It's not a REAL sport unless it involves brooms !


https://twitter.com/buitengebieden_/status/1487165905821962242


And then you have duck curling ...


https://twitter.com/i/status/1489263303931039744



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/06/2022 04:44PM by Dave the Atheist.

I'm not watching either--and it's not because of the sports. I simply feel a vague nausea knowing what's happening in Xinjiang as the world celebrates China and its "games."

So you're boycotting. That's a good thing. I don't want the CCP profiting from television revenues.

Not intentionally.

I'm just so uncomfortable with the IOC's corruption, its treatment of Peng Shuai; and of China's treatment of Hong Kong and particularly the Uyghers, that I have no desire to view the events. I've made no determination, arrived at no resolution, just feel sick at the thought of so many unethical organizations using the Olympics for their own purposes. I suspect others may feel the same way. And a quiet, unintentional loss of interest is ultimately more meaningful than a one-time boycott.

The point is that silence, acquiescence, is a political gesture as well. The IOC and NBC can't credibly pretend to be above international politics when they are serving a dictatorship's interests.

+1

Ditto.

The snow machines. The human rights issues. Lots of things are creeping me out about this Olympics right now.

The support between China and Russia to justify both being aggressive invader dictators is not setting with me well.

Xi to Putin: Hey, hold off invading so you don't interfere with my Olympic show.

Putin to Xi: No problem. Will do.

The problem is that there is no longer a great deal of interest in bidding for an Olympics due to the expense. It took Montreal 30 years to pay off the bonds for the 1976 games. A lot of cities are not interested in doing that, and I don't blame them. So you are often left with the oligarchies making the bids (i.e. China, Russia, and Kazakhstan.) The economics of producing an Olympic games needs to be made more inclusive so that more countries feel comfortable making a bid.

And to be honest, I'm not sure that anyone other than China (Kaz, Russia, etc.) could have pulled this off during a worldwide pandemic. The situation in the recent Tokyo games was really precarious from a political and social viewpoint.

I avoid everything Made in China.

(Our) Trader Joe’s doesn’t sell anything sourced from China including ginger root.

When the old microwave breaks down, I just won’t have a microwave.

It might have been "Made In China," but at least it's not a newly sourced Chinese import. You're also (probably--some are for-profit) supporting a local charity.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/07/2022 03:18PM by caffiend.

Yes, that’s correct.

I'm enjoying it. I was finding the curling this afternoon entertaining.

There's an Olympics going on?

I’m sort of in this camp too. I knew they were coming but didn’t know exactly when. Can’t get excited about them, for a number of reasons. Yawn...

I only knew they’d started because I was in a sports bar and grill that I like Friday afternoon and they had the ice skating on some of the screens so I saw some of it.

My mom always enjoyed watching the skating when I was a kid, and I have good memories of watching that with her. Also loves the skiing. Seemed more innocent then (1970s). Maybe it was that I was more innocent...

There’s an ice skating rink near the restaurant, so there were actually several “skating” families in there. Sad to think of the conflicts that spoil and tarnish sports for young competitors.

The only thing more boring was trying to watch the NFL Pro bowl football game.

I've seen more exciting flag football with grade school kids than the Pro bowl game.

Is that the “bowl” where they don’t hit and tackle? If so, yeah, Boring. They basically pretend to play football. I watched it once years ago. Never again.

I saw a headline, "team figure skating". Huh, that's a sport?

Figure skating is probably the biggest eyeball draw for the Winter Olympics, but there are only so many variations:

men's vs. women's vs. pairs vs. ice dancing
short program vs. free skate

So in order to generate more hours of ice skating time, the Olympics now has a combo event (this is actually the third time) where they have all eight of the combinations above. This is done as a nominally team event separate from the actual individual event, and as a result, there's twice as much ice skating content to show.


I'd prefer that they split individual events into two categories: "technical/power/extreme skate" and "artistic skate":

- The former could be for skaters who want to fill their programs with quads (and someday quints, hexes, etc.) but who are boring as hell to watch artistically (side eye at Nathan Chen).

