The Third Best Palin

I know as much about these others as I know about Sarah Palin, which is to say next to nothing. But if John McCain was looking for a woman governor to run with, there are two others who seem superior to Palin. Jodi Rell of Connecticut has been governor for four years and was lieutenant governor before that. She is even married to a former navy pilot. She's popular and has been re-elected. Problem is: she's considered a liberal Republican.

Or McCain could have gone to the other extra-continental state, Hawaii, and picked Linda Lingle. Lingle was elected in a very Democratic state, unlike Alaska. Lingle served as Maui County mayor, councilmember, and chaired the Hawaii GOP. As of November 20, 2006, her approval rating stood at 71% with only 24% disapproval, according to Answers.com. But Lingle is jewish. So picking either Lingle or Rell would, in a way, have been a slap at McCain BFFL Joe Lieberman.

How do you say Quayle in Alaskan: Palin

It's wrong to say that McCain picking Palin is like Bush I picking Quayle. Palin is more like someone Quayle would pick.

I expect that there will be some sort of scandal or gaffe will force Palin off the ticket before long.

At least everyone will have a compelling interest in keeping McCain, 72, healthy and alive.

Historically nuts.

80,000

It's fantastic that Obama can get 80,000 folks to a political rally. It's obvious that he has a huge lead in enthusiasm. And maybe McCain can't get 10,000 or ven 5,000 to his events. But here's the thing: an unenthusiastic, even apathetic vote counts just as much as a heartfelt one. Maybe it shouldn't. But it does.

We are Family -- or Maybe Not

Why did the Democratic Convention change the lyrics of "We Are Family"?

The lyric written by Sister Sledge goes:

We are family
I got all my sisters with me
We are family
Get up ev'rybody and sing

The convention changed it to:

We are family
I got everybody with me...

Is "sisters" too black?

Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State

Since Barack Obama selected Joe Biden (and before that too) the party faithful and the pundits have mused mightily about why he did not select Hillary Clinton instead. After all, she is the only one out there with a large base of voters. To me the answers are obvious: (1) After the strain of the primaries, Obama just did not like Hillary; (2) choosing Clinton would show weakness, not strength in that Obama would seem to need Clinton and would be overshadowed by both Hillary and Bill Clinton; (3) the Republicans would be able to run ad after ad of the VP candidate attacking Obama. They already did this truck with Biden, but with Clinton it would be much, much worse.

Because Hillary Clinton does have support and because she is very smart and knowledgeable, Obama should give her something else: Secretary of State. If Obama announced this appointment at the convention, it would mollify and energize Clinton's supporters. And, more important, Clinton would be a great representative of the U.S. to the world. It would be a great appointment.

The Real Olympic Medal Count

The Olympic medal count is unofficial, not something officially recognized by the International Olympic Committee. Still, the count is universally reported and widely known. (Even the IOC puts the count for each games on its web site, but says: "The International Olympic Committee (IOC) does not recognise global ranking per country; the medal tables are displayed for information only.") Officially, medals are awarded to individuals, though these individuls do represent national teams.

During the Cold War, Americans fretted they were losing ground to the Soviet Union, which won the medal race between 1972 and 1992, after which the USSR team broke up into teams representing Russia and the various former republics. (The USSR itself disbanded before 1992, but in the 1992 Barcelona games, there was a "Unified Team" of the ex-Soviet Union.)

Unofficial though it may be, the medal count is of great interest to Americans and other nations. This year, the U.S. won the count with 110 medals, though China scored by far the most golds. If the counting is to be done, there should be some division along with the arithmetic. Huge nations like China and the U.S. will naturally best smaller countries like Cuba or Australia. But if one divides the totals by population, a far different standing emerges. Here is a medal count that includes the 37 nations that won at least six medals, divided by population. (It's hard to read in blogspot, but the last column is the he number of medals won per million people in each nation listed.)

Rank Country GOLD SILVER BRONZE TOTAL POP. (millions) Medals per Million
1 Jamaica 6 3 2 11 3 3.667
2 New Zealand 3 1 5 9 4 2.250
3 Australia 14 15 17 46 21 2.190
4 Cuba 2 11 11 24 11 2.182
5 Armenia 0 0 6 6 3 2.000
6 Norway 3 5 2 10 5 2.000
7 Belarus 4 5 10 19 10 1.900
8 Georgia 3 0 3 6 4 1.500
9 Netherlands 7 5 4 16 11 1.455
10 Denmark 2 2 3 7 5 1.400
11 Slovakia 3 2 1 6 5 1.200
12 Hungary 3 5 2 10 10 1.000
13 Azerbaijan 1 2 4 7 8 0.875
14 Kazakhstan 2 4 7 13 15 0.867
15 Britain 19 13 15 47 61 0.770
16 Switzerland 2 0 4 6 8 0.750
17 South Korea 13 10 8 31 48 0.646
18 France 7 16 17 40 64 0.625
19 Czech Republic 3 3 0 6 10 0.600
20 Ukraine 7 5 15 27 46 0.587
21 Russia 23 21 28 72 142 0.507
22 Germany 16 10 15 41 82 0.500
23 Italy 8 10 10 28 60 0.467
24 Spain 5 10 3 18 46 0.391
25 Romania 4 1 3 8 21 0.381
26 Kenya 5 5 4 14 38 0.368
27 United States 36 38 36 110 305 0.361
28 Poland 3 6 1 10 38 0.263
29 North Korea 2 1 3 6 24 0.250
30 Uzbekistan 1 2 3 6 27 0.222
31 Japan 9 6 10 25 128 0.195
32 Argentina 2 0 4 6 40 0.150
33 Canada 3 9 6 18 128 0.141
34 Turkey 1 4 3 8 71 0.113
35 Ethiopia 4 1 2 7 79 0.089
36 Brazil 3 4 8 15 186 0.081
37 China 51 21 28 100 1326 0.075

