And Now For Something Completely Different
NHL/Hockey 
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Something that is vastly more important than politics: hockey.
Last week a New Jersey Devils prospect named Patrice Cormier, playing for the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies of the Quebec Major-Junior Hockey League, indulged in some headhunting. He skated off the bench and elbowed opposing player Mikael Tam in the head, leaving Tam convulsing on the ice. Video of the hit and the aftermath:
Tam suffered a “severe head trauma” (I’m guessing that’s hockey injury-list speak for “godawful concussion”) and lost some teeth, but was released from the hospital after about a week.
Now, I am hardly some shrinking violet when it comes to hockey. I deplore efforts to remove or significantly curtail fighting and checking. I also agree with people like Brian Burke that you have to be very careful, when addressing head-shots, that you don’t inadvertantly remove the physicality from the game.
But this kind of thing is completely beyond the pale, and should not be tolerated. In the old days it wouldn’t have been: there was no instigator penalty, and Cormier would have deservedly gotten the unholy crap beaten out of him by Tam’s teammates. Now, anybody trying to exact a little frontier justice puts their team a man down for two minutes, and so we have to tolerate the hockey Wheel of Discpline, in which the optics matter more than the facts.
If you really want to discourage headhunting, there are two ways to accomplish it. Either get rid of the instigator rule, or expel asswipes like Patrice Cormier from the game permanently. Once a few Patrice Cormiers are forced to make a living by flipping burgers or retiling gas station restrooms than by playing hockey, the rest will get the hint.
The invaluable Down Goes Brown has top-secret documents pilfered from the desk of league disciplinarian Colin Campbell.