So, the Olympics are cool, and for once we finally have some decent coverage. CTV (the non-government owned Canadian National Network) is running the coverage, and its really good. They have multiple networks (which they run/own) broadcasting multiple events, different feeds, etc. There's a wide variety of events shown, and rightly so, being a Winter Olympics in Canada.

Although the amount of negative press/coverage that is out there about the Olympics is pretty funny. Granted, some of the sources for this negative press are suspect, but yeah, its still there. The ones that really get me are the following:

1. The brand of "Worst Olympics Ever" due to the death of the Georgian Athlete and the hydraulic failure of the indoor cauldron during the opening ceremonies. Well. I won't disagree or downplay the tragedy of the training accident. That was pretty brutal. What was more brutal was the media's coverage of it, with many outlets showing the last moments of this poor athlete as his head bounced off the steel beam at 90 mph. That sickening "boing" noise stayed with me for a few days. This is what I don't understand: they show someone colliding with a steel beam at 90 MPH continuously, and then they'll freak the minute there's verbal profanity or the slightest bit of partial nudity. I suppose if it makes news, the rules don't matter. The hydraulic failure of the cauldron goes into the "shit happens" column of the potential things that could have gone wrong. I would like to see a full list of "Olympic Glitches" that have occurred in the recent Olympics, and then compare notes with Vancouver.

But anyways, in terms of "Worst Olympics Ever", the current ones have a LONG way to go. There's a few memorable Olympics that stand out in my mind as markedly worst. Munich with the eleven athletes murdered and Atlanta with the terrorist attack. Realistically, this isn't the first Luge-related death at an Olympics either. But whatever, this is looking more like a "Oh, the Olympics aren't in the USA, therefore its crap" syndrome of the US-based media.

Heaven help us if we show the slightest iota of national pride.. lol.

2. The major outcry about the "lack of winter" in Vancouver. Holy hell. Vancouver doesn't "see" winter half the time. I think this is being blown out of proportion, especially with the trucking/shipping of snow into Cypress Mountain. Talk to anyone that is an avid skier that gets around in BC. They'll laugh and say: "Cypress has a two-week season some years". Hmm... it seems like the choice of venues is to blame here. Why isn't the freestyle isn't happening at a venue that's guaranteed snow.. like Whistler? Oh well, bad planning.

3. The protests. Wow. People protesting things like tarsands oil at the Olympics. Talk about complaining about the wrong thing at the wrong place. Yes. The tarsands are environmentally bad. That's a point I won't even remotely consider arguing against. However, I think the people that continually call for the reduction/stoppage of oilsands production in Northern Alberta simply do not understand the simple economics of the situation.

You stop the oilsands, Alberta goes broke as a province. Its THAT simple. Period. What people do not understand, especially the environmentalists that are too concerned about digging up skewed facts that just strengthen their argument, rather than understanding all sides of the situation, is that the majority of Alberta's Provincial Revenues, the actual money that runs the province, are oilsands royalties. Not to mention that a large amount of Albertans work in the oilsands, oilpatch and related services/industries whose livelihoods would be instantly crushed. Pair that, with the reduction of social programs and rampant government cutbacks, and suddenly every Albertan gets affected. The only "have" province, supporting all the others through transfer payments is on the verge of being a "have not" province.

Still not convinced? Well, lets look at the numbers. The government's revenues are directly tied to the price of oil and the US/CAN dollar conversion rate. High price of oil, and low Canadian Dollar, suddenly you have ridiculous revenues. Its to the point where they've actually calculated the revenue loss per $0.001 gain in conversion rate vs the US dollar at $225 million. Before the economic downturn in the US began, there was a point where the government, essentially run by blindfolded monkeys, had multi-billion dollar surpluses. Let me put this in perspective. A province/state of just over 3 million people had something in the order of an 8 billion dollar budget surplus. For the majority of the downturn, while jobs were being cut left right and centre everywhere BUT Alberta, we were in a worker shortage. You could not find workers to work at McDonalds. People working at Tim Hortons in Ft MacMurray (Oilpatch) were reported of making upwards of $30/hour. Then.. oil started to drop, Canadian Dollar started gaining relative strength. Suddenly, the revenue stream dried up, and we started to feel the effects of the recession. Oilpatch layoffs, Gov't cutbacks, and retail jobs/stores dissappearing are common place. Going from multi-billion dollar surpluses, now the provincial gov't is going to run a multi-billion dollar deficit. Nice.

Now, I won't downplay, nor argue the environmental impact of the tarsands. The University that I work at essentially has a whole Faculty (more or less) funded by oil companies attempting to reduce the environmental impact of the oil processing. Nobody's arguing the fact that there's positive change that needs to occur.

