Phelps Goes 7 for 7 & Is Now One Gold Medal Away From Making History

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BEIJING - Michael Phelps beat Milorad Cavic of Serbia to the wall to win the 100-meter butterfly Saturday, tying Mark Spitz’s record of seven gold medals at a single Olympics.

With his arms fully outstretched, the American touched in 50.58 seconds, brreaking Cavic’s Olympic record of 50.76 set in the semifinals.

Cavic, who was still in mid-stroke at the wall, took the silver in 50.59, a mere 0.01 seconds behind Phelps. Andrew Lauterstein of Australia earned the bronze in 51.12.

It was the first race of these games in which Phelps didn’t set a world record. Crocker, the world record-holder, was fourth in 51.13. Phelps won the event four years ago in Athens, and Crocker finished second.

McCain Reality Check… “Military Personnel Support Obama 6-1″

Some of you may have read the piece I put together yesterday regarding Republican candidate John McCain’s growing problems with military personnel, both active and retired. Well it turns out that it may be worse then even I though - and there are numbers to prove it. As this mornings papers rolled out, we began seeing headline after headline focusing on the Military and their overwhelming support for Senator Barack Obama, with money to prove the statement, which otherwise would be understandably laughable.

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Gotta Love Beach Volleyball: Round Deux

First and foremost let me get it out of the way and let it be known that I love womens beach volleyball. Why you ask? Simple, the women, the setting (love the beach) and of course the athleticism. So here is another slide show made in tribute to the beach bunnies who dominate day in and day out on the sandy courts.

“1 in 14 Military Veterans Say They Support McCain”: How Can This be?

We now know that Senator John McCain, the man who perpetuates everything military (or at least he attempts too) seems to have a growing problem among military veterans - of all ages, rank and service. This began to surface months ago, and we began to see support for McCain, among former soldiers, diminish at a very high rate. Subsequently this began to shape into what we see today right around the time McCain adamantly refused to endorse and went as far as to speak out against the latest GI bill, which was co-sponsored by two other Vietnam veterans in the Senate, Republican Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Democrat Jim Webb of Virginia.

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“One down, seven to go”: WATCH Michael Phelps Breaks Captures His First Gold Medal

BEIJING (AP) - Michael Phelps powered to the wall and whipped around to get his time, so eager to see another amazing set of numbers that he bumped his head on the end of the pool. Not that he felt any pain. With President Bush cheering him on, Phelps dominated his first event of the Beijing Olympics on Sunday morning, crushing his own world record and all hopes of his challengers with a mark of 4 minutes, 3.84 seconds in the 400-meter individual medley.

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Beach Volleyballs Love/Hate Relationship With the Olympics

BEIJING (Reuters) - Beach volleyball’s popularity has created something of a love-hate relationship with television. The highly-photogenic sport has been a winner for broadcasters at the Olympics, where according to the International Olympic Committee it accumulated 3.5 billion television viewer hours during the Athens Games.

In turn that has raised the profile of beach volleyball, inspired more countries to build up teams, and lured in sponsors.

The downside is that broadcasters start to demand games be played to fit their schedules and in a style that makes better television.

In Beijing, the semi-finals and finals will be played in the morning to catch the all-important evening prime time viewing in the United States and Brazil, where beach volleyball has a wide following.

This year, officials have also tightened up the enforcement of a 1999 rule that players must serve within 12 seconds of the last point ending - a decision some players put down to broadcasting needs.

“It’s a very dynamic sport and the international rules have been changed for television,” said Australia’s Natalie Cook, who has competed in every Olympics since beach volleyball joined the Games in 1996 and won the gold medal in Sydney.

Quicker turnarounds make for faster-paced television but are not easy on the players, particularly in Beijing.

“The more time you have between points, the more you can recover from the last point and get some water. It’ll be tough on the players in such hot and humid conditions,” said Brazil’s Renata Ribeiro.

For all the time pressure television piles on, players also hope that their moment in the media sun will help bring in more cash for courts, training and prizes as well as educate people about the sport.

“There’s still an element of people thinking it’s all about bikinis,” said Cook. “But once they actually watch a match, they realize how dynamic and athletic it is so they stay and stop talking about sex.”

So in honor of this amazingly fun to watch (and play) sport we have decided to put together a little slide show of sorts to highlight some of beach volleyballs biggest stars:

An Early Look at Barack Obama’s Olympic Advertisement: “Hands”

Yesterday the Barack Obama campaign unveiled their 30 second television ad spot which will be airing throughout the Olympic proceedings. The title of the ad spot is “Hands” and it primarily focuses on economic and energy related issues - the message is clear and concise, and it is likely to have an impact among voters of crucial swing states such as Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Florida.

Sam Stein over at the HuffingtonPost writes:

“Thirty-seconds in length, only half the advertisement is devoted to Obama’s proposals. Nevertheless, the fact that the campaign has devoted considerable resources to the spot — $5 million — serves as a strong reflection of the important role energy is playing in the campaign.

For an illustration of the drastic difference in tone between the Obama and McCain campaigns, contrast this ad with the one McCain released Friday morning.”

The contrast between the two camps message really is something to marvel at. You can begin seeing the sheer desperation being exhibited from McCain and company - and to be completely honest, it’s actually kind of sad. So, with that said - here’s a look at Obama’s Olympic ad, “Hands”:

Unequivocal Proof Bush & Co. Lied Their Way Into the Iraq War: Everyone Needs to Read This

It has been well documented that George W. Bush and his cronies that include VP Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Duncan Keith, Richard Pearle, and many others knowingly lied to the American public regarding why we were going to invade the sovereign nation of Iraq. Whether it be the Pentagon releasing hard documents showing that the Bush administration knowingly lied 935 times about various facets of the invasion, or whistle blowers like Scott McClellan going public with admissions of knowingly lying on behalf of the President regarding Iraq.

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Analyzing the Connection Between the Neo-con Right, Israel & Iran

Since the Bush administration literally took power back in 2000 we have seen an increase in both ego maniacal neo-conservatives such as Richard Pearle, Duncan Keith, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, etc. and the saber rattling which in one case - Iraq - has turned into an abyss of chaos which includes unprecedented monetary sacrifice and most important, the life’s of over 4,000 men and women of our armed services. But the neo-cons have a new target in sight, and they have been honing in on them for some time now - of course I am referring to none other then Iran - which continues to appear as being the “next country on the list” for the fringe right in Washington.

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Stewart Highlights Some of the Bizarre Political Accusations Being Thrown Around

Here’s an hilarious clip from Comedy Centrals “Late Night w/ John Stewart” that has the comical host poking fun (aka: doing what he does best) at just about everyone involved in the election - McCain, Obama, liberals, and most of all - the biggest culprit when it comes to the dumbing down of Political discourse - the mainstream media.

He points out that they (the media, talking heads, “experts”, etc) are playing literally every “card” one could imagine. These include the race card, the Europe card, the age card, the elitist card, the experience card, the change card, the populist card, the fear card, the patriotism card, the women card, the class card, the Maliki card, and so on, and so on…

John Stewart: “McCain just played the ‘Get the f*ck out of my face card!!!”

God I love this show, I mean the race genie at the end, and the highlighting of just how inept, and uniformed the mainstream media is in their complete and utter failure in reporting the “news”, opposed to the sensationalized trash mag style they have come to adopt over the years.

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