Wow

Gold for Virtue and Moir

And I liked their costumes and music too -- no chiffon fluttering and strings flapping around, no weird colours or distracting bangles, no jarring musical transitions or audience clapping along.
Just skating, perfect skating.

BFF doesn't mean what it used to

Just six months ago, the Conservatives were BFF with Canada's military, patting themselves on the back for buying the military a batch of combat vehicles.
Then two days after the Haiti earthquake, we found out they had quietly cancelled the purchases.
So today the Conservatives are BFF with Canada's athletes -- patting themselves on the back for how proud they are of the Canadian athletes who are competing with the world's best.
Athletes, don't quit your day jobs...

Hockey

Damn!
Did we think it would be easy?

Misbehavin' women

Over at Kos, blogger Angry Mouse has a brilliant post that absolutely demolishes every single argument the IOC has thrown up to bar women from ski jumping.
One fact that I hadn't realized was that ski jumpers who are smaller and lighter will jump farther -- so this means women ski jumpers may well beat the men if they are ever allowed to compete. Now, far be it from me to entertain a conspiracy theory, but could this explain why the IOC has been so stubborn on this issue?
Dick Pound's remarks were particularly offensive:

So will the IOC approve women's ski jump for 2014? "We'll have to wait and see," IOC member Dick Pound said in an interview for an MSNBC.com documentary on women's ski jumping, Frozen Out of the Olympics. "If in the meantime you're making all kinds of allegations about the IOC and how it's discriminating on the basis of gender," he warned, "the IOC may say, 'Oh yeah, I remember them. They're the ones that embarrassed us and caused us a lot of trouble of trouble in Vancouver, maybe they should wait another four years or eight years.'"

Nice little event you've got here, girls. Be a shame if we delay approving it until all of you rabblerousers are too old to compete ...

Party on Robson

What a great shot on this morning's Globe and Mail webpage showing Robson Street Granville Street in downtown Vancouver.

Juggler David Aiken - a.k.a. The Checkerboard Guy - performs two shows a day. Mr. Aiken said the atmosphere at Vancouver's Olympic epicentre is electric. A veteran street performer, he said it's a joy to watch people from different nations converge in one spot and enjoy one another.
"There's a palpable feeling of patriotism, but not in a bad way," the spectacled performer said after a lunch-hour show. "People from Canada and Germany and Denmark are coming together and wishing the best for everyone."

We always liked "Robsonstrasse" -- we like to stay at the Blue Horizon when we can. Next to Davie, it's one of Vancouver's most liveable streets.
UPDATE: Correction made -- Vancouverites identify the photo as Granville Street. But we still like Robson, too!

Pie fight and bad faith

It's hard to have a civilized discussion when someone has just thrown a pie in your face.
The Olympics protestors are finding this out.
The Tyee seems to be just about the only press outlet reporting on the Olympic protest movement. The latest is that they tried to have a meeting on Wednesday to discuss next steps, when someone threw a pie in the face of BC Civil Liberties Union executive director David Elby.
I would imagine it highjacked the debate.
Elby, you see, had spoken out against Saturday's violence and this offended other protestors' sense of decorum and proper behaviour:

it violated an agreement -- tacit or not -- that no group should publicly criticize the actions of others.

Gee, isn't this exactly the kind of corporate orthodoxy and groupthink that the anti-Games protestors had found so objectionable about the Games themselves?
Oh, I know, when it comes to politics, any expectations of consistency are bound to be disappointed. But it seems that protest organizers are also frustrated by the difficulties of solidarity:

The divisions and anger created by Saturday's riotous protest threaten to destroy a social movement years in the making, [Chris Shaw] fears, and those types of marks don't come out easily in the wash. . . .
Many observers agree the past few years have seen a remarkable trend. A diverse collection of civil society actors, critical native voices and more-militant activists have united against the Games. In a city known for fractious politics, this was quite a feat, Shaw said.
But as the events of Wednesday evening showed, those alliances might be more fragile than they appeared. "I saw fractures starting to form again," Shaw said. "My hope was that we'd built a nascent civil/social justice movement that would last beyond the Games... Otherwise we're back to fighting our own lonely little battles."

This quote inadvertantly points out, I think, one of the basic problems in the anti-Olympic protest -- was it ever actually about the Olympics?
They convinced a lot of good people that the Games themselves were awful -- that it was impossible to negotiate any positive changes with the Games, they were too expensive, too elitist, too corporate, too objectionable.
But did the anti-Olympics protest leadership ever attempt to work in good faith with VANOC to improve the Games, to make them more socially and economically responsive?
Or was it bad faith from the beginning? Where they actually trying to hi-jack the international visibility of the Games to develop a political or ideological agenda?
If so, this was not only wrong, but doomed not to succeed -- however laudable these long-term social justice goals are, such bad faith would result in a gaping hole at the core of the anti-Games protest, a hollowness which was bound to be exposed.

