A Large Regular

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

Do you remember when NHL game sevens used to be exciting nail biters?... It comes as no surprise that Russia cheated during the Sochi Olympics... Today's word for the day is "holoholo" which is Hawaiian for "to ramble for pleasure"... The arguments in Boston about Ted Williams vs David Ortiz are ridiculous. Has anyone ever said about Ortiz, "There goes the best hitter who ever lived?" Ortiz versus Yaz however... File under the more things change the more they remain the same... If I were to run a scam it would to be as a pet fish medium. How could anyone prove you weren't actually in communication with a beloved deceased goldfish?... Who knew? Jacques Cousteau didn't learn to swim until he was forty years old. Do kids today even know who Jacques Cousteau was?... Interesting look at the science behind why living things age and die...

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- The Potemkin Olympics one-year later - Russia is a mess

- The Taiwan animators take on Super Bowl 49 - doesn't disappoint.

- Encouraging news on Gordie Howe. Just encouraging in general - adult stem cells are the shit!

- This is so awesome!

- 5.6% Unemployment is one big lie

- Not to stereotype but yeah - this is pretty much how all Boston fans felt about the Super Bowl (NSFW language)

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- 12 things JK Rowling has revealed after the publication of last book. No real news here for big Harry Potter fans.

- Grantland has a look back at the failure of the Russian Sochi Winter Olympics.

- I just love this photo - Stonehedge's gardener mowing the grass 1955

- Cool - nice summary of places to go for free content for your iPhone, iPad, Kindle, etc.

- The 20 most popular Ted Talks

- Good on you JetBlue

The economic news out of Russia this week was not good. This piece in The Telegraph details how the Rouble (Ruble?) is now worth just about half of what it was worth against the US dollar from just a year ago. The damn has broken and now the Russian economy is worth in real terms a little less than that of the State of Texas or half of that of California. Put another way - the Russian economy is now worth less than Google. "A Russian downgrade to junk is just a matter of time."

Who could have seen this coming? Well 9 months ago I smelled a rat.

The Russian moves in the Crimea and Ukraine both make sense in the hindsight of a Putin government acting certain ways because they were basically broke.

I wonder how the Russian people feel about that $51 billion Putin spent on the Sochi Winter Olympics now?

The situation in Ukraine is dire but something about the reported circumstances has been bugging me and since I haven't seen what's been bugging me mentioned anywhere else - I thought I'd get it off my chest here.

First you had the Sochi Winter Olympics on which Vladimir Putin and the Russians spent a reported $51 billion. You heard on how corrupt the process and how shoddy the workmanship was. Jokes were made about how the Russians couldn't even manage to build a decent Potemkin village these days. You also heard some rumblings out of Moscow on how that $51 billion could have been better spent on the struggling Russian people instead of an ego showcase for Putin. Keeping in mind how much control Putin exerts over the media - hearing these grumblings is mildly extraordinary.

Then you had the rapid succession of the Ukraine protests, the murder of protesters by government snipers and then the cowardly running away by and fall of the Yanukovych government. Putin's response was to withdraw $15 billion of support pledged to the Ukraine government and then the securing of the area around the Russian naval base in Sevastopol followed by the military annexation of the Crimea.

My immediate thought on all of this was that it was the warm water naval base at Sevastopol was the key to the events. Lost in the shuffle was the $15 billion in aid the Russians pulled back. What if that was equally important to the situation? What if there was never any $15 billion? What if it was a phony paper deal that was designed to line the pockets of Yanukovych and his cronies and give Russia a lease on the Sevastopol base and the Ukrainian energy deposits? A new government would have seen through the phony deal right away so Putin pulled it.

Since Russia has to pay the army anyway - Putin figures it's cheaper to just take Sevastopol and "free" Crimea under force of arms. And while he's there why not "liberate" the rest of the Ukraine with energy deposits. The Russian economy is dependent upon energy. What if the Russian economy is in such bad shape that Putin is forced into doing what he's been doing because the country is broke?

That's scarier than the alternative that Putin is a bully megalomaniac.

These maps show where the ethnic Russians are and just as importantly where the energy deposits are in Ukraine.

Looking back Uraine made a mistake by giving up all of its nukes.

Stephen Fry makes a good argument about boycotting the Sochi Winter Olympics in Russia because of their new harsh anti-homosexual laws.

While I agree that the laws in Russia are a giant step backwards when it comes to human rights - I believe that an official boycott would mostly harm the athletes who have been training for years. They didn't pick the venue - why should they be the ones to have their dreams crushed?

I must also say that a boycott of the Winter Games by England would be a rather hollow protest seeing how England is not exactly a winter games powerhouse (they won exactly one medal at the 2010 Winter Olympics). Soccer (they mistakenly call it football) is huge in England. If they really wanted to protest for gay rights - how about boycotting the 2022 World Cup in Qatar instead?

While I am against a boycott of the Winter Games because the athletes would be the ones to suffer that doesn't mean I agree with the anti-homosexual laws in Russia. I think a better way to show our displeasure would be to boycott with our pocketbooks. Don't travel to the Sochi Games or buy and of the merchandise. Get others to do the same. Allow the athletes to sew rainbow flags onto their uniforms to show they are also against the laws. Those are some protest methods I could agree with.