"Super" Gift !

Wow, today has been a good day
for findin' all sorts of interesting news stuff,
(interestin' to me anyhow) LOL*
I hope you find the stories as interesting as I do.

Russia, the site for a big meeting of American business execs with Russian President Vladimir Putin; Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots was showing off his Super Bowl XXXIX ring to the prez, when he took it off to allow Mr. Putin a chance to get a closer look, Ol' Vlad took a look, said "thank you" and pocketed the ring said to be valued at $15,000, then walked away. *LOL Guess that'll show the NE Patriots bigwig to go flashin his bling-bling around at parties. Of course I don't believe for a second that Vladimir simply heisted the ring, but that it was a misunderstanding as many gifts are presented to presidents of foreign countries by visiting dignitaries. Not wanting to create an international incident, Mr. Kraft (after a few days of being unavailable) told reporters that "of course it was a gift to the Russian president." My feeling about the whole thing is "why not?", afterall as owner of the football team Mr. Kraft could simply commission another one to be made. Maybe he did intend to give the ring as a gift? We'll never know the whole story about the incident. If it wasn't intended to be a gift, but rather just a "look what I've got" kinda thing goin' on, my question is "why didn't he have a suitable gift for the Russian president?" (it's just the polite thing to do) That'll teach 'em to show up empty-handed ! (if that was actually the case.) *LOL What's really a bummer is that Mr. Putin won't even be able to wear the "world champion" ring, as presents are handed over to the Kremlin Library for cataloging and possible exhibition to the general public. One last thing, what's up with the "world champion" thing in U.S. sports? The only true world championship is the "World Cup" soccer (pardon me, "football" to the rest of the world) championship, and perhaps boxing "world champion".. Here, we have "The World Series" of baseball, but I've never seen a championship series between the U.S champs versus the Japanese League champs (though that sure would be one heck of a game to see), in the National Football League, National Basketball Association, Women's National Basketball Association, National Hockey League, and others, they all exclaim "World Champs !" after one team gains victory within the league, ahem.... where is the rest of the world though? Don't get me wrong though, I love sports, and true champions they all are, I don't intend to take anything at all away from their accomplishment with these words, just that I can't figure out what is wrong with exclaiming "National Champions !", that has a certain ring to it, and it doesn't make the rest of the world look at us and wonder what the heck is goin' on. *LOL