A completely unoriginal thought re: Michael Phelps

Holy crap. How does he do that? These are the best swimmers from all over the world*, and he blows past them like they're standing still. And that 4x200m relay? That wasn't just Phelps; every swimmer on the US team was fantastic. It boggles the mind.

* Well, not really; swimming is dominated by the Western countries, Russia, and Japan, with an increasingly strong showing by China. There's no real representation from Latin America, Africa, and most of Asia. Pools are expensive.

Olympicism

Once again the Olympics rolls around with its vulgar displays of nationalism, chauvinism, tribalism, and a whole host of other -isms. People can't seem to appreciate the pursuit of excellence for its own sake; what matters is that your guy from your country wins, excellent or not. The Olympic phenomenon claims high ideals and principles, but it comes down to the same "we're better than you" attitude that characterizes so much of relations between societies.

That said, U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

Goldwash

Goldwash, v: to use the dazzling spectacle of the modern Olympics to obscure and distract from a record of oppression and environmental destruction.

A classic example of my law of ranking

Remember my law of ranking? From a blog post about the relative value of professional sports franchies in the US:

The New York Yankees are the only non-NFL franchise in the top 27.

Emphasis mine.

Why 27? Simple: #28 is the New York Mets, another non-NFL franchise. What sounds more impressive, the above statement, "1 of the top 25," or "2 of the top 30?" 27 is slightly bigger than 25, so presumably has slightly more impact*, and 2 is much bigger than 1, so its impact is much less.

* Not worth it in my opinion, especially considering the Law of Ranking, but whatever.

Federer vs. Nadal at Wimbledon

I haven't watched much tennis over the last few years, but I'm sure glad I saw the Wimbledon men's* singles final today. Two of the sport's best players, not just today, but in history, going at it hard for high stakes. They played some fantastic tennis, somehow chasing down every ball, making winners and 128 mph serves even 4 hours into the match. I don't think anyone could have watched Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal today and not thought that those two men were among the best athletes in the world in any sport. It was awesome.

* Sorry, "gentleman's," a word which I assume still has some class Over There

Carl Lewis, Olympian

No, Tanya with an 'a'

There is a Tanya Harding on the Australian Olympic women's softball team. I wonder if she carries her bat around in case anyone makes a stupid joke. People always think they're the first ones to notice.

Arlen Specter is a waste of space

A United State Senator getting involved in a scandal in football about some coach breaking a rule that shouldn't exist in the first place*? Yeah, because it's not like we have any real problems to solve that he might be pertinent to. Maybe it's for the best considering how utterly useless he was as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, where he blew a lot of hot air about illegal wiretapping. If he got involved in any real issues, what little progress we might expect the Senator to make would get reversed.

* You can use a video camera on the field, and you can look at signals, and you can write things down, but you can't record signals? The genius who thought of that is probably the same guy who thought up DRM.

One more for Eight Belles

One more thing from the article about horse-racing brutality. The article said of the trainer of Eight Belles:

He also refused to concede the point that horse racing is an extremely dangerous sport, saying that these types of injuries occur in any sport.

Except the most important thing of all: the participants in other sports are all human, and they all have a choice about whether they can play.