- The latter could be the category for skaters who actually look good interpreting the music, but who can't necessarily do the jumps, like Jason Brown.

That change alone would make figure skating much more palatable to watch.

Tyson



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/07/2022 03:07PM by Tyson Dunn.

I need something to take my mind off the passing of my mother, when I'm not cleaning/filing/tossing/shredding/sleeping/working.

It's a terrible substitute for real entertainment, but at least the content provides novelty and distraction.

Tyson

And no, I'm not talking about Nike, Apple, Walmart, Tesla, or the NBA or...so many others.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/02/us-born-figure-skater-slammed-chinse-social-media-finishing-last-olympic-debut-china/

I realize this may shock you, but in my opinion individuals should be free to make their own choices. If some young athlete chooses to represent the country of her familial origins, so be it.

There is a copious difference between a Chinese-American figure skater or a Tongan-American weightlifter on the one hand, and Lebron James on the other. The former will gain little if any material advantage from their decisions, whereas Nike and Lebron James will profit enormously from their tacit support of a country with which they have no other connection.

...That is an adversary of the country of her birth. All because she couldn't make the home-town team. There's a big difference between her and a Czech hockey player who gains a position on the American or Canadian team.

Yes, she's free to compete for the CCP, and I'm free to gloat that she fell flat on her shameless butt.

Ah yes, there's your usual nuance. Her parents are from China, she speaks the language, she is proud of her heritage, and she is a kid.

I daresay that if she or your Czech hockey player had the temerity to express displeasure with your politics, you'd treat her or him the same way you treat Colin Kaepernick.

Good for her. I hope Beverly Zhu's prospective professional career crashed with her triple-reverse-quasi-double-axels. At nineteen, she's old enough to distinguish good from evil, and understand that siding with the "good" involves cost.

As with our hypothetical hockey player, I'll venture that her (non)performing for the CCP was based on her career ambitions. Like Nike's, Tesla's, and the NBA's marketing decisions, what do human rights count?

Regarding Kraepernicht, we're expanding the thread. I'll rag on him in the confines of a forum he's never likely to peruse, but in person I'd try to be civil (at least for starters). Should I meet him with advance notice, I'd probably wear one of my USMC t-shirts:

https://ih1.redbubble.net/image.1725826250.7619/ssrco,slim_fit_t_shirt,mens,101010:01c5ca27c6,front,square_product,600x600.jpg

(Full disclosure: That's not my torso--I don't have any tats.)

> At nineteen, she's old enough to distinguish good from evil. . .

When will you turn 19, caffiend?

--Asking for a friend who was in the Capitol when those patriotic tourists arrived to engage in legitimate political discourse

I've led an interesting life, from hitchhiking through 30 states & 4 provinces, to hopping trains, to serving as an 0311 in Vietnam to trucking through a blizzard in Buffalo to rehabbing a Boston "Dorchester" and finishing up as a street cop. And that's not including my alcoholic misadventures, like coming out of blackouts behind bars (and I don't mean "licensed premises!").

I'm having fun in retirement. Can't wait for my Bronco to be built--Great Basin backcountry, here I come!

Bronco ? You're going to get that POS 3 cylinder one.

Adolescence isn't the issue. What matters if someone is going to insist on others knowing the difference between good and evil is whether he himself does.

I'm more willing to give the benefit of the doubt to a a person on the verge of adulthood than to someone who has lived a long and rich life. Age is supposed to bring wisdom, not intolerance and binary thinking.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/07/2022 11:55PM by Lot's Wife.

You would make someone a nice mother in law.

So would you.

I see myself more as the uncle in the attic.

>>I realize this may shock you, but in my opinion individuals should be free to make their own choices. If some young athlete chooses to represent the country of her familial origins, so be it.

Athletes switch countries for a variety of reasons. Sometimes they simply want to make an Olympic team, or they want to represent another country to which they have ties. Sometimes they take issue with the coaching or policies of the sports federation of their native country. Pairs figure skaters and ice dancers sometimes do it in order to find a suitable partner at their level.

