Waste of Wieners?

Is this a waste of food, an American tradition or both?  

Also, is it ridiculous to equate beating Japanese competitive eater Kobayashi, the 5-time Nathan’s hot dog champion, with patriotism? In the leadup to the 4th of July competition, the American challenger in the contest took that line:

“I’m going to push harder on our Independence Day to take the title back,” said Chestnut, who is 6-foot-1 and 230 pounds. “My brother is in the National Guard in Iraq and there will be a lot of people behind me.”

“This could be so critical to our sport,” said George Shea, chair of the International Federation of Competitive Eating

Those of you Kobayashi loyalitst can support him in style. On a more serious note, I wonder what they do with the leftover hotdogs? Hang on, did that guy really just call competitive eating a sport?

Not sure if this is a waste of food, but you could call this SNL takeoff a waste of bandwidth. Now Kobayashi vs. a bear, brought to you by Fox–that’s just ridiculous. And fun to watch.

Anyway, it looks like Chestnut will be facing off against the bear soon, as he downed 66 dogs to win the 12-minute competition. As for me, maybe all this hot dog writing subliminally affected me because I bought some dogs to grill on the 4th. I promise, however, not to eat more than two.