For a break from lamenting our declining currency, I submit the Eurovision Song Contest Basically, each European country does a song performance, and people from other countries call in to vote for their favorite. I haven't watched any of the performances, but from the clips I've seen, they are all laughably lame. (Ireland's entry involved a puppet turkey.) So at least America's coolness supremacy remains secure.

The quality of the performances is irrelevant anyway, since the countries always vote for the ones closest to them (i.e. Scandinavia votes for the other Scandinavian countries, the Baltic states stick together, etc.) It sort of irked me that Croatia and Serbia voted for Bosnia as their favorite, because the whole reason why they are separate countries is that they couldn't get along. We (the US) went to a lot of trouble to split them up! Russia won the contest, because all of the former Soviet countries (that wanted independence from Russia) voted for it. Ugh, whatever, I don't understand Europe.

Edit: It turns out that the Irish turkey puppet was submitted as a cynical joke, which therefore makes it cool.