My favorite reason is ageism. Sometimes the sports federation of your birth will age you out of its programs, no matter how high your achievement level. This was the case for short track speed skater Viktor An (Ahn Hyun Soo,) then considered the best short track speed skater in the world. He switched to Russia after his native South Korea refused to put him on their team after many years and many Olympic and world championship medals.

I'd love to see this happen for figure skater Kamila Valieva, since Russia practices ageism in figure skating, although they may make a special case for having her continue with their program.

Alas, she won't have much of a career anywhere.

That Russian coach is famous for destroying girls. Her training techniques require slight girls: they can jump high without much muscle. Accordingly, she limits their food, and on competition days their water, to keep them small. The reason they "age out" at 16 or 17 is that their bodies change; they gain some weight. And by then the decade plus of training has created back, hip and knee trouble and the anorexia has created other problems as well.

Some of her proteges have switched to other coaches in Russia and one or two have emigrated to compete for Canada and other countries with more humane training regimens. But there too they break down before they turn 18. The damage is already done. That's one reason the skaters were so clearly devastated two days ago. They know the clock is running and this may be their last Olympics.

Interesting. I noticed that Valieva (especially) was very thin compared to her height. I wondered if it was an adolescent growth spurt, but it appears not. I did think that her coaching team was speaking to her abusively after her performance.

It's like this ...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWxMjV0M_OA

The Genocide Games. No thank you. Spent 3 years living in China, no need to feed their propaganda.

Agreed wholeheartedly.

Would it be unfair to insist on abstention from genocide as a precondition for hosting the games?

I guess I'm in the younger generation that streams everything.

I'd watch if it were available.

I'm not going to pay $5 for a Peacock subscription that STILL includes commercials.

They made it so that you have to PAY to watch the games.

They've completely LOST touch with anyone under the age of 50.

They want to know one BIG reason their viewing numbers are so low...

Because they got so greedy. They made it so it's impossible to watch unless you want to actually give them your credit card and such.

My generation (and younger) don't give out financial information without a good reason, and if we don't trust the group (a LOT of us trust Disney...but we don't trust NBC), they ain't gettin nuthin.

I'd watch it if it had advertisements, but forcing people to give up their financial information and private information just to watch the games for two weeks.

They can keep their games to themselves if that's how they want it.

Looks like the IOC is bought and paid for
..and cheating, especially by the Russians is now totally acceptable. Maybe the Olympic movement has reached its due date and needs to be euthanized.

Sadly true. But it's not just the IOC. FIFA is corrupt as are the NFL and the Sinophilic NBA.

Long live Colin Keapernick, Enes Kanter, and the few other prominent athletes courageous enough to risk their careers for principle.

Right! We could sure use a 21st Century Jesse Owens.

But nobody wants to risk China's wrath.

At least, ratings are in the toilet. I hope NBC takes a financial pounding, and all their advertisers, too.

I watched the woman's gold medal hockey game last night. Not interested in any other events.

Count on the Babylon Bee to give you authentic news you can trust!

https://babylonbee.com/news/nbc-takes-gold-in-olympic-ratings-dive

Also, this on the controversial swim event:

https://babylonbee.com/news/massacre-as-great-white-shark-allowed-to-compete-in-womens-500-freestyle

If you poke around the site, there's a great riff on ever-woke Nike.

What does "woke" mean ?

"It's not a REAL sport unless it involves brooms !"

If you change the TV channel I think Bewitched is on.....

Thank Gawd they're over...

Before starting his own sh#t show. Bodies and things getting blown up should make for good ratings.

He had to wait.

Getting the photo op at the beginning of the Olympics created the impression of entente. But that impression had to be protected given that China has extensive interests in Ukraine. So avoiding the embarrassment to Beijing that interrupting the Olympics would have caused is a low-cost way to keep China on side--or at least to reduce the probability of defection.

Good night!

#12 decided to "unretire," and will play his 23rd season with Tampa Bay.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.