-TSS-

There was an interesting article in a newspaper how the Republicans keep on banging on about the states' rights and federal infringement of those rights. "Leave the states alone" is the campaign-motto of many republicans. However, when it comes to issues such as abortion and gay marriage it is the very same republicans who demand that the federal government must prohibit such horrendous things from happening anywhere, no matter what the states think.

Both the Moscow-games in 1980 and the LA-games in 1984 were both tainted by the boycotts. The latter boycott was nothing short of a tit-for-tat reaction. Did Canada boycott Moscow? I think they did. Some countries did go there but under the olympic flag, which in my opinion is just rubbish. You either go there or you don't. There is no sitting on the fence. The LA-games and the boycott of those games destroyed weight-lifting and wrestling and some athletic sports as well. A Finn called Juha Tiainen won the hammer gold-medal in LA. Had all the Russian and other East-Europeans been there he would have struggled to make it to the top 10.

Perhaps so but all the olympic athletes are picked by their respective national olympic committees to represent the country so they can take some credit as well, can't they?

China now two gold medals ahead of the USA by 31-29. The UK will be third in the medal-table, Korea is trailing them by seven gold medals, which is too much. 70 countries have won medals thus far so about 2/3 of the participating countries have yet to win their first medal. Most of them can't do it. If you live in a country which gets umpteen medals you easily lose the sense of perspective how hard it is to win even one medal.

The Moscow and LA-games were both very weird ones because of the boycotts. A Finn won the hammer final in LA, which was really rubbish as he would have struggled to make it to the top 10 had all the Eastern-Europeans been there.

Never mind Spain. India, the planet's second most populous country, has a medal-tally of 9-5-8. Or Pakistan, another very large country, 3-3-4. Not al the countries are dependant on sporting achievements as a major source of their national identity. Actually, China is undergoing a similar phase now as did the former Soviet Union or East-Germany in the past where sporting achievements are something to boast about. Probably China will also mature in the future.

2008, credit crunch, George W Bush. Need one say more?

I think this year's election is a delicious one as the candidates can truly be considered left and right. However, it must be said that only in America of all the developed nations in the world could someone with policies and a mindset of Romney even dream of getting elected. I often read the British political and economics magazine the Economist and even though they with their pro neo-liberal views are as far apart from my own as could be they hit the nail on the head by saying that the American conservatives are hypocrites as they want to pursue a small state taxation government but want to cling onto a big state spending government. That is the dilemma they seem not to get over no matter how decades are running past.

You are probably referring to the boxing-match where the Japanese guy practically beat the hell out of his opponent who was on the floor for five times but yet the referee raised the underdog's hand as a sign of victory at the end. The thing which puzzles me is did the score-counters really get the japanese guy's opponent to win the match? After all, the referee does not decide who wins a match, it is the score-counters.

Indeed, I forgot about boxing. The olympic games are often a stepping stone for boxers as they enter their professional careers.

Are there any other sports at olympic games than tennis and soccer of which it can be said that winning the olympic gold will never be considered the most prestigious achievement of the sport? Well, I guess the US basketball-players may not price winning the olympic gold as high as winning the NBA-title but that must be because the US are miles ahead of others at basketball.

wasn't it in the original rules of basketball that when you donked the ball into the basket you were not allowed to touch the basket or the basket would be disallowed? Nowadays it seems that the donkers always stay hanging onto the basket for 2-3 seconds.

I'm glad that athletics finally begins. Watching swimming, fencing, judo or archery is fun for a couple of days every four years but in athletics there are likely to be races which you still remember one week after the olympics are over.

It has become very obvious that hosting the olympic-games is a very bad business for the host-city and host-country. Ironically the last olympic games which yielded some economic profit were the Atlanta games 16 years ago and those games have been branded as the most soulless and boring games ever. The Sydney games four years later were considered very warm-spirited and good games but turned out to be a financial disaster. One doesn't even need to begin to talk about the Athens games in 2004. Actually, Barcelona still has not sorted out the debt caused by the olympic games in that city 20 years ago. Despite all that the big cities in the world compete fiercely for the opportunity to host the games. It really beats me why. I understand that for cities like Seoul or Atlanta hosting the games is an opportunity to become better-known in the world but that argument surely does not hold for London. Very often the fancy facilities built for the games become useless after the games are over. I think in the future the games should be awarded to cities where those facilities already exist and the requirements for those facilities don't ned to be that strict that they must the state-of-the-art or the newest new.

I understand that fencing is one sport which requires some expertise from the spectator as well in order for there to be any point in watching that sport.

I think it is rubbish to consider some swimmer or gymnast the best athlete of the olympic games if he/she wins seven gold medals as in those sports there are so many events which makes it possible to win that many golds. I don't mean to belittle winning seven golds, of course not, but such an athlete is not necessarily a better athlete than someone who only has an opportunity to win one gold medal like wrestlers, weight-lifters etc.

When I investigated the earlier olympic records it turned out to be so that in the 1976 games Canada was the first ever and only since host-country which failed to win a single gold-medal. That is unlikely ever to be repeated as in the future only the big countries can afford to host the olympic games.

It's all pretence anyway. Lying to infidels is not a sin in the muslim theology.

There was an interesting article in the Economist edition July 7-13th about Canadian politics. The article concluded that Harper is really losing the grip.

I must have missed a news-story.

Obama is not going to get all the delegates behind him in the Democratic-convention. The voters in one county in West-Virginia considered an incarcerated felon running for the party-nomination a better choice than the incumbent president.

The Dutch elections later this autumn can throw another nail in the coffin of the euro. Indeed, it sems the euro-sceptics are riding strong in the opinion polls.

Do you get more points in the immigration-process if you promise to settle and work in Nunavut instead of Toronto?

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. The Queen of England is as much the head of state of Canada as Barack Obama is that of the USA.

The problem is that the people of the republican-movement only agree on that the British monarchy should be done away with as head of state. That's where their unanimity ends. They disagree fundamentally on what kind of a republic should be put in place. When the issue went to a referendum in Australia 13 years ago, the then PM Howard played on the division of the republicans as he himself supported monarchy.