Olympic Update: Widening Fissures

The bile that had subsided somewhat over the first week of the Olympics has risen again as the Guardian has footage here of Chinese police man-handling Free Tibet protestors and reporters that were merely covering the protest… something that the IOC claimed reporters would freely be allowed to do.

Quote from the IOC: “The IOC does disapprove of any attempts to hinder a journalist who is going about or doing his job seemingly within the rules and regulation,” IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies tells reporters, according to AFP. “We do not want to see it happening again.” (italics ours)

Rules of engagement for the press has such a nice totalitarian feel to it, yes?

Captain Ed thinks the Olympic movement may never recover from the habitual caving of the IOC to the Chi-comms. We won’t go that far because, hell, if it doesn’t make it to the T.V., then it just didn’t happen.

NBC, your call.

Curious yet still completely irrelevant headline of the day

From the renowned blogs of noted blog editor Tony Pierce and the L.A. Times:

IRAQ: Black Iraqis hoping for a Barack Obama win


If Obama wins in November, he's hoping Iraq's leaders will take a closer look at the documents and give some black Iraqis a chance. And if John McCain wins? "It will be a big disappointment," Razzaq says

OK, then.

Throwing stuff against the wall and seeing what sticks

Like anything else in the media world, there is a tremendous amount of competition for a limited amount of consumer attention-span and that is why perhaps it leads sports writers and columnists to say the absolute darndest things. William Rhoden who is generally solid proves himself to not be above susceptibility when it comes to ridiculous contentions and columns….. Subject: Barry Bonds, after breaking Hank Aaron’s home-run record has been sitting out this season and waiting for a call from a major league team that has yet to come. Rhoden wonders why.

Rhoden can’t quite figure out why it is that Bonds who is up on federal perjury and obstruction charges regarding his involvement with performance-enhancing drugs can’t find a job. Seriously. And he juxtaposes this against Jason Giambi, the Yankees slugger, who has received what Rhoden sees as a free pass when Giambi all but admitted he did steroids. But unlike Bonds, Giambi behaves like a decent and humble athlete towards the press and public. Besides, Giambi, for a short time was sporting one of the most excellent ‘staches we’ve seen in quite some time. That counts for something.



Rhoden, though, doesn't properly assess the American public’s spirit towards forgiving much when there is the proper amount of contrition and graciousness in the attitude displayed by the guilty(?) party. Bill, this is real easy: Bonds is a jerk with a big fat ‘roid-head who may be doing time in the slam for lying under oath to the grand jury. And what team need that trouble?

Look! It's moving. It's alive. It's alive.

B-Daddy here. Headline from Reuters:

"Clinton's name to be presented to convention."

From "The Corner" over at NRO Jonah Goldberg writes:

For months now people have been saying to me, “Do you really think they’re gone?” “Is it finally over?” “Is the coast clear?”

The questions have been in response to Barack Obama’s supposedly yeoman service in putting an end to the Clintons in public life.

My response to those who believe our long national nightmare is over has always been: “Have you seen no monster movies?”

I love movies based on comics, so maybe we can run a poll about which comic hero/villain best represents Hillary? My vote? Harley Quinn. Look it up. 'Course that would make "you know who" the Joker.

H/T: TNT Hey, I'm on staycation.

Olympic Update

There are a few cracks beginning to show in that candy apple red veneer of what has generally been an exciting and compelling Beijing Games.

The most visible and talked-about controversy is the age, or lack thereof, of the Chinese women gymnasts who took the gold over the Americans in team competition.

Gymnasts must turn 16 in the year of the Olympics or world championships to be eligible for that competition, but records provided for lower-level events showed all three are 14.

U.S. Coach Bela Karolyi has been the most outspoken suggesting on at least two occasions that we saw live on-air, the Chinese were not playing by the rules.

Let’s go to the tale of the tape:

The Chinese gymnasts lack curves, have an average height of 4 feet 9 inches and weigh an average of 77 pounds. Deng is the smallest, at 4-6 and 68 pounds. The women on the United States team, generally more muscular and shapely than the Chinese, are an average of 3 ½ inches taller and 30 pounds heavier.


Yep, they look like they're ready for the junior prom.

Then again, as Matt Lauer suggested at the Opening Cermonies, the Chinese Olympic program mimics those of the old Eastern Bloc nations so one can never rule out forced malnourishment as a reason for general waifishness and underdevelopment.

Of course, the IOC isn’t touching this one with a ten-foot pole, accepting the sensitive-to-criticism host Chinese passports for the gymnasts as legit.

And gymnastics isn’t the only sport where there have been some irregularities in these Games as controversy has visited the boxing and shooting competitions with things breaking the way of the Chinese athlete.

