October 2, 2009

Rio over Chicago for the 2016 Olympics

Since the International Olympic Committee owns a monopoly on the Olympics, a popular sports festival in which the stars don't get paid, IOC members, especially ones from poor countries, sold their votes in return for bribes in the wake of the profitable 1984 LA Olympics. There was a big crackdown after the Salt Lake City winter Olympic shakedown scandal, so I really don't know what goes on behind the scenes anymore.

There's a lot of speculation on why Obama's lobbying trip to the IOC vote failed so spectacularly (Chicago finished last out of the final four), but who knows the real reason? Was Obama's lobbying too overbearing? Or was Obama in person underwhelming after all the hype? Or maybe Rio showed up with more hookers and blow? Who knows how it works these days?

Something you won't hear elsewhere, but may well have been going through the less venal IOC members minds when Obama arrived in Copenhagen is: "Yes, yes, I'm sure that African-American political triumphs, such as Obama's, are well worth handing out an Olympics to celebrate ... but we just did that 20 years ago when we gave the 1996 Olympics to Martin Luther King's hometown, Atlanta. The Atlanta Games were supposed to be a celebration of black political power (e.g., Mayor Andy Young) in alliance with American corporate power (e.g., Coke), in other words ... Diversity! ... but it was kind of a dud of an Olympics due to Atlanta being less than a bedazzling world class city, the typical hot and humid summer weather, and the widespread incompetence that accompanies diversity."

Here's just a part of Olympics spectator Ronald DuPont Jr.'s account of his experience in Atlanta:

"On my first night at the [1996 Atlanta] Olympics, the bus driver taking me and about 35 other people back to our cars got lost. Our half-hour trip took 1 1/2 hours, and we joked that we got the "scenic route." On my second night, another bus driver prepared to get on the wrong highway until a chorus of Atlanta natives on the bus yelled in unison, directing him to the correct road. Last night, on my way to the Olympics, our bus took the sideview mirror off a merging Jeep. (We pulled over to the side of the road and sat for a half-hour while police filled out their reports.) Then, when we got on the bus to head back, an Olympics representative got on the bus and publicly asked if there was anyone who could give our driver directions on how to get to the drop-off point. On the same night, a bus driver pulled to the side of the highway and promptly quit, saying the job was too dangerous. The lines to get on the buses are often thousands of people deep, and I've waited as long as an hour in the sun to board a bus. Welcome to what is being called the Glitch Games. The transportation problems have gotten so bad here that many foreigners and the foreign press are calling this one of the worst-run Olympics in terms of logistics. Take a look:

London Daily Mail -- "Olympic Chaos."
Mexico City News -- "Atlanta Reels"
Los Angeles Times -- "Bum steers in Bumfuzzled Atlanta"
France-Soir -- "Africa has been deprived of the Games since their creation with the pretext that African countries don't have the necessary infrastructure. After Atlanta, any country in the world can apply to host the Games."

(In contrast, the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics were widely questioned by the media beforehand for a lack of diversity, but those non-diverse white people in Salt Lake City turned out to be -- amazingly enough -- well organized and ran a competent Olympics.)

So, you can understand why somebody on the IOC might think of Chicago's bid as just Atlanta All Over Again. In contrast, nobody is going to call us racist if we snub Obama but give it to Rio, and Brazil seems to be getting their farming act together and they just found offshore oil, so, who knows, they may be in better financial shape than America in 7 years.

I would have gone to the 2016 Olympics in Chicago for old time's sake, but I probably wouldn't have wanted them if I still lived and paid taxes there. Chicago has enough problems without them. LA in 1984 was the sports facility capital of the world, and Mayor Tom Bradley was the only mayor in the world with the guts to bid for the 1984 games, so all LA had to do was take old reliable venues like the Coliseum, Rose Bowl, Dodger Stadium, Forum, Pauley Pavilion, Sports Arena, Santa Anita Racetrack, and countless others, and drape them in some color-coordinated "festive federalism" temporary decor and, by the low standards of 1984, put on a great Olympics.

Now, though, expectations about new construction have risen so far (for example, I suspect that Chinese pre-Olympic stockpiling of diesel fuel caused in large part the global oil price spike of the early summer of 2008 that killed off home prices in America's exurbs) that it's a mug's game to play.

