're not involved in any kind of criminal conduct,""

Well, it's actually quite simple. I would imagine that, right now, somewhere in Sheriff Grady Judd's jurisdiction, there are other prostitutes walking the streets. By Judd's own logic, I should be asking why Polk County is involved in criminal conduct. After all, it's happening in his jurisdiction. It's just that it's happening on the street. Or it might be on Craigslist. But it's neither the fault of the street nor Craigslist -- which is nothing more than a virtual street.

But, more to the point, why isn't Sheriff Judd also blaming the telephone company and his internet provider? After all, Judd used three tools to find and communicate with these prostitutes: Craigslist, email and the telephone. The phone company allowed the prostitutes to make phone calls. Internet providers allowed the prostitutes to email. By Judd's logic they're "involved in criminal activity."

In the meantime, what kind of thought process does it take to use a tool to help you crack down on prostitution, and then blame it for the prostitution? How hard is it for Sheriff Judd to recognize that Craigslist is an incredibly useful tool for his staff to find and arrest prostitutes. You would think that having just used the tool for that very purpose he might realize that it's a great tool for catching prostitutes. So why is he blaming it?

We know that there's been an ongoing effort by entertainment industry lobbyists to convince politicians (and others) that file sharing and P2P apps are somehow to blame for stupid government staffers accidentally leaking files via those programs. Apparently the propaganda campaign has worked in at least one area: employees of the United States Antarctic Program (USAP) were sent an alert that they need to stop using all P2P programs. The "scenarios" described in the note are the same ones that entertainment industry lobbying group Arts+Labs has been spewing for a few years now. However, rather than assume that the real lesson is that users should actually understand the software they're using on their computer, and make sure not to use it in a dumb way (such as exposing sensitive documents), the director of IT simply told everyone that while on Antarctica, they must disable any P2P apps on their computer. Hope no one there uses Skype to keep in touch with family...