Almost all athletic activities have an age where participants are at their "prime." Baseball players are generally at their best around 27-30. Female tennis players seem to excel under 20. The difference is that these sports have rules under which athletes of a certain age may have an advantage. I would have no issue with gymnastics if younger girls were objectively better at the skills the sport is supposed to include...jumping, tumbling, vaulting, etc. But, gymnastics is scored in a more subjective manner where judges evaluate performance. If the judges are looking for perfect pre-pubescent specimens instead of the perfect vault or beam performance, as this post suggests, then we have a problem

This guy has always seemed slick and deceptive and it turns out that he is.

BUT PEOPLE, STOP DEFENDING HIM. Yes, his personal life is his business but he took money donated to his campaign (possibly from many Salon readers) and spent $100,000 of it on sex. Look at the videos that were put together for the $100K. Talk about an amateur with a miniDV camera and iMovie. You thought you were donating to his campaign against poverty and you were sponsoring his ego-driven extra-marital activities.

This is the problem with so much of politics. Politicians polarize us to support or attack certain issues or causes while they use our money and votes to stroke their egos, abuse their power and support their lives of privilege. They are all playing a shell game where they get the public worked up about issues they care little about while they go about their lives focusing on nobody but themselves.

'The cancer was in remission.'

'I didn't love her.'

'I was 99% truthful in denying The Enquirer story.'

He's been mincing words and parsing this thing to death.

The only truth he told was that he is ego-centric and narcissistic. The ironic part is that we were all told to dismiss that youtube video of him adjusting his hair for 4 minutes. It turns out that video was the best view we got of his true personality.

This guy collected money from donors to support his efforts to fight poverty. He took some of that money and essentially spent it on sex. Those of use who took one look at Edwards and felt that he could be thrown farther than he could be trusted were right on the money.

Remember, Hillary Clinton was a huge favorite in the year leading up to Iowa. She had the most money and the biggest name recognition. Many of the votes for other candidates at that point were anti-Clinton votes as much as anything else. Had Edwards been out of the race at that point, I imagine most of his supporters would have lined up with Obama or one of the also-rans.

There may have been some Edwards support that would have shifted to Clinton but that would be the subset of Democrats who like their sleaze and double-talk piled on thick.

I find the ads that Fox "animates" below the backstop during MLB broadcasts much more objectionable. Presenting these ads as if they actually appear in the stadium is deceptive and cheap. Let them pony up the bucks to actually install their signage in each venue. They're even too cheap to do the programming so that these ads appear from all their cameras angles. I get so annoyed with the way the ads appear when we see the center field camera angle and then disappear when any other camera gets a view of the backstop. So annoyed in fact that I've lately been distracted from how poorly my Yankees have been playing.

I've found the beach volleyball fairly entertaining but I agree that a variety of other sports (including indoor volleyball) would make for a better couple weeks of prime time TV. Sure we can get the other sports on some of the other channels (during our daytime only) and online, but the choices made for prime time programming tell us a lot about NBC and ourselves.

As for any suspicions I've had about the relationship between the coverage and the uniforms, they were confirmed by the link to the photos illustrating the hand signals on nbcolympics.com provided by an earlier commenter. Thank you for sharing.

Finally, I will start watching the diving when I get to see the divers (synchronized or solo) spend more time in the air than in the shower. The only way I see this happening is if they find some cliff divers and install some coin-operated showers.

I'm sure that there have been and will be many gay marriages that can serve as fine examples of enduring love and commitment. I wish nothing but the best for DeGeneres and de Rossi but a quick glance at the tabloids should be more than enough to warn us not to look to Hollywood to provide those examples.