Jamaica, with just three million people and 11 medals, not surprisingly wins this medal count thanks to the strength of Usain Bolt and its amazing sprinters. Small but sports mad New Zealand, Australia and Cuba come in second third and fourth.

Among the big nations, Russia does best with just over a half medal per million in population, followed by the U.S. China comes in last.

Of course there are many ways to sort the results, and none of them are fair. No matter how many people there may be in the U.S., it can still field just one basketball team and one team in each of the relays. China can only field one gymnastics team and one ping pong squad, though if China or the U.S. could field more athletes, it would win even more prizes. But it still seems to me that there has to be some accounting for population or other metrics. That's when the true sports powers emerge.

USA Olympic Hoops: Clueless in the half-court

Watching the first half or USA v. Argentina, it is startling to see how clueless the U.S. team is in any half-court offense situation.  Whenever they are five-on-five, the U.S. players stand around and maybe pass the ball on the perimeter.  They don't cut to the basket; the don't move without the ball; they don't post up.  Unless someone throws up a three-point shot, the USA seems at least as likely to turn the ball over as to score (or even get a shot off).

By slowing the game down, Argentina was able to cut a 20-point deficit to six.  Of course, these failures are endemic to NBA basketball.  If it weren't for their huge advantages in steals and rebounding (especially offensive rebounding) the team would be in trouble.

Olympic Magic Marker

Am I crazy or were the letters 'USA' on the U.S. relay team bibs written in magic marker?  That's how it looked.  The other teams had printed letters on their bibs.  Is this symbolic of lack of training for the race?

 

Olympics: a history of dropping the baton

It's basically ridiculous to link national fortunes to Olympic success, but the fact that both the U.S. sprinters, both the the men and the women, dropped the baton in the first round of the 4 x 100 meter relay gives me the chills.

It's hardly the first time.

The U.S. men dropped the baton in the 2005 World Championships.

Some history from Sports Illustrated:

At the 1995 Worlds in Gothenburg, Sweden, John Drummond and the very
inexperienced Tony McCall botched the second handoff in the first round and
the U.S. team did not advance. At the 1997 Worlds, the very inexperienced
Brian Lewis and Tim Montgomery botched the first handoff and the U.S. team
did not
advance. (We won't even mention a similar problem at the 1988
Olympics in Seoul,
because that was a very long time ago).

S.I. attributes the pattern to inexperienced runners. But no one who make an Olympic team is inexperienced. They have all run in college and in high school and before that and after that internationally. It's unsettling. Perhaps because dropping the baton is a metaphor for a big mistake in life. And despite Jamaica and Usain Bolt, the U.S. is so deep in sprinting (as in basketball) that its should never lose a relay, but it often does by making mistakes that high school kids should not make. Maybe other countries have the same problem and we just don't notice. I don't know. But we notice when we do it and it take us back.

Olympics: Phelps Double Counting and Phony Medals

No one can say that Michael Phelps is not a great swimmer. But best Olympian ever? The fact is Phelps basically does two events, but gets eight medals out of it. He sets world records while winning, but so does nearly every other gold-medal swimmer. It's a function of technology: the new swimsuits and the faster pool:

Here are Phelps's races-- basically the 100 and 200 meter freestyle or butterfly four times over:

1. 100-meter butterfly: Phelps swims 100 meters using the butterfly stroke (a stupid stroke, which no one would swim if the goal was to get across water)

2. 400 freestyle relay: Phelps swims 100 meters freestyle

3. 400 individual medley: Phelps swims 100 meters butterfly and 100 meters breastsroke; with two other strokes

4. 200 butterfly: same as 1 and 3, only longer

5. 200 freestyle: same as 2, only longer

6. 200 individual medley: butterfly and freestyle, with backstroke and breaststroke tacked on

7. 800 freestyle relay: same as 4

8. 400 medley relay: Phelps swims 100 meters butterfly, same as 1

Three of the medals are in relays, so he is down to five. (Spitz won relays, too, as did Carl Lewis, but only one.) Really Phelps deserve three medals: the 100 meter butterfly, 200 meter butterfly and 200 meter freestyle. He is not the best at anything else. As for the medleys, no other sport has them. Indeed no other sport has strokes. (Who invented the butterfly?) It's as if Usain Bolt was entered in the 100 meters-while-waiving plus the straight 100 meters.