Chicago does have a reasonable strategy for survival as a city (i.e., not turn into Detroit), which is to finish off tearing down all the public housing and then use Section 8 rental vouchers to drive the welfare class off into the lower rent midwestern hinterlands. Call it Parisification, where the affluent live in the city and poor are warehoused somewhere elsewhere, out of sight, to amuse themselves setting cars on fire without interrupting the good life in the city. Mayor Daley has been studying Paris on numerous visits for 20 years.

There's a quiet Darwinian war going on among American cities to determine who will be the winners (for example, the white population of Washington D.C. went up about 20% just from 2000 to 2007) and who will be the losers (e.g., Baltimore gets some of the poor folks driven out of DC by gentrification). The Olympics were supposed to help Chicago in this struggle by making the city more fashionable with young upper middle class people, but who knows whether that really matters. Barcelona seemed to get a boost out of it, but it's not clear that Atlanta did.

Anyway, Rio is a spectacular site for a city -- imagine Yosemite Valley on the ocean. In 1978, I sat at a cafe on the Copacabana Beach. Four blocks inland, a vertical granite wall rose straight up from a street of boutiques. Five hundred feet above the traffic, three roped up rock-climbers were making their ascent, clinging to the rock by the their fingernails.

August is an excellent time to hold the Olympics in Rio -- 70ish highs and about as dry and sunny as it gets there. Much better than, say, the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta in July-August. Apparently, the locals snookered the IOC members into thinking that Atlanta had mild summers -- perhaps they gave the impression it was at 900 meters altitude rather than 900 feet. Or maybe they just provided the biggest bribes, I don't know.

Good luck with the crime, Rio.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

61 comments:

Anonymous said...

Steve wrote:


"Chicago does have a reasonable strategy for survival as a city, which is to finish off tearing down all the public housing and then use Section 8 rental vouchers to drive the welfare class off into the lower rent midwestern hinterlands."



Steve,

Miles here. I honestly think that the above is more of a willful assault by the elite to damage the equity of the lower-middle and middle-class more than anything else. Walls can be built around projects, but the elite is damaging the equity and youth of the middle by foisting the perpetual-underclass-poor upon them in this way. Real estate agents/developers/builders all love it because it creates some extra churn. Banksters love it because it will entail new loans


If I were to coin a personal thesis on immutable sociological phenomena within societies based on what Ive read via various blogs for the past few years it would be this: "The elite rentier class in any society will eventually find ways to assault the middle class with the poor, because its the middle (and especially upper middle) that the elite fear the most". They will even, dammit, ship in poor from other countries to do it if they have to. It will always be done in the name of fairness or diversity or concern for the unfortunate, but its really done out of fear and resentment.

CJ said...

I worked off and on in the western U.S. for about 15 years but have returned to Canada, and now live in the Vancouver area. We are stuck with the monstrosity known as the 2010 Winter Olympics. Our local governments, all of which are now running deficits, have wasted over $1 billion building a highway through landslide-prone mountains to Whistler, B.C., over $2 billion building a toy train running through tunnels from downtown Vancouver to the airport in Richmond, over $160 million building a speed-skating oval track inside a futuristic stadium, and the list could go on. You don't have to be an Austrian economist to spell malinvestment. Yes they're only Canadian dollars, but these days that's 94¢ U.S. And this only the Winter Olympics.

Watching the whole exercise up close makes it crystal clear that the purpose of the Olympics is to divert tax money to politically connected people and corporations, who then of course kick some of it back to politicians. The political opposition whines because they're not getting to divert the money to their set of cronies. The primary resistance to the Olympics comes from leftist whiners that I disagree with 95% of the time -- but the Olympics is that other 5%.

My sincere congratulations to the taxpayers of Chicago and Illinois. You just dodged a bad one.

Anonymous said...

"Good luck with the crime, Rio."

In much of the world the Soccer World Cup is a bigger deal than the Olympics, and the next one will be held IN SOUTH AFRICA!

Also, Steve, what are your thoughts on the real, deep causes of gentrification? I guess it started somewhere around 1990, maybe a bit before that. Why then and not earlier or later? Everyone understands HOW gentrification works, but WHY did it start in the first place? A major trend (suburbanization, urban decay) gradually got reversed in dozens of major cities.

I'm asking because I have no idea myself.

Grumpy Old Man said...

Hypothesis: the spur to gentrification was feminism and the postponement of marriage among young college graduates. Not needing cheaper land and bigger houses, they gravitated to the center cities, creating a demand for Starbuck's and Chinese take-out.

