Unsung Hero Behind American Bobsled Gold

The United States won the its first Gold Medal in two man’s bobsled competition for the first time in 62 years. In saluting the team’s accomplishments, an unsung player needs his accolades. This person recognized American bobsledding was an embarrassment. Being from upstate New York, this great contributor recognized this American winter sport was horribly underserved outraged by Team USA’s failure in the 1992 Winter Olympics.

He used resources from his regular career having tremendous technological and engineering resources to provide sleds for the 1994 National team. He also used his status from his “day job” to raise money and interest in the sport. When the Olympics were back in the USA in 2002 at Salt Lake City, the US bobsled team finally won medals.

This unsung hero looks more like Elmer Fudd than a successful entrepreneur or athlete however in his career, he was successful in achieving one of its top honors. The man behind the scenes working endlessly to promote American bobsled success, won the 1986 Daytona 500, the 1987 IROC championship, 18 NASCAR Cup series wins and 190 top 100’s. His bobsled operation is named, Bo-Dyn, “Dyn” being named for Chassis Dynamics; the “Bo” comes from his last name.

We salute Geoff Bodine for his two decade quest to put the United States atop the world’s bobsled elite. That day has come.

Sadly, this writer has not followed much of the Olympic Men’s Ice Hockey. We’re proud to see the USA take it to the finals against the land where people chop wood, beat seals, and play hockey. (Hey, we’re just teasin’ ya, Canada, you hoseheads.) Team USA gave up a two point lead only to tie in the final seconds sending the game to overtime. However, the Canadians would be too strong and scored the necessary point in overtime. There is no question Ice Hockey is a great sport. The action is fast. The game is full of excitement the talent and competitive spirit that is required to play is on the highest level of all sports. What other sports have their athletes putting it all on the line like hockey?

Certainly not baseball or basketball, but surely NFL players give their bodies to their sport and think of the fine line of survival auto racers face. Hockey must be in the same class.

So why is this writer not a hockey fan?

Very simply, the fights, the sport obviously encourages it. We’ve all heard the joke, “I went to the fights and a hockey game broke out.” The effect is to take a sport of tremendous skill and high intensity and reduce it to the level of professional wrestling which isn’t a sport at all. Sports should always be controlled aggressiveness where all the fight and fury is channeled into excellence in effort playing the sport. There’s no denying tempers run hot and passions are high. Fisticuffs will break out from time to time in all sports. Surely, it’s NASCAR legend what happened at the end of the 1979 Daytona 500. On the other hand, is there anything sillier than a bench clearing brawl in baseball? How about two NFL combatants slugging it out in full armor? However, in all other major sports, weeks can go by without an episode anywhere in the sport, in the NHL, fights are a nightly occurrence to where some fans go to the game not thinking if but when the fights will break out. Mom and dad, is this what you want your kids to see?

Okay, living in Baltimore, we don’t have a hometown team or a suitable venue thus we’re diverted to the Washington Capitols, a team that certainly does rise to the occasion at times.

The other problem with hockey is the same problem the NBA has. The regular season is long, but of what importance is it when more teams than not make the playoffs and the playoffs begin in May and don’t end until deep in June? A fan must be truly dedicated to the sport to follow the regular season at all aside from a handful of well established rivalries. Nevertheless, look at how teams have gone deep in Dixie: two teams in Florida, Nashville, and the Raleigh/Durham area, but are they putting butts in the seats?

With better television technology, bigger TV’s, and the myriad of sports networks, hockey can be televised very effectively now with HDTV with screens of 40” and larger, fans can really see the game develop and the puck is visible. Hey, this Olympic stuff when on the NBC mothership where HDTV is available is great but how many games did the worst network in the business push off to MSNBC?

Perhaps if the NHL gets a new generation of owners, more enlightened leadership, they can address the game’s nagging problems, but this fan is not holding his breath. The violence does appeal to a core audience and somehow if the NBA and NHL both feel long drawn-out playoffs is the way to go, it must be the way to make money. Still, they play have the number of games baseball does but going to a baseball game means something.

Thirty years ago, before ESPN had caught on, no Internet, just over-the-air TV, America was held spellbound as the USA team beat the Soviet Evil Empire in Lake Placid, New York for the Gold Medal. This year’s Silver Medal sure drew much attention. It’s a wonderful sport. Let’s hope it doesn’t take the NHL 30 years to get it together and bring forth an appealing sport. There’s a load of talent in the league. How many NHL players played in the Olympics?

For this writer, College Basketball is THE winter sport. There’s no denying a better NHL package without the idiot fights could be quite appealing. It’s a great sport but a lousy business in the US and Canada when not fought on Olympic ice.

Obama's Vanity and the Olympics

Not since Adolph Hitler in 1936 has a national leader sought to have his image so closely identified with the Olympics. Make no mistake about it, the grand design was for the possible 2016 Summer Olympics to be the great Obama Olympics if awarded to Chicago.

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IOC sends message, "It's not about you, Barack."

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What world event is more significant than the Summer Olympics?

Every four years, the host nation not only has the chance to host most of the world’s top athletes competing at the highest level but that country also gets a showcase to present itself to the world, a promotional and political opportunity second to none for being able to create favorable images to be shown around the world.

The high visibility is not without consequences. The specter of Islamic terrorism horrified the civilized world when the 1972 Olympics were held in Munich, West Germany. The Israeli Olympians were kidnapped and assassinated against the backdrop of a German culture desperately trying to show the world it had buried its Nazi past. The butchery of these young Jewish competitors stirred up some of the world’s worst nightmares.

