7 posts tagged “2008”
Morrissey - All You Need Is Me
You hiss and groan and you constantly moan
But you don’t ever go away
That’s because
All you need is me
You roll your eyes up to the skies
Mock horrified
But you’re still here
All you need is me
There’s so much destruction
All over the world
And all you can do is
Complain about me
You bang your head against the wall
And say you’re sick of it all
Yet you remain
‘Cause all you need is me
And then you offer your one and only joke
And you ask me what will I be
When I grow up to be a man
Uhm, nothing!
There’s a soft voice singing in your head
Who could this be?
I do believe it’s me
There’s a naked man standing, laughing in your dreams
You know who it is
But you don’t like what it means
There’s so much destruction
All over the world
And all you can do is
Complain about me
I was a small, fat child in a council house
There was only one thing I ever dreamed about
And Fate has just
Handed it to me - whoopee
You don’t like me, but you love me
Either way you’re wrong
You’re gonna miss me when I’m gone
You’re gonna miss me when I’m gone
Well...we are closer to knowing who the US is sending to China in August. Shawn Johnson and Nastia Liukin were both named to the Olympic Team yesterday and neither one was a huge surprise (both finished 1& 2 at Nationals as well). So...now we look at who should fill the four remaining spots - the following is from International Gymnast
Projected Olympic team
The U.S. doesn't have the depth it had in 2004, but will be able to put up three very strong routines on each event. The only question mark is uneven bars, which is where the Chinese could take a big advantage with two potential scores of 17.000.
Shawn Johnson: Solid as a rock here, throwing the hardest routines on three of the four events. I don't think floods — or even tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes or asteroids — could distract Shawn. She looks very unphased by everything. Her parents and coaches have done a tremendous job with her.
Nastia Liukin: Had a few misses here, but she and her dad know the time and place to nail everything when it counts is in August in Beijing, not June in Philadelphia. They've got to head back to Texas and perfect uneven bars, because a truly flawless routine there could lead to three golds for Nastia: team, all-around and uneven bars. Nastia is not just an artistic gymnast, she is a performer. But most significantly, she is a fierce competitor in the style of Svetlana Khorkina, doing routines and making skills the unbelievers say can't be done with her age and physique. She is the sport's leading lady today.
Alicia Sacramone: Even Marta Karolyi, who has tried to be as vague as possible about the potential team, admits Sacramone is a lock for this team. Alicia is unquestionably the best vaulter on the U.S. team, and also can contribute on balance beam and floor exercise in team finals. With her refreshing personality and poise, she is one of the best representatives for women's gymnastics today. Most importantly, she is a great leader and deserves to be team captain again. But with a sore calf and aching Achilles, this 19-year-old needs to avoid overtraining in the next six weeks to be fresh for Beijing. Marta and Mihai, let Alicia rest a little and enjoy her star status this summer.
Samantha Peszek: Proved her consistency all year with strong performances at the American Cup, U.S. Championships and U.S. Trials. The U.S. will need her double-twisting Yurchenko vault and possibly floor in team finals, and she can compete on any event in prelims. Sam has lots of tricks and clean form across the board and that plus consistency have moved her into Marta's winners column.
Chellsie Memmel: Clocked a ticket to Beijing with her strong performance on bars, an event where the U.S. desperately needs every tenth to not get clobbered by the Chinese. Memmel can also help on balance beam and floor exercise, where she does not hold back on the acrobatics. The only question mark for Memmel is her history of untimely injuries, but Marta can't deny a healthy Memmel. { Personally, I hate her gymnastics, BUT the US does need her on UB, just PLEASE don't let her do the AA!}
Bridget Sloan: The U.S. Olympic team won't be announced until late July precisely because of gymnasts like Sloan, who needs more time to recover from her knee injury. The U.S. needs her on uneven bars, and extra focus here is what could secure her spot. Marta likes gymnastics like Bridget has, which is clean for the most part and done with an elegant body line.
Now.......One gymnast that I hope does very well at Camp and gets on the team is ......
Mattie Larson: Another beautiful gymnast who Marta would love to show off. Her floor exercise will likely be well-received in preliminaries and the U.S. could use her there in the team finals. Even the non-gymnastics fan can see this gymnast's floor routine is more pleasing to watch than nearly every other one.
Show us something that's been on your mind a lot.