Being almost all employed and not needing much space, they pushed out the poor, with help from "urban renewal," formerly known as slum clearance.

Voilá! You get San Francisco, no place for breeders, poor, or even working people.

Anonymous said...

I live on the near north side of Chicago and there are fewer blacks around than there used to be. There are lots of Mexicans but they are not hostile to whites like the blacks.

William1066 said...

''Everyone understands HOW gentrification works, but WHY did it start in the first place?''

Gay rights? Everyone came out of the closet and started living the life openly (no more 'beards' etc.) Gays are the shock troops for gentrification. Besides an admirable sense of style, and a love of urban razzle-dazzle, gays don't have to worry about the schools.

Anonymous said...

One more thing:

Here in NYC gentrification seemingly has nothing to do with public housing or Section 8. Not a single public housing project has been demolished here. If the number of Sec 8 vouchers has increased, I haven't heard of it.

What's happening here is quite different: young hipsters move into the city from other parts of the country. They drive up prices of market rate apartments. This has pushed the part of the underclass that doesn't reside in public housing to move out of New York. Also, the hipsters have settled in some formerly industrial neighborhoods. Why are 23-year-olds able to drive up apartment prices in Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn? Rich parents. Half Sigma has covered some of this.

Anyway, why did the sudden flood of swipples start when it did? There was no gentrification before the late 80s.

Dave said...

Rio really has some spectacular, primeval-looking geography. I suspect Brazil is going to bring in extra military police and drop the hammer on the favela folks before the games.

travis said...

If I were to coin a personal thesis on immutable sociological phenomena within societies based on what Ive read via various blogs for the past few years it would be this: "The elite rentier class in any society will eventually find ways to assault the middle class with the poor, because its the middle (and especially upper middle) that the elite fear the most".

As illustrated in the opening of The Departed, what the "elite rentier class" (aka Yankees) feared were ethnic Catholic voting blocs. Blacks were used to destroy those ethnic neighborhoods and now blacks are being pushed out to make way for rootless, agnostic, childless young professionals who pose no threat at all to the elite.

Anonymous said...

Rio - sexiest trannies in the world.

rob said...

What's the over/under that Brazil and Rio will take the opportunity to build a massive slum-city somewhere in Amazonia and move the favella populations way out of the way for good?

Anonymous said...

"My sincere congratulations to the taxpayers of Chicago and Illinois. You just dodged a bad one."

Thank you. As a resident of Illinois, albeit a downstater, I agree wholeheartedly. The state's budget is in the toilet. The last thing we needed to do is host an Olympics.

-Vanilla Thunder

Anonymous said...

perhaps the olympic committee remembered atlanta and how poorly it was produced...crappy buses for transportation and college frats for housing.

American cities have incompetent (vibrant) administration and cannot produce an olympics like countries where a professional national bureaucracy can really deliver.

Rio is a question mark. It appears the Rio is not only a city but also a state, but brazilian states are less than states in the american sense, so they are more a part of the fed gov.

JWB said...

Steve, the decision was easy.

Where would you go on vacation?

Rio or Chicago?

The choice is clear. Madrid would have been a good choice as well.

Beavis Andrea Butthead said...

Maybe IOC is becoming more like Nobel Prize for Literature. After awarding mostly white males for most of 20th century, the prizes often went to non-whites and females since the 1980s. South America never got one, and so that's compelling reason enough, and Brazil is regarded by some as the 'rising China' of that region. I wonder if this will turn out to be as crazy as the Mexico City Olympics--undermined by radical students. Criminal gangs can be a problem in Rio but having no ideological agenda, they might just get into the groove of the festivity instead of using it as a platform for their grievances.

It will be significant for the right and the left. If it goes well, it will boost the leftist diversity agenda; if it goes badly, it will confirm the right's doubts about multiculturalism. It will surely be a very colorful and vibrant Olympics.

Anonymous said...

"Chicago does have a reasonable strategy for survival as a city (i.e., not turn into Detroit), which is to finish off tearing down all the public housing and then use Section 8 rental vouchers to drive the welfare class off into the lower rent midwestern hinterlands."

Yeah. Thanks guys. It's doing wonders for the hinterlands, believe me.