As the worldwide media was able to bring the Olympics to homes around the world, the propaganda and political significance of the Olympics was not lost. American black athletes, for instance, flashed the black power salute, on the award podium in Mexico, City 1968. On a grander scale, the United States was forbidden to participate in the 1980 Olympics in Moscow after the Lake Placid miracle in the winter games earlier that year as President Jimmy Carter attempted to use the Olympics a tool for protesting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Soviet Union, in turn, sat out the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. The possibility of the Olympics being a target of terror resurfaced again in Atlanta in 1996, when a lone nutcase detonated a bomb in the city’s Olympic park.

More recently, the 2004 Olympics provided a tremendous platform for Greece to present itself as a vibrant, modern country while playing up the history of the games going all the way back to ancient Greece. Just last summer, the Communist Chinese used the opportunity of hosting the Olympics in their capital city to maximum advantage to try to show the world that China was a modern, progressive culture of gleaming modern cities and colorful cultural traditions. What was missed was just how staged the whole red Chinese presentation was from the selection of the participants to brutal efforts to keep potential protesters far, far away.

Corruption has been endemic in the Olympic movement both in the organization and how the IOC awards host locations and within competition itself whether it involves athletes cheating or corrupt officiating. What we think of as bribery and corruption in the United States is simply the way business gets done in some parts of the world, but the IOC was held to the highest standard. We need look no further than the bid to bring Winter Olympics to Utah for just how corrupt the system could become. Cleaning up that effort and bringing home the award took tremendous effort lead by Mitt Romney.

As a world movement, the Olympics provide a looking glass into the state of the world. But for all the worldly factors that corrupt the Olympics, few would argue the Olympics movement is a worthy effort whose transcendent value is immeasurable.

Flash forward to the present. October 2, was the day the 2016 Summer Olympics would be awarded to a host location. Chicago, Rio, Tokyo, and Madrid were the finalists from whom a host venue would be selected in Copenhagen, Denmark today.

Chicago? Surely, few American cities have the readymade infrastructure to support an Olympian effort. Wouldn’t it be a sight to see for historic Wrigley Field to be the site for Olympic baseball for the world to see? The Lake Michigan shoreline and many other attractions could make Chicago a most desirable city. As the nation’s third largest city, it also has the massive infrastructure to support the hundreds of thousands of visitors such an event would attract.

Chicago is also a city suffering from a special kind of unrivaled institutional corruption. Does the name Tony Rezko come to mind? How about the Richard Daley machine? Even the ghost of Al Capone lurks in the shadows of night in the Windy City and since the rise of Barack Obama, the world has gotten a much more detailed view of the cronyism, rampant corruption, and destructive beliefs and ideologies which guide many institutions in the city. Many of these cronies would be in an ideal position to profit tremendously from the Olympics coming to Illinois among them key advisor, Valerie Jarrett, one who has maintained substantial interest in Chicago housing and real estate dealings and David Axelrod, another well-connected Chicago source.

When the Chicago political machine comes into play along with the list of Obama cronies who stand to benefit substantially by the potential of a Chicago Olympics, gone are the visions of the placid Chicago lakefront but more the stench of the legendary Chicago slaughterhouses and the screaming of soon to be processed swine.

The extent to which the President involved his office in landing the Olympics for his adopted home town has a rather porcine stench to it as well. With so many red hot issues facing the nation and the need to save every last Federal dollar, a transatlantic flight by Air Force One and the other flight to escort Michelle Obama to Copenhagen, are substantial expenses even if a drop in the bucket compared to the overall Federal budget. A cynical way to look at it, every moment Obama spends working on causes like snagging the Olympics for Chicago, that’s less time devoted to pushing his radical agenda on environmental taxes, government health care, and meddling in corporate operations.

Clearly, the IOC was not about to let the 2016 Summer Olympics become a vanity fest for a self-infatuated egomaniac who’d love nothing more than having the Olympics in his home ground where he’d envision himself surrounded by legions of his admirers from all around the world singing his praises in the final months of his second term as President. What better way to celebrate his Presidency.

There in lies the problem, it’s all about him, all about Obama, and that’s so contrary to the Olympic spirit which embraces a spirit way too powerful to be about one man or one country. The last time a national leader figured prominently in the Olympics, if we discard Jimmy Carter’s decision to boycott the 1980 Moscow Olympics and the Soviet’s decision to do the same from the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, we go back to 1936, swastika flags and banners at every venue with a proud and boastful Adolf Hitler looking on. Hmm, Hitler was one of those leaders who had school children forced to sing his praise too, but that’s another issue, right?

How should an IOC member react to Michelle Obama addressing them, “"As much of a sacrifice as people say this is for me or Oprah or the president to come for these few days," as she went on to talk of the tireless efforts of others involved in the project. However, it doesn’t matter what context her remarks are used to introduce, how can she be talking of “sacrifice?” Poor Michelle. Is it such an inconvenience for her to have to hop on a luxurious charter airliner and fly to a lovely city like Copenhagen to represent her hometown? Poor baby.

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Michelle, listen up you surly bitch. You should feel HONORED to address the IOC! Sacrifice, how insulting! It's all about you isn't it!

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Nobody feels your pain.

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What was she sacrificing, the ability to brow beat the White House staff who attends to her every whim and need? This is what first ladies are called upon to do and to do so cheerfully. It’s not like she’s involved with helping promote literacy and women’s rights for Afghani women like Laura Bush did. It seems like the only publicity the first bitch has gathered are fashion writers talking about her sense of style in public appearances, styles that many of us from flyover country would see as undignified for a first lady who is supposed to present a sense of dignity.

Then came the President’s speech to the committee, another bash America and apologize speech in which he constantly made the speech about his own world and convictions at the expense of the value Chicago might offer and the high esteem the world holds for the Olympics. In his short address, he used the first person pronoun, “I,” thirteen times. It’s all about Barack Obama, himself, his vision, his efforts, his desires. Surely, such an exercise in vanity did not move the Olympians at all.