~ Going to the Olympics in August to see Gymnastics!
2008 Olympic Mascot Information
China holds funeral for panda killed by earthquake
By CARA ANNA, Associated Press Writer1 hour, 42 minutes ago
Nearly a month after China's devastating earthquake, the Wolong Nature Reserve held a funeral Tuesday for a panda that was crushed in the temblor.
The world famous panda center was badly damaged by the May 12 quake but officials initially thought all 64 pandas had survived. They later discovered that two were missing.
Nine-year-old Mao Mao, the mother of five at the breeding center, was found Monday, her body crushed by a wall of her enclosure when the river behind it swelled with landslide debris.
On Tuesday, panda keepers and other workers placed her remains in a small wooden crate and wheeled her quietly to a patch of ground outside the breeding center where a freshly dug hole waited.
The center's director, Zhang Hemin, stood with his cap in hand and then shoveled in a few spades of dirt. Mao Mao's keeper, He Changgui, stepped forward, crying, and placed two apples and a piece of bread by the covered grave. There were three minutes of silence.
As the others left, the director of the U.S.-based Pandas International, Suzanne Braden put her arm around He.
"You must look after her babies, OK?" she said. "And their babies."
He nodded. "I will go back to see her everyday," he said.
Forty-seven pandas continue to live at Wolong, while one other panda, Xiao Xiao, remains missing.
The endangered panda is revered as a kind of national mascot in China. About 1,590 pandas live in the wild, mostly in Sichuan and the neighboring province of Shaanxi. Another 180 have been bred in captivity.
The nature reserve was heavily damaged by the quake, which was centered just 20 miles away in the heart of Sichuan province's mountainous panda country. Five Wolong staff members were killed in the quake. Most staffers, tourists and pandas were outside at the time.
Nearly 70,000 people were killed, and more than 5 million were left homeless by the 7.9-magnitude quake.
Some of Wolong's pandas have been moved to another breeding center in Sichuan's provincial capital, Chengdu, and eight were flown to Beijing for a previously scheduled six-month stay at the Beijing Zoo for the Olympics.
The center will have to be relocated to a new site because of safety issues, said Huang Yan, deputy director of research, but it will remain within the confines of Wolong Nature Reserve, which is located in a damp, narrow valley several hours' drive from Chengdu.
He, Mao Mao's keeper, returned from the grave with red eyes. He had been the panda's only keeper since she was 3 years old. He would speak to her in the local Sichuan dialect as he worked.
"It's like you could say something and she would understand," he said. "If you were happy, she was happy too."
Wolong Panda Reserve: link
Pandas International: link
Reason enough NOT to vote for Obama in November!
Haditha Marine Lt. Andrew Grayson acquitted
By Michelle Malkin • June 5, 2008
Paging John Murtha: Haditha Marine Lt. Andrew Grayson found not guilty on all counts. See if you can find the story on the NYTimes or any other MSM outlet that splashed the original accusations all over their front pages. You’ll need a magnifying glass.
Go to Defend Our Marines for all the background on the case and breaking developments.
Bob Owens at PJM reports and reminds:
Early in the investigations, based upon unknown evidence, Democratic Rep. John Murtha (PA) stated that "there was no firefight, there was no IED that killed these innocent people. Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood."
Barack Obama, asked about Murtha’s charge by Alan Colmes in June of 2006, stated, "I would never second guess John Murtha… I think he’s somebody who knows of which he speaks."
Murtha’s "in cold blood" statement and the Democratic Presidential nominee’s unquestioning acceptance came seven months before the military charged eight Marines with various offenses in December of 2006. Charges against five of the eight Marines have since be dropped for lack of evidence, and in the first of three scheduled trials, Grayson has been acquitted. It remains to be seen if Rep. Murtha or Senator Obama will offer Lt. Grayson an apology, cold-blooded, or otherwise.
Of the two cases remaining, only Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich faces charges directly related to the killings. The most serious charges he faces are nine counts of involuntary manslaughter. Curiously, his case has been postponed indefinitely, and was not expected to resume until after both of his military defense attorneys had retired, weakening his defense in a complex case. Late-breaking information from Bruce Kessler of The Democracy Project, who has been covering the Haditha cases in detail, states that Lt. Col. Colby Vokey will delay his retirement again to stay with Wuterich’s defense.
