"Did you watch the World Cup? Did you see when a player would start whining about a call and the referee would shake his head "no" and dismissively wave him away. That's the stance NFL zebras should take."

The World Cup was an excellent example of how it should be done, mixed with a counterexample of how not to do things. Soccer officials make an instant decision, then stick with it. We use, to borrow King's definition, the "Madden Standard." Soccer rules are even written that way, and referees are taught to enforce the spirit of the rule, not its letter. If it looks wrong, it's wrong.

Now for the bad part. FIFA went ahead and gathered the best officiating crews in the world, then hamstrung them with ridiculous directives from on-high on how to call the game, when to pull out a card, etc. This is very bad for the "Madden Standard," as it forces the official to think too much. The NFL has the same problem: Every season we are told how the officials have been told to crack down on this or that, and how the rules are to be interpreted, etc. which leads to inconsistencies and confusion about the most basic things (like what is a catch??)

So the thing for the NFL to do is to simplify the rules, eliminate instant replay, and keep the meddling with officials to a minimum. These guys are supposedly the best in their profession. Let them at it. The odd human error is just part of the game.

I've noticed many readers have proposed alternatives to the kickoff. But it seems to me that there is nothing inherently wrong with kickoffs, punts, field goals or PATs. Instead the objections appears to aimed at the specialist kickers.

So lets tackle the real problem here: free substitution. This is what permits teams to afford specialists. Rugby Union, a similar game to football, features neither kicking specialists (that is players who exclusively kick), or big behemoths at the strength positions. This is because there are only 7 total substitutions available for the 15 field players, who of course play both ways for 80 minutes.

Here's my proposal: Abolish special teams entirely. Continue to allow separate offensive and defensive teams, but with a maximum of 22 substitutions in a game, with the substituted player unable to reenter. That's plenty to allow for tactical changes and injuries. But because a substituted player may not reenter, punting and placekicking will have to be done by players who also have other responsibilities. (For extra zing, eliminate place kicks and bring back drop-kicks.) A bonus to this is that teams could no longer afford huge one- or two-down linemen.

The communication intercepts the NSA may have provided the Britons would likely fall squarely within NSA's pre-Bush, no-FISA-required mandate. The NSA has always had the authority to intercept foreign communications not originating or terminating in the US. The alleged conspirators were located on British and Pakistani soil. Thus the NSA could eavesdrop all it wanted well within US law. Hinderaker's speculations are pure opportunistic partisan garbage.

"But that's not the call Keller and his colleagues had to make on the "eve of the election." What they had to decide then was whether their readers should be allowed to know what they did in time to do something about it. They decided that the answer was no."

Apparently these decisions are too sensitive to be made by mere voters in our "democracy." They must instead be made by the elites, who clearly know better than the unwashed masses. This is the same mindset that believes that the voters in Connecticut were somehow "unfair" to Joe Lieberman, "purging" him because (oh, horror of horrors!) they wanted a senator who would actually represent their views. But none of this should be surprising in a country busy spreading "democracy" by the barrel of a gun.