Today

Saw Jon Montgomery win gold in skelton -- he didn't let the pressure get to him, and THAT is the gold medal achievement.
And sorry, Russia, but there is no way that Plushenko deserved the men's figure skating gold over Lysacek for landing a quad jump. One comment summed up the differences:

Evan had better spins, faster and more complicated, with more difficult positions. Evan had superior footwork sequences, massively superior transitions and skating difficulty between the jumps and a better choreographed program, while Plushenko stood still and gyrated his hips as if he was Katarina Witt. Evan had BETTER jumps! Aside from the shaky quad combo that Plushenko landed, he was out of position in the air and barely landed several of his jumps. Every single one of Evan's was perfectly clean, including his two triple axels. And Plushenko thinks he should have won because of one jump?

My fault, again

As a baby boomer, I have always been to blame for society's problems.
It was my fault that the United States lost in Vietnam -- all those protests, you know. And it was my fault that disco was invented in the 70s. And when Canadian interest rates reached 20 percent in the 80s, that was my fault too because I was trying to buy a house. And then the tech bubble in the 90s was my fault, because I was all gaga over new technology.
And it was my fault that the Iraq War started -- not enough protests, you know.
So now here's another thing that's my fault -- Canada's grim financial future.
Sorry.

More, more, give us more!

Here it is, day seven and the complaining starts about whether Canada is going to win enough medals.
Yes, our terrific athletes will win lots of medals.
No, as a country we aren't going to beat the Americans or the Germans and maybe not even the Russians or Norwegians either. Finishing fourth would be an excellent finish for Canada and third would be tremendous.
The New York Times has a very interesting graphic about Winter Games Medals which shows how much the US has been improving over the last several Olympics -- not surprising, considering their population, their competitiveness, new sports like snowboard and halfpipe, and the quality of their coaching and athletic facilities. The next country which is going to come to the forefront in medals is China.
And I wouldn't be surprised to see India really start competing in the Olympics someday too.

Olympics grit

In the New York Times Olympics Pictures of the Day, here is this great shot of Jeff Pain during men's skeleton training.



Here's the women's curling team as they defeated Japan -- coming back from a 0-3 deficit.


The inspiring story of today's Olympics was this one:

Slovenia's Petra Majdic said Wednesday's bronze in the women's sprint classic was like an Olympic 'gold with little diamonds' after she suffered a bruising tumble into a rocky stream just before the start.
The 30-year-old fell three metres down a bank and onto rocks after slipping in the warm-up, but still managed to battle through four rounds to finish third behind Norways's Marit Bjoergen and Poland's Justyna Kowalczyk of Poland.
"It was Slovenia's first medal, which is why I think I fought so hard," she said.

Don't hold your breath

Stockwell Day is saying that the government is going to make sacrifices.
Well, unless Day is proposing that politicians cut their own salaries, the people who are actually going to "sacrifice" are us -- and the poor civil servants who work for us.
"Sacrifice" is political code for "screwed".

Best in show

Scottish Terrier Sadie wins the Westminster Best in Show


Now everybody say, Awhhhhhh!

A gold, and an existential gold

Two winning stories in snowboard cross today.
Canadian Maelle Ricker won the snowboard cross gold medal. The backstory is that at the Torino Olympics four years ago, Maelle had also made it to the snowboard cross final, but then she wiped out part way down the hill and wasn't even able to finish.
So this was her comeback year, and she succeeded wonderfully.
But her backstory pales compared to the Epic Fail experience of another snowboarder, American Lindsey Jacobellis. Four years ago, Lindsey was leading by a substantial margin in the snowboard cross final, and she got so excited that she hotdogged the last jump.
And she fell. By the time she got herself back on the course and crossed the finish line, she had dropped to second place, getting silver instead of gold.
So this was to be her comeback year too.
Instead, this year it was her turn to be wiped out part way down the course. This happened in the semi-final, so she didn't even get into the final at all.
But here's what happened next.
Lindsey was in the consolation final, the race nobody televises because the only credit the winner gets is to be listed in fifth place in the record books. And once again, she comes into the final jump, with first place wrapped up.
Now, you would think that this time she would play it safe, she would think twice before risking another stunt.
But once again, in the last jump, she hotdogged it.

And this time, she didn't fall. She aced it.

Being nice to Canadians

ESPN's Rick Reilly has some advice for Americans in Vancouver for the games:

Pretend that you have to plug in your engine block at night to keep it from freezing, too. Makes them feel better.
Go to Tim's (short for "Tim Hortons") and have a double-double (two creams, two sugars) and some Timbits (donut holes) and stand around and talk about curling. This will be a welcome topic. The Canadians are still great at curling.
When referring to Elvis, be sure its Stojko not Presley. If you're talking about acting, don't forget the god of all Canadian thespians -- Lorne Greene from "Bonanza." If your birthday is Aug. 9, always look at the ground, shake your head and add, "The day Wayne was traded."

Gold medal, thanks be to god

Congrats to Alexandre Bilodeau winning the gold in the men's freestyle moguls.
So we can finally move on from that dreary storyline about how Canada hadn't won a gold medal at an Olympics on Canada.
We can get back to the stories complaining about the opening ceremonies. And the venues.
And cue the medal count competition stories . . .
UPDATE: I'm sure Scott is cheering too