My earlier comment that Chicago and Somalia were colonizing Minnesota was based purely on observation - nowadays Minneapolis is stuffed with those olive-skinned, round-faced, ugly women in beautiful dresses, and dark-skinned, sharp-featured, handsome men in plain clothes (both Somalians - the sexual dimorphism is staggering). And when I listen to American black people they talk about Chicago, Chicago, Chicago so one day I thought, "hey...they're coming from Chicago." Nice to know Chicago's "government" is actively foisting these people on us, and not merely radiating them out in the fulness of its glory.

These numbers that another reader linked to at http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/states/profile.asp are also enlightening:

"Student Characteristics
Number enrolled: 840,565

Racial/Ethnic Background
White: 77.2%
Black: 9.1%
Hispanic: 5.7%
Asian/Pacific Islander: 5.9%
American Indian/Alaskan Native: 2.1%"

So much for White Lutheran German Minnesota. Different breeding rates and continued immigration will be a huge double-whammy in the next couple decades.

(For "Asian/Pacific Islander" read Hmong - the least objectionable of the immigrants, nice folks generally, iffy drivers).

I'm guessing the vast bulk of these 76,000 black kids are in the twin cities area - and of course this doesn't include all the dropout kids. So when OUR city gets as bad as Chicago, where do WE ship em?

AllanF said...

Seems TSA and Homeland Security figured into the decision as well. It may also explain why Obama felt the need to personally lobby. The President is about the only person capable of reining those clowns in.

Beavis Andrea Butthead said...

Problem isn't really diversity vs homogeneity but the nature(or make-up)of a given diversity vs the nature of given homogeneity. I would wager that a city that is 25% Jewish, 25%Chinese, 25% German, and 25% Anglo(given that they speak a common language)would put on a better Olympics than a city that is 100% gypsy or Zimbabwean.

On the other hand, a city that is 100% Jewish or German will put on a better Olympics than a city that is 25% Zimbabwean, 25% Bangladeshi, 25% gypsy, and 25% Guatemalan.

Generally, diversity is no problem if there is a majority racial and cultural group plus a preferably diverse bunch of minorities(so that the majority group can play divide and rule among them)who happen to constructively oriented. A city that is 80% white and 20% made up of Christian Arabs, Chinese, Brahmin Hindus, Jews, and Armenians is no problem. Indeed, it might be more fun than a city that is almost entirley Swedish American. I'd rather live in NY made up of Anglos, Jews, Greeks, Italians, Poles, Irish, and etc than in some Minnesota town populated mostly by Swedish potatoheads. The "problem minorities" generally tend to be black, zealous Muslims(who refuse to assimilate), and some Hispanics who are stuck in the cultural rut of menial laboritis.

Dale in KC said...

(For "Asian/Pacific Islander" read Hmong - the least objectionable of the immigrants, nice folks generally, iffy drivers).

The East Asians (Ch/Kr/Jp) consider the Hmong to be savages or something. They get offended that they get lumped in together with them. They don't consider them of the same race - they say they're austronesian or something.

The Anti-Gnostic said...

Great post Steve. You have urban American politics nailed.

I'm a native Atlantan, and was here for the 96 Olympics. There were projects still being built 'for the Olympics' when the Olympics left town. Oh, and just this year they had to completely re-brick the old athlete dorms that now service GSU and Tech.

The $400 annual tax on professional services to fund the Olympics is still around. The baseball stadium in the most difficult part of town to get to does pretty well. People occasionally even go to it. I don't know how the horse park out in Conyers is doing.

The Olympics: the gift that keeps on giving.

I've been to Chicago. It's basically Atlanta with Slavs and Irish.

Anonymous said...

The guys at Second City Cop are jubilant - almost 600 posts and they're all whooping it up.

Anonymous said...

There are lots of Mexicans but they are not hostile to whites like the blacks.




Not physically hostile, at any rate.

Anonymous said...

"Chicago does have a reasonable strategy for survival as a city (i.e., not turn into Detroit)"

Yeah, you wish Sailer. Chicago is better than Detroit, but not much better. It has no business hosting the Olympics. For that matter, even your hometown of LA is such a hole now that it should never again even consider being an Olympic contender.

Dennis Dale said...

Rio is the more diverse city. Mr. President, we cannot allow a diversity gap!

Anonymous said...

