How Fared the 2021 Olympics?

Well, all things considered the United States fared rather well at the Tokyo shindig (via Deepa Shivaram and Mandalit del Barco at NPR):

After 17 days of competition at the Tokyo Olympics, the United States finished with the most medals won overall and the most gold medals, with its 39 golds just barely beating out China, which won 38.

On the last day of the Games, the U.S. women's volleyball team secured the 39th gold medal, beating out Brazil to win the country's first gold in the sport.

Team USA is taking home 113 medals. In addition to their gold medals, U.S. athletes won 41 silver and 33 bronze medals. China, which was also second in total medals won, is bringing home 88 medals, including 32 silver and 18 bronze.

U.S. women won 66 medals — more than half of the U.S. team's tally. According to the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, if the American women were a separate country, they would have ranked fourth in the world in terms of how many Olympic medals they won...

And to hell with trump anti-patriotic dismissal of our women athletes. USA! USA! USA!

There was, to be honest, a lot of concern going into these events that we were going to witness a massive COVID-19 super-spreader event. I had spelled out an argument for cancelling these games in fear of the pandemic:

While a majority of the athletes may be vaccinated, and most of the on-site workers as well, that's no guarantee of complete immunity. The vaccines help in reducing the harmful effects, and reduces the likelihood of spreading the virus further, but there's still odds that COVID could spread and affect far too many athletes to effectively hold the sporting events...

But we're risking the reality that too many athletes intermingle - it's one of the few joys of this international event for them - and they're bound to become vectors of the pandemic towards each other. Even with Tokyo refusing to provide solid beds and condoms to discourage the sex that happens each Olympics, there's other ways of socializing and moments during competition when COVID can spread in an instant. And then you'll have hundreds sick all at once, unable to participate and likely infecting those still unvaccinated.

The Olympics organizers might be praying to every deity in the phone book, and it WILL take divine intervention to make sure most of the Olympians survive this summer...

Still a little too early to know which Gods deigned to provide good health to our global athletes, and an honest reckoning of what COVID did pop up at the games should matter (PDF via the Olympics.com website): It's looking so far that they had 33 athletes/coaches and about 105 workers test positive up to August 6.

We should also note it takes at least five days to two weeks for a Positive test to show, so not until next week should we consider these Olympics as any level of success against the pandemic.

Here's to another week or so to praying to the Sports Gods on this.

Also, another two months of praying to the Baseball Gods that the Tampa Bay Rays win the AL East again and make a serious return to the World Series. What? I gotta root for my home team, be true to your school, peeps. 

The Wreck in Quebec Falls Mainly On trump's Dreck.

To the seven people who follow this blog, you've no doubt realized I express only the greatest DISDAIN and HATRED towards Loser of the Popular Vote donald trump.

That I view trump as a con artist, a thief, a bankrupt businessman who doesn't know thing one about actual business/finance, a racist douchenozzle, ignorant, ill-read, ill-informed, just plain ill.

That I knew trump would be a train wreck in the White House, that he would shred every norm, break any law, betray every ally, if it meant filling his own pockets and satisfying his own Id (his Ego too subsumed by narcissism to be of any value anymore).

This weekend trump went to the G7 meeting, a gathering of the top economic powerhouses - U.S., Great Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, and Canada (with UK/France/Germany/Italy as part of the EU) - to coordinate current trade and finance issues and plan for long-term economic stability.

With trump already issuing tariffs aimed at Canada and Europe, the threat of escalating a trade war was a major topic. With trump going to these meetings with open disdain for certain discussions and a refusal to respect anyone else's opinions, this was looking like a bad weekend for the global economy.

Well, yeah. It may have actually gotten worse.

Let us refer over to this other Paul, fellow by the name of Krugman with a noted reputation for knowing economics. Hey, Paul, this is Paul here, alright if I quote you right now from your New York Times piece? Thanks, Paul:

...Still, there has never been a disaster like the G7 meeting that just took place. It could herald the beginning of a trade war, maybe even the collapse of the Western alliance. At the very least it will damage America’s reputation as a reliable ally for decades to come; even if Trump eventually departs the scene in disgrace, the fact that someone like him could come to power in the first place will always be in the back of everyone’s mind.

What went down in Quebec? I’m already seeing headlines to the effect that Trump took a belligerent “America first” position, demanding big concessions from our allies, which would have been bad. But the reality was much worse.

He didn’t put America First; Russia First would be a better description. And he didn’t demand drastic policy changes from our allies; he demanded that they stop doing bad things they aren’t doing. This wasn’t a tough stance on behalf of American interests, it was a declaration of ignorance and policy insanity.

Trump started with a call for readmitting Russia to the group, which makes no sense at all. The truth is that Russia, whose GDP is about the same size as Spain’s and quite a bit smaller than Brazil’s, was always a ringer in what was meant to be a group of major economies. It was brought in for strategic reasons, and kicked out when it invaded Ukraine. There is no possible justification for bringing it back, other than whatever hold Putin has on Trump personally.

