Whatever movie you had planned on seeing this weekend, ditch that plan and head over to Loews Harvard Square to watch the latest Elijah Wood movie. Elijah Wood?!? Have I gone out of my mind?!? Not at all. You see, Elijah Wood’s latest flick is the almost unheard of and critically nonclaimed “Green Street Hooligans”, a movie about an American student who’s swept up in the world of soccer hooligans in England.

We now break for hooligan identification:

Swedish hooligan teens go at it in an arranged fight.

Swedish hooligans in a spontaneous old-school in-stadium assault (very short clip).

Compilation of clips from arranged and spontaneous fights, mostly from Eastern Europe.

A small, arranged scuffle in Russia (a pretty big file on a pretty slow server).

That’s the culture “Green Street Hooligan” tries to capture and convey, and with a good measure of success from what I hear (the fight scenes are reported to be very good, and thanks to the links above, you’ll be able to compare and contrast). So don your Burberry hat, down your lager, and dash over to Loews Theatre in Harvard Square.

(Internet128.com does not endorse participating in soccer hooligan and/or “casual” activities. Such activities are likely to result in bodily harm, torn clothes, and lengthy police records.)

“I just want to see the Sox and the Patriots combine for three championships in thirteen months one more time in my life.”

Some people are just pretty f—— hard to please.

Commoners just don’t understand.

Det var som satan.

The Carolina Panthers beat the tar out of the New England Patriots up and down the field for four quarters. The Pats looked like crap, committing stupid penalties, dropping passes, over- and underthrowing open receivers. Ben Watson’s rookie-mistake fumble on New England’s final drive was a worthy finish to an absolutely horrible performance by the non-defending champions. However, the story wasn’t just about the Patriots laying an egg, but also about the Panthers mauling and out-muscling New England on b oth sides of the ball. The Panthers were simply superior.

Yikes.

Not good.

Quite demoralizing.

But, it’s better to have a game like this in September than in December.

What I find most distressing about the offense is that we’ve now had two games in a row where the running game has been vey weak. So far Dillon just hasn’t had the gaps to hit that he had last year.

The Patriots injury problems continue: CB Poole was knocked out of the game against Oakland, and today Randall Gay was lost in the first quarter after he got tangled up with a Carolina receiver on a deep pass. Using Troy brown as a stop-gap replacement in the secondary last year was an inspired move, but it would be pretty lame if Bill Belichick resorts to that that same solution again this year.

“Can Metaphors run block?”

“MOHAHAHAHAHA!!!. No.”

As expected, the City settled the voting rights case with the Federal diversity thugs. It’s the same old, same old: Naturalized citizens - who somehow passed the English-only citizenship test - don’t know enough English to actually vote, so the federal government forces the City “to provide more bilingual poll workers to speak Vietnamese, Chinese and Spanish and provide more bilingual election information.” according to the Boston Herald. (Why waste money on bilingual info? These people don’t speak English!)

Like I said yesterday, it’s time for Congress to update the Pledge of Allegiance.

The phrase “under God” was added to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954, when America was fighting the Godless commie bastards (in the Soviet Union, not Cambridge, Mass.). That fight effectively ended in August 1991 when the drunk beat the incompetents in the streets of Moscow.

Now, here in the States, a bunch of annoying atheists in California have convinced a court that “under God” is an unconstitutional phrase. The ruling is freaking absurd, but let’s make some lemonade out of the lemons that the West Coast courts have handed us.

Since the Godless commie bastards have been defeated (Mission Accomplished!), why not retire “under God” and instead focus on the current threat to America: Linguistic Balkanization. So let’s change the Pledge to:

I pledge allegiance to the Flag
of the United States of America,
and to the Republic for which it stands:
one English-speaking Nation, indivisible,
With Liberty and Justice for all.

Such a change would have historical precedent. The original Pledge from 1892 said “my Flag”, and was changed to “the Flag of the United States” in 1923, just before Congress ended the mass immigration era of 1880-1924, at a time when a substantial portion of America’s population was foreign born. Since today’s America has 40 years of mass immigration under its belt, and a population that is about 13% foreign-born, it makes sense to drive home that English is the language of the Republic, just as it makes sense to underscore that the Republic in question is the United States of America.

The makers of the popular Swedish Fish is running an ad that asks Americans “How would you like it if we ate all of your cheeseburgers?” It’s a silly ad that’s written like a letter to the editor (writing and reading letters to the editor is a dadgum obsession for Swedes) and begs Americans to eat no more than a couple of bags of Swedish Fish a week, otherwise the “gummy fish will die out in a very little while.”

The ad amusingly misspells the town of Haparanda as Haparande (Haparanda is a small town grotesquely close to the Arctic Circle) .

Personally, I don’t care much for Swedish Fish. I much prefer Ahlgrens Bilar.

The Carolina Panthers are not a bad team, even though they failed to defeat the New Orleans Saints, a team that has lost not only its facilities but its entire hometown, but they aren’t likely to beat the New England Patriots. No team has figured out how to beat the Patriots defense, with its suffocating downfield coverage and its run-busting front seven. As it stands right now, it seems to me that a team would have to sustain a successful running game to have any shot at beating the Patriots secondary. This year’s front seven is of course weaker than last year’s, with Ted Johnson and Tedy Bruschi out of the game, but it’s still one heck of a nut to crack.

On the other side of the ball, there’s just too darn much for any team to handle on any given Sunday. How about a a shotgun formation with Watson and Graham tight, and Givens, Branch, and Brown spread wide? From that formation the Pats can hit an opponent with 5 good to great receivers, or leave 6 or 7 guys to protect, giving Branch and Divens time to get open downfield, while Brown finds that open space he always finds on the other side of the far stick. A defensive coordinator has to figure out how to protect against that formation and all its plays and variations… and then figure out how to stop the Pats when Dillon is on the field.

Maybe I’m getting a bit hubristic here, but the Patriots offense could become what the Saint Louis Rams were a couple of years ago - maybe a tad less explosive, but more balanced.

But against the Panthers, the Patriots scoring will be a little bit subdued as the Pats new non-offensive coordinator playcaller continues his learning process.

Pats 27, Panthers 13.

Massachusetts’ Governor Mitt Romney v. Boston’s Mayor Tom Menino over where to plant a memorial tree for the victims of the Muslim suicide attacks in London.

Louisiana’s Governor Kathleen Blanco v. New Orleans’ Mayor Ray Nagin over how to evacuate New Orleans.

This is how it should be. We don’t vote for mayor just to have him (or her) defer to the governor.

My favorite local ethnic rag, the bilingual Chinese/Chinese-American Sampan has a new issue out. I recommend the “What’s up” interview with a bunch of teenagers, and a piece written by an Asian-American of mixed heritage who recently visited China for the first time.

Check this sample from the latter:

I went out with the doorman again last night and we went walking around and talking until about 1 a.m. He’s struggling right now with his love life problems - which have a very Chinese style. The father of his girlfriend, who he loves very much, has killed a woman and is now on death row…