The shooting controversy was of no interest to us but the boxing one grabbed us…

China's Gu Yu caused an upset by defeating Joe Murray, the bantamweight world bronze medalist, on Tuesday but afterwards his camp was adamant he had been on the receiving end of some questionable verdicts.

They implied that the home fighter had been favored.
"I knew what it was going to be like. I've been watching the scoring the past few days and I knew it was bad. So I was expecting it," Murray said.

"They were giving him points for anything but when I was hitting him they were not giving me points," he said.

British head coach Terry Edwards added: "I thought they were very generous to the Chinese lad. You expect a slight bias but you come to the Olympic Games and you also expect a level playing field."

The scoring rules in boxing were changed after the ’88 Olympics precisely to eliminate this sort of thing. It was in those Olympics that Roy Jones beat the stuffing out of his South Korean opponent only to lose on decision. The offending judges came right out and admitted to “feeling sorry” for the boxer of the host nation. The scoring methodology was changed so that individual punches landed were tallied and factored into the decision to, hopefully, eliminate subjectivity as much as possible.

Semi-related thought on these Olympics: We’ve watched the majority of the prime-time programming thus far and we’ve noticed a lack of “outside” or human interest stories on any of the Chinese athletes or of China and/or Beijing itself. No segments of Chris Collinsworth scooting around Beijing sampling the local fare, no stories, thus far, of any Chinese athlete who overcame a famine situation to become a female gymnast on the national team… woops… you get the point.

We’re about a week in and things have been going along smoothly but there have been a couple of eyebrow-raisers in these, the most tightly-controlled Games in our lifetime so we’ll stay tuned to see if the Chi-com grip tightens even further and if so, starts slipping, as those Southern rockers and wordsmiths .38 Special admonished, “Hold on loosely but don’t let go, ‘cause if you hold too tightly, you’re gonna lose control.”

Remote Controls: Not being operated as intended

The Left has Bill O’Reilly to kick around and "we" have Keith Olbermann. We’d “have” him a lot more if we actually watched him as on the rare occasion we do we find his manner and delivery to be overbearing and too demanding of our attention which we've never had just lying around in spades, historically speaking. And his wacko politics aside, he’s just not very entertaining. Sorry, Olby.

So it puzzles us as to why liberals hate O’Reilly so much. They express a hatred that would suggest they torture themselves by actually watching him. Why? So we can only assume that hip-hop group, East Coast Avengers must be avid viewers… avid viewers and self-flagellants to the point they cannot stand their misery any longer and now want to kill Bill O’Reilly.

Story here. Warning: Audio file of song in all its craptastic glory contained, therein. Oh yeah, and some bad language too.

P.S. Many commenters to linked article apparently need to somehow free-up some viewing time as they are urging-on ECA to do the deed.

That campfire doesn’t seem to burn quite as bright without good ol’ BigFoot around. (UPDATED... and how!)

We ain’t ready too put this one to bed yet either, Sheriff, because nothing tends to bum us out more than debunking myths and legends.

(UPDATE #1):

The legendary hairy creature – about 2m tall, with human like teeth – was said to have been found in the US two weeks ago and is being preserved in a freezer.
Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer, who run Bigfoot expeditions, claim they made the astonishing discovery in the woods of north Georgia, in the southeast of the US.

The pair and "the real Bigfoot Hunter" Tom Biscardi, who has endorsed the find, plan to front a press conference in California, presenting DNA and photographic "proof."

Story with picture of the big fella, here. Whitton and Dyers’ next plans are to capture a live Bigfoot which if they do, we hope they don’t resort to any childish stunts as illustrated in this Bigfoot training video.



H/T: Hot Air

Someone please get this man a teleprompter!

In response to the ongoing military crisis in Georgia, President Bush called for action by the U.N. stating, “We should continue to push for a United Nations Security Council Resolution calling for an immediate end to the violence.”

What a dope. Doesn’t the man realize that Russia, as a permanent member of the Security Council, has veto power on any Security Council resolution? Each time you think the man can’t say anything more ridiculous… bam! There he goes again…

What? What’s that? It was Obama that actually said that? Oh… well, never mind then.

Because not all wars are created equal (UPDATED)

In response to Russian armor rolling into the Republic of Georgia, Democracy Now, A.N.S.W.E.R., Code Pink and other left-wing anti-war groups have all sprung into action to protest this naked imperialist aggression that would appear to be largely about oil. Nah, just kidding…. They ain’t doin' jack-squat.

For a nice wrap-up of this 1979 flashback, bop on over to KT’s place here. In summary: Russia has achieved, to date, none of its strategic objectives with the added benefit of pissing-off the rest of the world. Bonus points for doing it during the Olympics. You’re doing a heckava job, Poot.

