Olympics and other small things

i'm a bit bored tonight so hey.

Olympics!

NBC was brilliant in posting pretty much every god damn thing imaginable on the internet. most of them dont even have commentary, which is great for a lot of the sports i watch. listening to someone explain what right of way or a back row attack are to the audience like their a bunch of four year olds gets really annoying really fast.

which is completely unfair to kevin barnett, one of the commentators for indoor volleyball, who is hilarious. karch on the other hand annoys the hell out of me. its just his tone of voice.

i love indoor volleyball, particularly the mens game. its a fast-action testosterone-filled competition that makes for great spectating in my opinion. but maybe i just have so much fun because i can imagine doing that the guys on the court are doing (but only imagine).

the best part about the phelps thing is how classy he's been. 8 medals is definitely impressive, but on the other hand its a little bit like giving out medals for soccer competitions of 10 mins, 20 mins, 30 mins... the point being most other atheletes simply dont have the opportunity to win more than one medal every 4 years, particularly those in team sports. but he's won with such class that i definitely support him.

non-sports!

never has it been more clear in recent history just how limited the US's power actually is. "Hey, Russia invaded Georgia! what can we do about it?"

nothing.

but this is an excellent article on that subject by someone extremely more knowledgable than me on that topic. i frankly think we should start minding our own damn business as much as possible, and i hope barack agrees.

it will surprise precisely no one who knows me that this statement really pisses me off:

Warren did say, though, he couldn't vote for an atheist. "An atheist says, 'I don't need God,'" Warren said. "They're saying, 'I'm totally self-sufficient in myself,' and nobody's self-sufficient enough to be president -- it's too big a job.

the quote is from here

its remarkable how little some religious people think of people in general. apparenlty we're not capable of governing ourselves (even in a completely and utterly incompetent fashion as demonstrated by the current administration) without some benevolent supernatural force.

benevolent to us anyway. my interpretation of that sentence (and i suppose its possible that i'm wrong) is that Warren thinks god is on our side. so lets break it down:

1) people can't run their own countries without God's help (we must be too stupid.)
2) God is on our side, since he's helping out our president. why did he choose america? i dunno, perhaps he flipped a coin. its a good thing we were all born here anyway, because that mere accident makes us better than everyone else.

blech. as always, my biggest problem with religions: they serve to draw distinct "us" vs "them" lines. they further a tribalisitic mentality that we would do much better as a global society to leave in the prehistoric age where it belongs.