This double counting is especially annoying given the presence of the dolphin kinc, which is used in every race regardless of stroke. On the initial dive and with every turn, the swimmers abandon the assigned stroke and scurry under the water. As the announcers made clear, Phelps gets a tremendous advantage from the dolphin kick. Maybe they should add that stroke.

USA Olympic Basketball: Great but not Good

USA basketball seems to be back on track, winning games by 30 or more. The difference is the players seem to have remembered how to shoot. When I last looked at the numbers for the Wall Street Journal in 2003, NBA teams were shooting on average 44% from the field, an all-time low. Last year, they averaged 46%. While the U.S. team actually shot poorly early in the 2008 Olypic tournament, against Australia the team shot 57% from the field and 41% from three-point range en route to a 116-85 blowout.

Compare these numbers to the 2002 World Basketball Championship, in which NBA pros placed a shocking sixth. Americans dominated statistically in nearly every category. They finished at or near the top in rebounds, assists, steals, blocked shots, even scoring. The one exception: shooting. There the U.S. tied for fifth. Medalists Yugoslavia, Argentina, and Germany all shot better. Now the U.S. is shooting well, too, except from the free-throw line, where they still stink.

Of course, the improve shooting percentage is aided by the number of dunks generated by steals and offensive rebounds, in which the much quicker and stronger NBA players excel. If you watch the Redeem Team try to generate a good shot from a set half-court offense, they still flounder, not knowing how to move the ball or hit the open man nearly as well as the top European squads. (I wonder how a team of white Americans would fare? Team USA is all African-American.) Good thing for them, they don't have to rely on half-court fundamentals to win.

Olympics: the Great Saytiev

Michael Phelps has been hailed as the greatest Olympian on the strength of his eight gold medals. Phelps is great, no doubt about it, and I guess he is the greatest swimmer. But basing conclusions on medal counts is ridiculous. Swimmers by nature can get multiple medals. There are four races at some of the same distances using different strokes. The same guy can get three four medals by doing the same 100 or 200 meter freestyle: two individual races, the freestyle relay and medly relays. The result is multiple medal winners proliferate. Just this year, at least 30 swimmers won more than one medal. Five swimmers won at least four medals.
Compare that to track and field where just two men (Jesse Owens and Carl Lewis) have ever won four medals in the same games. And a wrestler or boxer can win just one. There are no relays, leta alone multiple relays, to boost the medal total. So counting medals by itself is a a ridiculous measure.

If one is searching for greatness, consider Buvaysa Saytiev. Today, Saytiev won his third gold medal in freestyle wrestling. Only the Soviet Union’s Alexander Medved, who won in 1964, 1968 and 1972, has done the same. Medved has the advantage because he won in three different weight classes. But Saytiev, unlike Medved, had to beat fields that include wrestlers from former Soviet republics, which now have their own terrific teams. In the finals, Saytiev beat Soslan Tigiev of Uzbekistan. One bronze-medalist is from Belarus. (The other is from Bulgaria.) There are great wrestlers from Georgia, Armenia and Kazahkstan. It's as if the USA basketball team was broken up and there were individual teams from California, New York and Ohio competing with the U.S. team. In general it's impossible to compare athletes in different sports. But in terms of outdistancing the field, Saytiev stands with Phelps.

Olympics: How they ruined wrestling

I was a wrestler in high school (of no distinction whatsoever). But I am a student of the sport and have followed it ever since. It seems that the FILA wrestling's chiefs are continually frustrated that the sport is not commercially popular. Wrestlers are fanatics about their sport and they can't fathom why not everyone is. As a result, they keep changing the rules, hoping that the newest wrinkle will add action and improve the ratings. It never works. And the more recent rule changes are ruining the sport.

This year in the Olympics, FILA has instituted a three-period format, where the wrestler who "wins" two period out of three wins the match. I am not sure, but I guess the idea is that a wrestler who falls behind early, that is is the first period, can come back by winning the second. This means that the leader can't sit on a lead, so there will be more attempts to score.

But the result is the opposite. Now a wrestler can score a single point in a period and he has every incnetive to stall for the rest of the round. It also means that a wrestler can win the hout by compiling a 2-0 lead over four minutes-- at that point the third period is eliminated. Wrestling is supposed to be about strength, endurance and toughness. Winning 2-0 in four minutes shows nothing. Four minutes is too short. The trailing wrestler should have a chance to come back.

Also, in recent years, FILA has added off-mat judges who must confirm scoring calls made by the mat official. This ref-by-committee may make scoring more accurate. But it also leads to conferences that break the action, which gives wrestlers the chance to rest, which negates the role of endirance. The real problem with the judging is that back points are so subjective, as a wrestler can gan them by "exposing" the back even if he isn't controlling his opponent. It all results in defensive, reactive wrestling. The rules should reward aggression, control and scoring. Now they do the opposite.