Dear readers, if you don't care about the finer details, please proceed to the last five lines of this post anyway, I think they sum up the whole issue pretty tidily.

Mike Baron writes in "support" of my position, yet there are a coupla points I think could be a bit more suportive :) :

On Wed, 6 Aug 1997 MBaron1949@aol.com wrote:

 OSPD/double
  Canada   
  Israel
  Malta
  Mexico   
  Thailand
  USA

 OSW/single

  Ireland
  United Kingdom

 SOWPODS/single
  African nations (?) 
  Australia
  Malaysia 
  Philippines
  Sri Lanka

 SOWPODS/double
  New Zealand
 
 SOWPODS/penalty
  Singapore (5 pts) 

Firstly, the double/single stuff is a red herring. What if one country played 5pt challenge, another 6, another 7... Then by this reason everyone of them would be in the minority. So I instantly take the right to lump all SOWPODS-authority countries together. This is the Word Authority thread not the double challenge thread (ps. God Bless the American Challenge Rule!).

Secondly, US/Canada/(Mexico(?)) are all under the auspices of one federation and if anything they should be lumped together, not the sprawly Afrikaani. I don't know how many different African nations will be invited to WSC 4, but the Nigerians are definitely major players, love SOWPODS and probably really are in a position to exert hegemonistic word authority on their cocontinentals. In short, if it hasn't already, SOWPODS will spread across the African plains like a pack of hungry jackals. (Possible nomination for worst cgp prose of the year).

Thirdly, everyday I hear about some new country that's being invited to the WSC. Though its probably a safe wager that none of these new kids on the block will win the WSC, it _is_ the intent of organizers to spread the Scrabble gospel to these countries through the concomitant publicity. What do you think the word authority will be for these budding federations?

Well enough of my nitpicking on country numbers, to my main point: