Ever wonder what I read that causes me to think some of the things I do? Well, even if you’re answer is no (how rude!), I will still let you in on a secret. No one has demanded it, but I strive to do my best anyways and I have added an addition over on the left hand side of the screen in the info bar. I have added a section detailing articles that I’ve found interesting lately. Basically, this is my way of saying, ‘hey, I read this article and thought it was interesting’. It actually links to my Google Reader (my RSS browser of choice) and if you click ‘read more’, you can see all the articles I’ve ever shared, should that ever interest you.
So for all of you who didn’t request this, please enjoy.
I’ve been watching the Olympics a lot since they started. In fact, I think they’ve exclusively been on the TV when I am home. With satellite, I even get four extra Olympic channels, so I am all set. I’ve had a couple thoughts so far.
The Olympics are the perfect length to allow me to really get into all the athletes and events and devote a lot of my time to watching them. I soak it all in and then when the two weeks are over, I forget all of it. I don’t actually really like any of the events in the summer games, so I try and learn about them all equally. This is of course based on my ability to see them on tv, or watch them online. I have picked modern pentathlon and handball as my sports for this Olympics, so far I have seen neither.
A Phelpsian feat? - So this one has really been bothering me lately, probably more so because it bothers me that I am bothered! As we all know, Michael Phelps won 8 gold medals and set a new Olympic record doing this. I am really happy for him and it is an amazing feat (really, he won 8 golds, that is amazing). But I don’t think it compares to any other sport in any way. Doing a rough calculation, Phelps was in the pool for a total of (8 events x 3 rounds x 2 minutes per race) 48 minutes. He won 8 gold medals in 48 minutes. You can’t even win one hockey game, one marathon, one triathlon in that amount of time. Bob Costas, while taking a break from calling him the greatest Olympian of all time, did mention that if the record was ever going to be broken, it’d be by a swimmer. No other sport lends itself to being able to win so many medals. The running disciplines are too varied (sprint vs distance) and other sports require ‘tournaments’. What about Mist May and Kerri Walsh? I think they will go two Olympic competitions without dropping a single match. But they only get two medals? Travesty!
Basically, I am annoyed that he is getting so much praise for something that no one else even has a shot at. But he certainly is the greatest swimmer, and I was cheering when he won all his medals. So I am not so bitter, just trying to get some love for my modern pentathlon boys.
There is talk of cutting baseball out of the Olympics completely, and with the game that USA and China just had, it might be a done deal. USA won 9-1, but the real story was all the crap that went on during the game. I don’t have a lot of respect for baseball as a sport (I think it’s cause I struck out a lot in tee ball when I was younger), and the USA-China game displays why. USA ran two of China’s catchers over, one wasn’t so bad, the other seemed completely not necessary. Then China came out and threw a baseball at another mans head. And then the USA did the same thing. All the while everyone denied doing anything wrong. I have no problem with people punching each other in hockey, but throwing a baseball at someone’s head just seems wrong. Anyways, the game basically got out of control. There were no fights, but man, it’s the Olympics, why are we even talking about fights?
I watched a whole women’s marathon the other day, and I am not proud of it. I kept thinking NBC was going to cut to something different. I have nothing against women’s running, but it was 2.5 hours of it. There are so many sports that will never get seen on NBC, that I really feel they could’ve cut to something, anything, for at least an hour of that run. Oh well, I guess I could’ve changed the channel, but I’d rather blame someone else.
China is an amazing country for the Olympics to be in. It’s what I think of when I think of Olympic venues. It just looks so much like a foreign country. I’ve seen several races go past pagodas, the bike races went through the Great Wall, it all looks so different. Let’s see if Vancouver can match that!
It’s Perrin’s Birthday today! He is a whopping one year old. It just so happened that he ran out of his puppy food today as well and he started on the adult food. He has been knocking his food dish over recently and spilling the food all over the ground. Today though, with the new adult food, he ate it all up. Perhaps someone knew that adulthood was on it’s way?
In other news, it’s cooling down a lot here. I looked at the 10 day forecast and not a single day over 90. This will be really good news for me as I practice three times a week outdoors and the over 100 degree days was really killing me.
I know, I know… If I really don’t like politics, I should get involved and change the way it’s done. However, it’s easier to sit on the sidelines and complain, so here goes. These are two issues I read about today that really annoy me. Well one just seems downright scandalous and the other is more of a WTF (which by the way, if you live in NC and your license plate says WTF, you can return it for a refund, sorry if you were offended).
Money for votes - There was a recent scandalito (small scandal) when it turned out that the White House order telephone companies to tap peoples’ phones without a warrant. This is, you know, illegal and an abrogation of our civil liberties. Anywho, the telephone companies went ahead and did it. Not all of them did it, only the major ones. Eventually people were found out and were mad. But what to do about the phone companies? They broke the law, they spied on us. Sure they did it at the White House’s urging, but still, they did it. Well it turns out that there was a law brought up to ’sure up’ (increase) the warrant-less phone taping abilities of the government and as an additional benefit of this law, the phone companies would be retroactively granted immunity from any wrong doing that might have occurred.
Enough background, here is what really bothers me. On March 14, there was a vote and 210 Democrats voted against this immunity bill. On June 20th, there was another vote and 94 Democrats switched their vote and the bill passed. So what happened? Numbers are taken right from website linked above.
This…
$8,359 to each Democrat who changed their position between votes to support immunity for Telcos (94 Dems)
$4,987 to each Democrat who remained opposed to immunity for Telcos (116 Dems)
And this…
$9,659 to each member of the House voting “YES” (105-Dem, 188-Rep) on June 20th
$4,810 to each member of the House voting “NO” (128-Dem, 1-Rep) on June 20th
Seriously? I guess you get what you pay for.
Oil drilling shenanigans - The article kinda covers this but it’s just confusing. So you know how we (well not everyone I guess, but I live in Boulder) are always against drilling in Alaska and in offshore protected areas? Well apparently the oil companies are too! Sorta. It appears as though oil companies already have permission to drill for oil in these areas, who knew? But I guess they don’t want to drill in these areas… they want to drill in other areas in Alaska and off-shore. So now it’s this odd battle that’s going on across party lines. The Democrats are the ‘pro-drilling’ party saying that the oil companies should drill where they already have permission. Do it already, drill! The Republicans are saying that they shouldn’t have to drill and they should be allowed to drill elsewhere.
I guess it all makes sense if you think about it for a little while, but I was unaware that I’ve been signing all these petitions trying to keep drilling companies out, and apparently they’re just too lazy to drill in Alaska.
You should know that neither of these stories were researched incredibly well and all mistakes were of course intentional and intended to add comic value.