Because the Olympics is a sporting event it became the subject of ESPN coverage. Rather than have one of their regular reporters cover the event, a corporate Vice President was afforded the honors. His reportage had no journalistic perspective and not even the kind of objectivity a true homer would show for broadcasting his hometown team. The ESPN veep was profuse in his praise of the President noting how he was greeted by the attendees at the Olympic meeting like a “rock star.” Of course, the true story still came out as he acknowledged the Rio presentation was powerful especially noting the Olympics have never been held in South America.

After all that, of the four finalists, the Chicago bid was the first one discarded and cast aside quickly with little regard or consideration at all. The IOC simply was not impressed, period.

While there’s no denying The Olympics are highly politicized, Rio presents an exciting possibility and could provide a most stimulating backdrop for the 2016 festivities. We wish Brazil all the good luck in the world as they attempt to build a world class event.

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YOKEL SOUTH CAROLINA SHERIFF MAY SEEK LEGAL ACTION AGAINST PHELPS

Can it get any more stupid? For whatever reason, Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott sure sounds like a world class ASSHOLE! Either he's trying to make a name for himself, is playing the good old boy macho tough guy "nobody gets away with this in mah town!," or even scarier he feels he is duty bound and this is the right thing for him to do.

In Sheriff Yahoo's own words: "This case is no different than any other case. This one might be a lot easier since we have photographs of someone using drugs and a partial confession. It's a relatively easy case once we can determine where the crime occurred."

Here's the article we almost had to know was coming.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,487304,00.html

Enough already. Leave the kid alone. Legalize pot. Cut out the f**king hypocrisy and idiotic pompous moralizing. Weed is illegal. Beer is not. Millions if not billions of dollars are wasted, not to mention resources, enforcing this archaic and stupid law. How much of our border problems would be solved if this moronic law were overtuned.

It's the 21st century, America! WAKE UP! While no man is above the law, no law is above the people. If there were ever a time to get our priorities straight it is NOW!!!

More on Michael, One Day Later

American Hypocrisy 101: Olympic Gold and Acapulco Gold

Surely, it will be the fodder of talk shows, editorial pages, sports columns, and water cooler and lunch room chit chat at the office all week, but damnit, the Michael Phelps situation IS NO BIG DEAL!!!

I feel sorry for his mom who has the unfortunate job of being a middle school principal in Baltimore County with its insane “zero tolerance” policy which runs kids out of school for a little reefer as if they were carry a loaded gun or selling heroin or crack cocaine. Of course, this zero tolerance extends to aspirin or Tylenol too and will probably extend to Coke and Pepsi once the nutrition Nazis rule that caffeine and sugar is a dangerous drug too.

Mrs. Phelps sure must have a lot of explaining to do when kids being kids will ask the typical "emperor's new clothes" kind of questions on the subject.

That being said, the hypocrisy of America is on display, BIG TIME!

Be honest, how many people younger than sixty five have not at least tried marijuana and probably smoked it at least socially if they went to college in the late 60’s into the 1980’s and probably since then.

How many people have never taken the wheel of an automobile after consuming too much alcohol?

How many people have not driven at least fifteen miles over the speed limit? Yeah, it was a wide open country road and the speed limit was 30 mph. We hear yah.

How many people have purchased something in Delaware or some other state that doesn’t charge sales tax and not declared it when returning to their high tax states like Maryland and Pennsylvania?

How many people have neglected to do something necessary in servicing their cars or tweaked a little something to avoid pollution controls?

How many people have disposed of something that’s not supposed to be put in the garbage? What did you do with that old CRT monitor when you got a flat screen panel for instance?

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. It’s unfortunate we live in a culture that is governed more with the ethos of “Don’t get caught” than “Do the right thing” but let’s face it, laws come from our fellow man. They are not the divine orders of a supreme being. Some laws should never be broken, period. Others, well, it’s a personal decision and weighing the consequences of one’s behavior knowing that one’s reputation will be on the line for any illegal digressions.

Face it, most people have certain laws they chose to ignore and have all kinds of rationalizations for breaking the law.

Be clear on something, breaking the law does not mean someone is doing something wrong, just something illegal. But let’s be real, many laws that folks casually disregard are ones that simply are hard to justify being on the books. From 1974 until common sense set in, the national speed limit was 55 mph. People voted for revocation of that law with their right foot on the accelerator. Yes, we should be law-abiding citizens, but our country was founded on articulating the citizen’s duty to deal with government that becomes too intrusive.

Were marijuana legal, no one would be forced to smoke pot. It would probably be subject to the same smoking bans as cigarette smoking. Likewise, driving under the influence would be essentially the same as consuming alcohol. There would be company policies forbidding pot smoking by employees whose jobs involve public or personal safety likewise drug testing would be in place to ensure compliance.

Parents could probably discuss drug use a lot more intelligently removing the hypocritical barrier imposed by drug laws.

How to handle more dangerous drugs is a much tougher issue because there is no question that drugs like cocaine, LSD, and heroin can be extremely dangerous, but suppose marijuana were legal and enforcement efforts were devoted to the less popular but more dangerous drugs, could those efforts eradicate those scourges to society?

This writer has no idea, but thinks it would help some.

In the meantime, Michael Phelps’ stupid decision to party in the midst of folks he didn’t know and trust is causing a silly debate where the answer is clear.

Finally, recognize that this campaign that we have been supporting since “Right Minded Fellow’s” inception is from a voice that is essentially conservative on most issues. First, for us, conservative is an outlook not a dogma. Ultimately, what policies, values, and procedures are most beneficial to mankind should prevail regardless of whether they are liberal, conservative, Christian, or secular. We’ll be quick to concede, it’s mighty hard to argue with the wisdom of the Bible or the U.S. Constitution.