On my first night at the [1996 Atlanta] Olympics, the bus driver taking me and about 35 other people back to our cars got lost. Our half-hour trip took 1 1/2 hours, and we joked that we got the "scenic route." On my second night, another bus driver prepared to get on the wrong highway until a chorus of Atlanta natives on the bus yelled in unison, directing him to the correct road. Last night, on my way to the Olympics, our bus took the sideview mirror off a merging Jeep. (We pulled over to the side of the road and sat for a half-hour while police filled out their reports.) Then, when we got on the bus to head back, an Olympics representative got on the bus and publicly asked if there was anyone who could give our driver directions on how to get to the drop-off point. On the same night, a bus driver pulled to the side of the highway and promptly quit, saying the job was too dangerous.

Maybe just a little off-topic, but Arthur Hu, in his Wonderlic to IQ conversion table, calculates that the Wonderlic people recommend an IQ of 100 to 108 for Bus or Truck drivers.

On the other hand, Charles Murray has data [in the infamous Footnote #44] which indicate that only 7% of all American blacks are born to mothers with IQs at or above 100.

In other words, given a random American black, there's about a 93% chance that he [or she] will be constitutionally incapable of functioning as a bus or truck driver.

Concerned Netizen said...

Whatever the reason, it makes Obama look like a totally ineffectual asshole.

Very strange man. Very odd.

Why did he want to be President? Did he just want to be The First??

He already looks bored with the job.

One termer.

patrick said...

The Hmong are more closely related to Northeast Asians (especially central and southern Chinese) than to Malays or Polynesians.

A fair number of southern Han are probably Sinicized Hmong, as the Hmong are descended from tribes who lived in southern or south-central China before the Han language and culture expanded over the past 3000 years. The natives who moved further south and into the mountains became the Hmong.

The Hmong are culturally very different from Han Chinese; they are not lowland rice farmers but tribal highlanders who traditionally lack literacy or Confucian beliefs.

Anonymous said...

Call it Parisification, where the affluent live in the city and poor are warehoused somewhere elsewhere, out of sight



As usual, Le Corbusier was there first.

His "Radiant City" proposal was a lot like the modern ideal, complete with a "technocratic elite of planners, engineers, and intellectuals" living in "skyscraper command posts" in the center of beautiful cities surrounded by the working class and poor on the outskirts.

Read more about him here.

http://tinyurl.com/yhskh3a

Subotai

Dave said...

"It appears the Rio is not only a city but also a state"

It's like New York, NY. The city is within the state, it isn't coextensive with it.

Mark said...

There's a quiet Darwinian war going on among American cities to determine who will be the winners

Conservative cities - or, that is, cities in conservative states - have yet to figure this one out. Salt Lake City is still adding to its glorious diversity by the boatloads. But as for moving minorities out of the cities and into the 'burbs, that is absolutely essential, but preferably while still keeping them concentrated in projects rather than spreading them around for the working class to "enjoy." It makes no sense to force the legitimate working class to have to wind its way through miles and miles of growing rot to get to their jobs, colleges and cultural amenities in the central cities. None.

What the USA needs are better tax incentives for renovating and maintaining old homes, rather than encouraging people to keep moving farther and farther out to get new homes.

While diversity in Utah is growing, no, we did not make the mistake of letting them run the Olympics. However you do have to be a minority to get a street named after you in Salt Lake City, apparently. Few major streets in SLC are named after people, but we do have a Martin Luther King Blvd, a Rosa Parks Avenue and a Cesar Chavez Avenue. A few years ago a young boy scout also managed to get a street renamed for Adam Galvez, a Marine who was killed by an IED in Iraq. I'm fairly certain that if his name had been, oh, Adam Winslow, that the city council would've demurred.

And, oh by the way, you know which "poor countries" Salt Lake City bribed for the bid, right? You're aware of the particular continent they came from, right? Just makin' sure.

As for Chicago coming in dead last after Barack Obama's last minute lobbying effort? All I have to say is: Hahahahahahaha! Just awesome.

George said...

In other words, given a random American black, there's about a 93% chance that he [or she] will be constitutionally incapable of functioning as a bus or truck driver.

What about rail based transportation like subways, trains, etc. (no steering)?

Uncle Peregrine said...

The Atlanta Olympics are seriously underrated because, with the end of the Cold War and Apartheid boycotts, it's the first time that everybody showed up.

Truth said...

"(In contrast, the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics were widely questioned by the media beforehand for a lack of diversity, but those non-diverse white people in Salt Lake City turned out to be -- amazingly enough -- well organized and ran a competent Olympics.)"

