So, is everything back to normal down there?

Uh, yeah. These are the three guys who singlehandedly rebuilt the city, in case you forgot.

Well, they add a love story to most disaster movies...

Rural China. Falling scaffolding. A long distance shot of dust rising from the village after the collapse. An overcrowded hospital filled with the victims. Sounds like a GREAT way to advertise for GE, right? There's not any recent events that would make this inappropriate in the slightest! Shit, let's just show this during the Bejing Olympics!

Going for the Gold in Olympics H8ting

While Michael Phelps continues his quest to saturate SportsCenter more than Brett Favre, the US is pointing fingers and shouting "Cheater!, Cheater!" as much as they can. In a groundbreaking anemia-strategy, official Olympic Drug Testing People have apparently taken four pre-race blood samples from one the guys who can out-sprint Tyson Gay. Hey, sprinting is an anerobic exercise, right? Meanwhile the Liberal American Media is doing its best to perpetuate stereotypes by saying that two Gold-medalist Chinese gymnasts look younger than the age minimum of 16. Which brings us back to our innate dislike for arbitrary inefficiency in sport; why is there an age limit? Why aren't the best gymnasts in the world in the Olympics?

The reasons cited for the ban often reference the advantages younger gymnasts have. For one, being lighter and shorter give them a greater ability to throw themselves into the air. Coaches say they are more fearless as well. Both of those sound like excellent reasons to get rid of the age minimum. Among the populace, support for an age limit is often framed in terms of putting the stress and pressure of Olympic competition at a mature age. However, we sincerely doubt that State-run training centers and Tennis dads worldwide put promising underage gymnasts under any kind of more relaxed training than the eligible ones. Furthermore, if gymnasts got their medals out the way at their younger peak, they could get out of the sport earlier, start living a normal life, and just join Cirque du Soleil already. It would save us all the the awkwardness of watching squeaky interviews with puberty-cheating 18 year old medalists.

For more Olympic H8ting, read this.

How Medal Inflation Affects You

Another Olympics, another blowing of loads about Michael Phelps has a chance to break Mark Spitz's record of 7 gold medals. But few question the legitimacy of the events themselves; ones in which the goal is to swim from point A to point B the fastest yet you get more medals if you are talented at less efficient forms of swimming. If speed is the goal, why doesn't everyone just swim as fast as they can, regardless of technique? Similar approaches are not taken in, say, track events; we don't have events like the 100m Sack Race or the 400m Tippy-Toe relay. Since all of these 'strokes' simply require one to be able to go really fast through water, is it really any earthshattering surprise that every 30 years or so some broad-shouldered guy with big hands and feet comes along and beats everyone?

This isn't Bo Knows, or even 'Samardzija-guesses' for that matter. This is a sport with obsolete techniques that need to be propped up by redundant medals in order to be practiced at a world-class level.

Style is a quick tennis player practicing serve and volley while a tall, slow player works on an booming serve. Style is perfecting your most unhittable pitch. It sure isn't giving merit to techniques that are inferior by the standard in which they are judged.

Probably the only thing more asinine than giving multiple medals for different ways of swimming slower than possible is competitive racewalking. Racewalkers are routinely disqualified for employing a method to go faster:

Running.

"Yes Bob, you can see it quite clearly in this video feed -- in the 17th kilometre the winner did in fact have two feet in the air simultaneously"

We suppose that these summer games in general require a suspension of logic and common sense, much like a presidential debate on how to salvage the economy. After all, until they figure out what she is on, we will continue to be subjected to stories of how Dara Torres (the 41 year old mother) is facing unfair scrutiny only because of past chemically-enhanced cheaters. She explains her success in these terms:

1. Amino Acid supplements
2. Better Exercise Techniques
3. Longer Rest Periods Between Workouts To Enhance Recovery
4. A $100,000 Payroll Of Aides To Maximize Performance

To which every fan thinks:

1. Diet and exercise, like Barry Bonds, right?
2. Diet and exercise, like Bill Romanowski, right?
3. Yeah, you work out less and get more chiseled. Happens all the time. Makes total sense.
4. Because hiring people that know how to beat the system isn't cheap.

Her live in boyfriend, David Hoffman, is an endocrinologist. You know, the branch of medicine that deals with hormones and would be privy to new hormone treatments that aren't tested for yet in competitive sports. The second lie we are fed is her supposed hottness; other than the A-Rod types that are into that sort of thing, most guys aren't turned on by bulging veins and the most defined jawline this side of Michael Douglas.

We hate the Olympics, by the way.