Our conservatism has a strong libertarian slant to it. While the libertarian philosophy is appealing on the surface, many of its assumptions crumble when realizing we live in a society of millions of individuals and simple pragmatism shows pure libertarianism would result in anarchy. That being said, conservatives need to heed more toward their libertarian impulses than holier-than-thou, flag waving, chest-pounding, lock ‘em up dogma, and realize that the legalization of marijuana is also a sensible belief for conservatives too.

Do conservatives not believe in less government intrusion, individual responsibility and freedom? Do conservatives not hate the concept of a “nanny” state? Do we not criticize the government over reaching its boundaries?

If you are conservative and believe the correct answer to those questions is “yes” then legalizing marijuana is also an issue conservatives can and must embrace.

It’s 2009 folks, not 1966. It might have been shocking when the world found out the Rolling Stones and Beatles smoked pot. By the end of the decade, the spicy aroma of marijuana filled college dorms and rock concert arenas around the world.

Michael Phelps is just who he is, and for this writer, this marijuana episode just makes him a little more human. That’s fine with me.

2008 Olympics Ends -- Torch Passes To London; Olympic Movement Dishonored Once Again; Opportunity to Reveal Chinese Evils Ignored

It’s Over!

The 2008 Summer Olympics are over. What was the story of this year’s big world party? What were the stories not told?

For folks from Chesapeake Bay Country and hopefully the whole United States, we’ll remember this as the Michael Phelps Olympics. It’s a true joy to see such an ordinary kid, the son of a Middle School Principal, set some goals, work his butt off, do things the right way, and grab eight gold medals on the world’s biggest stage.

The American Basketball team performed heroically. The team many had labeled as the “Redeem Team” needing to not only win the Gold Medal but to project a much more good-guy, all-American image did just that. They were totally involved in this year’s Olympics conspicuously present at other Olympic events, making themselves accessible to the world’s fans, and even providing a little American diplomacy visiting hospitals and showing a refreshing human side. Kobe Bryant showed leadership and maturity throughout the entire event. Perhaps, the Olympic experience was as much a redemption story for Bryant as well. The player who had come to epitomize the greedy “ME” player in professional sports during the L.A. Lakers championship runs with Shaquille O’Neal, Bryant was seen as aloof, sulky, and greedy. It was his sullen temper that ultimately sent Shaq packing. Then there was the rape allegation. The truth of that tale will probably never be known as many will believe Kobe Bryant bought his way out of conviction. If that were found to be true, Bryant would truly be irredeemable, but in the eyes of the law and the sports fans’ community, that tale is over. In Beijing, Bryant did all the right things on and off the court. LeBron James showed his coming of age as the NBA’s next legend. However, what was most noteworthy about the team’s play on the court was that despite everyone of them being a significant NBA All-Star performer was how well they played ball as a team. That team effort was a signature Mike Krzyzewski coaching. World basketball is a different game than either the college or pro game in America.

Hey, let’s not forget the US Women’s Basketball team won Gold too!!! You go girls!!!

Perhaps the most fun for Olympics fans this year was the Jamaican runner, Usain Bolt. Not only were his record breaking gold medal performances breath-taking, but his free-spirited, joyful antics added some much needed color and a true streak independence for an event that ran with almost machine like precision in the dehumanized faceless world of the Red Chinese hosts.

What a triumph it was for the Men’s Volleyball team to be crowned champs. The team entered Beijing with mixed hopes of glory when pure evil struck. U.S. Coach Hugh McCutcheon competed with a heavy heart as his wife’s father, Todd Bachman, was murdered, stabbed to death, the day before the games began. With this horrible darkness hovering over the team, they persisted, and when all was over, stood proud receiving their gold medals.

One more notable American gold performance featured shooter, Walton Eller, who set an Olympic final record capturing the gold in the Men's Double Trap. Eller is part of the US Army’s Marksmanship Unit at Fort Benning, Georgia.

The whole world had good reason to celebrate when the women’s volleyball team from Georgia beat the Russians as Russian troops were ransacking and pillaging their Georgian homeland.

So much for the good, the 2008 Olympics had plenty of ugliness to report too as if the murder of an American spectator wasn’t bad enough.

Start with the behavior of a Cuban martial arts specialist, Angel Matos, kicked the Olympics official in the face after being disqualified from the Bronze Medal, Taekwondo competition. For his flagrant malicious conduct Matos has been banned from world competition for life. Adding fuel to the fire, Cuban coach, Leudis Gonzalez, offered no apology. Why we hate Communists, let’s count the ways…

The Red Chinese hosts won 51 gold medals, 100 medals overall. How many of those medals are tainted. There’s no denying the Chinese fielded under aged gymnasts who couldn’t possibly meet the sixteen year old age requirement. Reports indicate Jiang Yuyuan, Yang Yilin and He Kexin are too young to compete. Evidence is all over the Internet that Kexin was born on January 1, 1994. One of the girls is supposedly just twelve years old. One can only imagine the mechanistic, inhumane way these little girls were trained.

It’s hard to believe the IOC, an organization so rife with corruption where standards are negotiable for the right price, will ensure all Chinese accomplishments are legit. They’ve sure proven willing to look the other way on the case of under aged gymnasts.

While the Chinese publicity machine, with a highly duplicitous, NBC, providing the window to the world on the Olympic events, carefully orchestrated spectacle against the back drop of a gleaming world class city, those who believe in human justice and cared to see what got swept under the red carpet, have a very different story to tell. Here’s some of the highlights where the Totalitarian thugs revealed their true selves.

