Michael Phelps Takes a Crap

We get it already- Michael Phelps can swim. NBC, which paid 14 trillion dollars- or approximately the cost of waging the war in Iraq for one weekend- or, put another way- the dollar value of Dick Cheney's Halliburton shares- is, once again, trying to make the Olympics a soap opera- all about personalities rather than athletics. Not to take anything away from Phelps' achievement, but I keep reading that he's the greatest olympic athlete ever. Hmmmm. Why? Because he has the most gold medals? Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but swimming has a motherload of events- many of them pretty damn similar (someone who is good at swimming 2 laps of a given stroke is pretty darn likely to also be good at swimming 4 or 8 laps of that stroke as well, no?) It really isn't fair to compare swimmers with athlete's that compete in sports that only have a few medal opportunities. Like what about those 4 foot tall midgets who can lift 1,000 pounds? Or how about those Cuban or Venezuelan women's volleyball players that wear those daisy duke like gym shorts?

While we are on the topic of the Olympics, why on earth is NBC spending so much time showing us beach volleyball? Does anyone actually give a damn about beach volleyball? Or are they thinking that people just want to watch women in bikinis? I have seen enough of the following sports to last me a lifetime: rowing, beach volleyball, water polo, badmitton, softball, and cycling. How about a little tennis, NBC? Anyways, what I find far more interesting is Beijing's pollution. Just show me a smog cam and people straining to breath and I'm riveted. Then mix in some interviews with Chinese officials claiming that the air is fine, and I'm happy.