Yeah, the criminal corruption that took place beforehand was definitely Well organized and competent.

Of course Steve, comparing the Winter Olympics to the Summer Olympics logistically is like comparing the Hollywood Bowl to your old Notre Dame High School gym.

"And, oh by the way, you know which "poor countries" Salt Lake City bribed for the bid, right? You're aware of the particular continent they came from, right?"

Yup, and I also know the little girl Polanski sodomized...
...WASN'T A VIRGIN!!!!!

cheap said...

Good choice as well as..

dearieme said...

So Chicago came fourth in a bribing contest?

Anonymous said...

The Hmong are definitely morphologically distinct from Han but not dramatically so. If you've seen enough Hmong you can learn to recognize them. Sometimes.

RWF said...

If the IOC members were worried about the incompetence that goes with diversity then Tokyo or maybe Madrid would have won, not Rio De Janeiro.

John Craig said...

My favorite Rio crime story: A few years ago while at the height of his (steroid-assisted) powers, the fearsome mixed martial artist Vanderlei Silva, known as "the axe murderer" (and he looked the part) was carjacked while driving his SUV in Rio. Hmm. What chance do the rest of us have?

The police down there have long been rumored to make periodic trips into the favelas to simply kill people thought to be criminals. Who knows, maybe the Games organizers are planning to get those guys geared up before 2016.

Anonymous said...

Travis said...

As illustrated in the opening of The Departed, what the "elite rentier class" (aka Yankees) feared were ethnic Catholic voting blocs.

Once those ethnic Catholic voting blocs gained power Massachusetts veered sharply to the Left, with Ted Kennedy being the best example of the shift.

Travis, those Yankees had every right to be afraid.

Anonymous said...

Yup, and I also know the little girl Polanski sodomized...
...WASN'T A VIRGIN!!!!!


Yeah, but was the place he sodomized still virginal before his intrusion?

Chief Seattle said...

"Also, Steve, what are your thoughts on the real, deep causes of gentrification"

My personal theory is that the catalytic converter played a major role. Before 1975, cars constantly spewed a nasty hydrocarbon stench. All you have to do to remind yourself is go to a country without pollution controls. When I was in Panama recently, the airport curbside smog was almost unbearable - and those are relatively modern Japan made cars - not the gas guzzlers of the 60s and 70s.

Median car life is somewhere around 8-10 years. So by 1985, half of the pre-1975 cars were off the road. By 1990 most of them were - and the air in confined places like cities had cleaned up considerably. Perception lags reality a bit, but basically by 1990 the air in most cities had become tolerable again - in many places for the first time since the 40s or 50s.

Anonymous said...

Mr. Sailer, Baltimore is so different from DC that trust me, poor folks from DC are going to Charm City. It's a 'nother world there.

josh said...

Daleys plan for the Olympics called for a 40% set aside for minorities and women. (Notice whenever you hear the phrase "minorities and women" its always in the context of hardworking honest people being fleeced;you never hear,"Earthquake Devastates Town:Minorities and Women Rush To Help"! )That wouldve resulted ina grotesque ripping off of the tyaxpayer. As a former Chicagoan I am happy we got rejected. At least in Chicago,I should add,both the political and the business are in white hands,unlike in Hotlanta,where the mino's have free reign over City Hall. But Daley has to pay dearly to keep the M&W happy. (Oddly the "women" in M&W seem often to be North Shore yoga-doing maidens...many of whom are not unfamilair with the inside of a synagogue) So it wouldnt have been a travesty like Atlanta.But still,no regrets! As an aside:Did anyone hear Michelle's presentation to the IOC? Not trying to mock,I am serious here:Why did she go on about her father and his coming down with MS? That would move the IOC...how?I am sure it was decided before this stupid dog and pony show,but still,why drag out dad? (Ironic touch that he is buried in the Black cemetery where all the bodies had been dumped) BTW she described her failing,sick dad as her hero. I would take that with a "groin" of salt. She doesnt seeem like the type to suffer needy,weakening men gladly,even if they raised her. Ive seen that type!

josh said...

Re REACTIONARY: "Ive been to Chicago,its basically Atlanta with Slavs and Irish." If you come back,please be aware,theyre cracking down on Madison Street prostitution. Nailing johns. Just a heads up!:)

Anonymous said...

