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Home » Open thread 1/16/23

Open thread 1/16/23

The New Neo Posted on by

I’d never heard of this sport before, and I don’t think I really like it. The movement is very restrictive and self-contained, something like school figures in ice skating. But wow, is this girl ever skillful!

If you’re unfamiliar with the ice skating reference, here’s what they used to have to do in addition to free skating:

Comments

Open thread 1/16/23 — 43 Comments

  2. I remember watching Dorothy Hamill having to do compulsory during an Olympics. On the plus side, it was less subjective, as they did strictly measure the figures for symmetry. But the rest of it was rather silly compared to what the skaters did in the other 2 components of competition.
    With that in mind, what this lady does slaloming through those cones is impressive and shows of her skills. However, I agree that I’m not sure how much I would want to see it as a spectator over and over again. It reminds me that they hardly showed the compulsory figures, and at the time (me being really young) I thought it was some sort of secret thing. Now I understand it wasn’t shown because it was probably boring TV.

  3. I knew that was how it came to be called “figure skating” — they cut figures in the ice, and they were judged on how good those figures were “drawn.”

    I was rather surprised how late they switched from that to what we now know as “figure skating.”

  6. The lawyers investigating (and recovering?) Biden’s randomly-strewn classified documents do not have security clearances for handling classified documents. Anyone besides me see an inherent problem in that?

  9. sdferr – if true, it brings up interesting questions as to who claimed the rental income. Another reason to want to see the S-Corp return that pushed a K1 onto Biden’s return.

  11. The best speculation I’ve come across is that this has been known for quite a while, and there’s worse out there. The Trump Mar a Logo raid was a setup to to deflect criticism from Biden when these documents were revealed. Well before the Trump raid it must have been known there is some really bad stuff not in the grasp of the Deep State or the garage papers would have simply disappeared without anyone knowing.

    I remember during the 2020 election a picture floating around of Hunter, Joe, and two Chinese guys on a golf course. One of the Chinese guys was identified as a former head of the CCP secret police. Hunter’s China Energy investment company got a one billion dollar investment after that meeting.

    Joe’s been corrupt for a long time and needs a very large income to support his lifestyle. Get out your handy dandy mortgage calculator and figure out what the annual mortgage costs are on a $10M mansion and a $3M beach house. I figure that the annual payments at 5% are $650K a year. How does a Senator and his wife afford that on a $200K salary? Ukrainian money, he made seven trips there while he was VP? Chinese money? Hunter was paying $50K a month rent when he was living in the mansion for three years (including hookers and blow?). Must have had some nice investments that were paying off.

  13. Barry Meislin, further, there was no Secret Service coverage at the Penn Biden office in DC at any time, and no coverage in Delaware from the summer of 2017 until Biden’s nomination in mid-2020, the time period when Hunter was there and still operating his bogus international businesses.

  14. When looking at criminals always follow the money. For politicians look to see if their net worth becomes greater than it was when they started. Aside from their salaries.

  15. Paul in Boston,

    It seems a real stretch to tie this to some 4-D chess involving the Mar-a-Lago raid.
    From what I read at the time there was a guy heading up the department that oversees such records who had major Trump Derangement Syndrome, and that was his personal, vendetta.

    It’s difficult to believe that was used as a smoke screen to make a coup against Biden less obvious. So folks knew in advance they’d use mishandling of classified documents to get Biden to step down and they first did the same thing to Trump to make their plan less apparent? Seems too clever by half.

    And, quite frankly, very few Americans care about this. I don’t think Hillary’s blatant mishandling of classified files stopped anyone from pulling the lever for her in 2016.

    There are so many other ways to get to Biden. As his boss said about him, “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f*** things up.”

  16. $49,910/mo. seems a tad high for rent there, Hunter

    No wonder he wants his child support payments lowered.

  17. RTF, I saw a tweet pointing out that a close advisor to Atty. Gen. Garland is the wife of Jake Sullivan, who is unfortunately Biden’s National Security Adviser. According to the tweet, Sullivan thought Trump might have documents related to the Iran deal which might be used to interfere with negotiations, or, more likely, to expose the shenanigans in the negotiations. Seems plausible.