Then Trump demanded that the other G7 members remove their “ridiculous and unacceptable” tariffs on U.S. goods – which would be hard for them to do, because their actual tariff rates are very low. The European Union, for example, levies an average tariff of only three percent on US goods. Who says so? The U.S. government’s own guide to exporters...

Was there any strategy behind Trump’s behavior? Well, it was pretty much exactly what he would have done if he really is Putin’s puppet: yelling at friendly nations about sins they aren’t committing won’t bring back American jobs, but it’s exactly what someone who does want to break up the Western alliance would like to see...

I doubt our own economic leaders - business CEOs, Wall Street, major investors - are going to be thrilled that the economic system they've known for the past 50 years or more is about to go into the dumpster fire. Any advantages trump and his handlers think they have trying to bully other nations into serving their (not ours) whims aren't there. Yes, the U.S. economy is too massive to wage war against. Yes, a trade war would hurt the other G7 members more than it would hurt America.

But don't forget Machiavelli's maxim about Fear and Love: The real trick for a Prince is to avoid being HATED, because once your opponents and underlings reach that stage they will pay any price driven by that hate to destroy you.

Our staunchest and longest-serving allies neither fear nor love trump at this moment: They Hate him now. If they fear anything, it's the likelihood of kleptocrat/dictator/real victor of the trade wars - Putin - getting everything he wants including the dissolution of a united Europe.

Getting into a trade war with the United States is one thing: All of Europe has to be wary now that Russia will escalate their manipulations of local "populist" movements to disrupt their elections and destabilize their governments. Any of which is possible when economic downturns caused by the trade war make most nations turn on each other in rage and confusion.

Still, for all Putin is getting out of this chaos, the one truly enjoying all of this has to be trump. This fulfills his sociopathy. Convinced that the world is his to own and destroy, he will now take his pleasure in burning it all down.

trump: "Everything burns."

We as a planet are so royally fucked.

I Read The News Today, Oh Boy: March 2011 Edition

There's just been so many things going on that it's hard to get an essay-length discussion going on any of them:

1) In the foreign news: there's the earthquake in Japan.  The earthquake alone proved survivable - all those regulations for construction pay off - but nothing seemed to prepare people for the tsunami that followed.  What's worse, the tsunami caused damage at two different nuclear reactors (reactors have to be near water sources for coolant), one of which had a hydrogen gas explosion... which kinda leaves one with the feeling of OH F----CCCCCCKKKKKKKKK!

2) In the Middle East: most of the peoples' uprisings have led to what is happening now in Libya.  Because Qaddafi was not the kind of dictator to run for it when the going got good, it basically exploded into a civil war... which is going badly for the rebel forces that had existed for some time there because of two things.  The rebels were never that well-organized and the pro-Qaddafi forces have airplanes as an advantage.  The push to enforce a No-Fly zone as a way for the Western and Arab League nations to level the playing field against a hated dictator (without the loss of our own forces in the deal) has been debated but not resolved.  Because enforcing the No-Fly requires risk, and the Western powers that would have to pay that risk are still a bit squeamish about it.  No one is going to actually do it until a nation (uh, France?  England?) ups and volunteers their own air force to do the job. (Guess what, everyone's waiting on the U.S. to do it... again...)


3) Here at home: the Republican-held state governments are still screwing us over.  Going after the unions won't fix state deficits.  Cutting our schools' funding won't help families.  And gaining the power to take control of city governments you "claim" as "bankrupt" just so you can have privatized forces seize the towns and remove legally elected officials doesn't help the economy, it only destroys our rights as voters and citizens.

4) And the Republicans' budget plans at the federal level?  A new study released today from Moody's - not the most reliable source ever since their ratings scandals from a few years back, but trusted when it comes to gauging honest-to-God economic impacts - reveals that the GOP plan of spending cuts would cost this nation about 700,000 jobs.  They are the third professional or "qualified" source - including Goldman Sachs (not a librul institution), and the GAO - that has determined the GOP plan as a "job-killer".

Considering our unemployment woes are at CRISIS level in this country - in both depth of unemployment and its' prolonged negative impact - the last thing we need are MORE UNEMPLOYED.  Remember how the Republicans campaigned that they were gonna create jobs?!  THEY LIED.

5) Also, sports.  The NFL players and owners failed to agree on a CBA, so they went into Decertified Union/Lockout mode.  Thing is, because of the Lockout the owners can't hire "replacement" players, so both sides have incentive to get a deal done.  Let's just hope the third party in all this - the FANS - don't get screwed with higher ticket prices.

6) Oh, and Breitbart and his protegee O'Keefe are total jerks.  How bad are they?  GLENN BECK's people are calling bullsh-t on O'Keefe's "expose" on NPR.  When the batsh-t crazy guy is calling you out for lying... and proving it... you have got serious issues.

Breitbart Delendus Est.