Also, let's not beat around the bush here, sure Atlanta and SLC got the Olympics by bribing every third world hellhole. But probably so did Rio this time around.

Chicago's boosters probably didn't have the money for it, after they blew their load getting their boy Obama installed as President.

constant gina said...

This is an obvious decision...who would choose Chicago over Rio De Janero?? wtf

Unknown said...

I suspect that Asians don't want Europeans or Africans increasing their diversity. And Africans have shown that they definitely don't want Asians and Europeans increasing their diversity. And Europeans have had enough diversity, really. And South American's don't want blacks or Asians.

So when Obama says, "Come to Chicago, the diversity is wonderful, don't you agree?", they get an uneasy feeling in their stomach and think that it might be better if the Olympics were held in a more ethnically pure area where this issue is not raised.

James Kabala said...

Truth is right, by the way - the Salt Lake City Olympics were a notorious mess until Romney was brought in to set things right.

There was at least as much bribery for Salt Lake City as there was for the Atlanta Games, and the SLC bribers were dumb enough to get caught well before the Games had taken place, instead of years after like the Atlanta bribers.

Anonymous said...

Re: Gentrification, the mid-1980s would have begun the die-off of the WWII generation of whites who remained in the city. Since their kids had fled to the suburbs already, no families replaced them.

John Seiler said...

We'll eventually find out that Obama actually did gain the Olympics for his home town -- the Jakarta 2020 Olympic Games.

Anonymous said...

Robert Hume:

You're joking, right? Because I'm not sure anyone in his right mind could describe Rio as "ethnically pure."

Truth said...

"What an a$$hole you make of yourself, sir."

It's an inside joke, Sport; you have to go back a day or two in the archives.

Jerry said...

It was a great mistake that when the Bears renovated Soldier Field a few years ago--as I recall, with 400 million of the city's money--they decreased the total number of seats to something like 60,000. The Olympics requires at least 90,000. The location of Soldier Field, on the lake and within sight of downtown, is impossibly telegenic. Daley's proposed temporary stadium, some 7 miles south of downtown, and in a sketchy part of town,was much less attractive. And Daley did get a lot of flak at the time of the stadium renovation for the fact that he was throwing a public subsidy for a rich boys' club. Serves him right that the city's number one sports asset was not available for the 2016 bid...

rob said...

Lucius,

Children regress towards the population mean, and they vary around the new mean. Not crazy hard to understand.

Regression is about .5, in-family variation is 3/4 of population variance.

Some black parents with IQs in the 90's will have a few children with IQs above 100. Not zero as you repeatedly state.

Anonymous said...

Troof sez:
Yup, and I also know the little
girl Polanski sodomized...
...WASN'T A VIRGIN!!!!!


So? How does that change the crime? Or is it that you are looking for a bit of cover as well?

Truth said...

"Lucius,

Children regress towards the population mean, and they vary around the new mean. Not crazy hard to understand."

Well Rob, you must understand that he posts this "theory" I would say, once every other week, and like clockwork, once every other week, someone corrects him.

It is hard to understand if you have an IQ of 82.3 - 87.

Mr. Anon said...

Anyplace in the southern hemisphere would generally be a good place to hold the summer olympics, because it's winter there in August. Winter (if it's a mild winter) is a better time to hold the summer olympics.

Politicians and the local power elite (real-estate developers, chamber-of-commerce types, etc.) put their cities up for the olympics because THEY will get to enjoy the games, while the cost is borne by the taxpayers. They'll get tickets to the events, the rest of us just get traffic jams and bonds to pay off.

As far as I'm concerned, trying to snag big events like the olympics for "our town" is an automatic disqualifier for any mayor, city councilman, or state official. They forfeit my vote forever.

Tom V said...

So? How does that change the crime?

I think that's precisely Truth's point.

* I don't get the "inside joke" he talks about, though.

Truth said...

"I think that's precisely Truth's point.

It was.

* I don't get the "inside joke" he talks about, though."

A couple of days ago a few posters said that what Polanski did was fine because the girl he sodomized "was not a virgin."

Anonymous said...

Well, I tried.

Twice.

Marc B said...

This has more to do with the trend of economic and cultural leveling, and Brazil is the chosen recipient to be the rising star of the Western hemisphere now that the US (and all Western Democracies) are being brought down to size. That is the major purpose of Kyoto and the global warming movement, not lower global temps.