wright5579 writes:

And then Cheng Fei has one of the worst falls of the whole olympics, and probably the greatest choke job of the games so far (see what nerves do when you're actually over 14?), and we see one obscure overhead replay (and she wins the f'ing bronze!).

Those who harp on the age issue of the Chinese gymnasts are instantly marked as jingos. Enough. Here is why it is wrong:

• There is no proof of the accusations. Come back when you or someone else digs up actual proof. Constantly making unfounded accusations is contrary to our professed American values (you know, fairness, innocent until proven guilty, etc.).
• The nonsense that those under 14 feel no nerves. I have a child and have coached U10 soccer and I can definitely assure all and sundry that they feel performance anxiety and nerves. Any parent knows this.
• It therefore follows that there is no proof that being underage confers a competitive advantage.
• It's tedious and makes us look like a nation of sour-grape whiners.

So put a sock in it already.

There are ties in soccer. After overtime is completed, if the scores are still the same, a tie is declared.

If a tournament (World Cup, Euro, etc.) uses a tie-breaker such as overtime then there is no tie. If the score is the same after overtime is completed the match moves to penalty kicks to decide the winner. Virtually all leagues allow ties in the context of the regular season, where matches are played to accumulate points, and the prize being decided is not the current match but the league title. If teams are tied for that at the end of the season tie-breakers are used: head-to-head, goal differential etc. (Click my sig for a recent and prominent example.) To my knowledge no soccer league or tournament allows co-champions, which is what we're talking about here.

The problem with tie-breakers is that they can never please anyone. To be judged fair a tie-breaker should be seen to pick the deserved winner. But since the contestants are tied in the first place the deserved winner is not obvious. I have no problems with He as the winner. Both contestants were competing under the same rules, and that is how the cookie crumbled. All the whining from the American side about the result is tendentious since it would never have occurred if Liukin had won the tie-breaker.

So Obama wants experience, and is tapping Biden for it. This is a man that wanted war with Iraq, and wants war with Iran. Is that the kind of experience Obama needs on his ticket? Is that how Obama hopes to set himself apart from McCain, who touts the exact same kind of "experience"?

I am disappointed by this choice. I see it as a big FY to the voters who are aching for something different, for an end to the stupid, juvenile foreign policy that Biden advocates, a foreign policy whose signature achievement is a wasteful perpetual war that only serves to enrich the rich.

This is just more of the same "move-to-the-center" strategy that has won the Democrats so many Presidential elections in the past.

Why was the Denver Police even involved? What crime was being committed? The Denver Police is a taxpayer funded entity whose function is to serve and protect the public. What where they doing serving as security for these private actors?

We see here what the true role of the police is: to keep the unwashed masses in line with the wishes of the established elite. If anyone has a better explanation please clue me in.

"I have no particular love for the idealized 'worker' as he appears in the bourgeois Communist's mind, but when I see an actual flesh-and-blood worker in conflict with his natural enemy, the policeman, I do not have to ask myself which side I am on."

--George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia

Nancy Ott writes:

An entire chorus of people predicted that this sort of thing would happen, but Monsanto went ahead with their Roundup resistant plants anyhow. Of course, they won't be the ones who'll suffer.

Yup. Got that right. Those who oppose genetically modified foods, crops, etc. have been ridiculed and called every nasty name in the book. But they may be right, whaddayaknow.

My biggest objection to gimmicks like GM and irradiated foods is that they mask fundamentally unsound practices. In the case of irradiated foods, poor hygienic practices in processing plants. And in the case of GM, what we see here: monoculture on a grand scale. The only one who makes out here is Monsanto, laughing all the way to the bank. But then that's all the Green Revolution ever did well: make the rich richer and put small farmers out of business.

Times & Democrat:

Each female produces as many as 500,000 seedlings, meaning just one plant can birth an entire field.

Delta Farm Press:

The rapid spread of the resistance has "absolutely shocked" [University of Tennessee weed specialist] Larry Steckel.

This weed sounds like the fruit-fly of the plant world. How is it that Larry Steckel is "absolutely shocked" when a plant that can leave half a million seedlings in its wake shows off it's quick evolutionary moves?

had_enough says:

I hope those kids sue the shit out of the police, and the state, and collect some nice money, and a few people lose their jobs. That'd help.

That's why our wonderful establishment wants "tort-reform": to take away the last vestiges of recourse a citizen still has.

This is a blatant misuse of publicly funded law-enforcement to squash political dissent. Americans of all political persuasions must protest this. And the good people of Minnesota need to hold their "public servants" accountable.