Five American were held in Chinese prison as Students for a Free Tibet. Further, two elderly Chinese women were hauled off for “re-education through labor” because they sought to protest what they considered inadequate compensation for the demolition of their homes. Hmm, wouldn’t some corrupt local governments in cahoots with wealthy developers love to be able to deal folks who don’t like their “eminent domain” settlements in this country? This episode shows the real character of the Chinese regime when two elderly women, Wu Dianyuan, 79, and Wang Xiuying, 77, are subjected to forced labor. Imagine if some of our detainees at “Gitmo” were requested to do something they didn’t want to do. Another American was deported for simply filming some minor protest activities at Tiananmen Square. Free expression and journalistic integrity mean nothing to these oppressive tyrants, as two Japanese reporters were beaten just prior to the Olympics opening.

Given the degree of censorship and fawning cooperation from some segments of the world press, we are left to wonder how many others’ rights and dignity were violated by the butchers of Beijing.

As retched as the Red Chinese experience has been, one huge promotional extravaganza to convince the world they are everything good the modern world has to offer, there is some intrinsic good the Olympic spirit embodies that politics, corruption, and crass commercialization cannot destroy. As horrible as the 2008 experience could prove to be, the world will be treated to about the classiest people on earth when the Olympics begin anew in London in 2012. What country on earth understands pageantry better than the British? Here’s hoping Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Mick Jagger and his mates in the Rolling Stones are still in top performing shape and have some roll in the festivities.

Why does this writer suspect the press will make more of Prince Charles’ stuffiness four years from now than the whole sum of reportage concerning the hideous underbelly of the detestable Chinese bastards?

The World Media and US Outlets, Fox, CNN, ABC, and NBC in particular had a golden opporunity to reveal the truth about modern China to do targetted reporting on the oppressive, corrupt, and secretive country is all about. How beneficial it would have been to explore the extent to which Chinese sources are contributing the the world's air pollution. Surely, there were plenty of opportunities for programs to explore the economic relationships China has with the rest of the world. Aren't plenty of Americans claiming their jobs are being shipped to China? The working conditions and treatment of workers in Chinese industry could have been exposed. How China is building up its military developing anti-satellite weapons and where its nuclear weapons are apointed could be revealed. The brutal oppression of Tibet, the gentlehearted followers of the Dali Lama is a story that has pulled at the world's heart strings. Consider these and many more possibilities that could have been a logical outgrowth of the intensified interest in China growing out of interest in the Olympics. Further, raising these issues and reporting these stories also helps provide some balance for the huge proganda and publicity boost the Chinese were able to gain from the media attention Olympic coverage gave them. As purely rotten as NBC's news coverage is especially on political topics, to be fair, we must give them a little bit of breathing room as the network of the Olympics. They've surely had to sell their collective soul to the devil for broadcast rights to televise the Olympic specticle. In a free society with an open press, if all members do their jobs, the coverage omitted or touched up by NBC should be over-ridden by the thoughtful objective coverage from the other media sources. NBC has an easy excuse. What do the other networks, Fox, CNN, ABC, and CBS have to say for themselves?

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HE DID IT!!!! MICHAEL PHELPS WINS 8 GOLD MEDALS

Maryland's own, Michael Phelps, from Towson, breaks Mark Spitz's 1972 achievement dominating the Men's swimming events with strength and fury! Eight events, eight gold medals in the 8th month of '08! REMARKABLE!

CONGRATULATIONS FROM A GRATEFUL HOMETOWN AND PROUD NATION!!!! WE LOVE YOU, MICHAEL!!!

GOSSIP ON THE MAIN LINE: Prove It! or SHUT THE HELL UP!!!

CHALLENGE TO NBC: REPORT THE NEWS DON'T FABRICATE IT!!

Why Should a Good American Kid Have To Put Up With This Kind Of Garbage??

NBC Publishes Story, "Phelps Emphatically Denies Doping Allegations."
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Here's the story, your humble wordsmith almost feels like a sleaze repeating it as this kind of journalism sickens me along with the scandal-hungry gullible segment of the public who thinks in terms of "oh it must be" not what really is -- the hateful Kool-Aid brigade whose puny little excuses for an intellect live in the world of conspiracy theories and gossip. These sorry souls live in an alternate reality where Oliver Stone and Michael Moore on the left and talk show flame throwers like Michael Savage on the right form their piss poor excuse of a knowledge base. It's no surprise, though this story looks innocent enough on the surface, that NBC would give it press space. Sure there are probably other news outlets who carry it as well, but NBC looks particularly bad. Here's the story:

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http://www.nbcolympics.com/swimming/news/newsid=219455.html?GT1=39003

The American swimmer's superhuman performance has amazed many, but given the number of athletes who recently have been linked to doping, questions about how Phelps has produced such fast times are inevitable

Following his win in the 200m IM, Phelps emphatically denied using any performance-enhancing drugs.

"Anybody can say whatever they want, but I know I'm clean," Phelps said. "People can question it all they want, but the facts are the facts. I have the results to prove it."
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He is taking part in "Project Believe," a U.S. Anti-Doping Agency volunteer initiative where athletes provide additional testing that is more frequent and more sophisticated than the usual regime of tests.

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This is the language direct from the story. This is all they offer. Tonight, it's a big story with no additional elucidation on SportsCenter, good old ESPN, the clearinghouse of all things in the sports world. At least to redeem itself, ESPN presented a thorough biographical segment going into the rigors of training Phelps has endured to prepare for his stunning accomplishments.

What's important here is not so much what is reported. It's what's not reported. Who is making the allegations? On what basis are they making the allegations? What evidence can they provide to support their conjecture?

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Once again, at this point, all that we have to work from are logical fallacies. The first is since his performance is so dominant and recording breaking he must be using performance enhancing drugs. Facts: plenty of stories with cameras present and reporters witnessing have documented the extreme training program Michael Phelps. Phelps, together with his coach, Bob Bowman, have carefully studied the science of swimming to develop a training and nutrition program to achieve ultimate results. Along with Phelps exceptional results is an exceptional routine. What the Kool-Aid brigade can't accept that knowledge and hard work yields results. The other logical fallacy is found in the argument, that because a number of other record breaking performances were accomplished by athletes later found to dope up; therefore Phelps must be doping too. Sorry, Kool-Aid kiddies, the premise does not support the conclusion.

