Monday commentary

Confession: I spent Sunday afternoon shamelessly rooting for team Canada. I think it's always a good thing when imperialist powers discover they can't have everything. (Note to China: that's you, too.) Also, it's mere chance that my grandfather decided to to use a friend's sponsorship to come to the USA instead of using a relation's sponsorship to go to Canada. I might have got to that cheering section on my own.

It may be possible that hockey will benefit from this game (one of the best I've ever seen) in the way many people hope. However, I'd suggest the NHL adopt another item from the international hockey rules that govern Olympic play: ejections for fighting. I know that the principal objection many people have to hockey is the fighting and the wrist-slapping that penalises it.

And for my last Olympics reflection: can we just lose that Cold War relic, the national medal count? It's the attitude shift that might make Russia be a bit more philosophical, and possibly not spend money it doesn't have on athletic preparation for Sochi. Maybe PM Harper should send Medvedev a case of Molson and explain about beer and a shot.

Speaking of hockey pucks, the Senate's ranking hockey puck for the second week in a row is Kentucky's Senator Bunning. The rest of the Senate isn't that far behind, for having rules that permit a single senator to block legislation.
He is resigning at the end of his term because of Republican party pressure. That's too long; characteristic of that chocolate eclair, McConnell. Let me offer a couple of points, for Senators who can't do math and think it's cool to grandstand with voter's lives.

1. One American in six is unemployed or unemployed. When you add to that the voting family members affected by that you have the biggest voting bloc in the country, as large or larger than the entire Republican "base."
2. Even Reagan understood that a major element in unemployment benefits was to allow unemployed people to contribute directly to the economy in a modest way. No benefits=no spending=a real possibility of continued or worsening economic crisis.
3. The unemployed can thank Reagan for the fact that they pay income tax on their benefits. No benefits=no tax revenue from 1/6 of the work force.

If Sen. Bunning won't lay off the Jack Daniels long enough to get a grip on reality, then Senate Republicans should lay him off now.

More Olympic contemplations

The U.S. Nordic combined team did it again, medaling in the team pursuit event. What we Nordic buffs need now is for them to communicate some of their mojo to the rest of the U.S. Nordic athletes.

Incidentally, I have it on good authority that Canada will offer asylum to any Norwegian and Austrian atheletes who are denied re-rentry to their own countries due to poor performance. The one condition is that the Norwegian curling team has to burn their infamous pants.

Evidently Plushenko's "platinum medal" has disappeared from his Web site. Could it be that he's angling for a diamond medal?

Latest nomination for athletes who can learn something from the exuberant snowboarders who finished off the podium but seem to have had a grand time anyway: Julia Mancuso. Lindsey Vonn was already on my list, but I hoped for better behaviour from Mancuso. It sucks to have a combination of fog, accidents and rules spoil your giant slalom chances, but all of those things are out of one's control. Despite the obvious bad blood between Mancuso ond Vonn, I think we can assume that Vonn didn't crash and break a finger (Or was it a nail? I forget.) just to spite Mancuso.

I'm enjoying the ski cross events, because they remind me of the Alpine skiing we did as kids, when grooming was something that happened twice a day, ski patrols were around to pick up the injured and dead, not to be ski nannies, and groups of adolescents would race each other to the bottom just for the hell of it. What I want next is ski cross grudge matches that are compulsory for any athletes who throw hissy fits, whether they can ski or not. let's start with Mancuso and Vonn.