The third case, against commanding officer Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, is said to be tainted by "unlawful command influence" in charging Chessani according to the judge presiding over the case, suggesting that Chessani is a political scapegoat for higher-ranking officers seeking to appease anti-war politicians. His trial is expected to commence June 17.
For some stupid reason is called the "VISA Championships". Oh, yes .... VISA sponsors the competition, thus the vague naming. Nationals is a few days long and includes both Juniors and Seniors, but NBC's coverage is sooooooo good that we will get a whole 2 hours of Senior Women (Saturday, June 7th 1-3 PST). That is ALL!
Gosh, they really do make it hard to be a gymnastics fan.
Of course - when you think about how the USAG picks the Olympic Team, Nationals and Trials really doesn't count as much anymore - it is all about "secret camps".
One reason I am losing my interest in the sport of gymnastics is the new code or rules, which goes for the tricks instead of awarding "artistic" gymnasts. One of my all time less favorite gymnasts is trying to make the Olympic Team. I really don't want Chellsie Memmel anywhere near Beijing! Her gymnastics are UGLY.
I prefer "Superstar" over Chellsie, though they do look like long lost sisters.
Chinese wonder if animals can predict earthquakes
By HENRY SANDERSON, Associated Press Writer
First, the water level in a pond inexplicably plunged. Then, thousands of toads appeared on streets in a nearby province. Finally, just hours before China's worst earthquake in three decades, animals at a local zoo began acting strangely.
As bodies are pulled from the wreckage of Monday's quake, Chinese online chat rooms and blogs are buzzing with a question: Why didn't these natural signs alert the government that a disaster was coming?
"If the seismological bureau were professional enough they could have predicted the earthquake ten days earlier, when several thousand cubic meters of water disappeared within an hour in Hubei, but the bureau there dismissed it," one commentator wrote.
In fact, seismologists say, it is nearly impossible to predict when and where an earthquake will strike.
Several countries, including China, have sought to use changes in nature — mostly animal behavior — as an early warning sign. But so far, no reliable way has been found to use animals to predict earthquakes, said Roger Musson, a seismologist with the British Geological Survey.
But that has not stopped a torrent of online discussion. Even the mainstream media has chimed in, with an article in Tuesday's China Daily newspaper questioning why the government did not predict the earthquake.
Online commentators say the first sign came about three weeks ago, when large amounts of water suddenly disappeared from a pond in Enshi city in Hubei province, around 350 miles east of the epicenter, according to media reports.
Then, three days before the earthquake, thousands of toads roamed the streets of Mianzhu, a hard-hit city where at least 2,000 people have been reported killed.
Mianzhu residents feared the toads were a sign of an approaching natural disaster, but a local forestry bureau official said it was normal, the Huaxi Metropolitan newspaper reported May 10, two days before the earthquake.
The day of the earthquake, zebras were banging their heads against a door at the zoo in Wuhan, more than 600 miles east of the epicenter, according to the Wuhan Evening Paper.
Elephants swung their trunks wildly, almost hitting a staff member. The 20 lions and tigers, which normally would be asleep at midday, were walking around. Five minutes before the quake hit, dozens of peacocks started screeching.
There are a few possible reasons for such behavior, said Musson, the seismologist. The most likely is that the movement of underground rocks before an earthquake generates an electrical signal that some animals can perceive. Another theory holds that other animals can sense weak shocks before an earthquake that are imperceptible to humans.
Zhang Xiaodong, a researcher at the China Seismological Bureau, said his agency has used natural activity to predict earthquakes 20 times in the past 20 years, but that still represents a small proportion of China's earthquakes.
"The problem now is this kind of relationship is still quite vague," he said.
In winter 1975, Chinese officials ordered the evacuation of the city of Haicheng in northeastern Liaoning province the day before a 7.3 magnitude earthquake, based on reports of unusual animal behavior and changes in ground water levels. Still, more than 2,000 people died. Strange environmental phenomena including changes in well water levels, were also reported a year later before a 7.6 magnitude earthquake in Tangshan in northeastern China that killed 240,000, Musson said.
A team of Chinese seismologists was sent to the region but didn't find any evidence to suggest an earthquake. As the seismologists were going home, they stopped for the night in Tangshan and were killed in the quake.
Copyright © 2008
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