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NBC and SportsCenter are both guilty of reporting pure conjecture as news. That so far, they haven't even produced the names of those who are suggesting Phelps has used drugs much less vetting these sources and substantiating their charges is shoddy dishonest journalism of the highest degree.

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For the record, the article even concedes that Phelps participates in Project Believe, a program where participants volunteer to submit to even more testing to prove they are drug free.

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Hard core, specific evidence that supports Michael Phelps is dope free. Idle, unsubstantiated conjecture suggests otherwise but still gets reported?

What do you believe? x

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Here's some conjecture. Why would NBC repeat inflamatory gossip leveled against the true superstar, the best American performer, as the flagship network covering the Olympics? Is this just another extention of "hate all things American" undercurrent that is a platform so prevalent in left wing journalism of which the NBC/MSNBC consortium exhibits on a nightly basis? Why is NBC romanticizing the conduct of the Chinese hosts instead of practicing straight forward, present the facts, let the viewers draw the inferences style of journalism we should have a right to demand?
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The problem is, once the gossip is out there, it never gets completely eradicated. There will always be enough of the "alternate reality - conspiracy theory" crowd who will at least keep these absurd questions coming up again and again in the mainstream.

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What is is about the news media that NBC represents better than any other broadcast outlet that simply cannot tolerate that there are some true all-American success stories where hard work, intelligence, dedication, and a sense of purpose accomplishes amazing things?

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It can't happen in their world. There always has to be something else.

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The Synthetic Olympics

Chinese Manipulation
In the world capital of counterfeit, is it a surprise to anyone that the sweet little adorable, Lin Miaoke, who performed "Ode to the Motherland" was lip-syncing? For the sake of a totally flawless image for the world to see, who'd be surprised that the totalitarian autocracy would manipulate adorable little children?

The Beijing organization's music director stated, "The audience will understand that it's in the national interest." The real voice was that Tang Peiyi, age 9, hardly a deformed hair-lip, would certainly be seen as cute and adorable to most, but like many children that age too young for orthodontistry had a crooked set of choppers. The Brits conquered the world with bad teeth!!

The regime's spokesperson went on to indicate: "The national interest requires that the girl should have good looks and a good grasp of the song and look good on screen," ..."Lin Miaoke was the best in this. And Yang Peiyi's voice was the most outstanding." As such, let the commies graft their cutest looking little girl with their cutest sounding little girl. Somehow there’s an embedded totalitarian message imbedded in this behavior. How do you suppose the Red Chinese, the butcher of Tiananmen Square define “national interest?” Lying, rough-housing the public, and manipulating children are all okay things to do in serving them….

The ultimate hypocrisy of Communist movements through the ages, that could never be more apparent than the way the oligarchy in Beijing, is the constant use of “peoples’” and “workers” name things that reflect the actions of tyrants not involvement by the population at large. Following the path from its origins in the writings of Karl Marx and Frederich Engels through the Communist seizure of power under the articulation of a Communist state as defined by Vladmir Lenin crossing the border into China as Mao Tse ETung created the initial Chinese articulation of Communism controlling the world’s largest population, the Communist tyrants have named social institutions, government buildings, and the names of countries and territories themselves as “Peoples” or “Workers” this-that-or-the-other-thing. As such, the Maoist Chinese nation became, “The Peoples’ Republic of China,” from there they create things like “The Peoples’ University of ( _________),” “Workers’ Stadium,” whatever. The ultimate irony is the Communist philosophy is supposed to be liberating a beleaguered and oppressed working class the victims of private ownership and the criminal bourgeoisie. It’s really the People who own the means of production but until all bourgeois values are vanquished, an era of the dictatorship of the Proletariat is a necessary part of post-revolutionary society. The end of the line was supposed to be some kind of worker’s utopia. Somehow, none of these social experiments get past the dictatorship part. However, it’s what the dictators do next that’s most fascinating. Most of the communist dictatorships from the 20th century have fallen. There is nothing truly Marxist or even Maoist about “The Peoples’ Republic of China.” What exists today is a government which manipulates communist rhetoric for the people they oppress while they enjoy essentially the utopia for the oligarch. The wealth and fortune amassed by the highest levels of power in Red China is impossible to calculate but easy to observe. Without free market forces or democratic government safeguards, they’ve amassed centralized wealth beyond comprehension. Thus the television viewers all around the world are like Dorothy, Straw Man, Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion in the court of the Wizard of Oz. We see the smoke and mirrors image not the puny little man behind the curtain. The national interest is to assure the man behind the curtain remains forever out of sight to be free to find new and better ways to oppress its people and deceive the rest to further its influence and iron grip on power.

The little girl singer switcheroo is but a small picture of the big picture mindful that it echoes other things in today’s “infotainment” world where digital enhancement, Photoshop doctored pictures, to collagen and Botox injections, it’s getting harder and harder to tell what is real in the first place. Perhaps it's as much Hollywood as it is Communism. After all, haven't we seen and heard some of our musical stars lipsync to a prerecorded audio track when performing our National Anthem? In fact bringing home to the Olympics, Luciano Pavarotti, mouthed to a prerecorded performance of the aria, Leone Magiera. Still, this communist behavior seems so exploitive especially since it involves children.

American Commercialism Running Wild
The Ralph Lauren outfits worn by the U.S. athletes in the “Parade of Nations” was almost as inappropriate a representation of the United States as the “cute girl crisis” was for the Red Chinese.