  18. Harry Reid was supposed to have a net worth of 10 million dollars when he left the Senate, after only working in government his adult life.

  19. paul sperry, one of the few that actually does real investigating, of course schiff tried to get him censored, while rank idiots like seth abramson remove all doubt,

    miss remus joined covington, right before the maralago raid, her husband was extraordinarily well connected, add 2+2 together and you can grok that conclusion

  21. That video of Midori Ito was made in a different world, e.g. Jim McKay’s finger-wagging admonition to “American teenagers” to be more like Ito. How quaint. Today, the problem of missed homework assignments has been replaced by Fentanyl overdoses.

    Good piece by Victor Davis Hanson on today’s Democrat Party:

    https://amgreatness.com/2023/01/15/the-manic-methods-of-mad-democrats/

    Closing paragraphs:

    “Conservatives should be aware that they are not dealing with the party of JFK and LBJ. The Democratic Party has nothing in common with the agendas of a slick Bill Clinton and is well beyond the “fundamental transformations” of arch-narcissist Barack Obama.”

    Eh, not so sure about that. The still-emerging origins of Biden’s classified docs debacle smack strongly of string-pulling from Kalorama.

    “We are faced with a strictly disciplined, no-nonsense revolutionary party, well known from history that aims to change the nation into something unrecognizable by most Americans. And it feels that it has now created the means to do it.”

    Correct. This is why I don’t buy the “There’s Nothing Wrong With The Good Ol’ GOP That A Corking Great Victory In 2024 Won’t Fix!” line being peddled by some. There’s plenty wrong. The first thing wrong is that too many GOPers don’t get Hanson’s point–or (more likely) they get it but don’t care as long as they’re in on the grift.

  22. Turns out there is a grouping known as “roller sports” — which includes roller skates, roller blades, skateboards etc.

    And yes, they are steadily pushing roller sports into the Olympics. Skateboarding made it to the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skateboarding_at_the_2020_Summer_Olympics

    I’m not sure about including every conceivable athletic competition in the Olympics, but since the Big O has become so politicized, I mostly don’t care.

  24. I don’t care much about the Olympics any more either, so the inclusion of more and more sports should really just be the reason to skip the Olympics entirely. Each sport has World Championships; that should do it for athletes.

  25. When looking at criminals always follow the money. For politicians look to see if their net worth becomes greater than it was when they started. — JFM

    I’m not sure why I can never find the famous quote I’m looking for. Maybe because they are usually politically incorrect and have been scoured from the interweb.

    I believe Twain once said or wrote something like this: Never vote to reelect a congressman who is not much wealthier after his first term. He is too stupid to figure out how to cash in.

    Now there’s a cynic.

  26. Twain: “It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.”

    Twain and his contemporary Ambrose Bierce: two great American cynics.

  27. Somewhat in the manner of Doctors Without Borders we witness the arising of a brand new NGO: Lawyers Without Clearances.

  29. There are so many “odd sports” out there anymore. There’s even a pro pillow fighting league anymore. Pro spanking is just silly. OTOH, there are a great many “traditional” sports from all over the world that are fascinating to watch. Ireland’s hurling and India’s kabaddi are both a good time. Hurling is kinda like lacrosse, but apparently has a 4,000+ year history, and kabaddi is a sort of team tag, except you have to hold your breath while you’re “it” (they call it “raiding” though…).

  30. Had dinner last night with liberal friends. They seem to think Biden is doing just fine because things are going so well for the country. They don’t know me and the wife are actually fairly conservative. They must get most of their info from NPR and the NYT. The TDS is strong in them.

    So I agree that the document scandal will not be changing minds. No matter who ends up running in 2024 they will pull the lever for the Dems no doubt. Even if it’s a choice between the lesser of two evils.

    I should talk. It’s always been that way for me.