A few years back when Putin appeared to be returning(?) to the dark side we expressed some disappointment as Putin… like, really seemed to enjoy hanging out at Bush’s ranch in Crawford. As if, rolling in a cowboy hat, clearing brush and eating smoked ribs in West Texas somehow enlightened Putin to the values of classic liberalism.

Occasional commenter and dear friend, “Pablo”, looked at us and said, “Dude, he’s KGB”. As in, present tense. As in, those people don’t change. As in, ever…. Our bad.

UPDATE #1: And for a somewhat contrary opinion, VDH thinks it was a brilliant maneuver… Flex your power, scare your neighbors, watch the West do nothing… Ukraine?

And everyone’s favorite commie, Mikhail Gorbchev chimes-in and blames, yep, the Georgians.

We don’t claim to be experts in anything that goes on in that part of the world but it seems pretty clear to us the Georgian rocket attack on Tskhinvali on August 7 was merely the pretext needed for the Russian military to roll and their apparent defiance of a brokered truce belies any good intentions of coming to the aid of a neighbor and appears to be even a flimsier excuse than the put-down of any incipient Islamo-terrorism in Afghanistan some 29 years ago.

For all the hope that was held in the wake of the fall of the wall 19 years ago, when it appeared that Russia might possibly move their country and political system into that of mainstream Western democracies, it is becoming more and more evident that backward-looking grudge-holding, paranoia and imperialism be they of the Tsarist or Communist variety are hard habits to break.

War in the Caucasus and the Presidential Election

B-Daddy here. In case no one noticed, Russia invaded its neighbor to the South, the former Soviet Republic of Georgia over the last week. Yesterday the Russians announced a ceasefire after over running a good portion of Georgian territory. At the start of the conflict, both major presidential candidates made statements. Guess which candidate was forced by the facts on the ground to later modify his position. More on that in a little bit.

To play devil's advocate for a moment, some will argue that the Georgians had it coming. The President of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili sent troops in to South Ossetia to assert Georgian sovereignty in that Russian leaning enclave. (By the way, if that link doesn't work, thank Russian cyberattacks. This is the second time we have seen the Russians use cyberattacks in conjunction with military or diplomatic confrontation, see Estonia.) The Russians say they were merely protecting the Sudetens, I mean, Ossetians from Georgian aggression.

A few facts from an AP article:

MILITARY: Russia has 1.1 million soldiers, Georgia has 37,000. The Russian armed forces have about 6,000 tanks and some 1,700 combat aircraft. Georgia has 230 tanks and 12 combat aircraft.

Given these facts, Barack Obama called for "restraint on all sides" last Friday. More recently Obama stated:

I reiterate my call for Russia to stop its bombing campaign, to stop flights of Russian aircraft in Georgian airspace, and to withdraw its ground forces from Georgia. The Georgian government has proposed a cease-fire and the Russian government should accept it. There is also an urgent need for humanitarian assistance to reach the people of Georgia, and casualties on both sides.

However, I like McCain's instincts and suspicions of Russian much better. He condemned the Russian invasion from the start and has called for real sanctions such as expelling the Russians from the G8 for such aggression.

But hey, you the voters need to make the call. I also note that the Georgians sent troops to Iraq to fight alongside the U.S. forces there, but I guess that's just more reason for progressive democrats to throw them under the bus, er tank. Whatever.

Olympic Update: Stereotypes and the IOC: breaking little girls' hearts around the world

If you did a double-take when you saw the gentleman pictured below on the deck getting ready for the mens’ 4x100 meter freestyle relay a couple of nights ago, don’t feel ashamed… it’s cool. An African-American swimming for Team USA in international competition is indeed a rare sight. Here’s Cullen Jones, though, on perceptions and what he aims to do to change things: “I want more minority kids to go to a swimming pool and try to swim because of me… I want to make a difference. I want kids to say, ‘Look, a black swimmer. And he’s got a gold medal!’ And I want them to get in the water because of it.”



And Team USA’s softball catcher Stacey Nuveman on softball’s Olympic swan song: “It’s sort of the elephant in the room for all of us. We’re focused on the U.S. and our not playing, but we’re not the only ones grieving. There are little girls in Australia and Japan and Chinese Taipei who are devastated also.”

We’ve commented before on the incredibly myopic decision of the IOC to strike softball from the roster of events after these Olympics for the sole reason of U.S. dominance and this quote bears that out. Baseball is just better when the Dodgers and Yankees have good teams… College football is just better when USC, Michigan and Notre Dame have great teams and international softball benefits from having the team from the highest-profile nation on the planet as its standard-bearer. You don’t think team handball’s Q-rating could’ve benefited from a little U.S. dominance instead of the Czechs or Lithuanians or whoever does in that sport? Nice work, IOC.