First, how could anyone miss the gigantic Polo horseman logo on the right side of the navy blue blazers our contestants wore? It was much more notable than the US Olympic emblem on the opposite side.

The whole outfit, so blatantly chic, looked much more like something from Fifth Avenue or Rodeo Drive and not Main Street. From across the heartlands, deep in the heart of Dixie, the gyms and pools of suburban sprawl, to urban basketball courts, the American Olympians come from real America, not the world of high fashion New York and Los Angeles. The costumes that look so metro-sexual on the male athletes and upscale trendy on the females seems so incongruous for our homespun finest. What’s with the stark white excessively European looking headwear? Navy blue blazers are American classics, but not these! How about starting with something the whole world understands as American, baseball caps! From there, maybe properly color coordinated golf shirts and cotton slacks, nothing too fancy, but something that would look just as appropriate American on statuesque basketball stars and sweet little cupcake gymnasts

Given the Olympic Games are the ultimate media circus with NBC, the network most closely aligned with Hollywood and a far distant 4th place among the four major networks, it’s not surprising that the coverage often looks more like a Hollywood awards program or Big Apple beauty pageant while NBC surely would have the least problem playing willing enablers to the Communists. When it gets down to the play-by-play level, there’s not much NBC can screw up. The greatest fear is biased anti-American judges, but things have been pretty quiet on that front so far.

Those (Bleeping) Communists: Red Chinese Assault Japanese Journalists

Remember this guy?

How many people under 30 have the slightest idea who Chairman Mao is? However, his attitude toward any dissent or outside influence is alive and well in the "Peoples" Republic of China days away from their big coming out party.

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Here it is direct from the Associated Press (A/P). The Communist Chinese are acting like Communists on the eve of the their big "coming out" party, the 2008 Summer Olympics.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jLKsDk1HPvWvCDf-7qxpu-AJi0egD92C6ROO0

How can our President defend endorsing this thuggish, morally bankrupt, totalitarean regime when even with all the world's attention shining on them behaves like this?

From dumping manufactured goods that fail to meet American and European safety standards like poisonous children's toys to supporting the brutaility in Darfur to the systematic to total oppression of their own people, it's Communist China, stupid.

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May our athletes bring home the gold and perform with honor and grace. This fan will find it difficult to watch the coverage on NBC (Parent company General Electric, GE, those guys who had no trouble doing business and selling technology to Iran) whose corporate dollars will enhance the Chinese oligarchy the ultimate platform to propagandize their murderous deception presenting a sanitized illusion of the state of the art culture they pretend to be. As your writer gulps another Coca Cola, a prime sponsor of the Beijing Olympics, how many corporations we support with our purchases are heavy invested in the Grand Sham?

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On Olympics' Eve Communist Chinese are Acting Like Communists

The Washington Post reports today (August 3rd) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/01/AR2008080103717_pf.html how the Communist (though they'll never call the spade a spade and call them "Communist' or "Red") Chinese are harassing and imprisoning protesters including peasant farmers the worst of the worst victims of the totalitarean state unless you happen to be a follower of the Dali Lama living in Tibet where expressing your religion could cost you your life. Anyone who'd feel threatened by a peaceful gentle fellow like the Dali Lama must really be screwed up!

As Chinese citizens are being systematically rounded up and persecuted, reports have been plentiful on how the Chinese dictators are censoring the Internet so guests cannot get news and background about anything that would displease the oppressive government potentates with the potential of all outgoing traffic being monitored so the deceitful dictators can take action against guests who don't enjoy their Chinese hospitality.

The world must hold the International Olympic Committee to account for awarding the Olympics to one of the most evil governments in the world today. As recent history has shown, naked political interests, bribery and corrupt quid-pro-quos have more to do with awarding Olympic events than a deliberate, fair process. Even in the United States we saw just how corrupt Olympic organizing efforts can be as Salt Lake City's shame became a national issue that was finally resolved favorably thanks to the tireless efforts of Mitt Romney.

While Americans will cheer for Michael Phelps to cart home loads of gold and see if Coach Mike Krzyzewski can be wizard of the hard wood floors leading a bunch of big egoed millionaires to world domination on the basketball court, our competitors will demonstrate everything American, mostly good, some bad, against the backdrop of brutal Communist oppression. We're not afraid to show our good and our bad. Much of the world media will turn its cameras to the United States as our Presidential conventions will be held immediately after the Olympics. There will be plenty of protesters, some trying to stir up chaos, in Denver and Minneapolis, but it's hard to imagine much coming of that activity. The greatest outrage aside from Barrack Obama being the assured Democrat nominee is how Denver plans to deal with its homeless, inviting them to attend movies and museums so as not to be a distraction to the big event. How about the Chinese doing the same for their citizens they want to conceal. They've got plenty of pirated DVD's ready to export around the world to suck the profits away from legitmate manufacturers which they could use to exhibit world class films.

Regardless, the big show is days away as the Communist creeps will spare nothing to put on a sanitized fake image of Red China as a progressive modern society. One deep breath of the heavily polluted air in a culture where controlling air pollution is an unnecessary imposition on soaking up billions of dollars in world trade from countries that respect the earth will remind visitors all they're seeing is an illusion.

For the sake of basic humanity, we must pray few Chinese suffer at the hands of their brutal tyrants who have zero regard for their liberty. Exploitation rules supreme behind the bamboo curtain.

The world is watching. The world is watching.