  35. What is going so well the airlines the trains the supply chains (what crazy pills are they taking)

  36. pkudude99 and Lee Also,

    I actually played a hurling match in Dublin, Ireland. (I almost wrote “I hurled in Dublin,” but that has a different connotation.)

    I understand why folks would link it to lacrosse, but it’s more akin to field hockey and baseball. Maybe field hockey, baseball and rugby. It’s not for the demure or frail.

  37. When I lived in San Francisco I used to go to the Edinburgh Castle (a Scottish bar) with some ex-hippie friends for fish’n’chips and lager’n’lime

    Hanging from the bar ceiling was this long straight log about eight inches in diameter and about 20 feet in length.

    What’s that, I asks.

    That’s a caber, I’m told.

    There’s a Scottish competition where big strong guys put on their kilts, go out to a big greeny field and compete on who can heave that long straight log the farthest.

    It looks like a sport Monty Python came up with.

    –“Highland Games – How to caber toss”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhybD2V30Q4

    The Caber Toss is not considered for the Olympics as yet.

    I’m of Clan MacLennan. I’ve got a tartan. I can joke.

  38. It’s a display of remarkable skating ability, and creativity in coming up with the moves, but I have to agree – it seems like more of an exercise or a form of training, then it does a performance art. It’s kind of like going to a Vladimir Horowitz concert to be treated to a series of scales. One wonders what she would be capable of if they simply cleared the floor, but maybe the constraints force the creative exercise in a unique way.

    As you have mentioned Neo, I also seem to remember some years ago, the Olympics would feature compulsory events that would be followed by the free-style? Is that still done now? I know some of the gymnastics events would have requirements to be met of certain kinds of move – floor exercise and the bars – and if these short lists of moves weren’t incorporated into the routine, the athlete would have points subtracted…..

  39. Rufus T Firefly — There’s an Irish reaction channel that I enjoy watching and one of their reactors had some pretty nasty looking facial wounds for some time and he explained them as “a hurling accident” so I have no problem believing that. I’ve never actually watched a full match, just some “basics” videos and highlight clips here and there, but those have been interesting enough that I’d like to see more… in the moment anyway. I’ve never remembered that desire any other time though 😉

  40. It’s a display of remarkable skating ability.

    She'll have a great future as a Democratic politician– they always have a remarkable ability to skate.

  41. Those are some serious skills!
    I don’t care for any event on roller skates but I do like how knocking over one of those little pins establishes an indisputable error. Hard to believe, but under ice skating’s current judging system, a fall can still garner significant points. A FALL! A fall used to be Sudden Death under the old 6.0 system.
    Moment of silence here for what used to be.
    To me, that looks more like a training or compulsory exercise than a creative free skate. Which is probably its greatest value. Compulsory figures in ice skating ended in 1991, for a number of reasons. Among them, they took too long to learn and master and this cost a fortune in ice time and, well, time! That gave a competitive advantage to skaters from countries that paid competitors expenses or had enough well to do citizens to fund their own children (read; USSR and USA). They were boring and bad TV – especially when a brilliant free skater like Janet Lynn (hated practicing figures) placed behind an uninspiring Trixie Schuba (good at figures). They really weren’t judged all that fairly, either.
    In the years since, however, their value – at least as a training tool – has become apparent. Dropping figures from competition resulted in an emphasis on jumping and opened the door to ever younger competitors with prepubescent bodies, which caused increases in debilitating injury, truncated careers and a loss of artistry and command of skating skills. IMHO, leaving figures out of competition but requiring genuine mastery of them to qualify for senior level competition would go a long way to restoring balance to the sport.
    My future grand daughter will be required to learn all 42!

  42. Molly Brown:

    Great information! Inside baseball for skating.

    Just ran across this video showing a small girl learning to do a double axel on roller skates. She’s wearing a harness and a guy follows her around with a fishing pole arrangement attached to the harness for support.

    –“11yr old double axel & triple salchow roller figure skating on harness” (18 sec)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xHBbmTCk-c

    Something else I didn’t know.

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