Lol -- I just noticed that 18 of China's medals are in the three events I made fun of earlier: trampoline, ping pong and badminton. Guess that means we're probably stuck with those stupid "sports" because China won't want to give up a cheap and easy boost to their medal count.
the problem is skateboarding, (just like most winter sports) is that it's subjective. homefield advantage plays a big part.
Looks like local runner Nick Symmonds finished 5th in the 800 today -- bummer, I was hoping he'd get a medal. Just found out that he was a chem major --- that's one bad ass science geek.
Americans showing why the rest of the world hates us yet again http://www.sbnation.com/london-olym...pearl-harbor-japs-twitter-tweets-usa-vs-japan
Wow. I doubt the 2012 Japanese soccer team had much if anything to do with Pearl Harbor. I'm also pretty sure Hiroshima and Nagasaki constituted pretty definitive "payback". Sixty-seven years ago. There are a lot of idiots in the world. Americans just have the means to expose themselves on twitter. Oh, goody.
Yes, soccer fans are morons. It's universal and has nothing at all to do with Real Americans, who of course would like to ban soccer from the Olympics and bring back baseball.
In other Olympic news (d'uh edition) Claressa Shields, a Flint, Michigan high school student, won gold in women's 75kg boxing. Rachel Maddow had done a segment on how the town, itself troubled, had united in moral and financial support to Shields. People packed bars and high school auditorium to watch her. All good ... except the school principal sent Rachel a very nice email, which she read and displayed on her program. All wonderful, except when the principal referred to Shields' "shear determination". Homophones, folks! D'uh edition volume 2 Fox News showed an Iranian athlete kissing his medal with the headline "It's in the Bag-hdad!" Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, not Iran. Iraq, Iran, same difference! D'uh edition volume 3 If you really want a belly laugh, check out Conservipedia's take. Conservipedia got started because Wikipedia was too "liberal" for accepting scientific consensus on evolution, global warming, sexual orientation and other facts. According to Conservipedia the games are a celebration of faith. What is hilarious is how their own article contradicts their own claims. They claim that US athletes, the only ones they care about, do better if they come from private schools or home schooling, then list the medal winners, the majority of whom attended public schools. They claim "atheist" and "liberal" nations do poorly, (China "should" do much better than they have because they have so many people, their "poor" medal count being the result of official atheism) listing Great Britain, with an official state religion, as "atheist" and Argentina, just emerging from the shadows of military dictatorship and enforced Catholicism, as "liberal", crowed over Muslim Tunisia losing in men's handball - to Sweden, the poster child of liberal social democracy. Also claimed that being "politically correct" by hiring a coach who was not only foreign born but a lesbian would destroy the US women's soccer team, a day before they won the gold medal. Also hailed "conservative icon" tennis player Novak Djokovic. Dyokovic belongs to no political organizations and has made no political statements, but he does make the Sign of the Cross, so becomes conservative icon. Unfortunately he also lost badly.
I'm very impressed by Kevin Love as being a skilled complimentary player on a team with much better "franchise" players. I've always seen Love as a #2, at best, and his play the last week in the Olympics, where he is basically the most skilled garbage man in history, has been fantastic. He still can't defend, but his offensive rebounding is off the charts, and he's given Team USA multiple possessions quite frequently by hitting the offensive boards. If Minnesota ever gets a true franchise player who can be the primary scorer and will demand double-teams, watch out, because Love's game is growing on me in terms as him being probably the best second-option in the NBA (even better than Russell Westbrook or a healthy Dwyane Wade). He still is the only "elite" scorer that rarely gets doubled in the NBA, and that's because of his relatively stationary offensive game.
Did Doug Collins mention the Bynum trade once during the commentary of USA/Argentina? I didn't even draw the connection until Iguodala was being subbed into the game, and then it hit me. Doug Collins, Iguodala's (ex)coach, is the commentator for Iguodala's game the very day that he's been traded from the Sixers. Was there any mention of the deal that I missed? I DVR'ed it, because I couldn't be at home to watch it live, so I fastforwarded through a lot of commentary during dead ball situations. You'd think something would have been said though.
Which is hard to be, especially as they keep closing down the high schools. Do you have to bring sexuality into EVERYTHING? Kidding! Actually, this was just another instance of people commentating on the haircuts of black female gold medalists. Having encountered papers written by many a Flint high school student, I'm actually surprised the principal spelled "determination" right.