Countdown to the Communist Chinese Olympics

The 2008 Summer Olympics: Communist China’s Big Coming Out Party

Right Minded Fellow wants to feel excitement and good will for the beginning of Olympiad XXIX, but at best feels a painful gnawing sensation. The Olympics have certainly been tinged with corruption, excessive commercialism, and cynical manipulation for a long time. From the onset, political exploitation has been a central theme no more apparent than Hitler’s grand performance on the world stage in Berlin during the summer of 1936. How wonderful it was that Hitler’s racist evil was upstaged by a brilliant young African-American, Jesse Owens. His accomplishments single-handedly spit in the face of Nazi ideology and promotion of the “master” race. Few could imagine just how extreme Hitler’s murderous fascism was becoming. Sadly, the problem of racism and religious persecution wasn’t a hot topic in most of the free world at that time. Move forward to the 1972 Olympics held in West Germany. The air was ripe with cold war politics pitting the free democratic remains of the bifurcation of Germany against their former countrymen living under a puppet government tightly controlled by the Soviet Union. East Germans amassed tremendous victories in Olympic competition as whispers grew to roars over the years that their competitors were "medically enhanced" for competative advantage. While all international tension seemed to fall on the Cold War adversaries, world politics would play out in its ugliest, most horrifying extreme in Munich.

Who would have known as the Olympics were underway on September 5, 1972 that on that date, a horrible chapter in world history would begin? Terrorist group, Black September, agents of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah, kidnapped and slaughtered eleven Israeli athletes and coaches marking the opening salvo of the war waged by Radical Islam against the Judeo-Christian West, an ever more complex conflict that besieges us today. While the world attempted to put on its best face united in the pursuit of the Olympic creed, “Swifter, higher, stronger,” the hateful, murderous, genocidal specter of Islamic Terrorism began its evil crusade to become the world’s greatest menace as the religion of Islam became warped as the uniting ideology of a host of terrorist movements of both Shia and Sunni Moslem radicals inflicting torture and death on all continents of the world.

The Olympic movement would be changed for ever by those hateful Islamic thugs. Extreme security measures now required helped diminish the free and open atmosphere of the games. Gross politicization would increasingly become a greater part of each subsequent Olympic event.

Corruption and politics are integral parts of how the International Olympic Committee operates where members from ethically challenged nations are more than willing to accept bribes and other reward for favorable attention in granting future Olympic host cities. Crass commercialization and exploitation has become another dominant theme of the Olympics. “All’s far in love and war,” the saying goes, but the same seems applicable to many facets of the Olympics.

Global politics, the Carter administration’s outrage at the Soviet lead invasion of Afghanistan lead to the United States boycott of the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics. Tit for tat, the Soviet Union, in turn, boycotted the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics.

Unseemly dictators and corrupt nations have used the Olympics in the past for maximum propaganda and self-promotion, but not since Hitler hosted the 1936 Olympics has the role of a corrupt and murderous totalitarian government taken center stage like the Communist Chinese hosting the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing this summer.

The Red Chinese will take full advantage of the Olympics for maximum public relations purposes showing a progressive city with all the modern charms, luxuries, and technologies of any world class city. Already we’ve seen images of the cutesy little Pokémon mascots and “dancing Beijing” comes alive. That there are millions of people world-wide with serious grievances against the Chinese not the least of which is the ongoing oppression and slaughter in Tibet, saber rattling against Taiwan, support of the butchers in Darfur, scores of significant human rights violations, brutal subversion of Folun Gong, arms and technology sales to terrorist states like Iran, and brutal suppression of political dissent among its own people will be glossed over by carefully staged theatrics of singing children dressed in ethic costumes looking as cute and lovable as little darlings can be. Gleaming modern city skyscapes, clean modern city streets, and state-of-the-art sports venues will serve as pictorial backdrops for athletic competition while extreme poverty, polluted rivers teaming with floating garbage, smokestacks of acid and pollution spewing factories and power plants, or any signs of the tools of oppression wielded by the police state government will be totally hidden from the world’s television cameras. Nevertheless, for the commercial spectacle the Olympics represents, NBC and the rest of the world’s media is more than willing to play along for the privilege of showing wall-to-wall coverage of everything from the traditional track and field events, the exploitation driven basketball games, down to the menial sports like badminton.

All is not well for sure as the world recognizes the treachery of the communist dictators in Beijing. German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and Great Britain’s Prince Charles have all indicated they will not attend the opening ceremonies in Beijing. Perhaps ironically the warrior against the Axis of Evil himself, George W. Bush will attend.

Meanwhile, the systematic and cruel oppression of its citizens and destruction of the environment will continue as the norm for Communist China. Americans will flock to their favorite retailers to buy Chinese finished goods in increasing numbers. American companies continue to dance with the Devil sending manufacturing operations to China avoiding the cost of doing business in the more civilized and freedom loving world for the sake of ever great profit. On the surface, the cites that serve as the economic hubs in China sport a thin, western veneer with all the trappings of progressive capitalist culture. Western entertainment abounds as does American dining from McDonalds to Morton’s Steakhouse both flourishing in Beijing.

Looks are deceiving, look at the dirt swept under the welcome mat as the world descends upon Red China's capital, Beijing in the weeks ahead. For all the hoopla and entertainment, we interact with a nation that has nuclear weapons pointed right at our cities and is working on technologies to blow our satellites. The great Chinese party continues with seldom a whisper of their goon tactics, plundering the planet, and oppressing its citizens. This may not look like the China of Mao Tse Tung's "Little Red Book." Instead of talking about destroying the West by exporting Communist revolution, it is leeching the west by satisfying the materialistic urge of consumer society providing every gadget and goody imaginable cheaper than other industrial countries because its workers have no freedoms with meager compensation for their labors. Safety standards, environmental safeguards, and quality inspection are all far less stringent than what other societies will tolerate. For the sake of saving a couple bucks on a box of widgets and a store full of less expensive whatca-ma-call-its, we've sold out our dignity making filthy rich a government and economic system that has none.

The Butchers of Beijing, the terrorists of Tiananmen are ready to entertain you. Let the games begin.