But you know, apparently that's not good enough for the protesters, the majority of which most likely have no ties to Alberta whatsoever. Environmentalism at the cost of the livelihoods of many and the well being of 3.5 million plus people is apparently acceptable for these people. Good to know someone values the life of a duck moreso than my well being.

I have no problem with people expressing their views, in fact, I encourage it. I just wish people would think more about a situation as a whole, rather than taking narrow minded, one dimensional views. Oh well. Environmentalism seems to be just another way to be selfish.

(Edited for my horrible late night grammar. Damn you Candidacy Documentation!)

Hah.. Since I'm writing anyways.......

.... I'll randomly rant about protesting the Olympics.

So, what's the deal with this?

I understand that the Olympics themselves are a monumental event, with a multi-billion dollar budget, which essentially interrupts/disrupts an entire metropolis for a month. I get it. I understand the hassles, the potential for excess and waste of money. I have friends that live in Vancouver, and believe me, they've voices their opinions about the situation and how it will adversly affect their own lives. Hell, my friend working as a game programmer will be working on a "show up if you can" basis just simply due to the influx of people into the area. I understand why people may want to protest this event, especially since there's better ways to spend that massive sum of cash in this day and age of recession and governmental budget shortcomings.

But, lets look at some facts in this situation:

1. The Olympics were bid on YEARS ago. Vancouver was awarded the Olympics in.. I want to say 2003, probably 2004 or 2005. Regardless of my somewhat incomplete memory (lol, I remember where I was when I watched the webcast, but not when it was.. ) my point here is that the economic climate was 100% different. The economy was booming, things were stable (well, more or less... definitely a better economic situation than now). From then till now, things have gone fairly badly. Its not really fair to start making the arguement that the money should be spent elsewhere, or that things should be scaled back. When VANOC bid, they had to submit detailed paperwork about how money will be spent, the scale of projects, venues to be constructed, etc. From writing and helping to write grants for research, I can understand how detailed this will get. On top of that, those agreements are BINDING, so protesting about something that cannot be changed.. period.. is kind of silly. (That didn't stop Mike Hudema.. go back to Bejing, you moron.). Do you think that VANOC is prepared to be branded "those people" for changing/cancelling the Olympics? Wow. Do you understand the personal, legal, societal, national and international implications of what you're suggesting? Apparently not. Given recent events (Iran announcing to the world "WE GOT NUKES!" and Israel's track record with "diplomacy") we're almost assured some sort of Middle East conflict, perhaps a world war. Awesome. I'm not saying an Olympics where these countries are not even going to be involved will even scratch the surface in solving these problems, but a little "world-unity" isn't a bad thing.

Oh, and VANOC announcing that they're already running a balanced budget before the games is icing on the cake for me and this point. They haven't opened the doors, and they've paid for all the venues and costs up to this point. Holy hell. They haven't seen one cent of actual concession, souvenir and random non-variable money flow in yet. I heard a news story that predicted millions of PROFIT if the economic downturn didn't occur. If any government was run as well as VANOC financially, we'd all be much happier.

2. There has been a fairly large outcry about the environmental impact of the new venues, roads, facilities and what have you. Fine. I can understand if the projects were done in a non-sustainable way. From what I've heard, the majority of the new venues are ULTRA-sustainable, and go as far as collecting rainwater for use in toilets. In addition, consider the quality of life legacy that this will leave in the long run. New recreational facilities, new mass transit, better roads, etc. Yes, maybe money better spent feeding Haiti for a week.. So, a two week event planned for probably close to a decade leaving a legacy of infrastructure for Vancouver is a bad thing? If I had the time, I could probably dig for sustainable building methods that were DEVELOPED for producing these venues. I'm sure we'll hear more than enough about this with the filler material between events.

So, I guess my real problem with people protesting the Olympics is more or less the complete and utter lack of focus and priorities. I don't get it. Lets protest an event that ends up having more positive outcomes than negative ones. Could it be that the professional activists suddenly felt that the Olympics were as big of a target as the WTO for protests? Wow. That's kinda sad. I know you're arts degrees were painful with all the free time you had to waste between "classes" but yeah, issues with priorities?

I don't know, if I had the time to protest something, it would be Iran VS Israel, not the Olympics. Something that actually would have a signifigant negative worldwide effect, not something that brings people from around the world together for a month. There's got to be something more important to protest about. But hey, I'm not the one with a degree in Philosophy, so I guess this isn't my field.

The one thing I do know, however, is that Mukmuk will destroy the protesters.

BEHOLD MUKMUK AND HIS GLORY!