Brilliant Logic

August 20th, 2008, by The Angry Drunk

I’m going to take a quick break from Apple and New Media Douchebag related top­ics to point out some Old Media Douchebaggery. I don’t fol­low sports much (read, “at all”) but I can spot some dip­shit logic as well and any­one, so this piece by Alan Abrahamson at nbcolympics​.com caught my eye. The bot­tom line is that some Jamaican cat named Usain Bolt broke some world records. Apparently this dude is really fast. The part that I want to high­light is this.  After ques­tion­ing whether Mr. Bolt is under the influ­ence of any­thing more pow­er­ful than some tasty jerk chicken, Abrahamson writes:

And while no evi­dence of any sort has sur­faced to sug­gest he’s not, it’s naïve not to won­der how Bolt is able to run so fast. Because no one in the his­tory of human beings, from the first prim­i­tive soul des­per­ately try­ing to out­run a saber-toothed tiger to the sophis­ti­cated races of our times, has ever run as fast as Usain Bolt has run at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

Fuck me run­ning! Isn’t that the point of break­ing a record? Apparently, in Alan’s mind, doing any­thing more com­pe­tently than a nean­derthal is sus­pi­cious. Anyway, we all know that there only one real per­for­mance enhanc­ing drug. Everything else is ashes and dust.

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  • http://tewha.net Steven Fisher

    The funny part is the silent “…because he’s not an American!” in there. Because you just know if he was, he’d be hailed as a hero by NBC instead of vil­i­fied as a drug user.

  • http://tewha.net Steven Fisher

    The funny part is the silent “…because he’s not an American!” in there. Because you just know if he was, he’d be hailed as a hero by NBC instead of vil­i­fied as a drug user.

  • Hans

    That, and his name sounds like “hussain”.

    Sheesh, that Phelps dude puts in a per­for­mance a dol­phin would be proud of, and that’s just good olé’ ‘Merkin inge­nu­ity and sta­mina. But the Jamaican fella breaks a sin­gle record, and that’s juicing?

  • Hans

    That, and his name sounds like “hussain”.

    Sheesh, that Phelps dude puts in a per­for­mance a dol­phin would be proud of, and that’s just good olé’ ‘Merkin inge­nu­ity and sta­mina. But the Jamaican fella breaks a sin­gle record, and that’s juicing?

  • Shaun

    I live in the Caribbean, and i’m insulted, by these Douchebags who thinks that only American ath­letes can do won­ders. I’m so glad that i didn’t have to rely on NBC for my Olympic coverage.

  • Shaun

    I live in the Caribbean, and i’m insulted, by these Douchebags who thinks that only American ath­letes can do won­ders. I’m so glad that i didn’t have to rely on NBC for my Olympic coverage.

  • mdhughes

    I’m from Moscow, ID (mud in spring, hell­ishly hot in sum­mer, on fire in autumn, and — most impor­tantly — arc­tic waste­land in win­ter), where the Jamaican bob­sled team trained. They were on some­thing, but it wasn’t performance-enhancing.

    Bolt, OTOH, seems to be keep­ing his head clear, and I would expect from that that he’s just work­ing hard.

    Sadly, your Guinness link is broken…

  • mdhughes

    I’m from Moscow, ID (mud in spring, hell­ishly hot in sum­mer, on fire in autumn, and — most impor­tantly — arc­tic waste­land in win­ter), where the Jamaican bob­sled team trained. They were on some­thing, but it wasn’t performance-enhancing.

    Bolt, OTOH, seems to be keep­ing his head clear, and I would expect from that that he’s just work­ing hard.

    Sadly, your Guinness link is broken…

  • http://www.Barrimond.com/robert R.oB.

    First time see­ing this on mobile Safari. Beautiful. Finally a site that actu­ally han­dles mul­ti­ple web clients properly!

  • http://www.Barrimond.com/robert R.oB.

    First time see­ing this on mobile Safari. Beautiful. Finally a site that actu­ally han­dles mul­ti­ple web clients properly!

  • Phil

    Personally, I love the notion that the fastest peo­ple in the world – from the very begin­ning of his­tory – have invari­ably par­tic­i­pated in the Olympics (never mind pesky details like dates or geography).

    I won­der if there’s any chance they’ll add the Saber-tooth 1600m relays back into the Games… I miss those.

  • Phil

    Personally, I love the notion that the fastest peo­ple in the world – from the very begin­ning of his­tory – have invari­ably par­tic­i­pated in the Olympics (never mind pesky details like dates or geography).

    I won­der if there’s any chance they’ll add the Saber-tooth 1600m relays back into the Games… I miss those.

  • http://www.theangrydrunk.com The Angry Drunk

    @mdhughes: That’s fuck­ing weird, the html for that link looked ok in the edi­tor, but it was ren­der­ing wrong. Fixed now.

  • http://www.theangrydrunk.com The Angry Drunk

    @mdhughes: That’s fuck­ing weird, the html for that link looked ok in the edi­tor, but it was ren­der­ing wrong. Fixed now.

  • Allanimal

    Because no one in the his­tory of human beings, from the first prim­i­tive soul des­per­ately try­ing to out­run a saber-toothed tiger to the sophis­ti­cated races of our times, has ever run as fast as Usain Bolt has run at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

    Actually, he seems to be mis­taken. According to my record book, a guy named Urg in 50,000 BC out­ran a saber-toothed tiger 0.00001 sec­onds faster than Bolt did his thing. Of course, there is some debate about the stop­watch tech­nol­ogy used at the time… And the meter hadn’t been invented, so the dis­tance cal­cu­la­tion may be off. (Converting to “ugs” to “cubits” to “royal whatchamacal­its” to “meters” has had prob­lems in the past)

    I won­der what his­tory of humans run­ning, espe­cially the bit before writ­ing was even invented, this guy was reading?

  • Allanimal

    Because no one in the his­tory of human beings, from the first prim­i­tive soul des­per­ately try­ing to out­run a saber-toothed tiger to the sophis­ti­cated races of our times, has ever run as fast as Usain Bolt has run at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

    Actually, he seems to be mis­taken. According to my record book, a guy named Urg in 50,000 BC out­ran a saber-toothed tiger 0.00001 sec­onds faster than Bolt did his thing. Of course, there is some debate about the stop­watch tech­nol­ogy used at the time… And the meter hadn’t been invented, so the dis­tance cal­cu­la­tion may be off. (Converting to “ugs” to “cubits” to “royal whatchamacal­its” to “meters” has had prob­lems in the past)

    I won­der what his­tory of humans run­ning, espe­cially the bit before writ­ing was even invented, this guy was reading?

  • http://ripragged.blogspot.com Anonymous

    Fortunately, out­side of mar­ket­ing jock straps and ten­nis shoes, the Olympics are pretty much mean­ing­less for any­thing except mind­less entertainment.

    It’s nice to see that no one can be a win­ner with­out arous­ing sus­pi­cion of cheat­ing. Some things never change. Envy is an ugly thing.

  • http://rip-ragged.com/dross Rip Ragged

    Fortunately, out­side of mar­ket­ing jock straps and ten­nis shoes, the Olympics are pretty much mean­ing­less for any­thing except mind­less entertainment.

    It’s nice to see that no one can be a win­ner with­out arous­ing sus­pi­cion of cheat­ing. Some things never change. Envy is an ugly thing.

  • Ralph Hitchens

    Given the recent his­tory of performance-enhancing drug use by top-level track & field ath­letes, it’s nat­ural that some degree of sus­pi­cion would be directed at the remark­able Usain Bolt — and the fact that he’s not an American has noth­ing to do with it. The ease with which he won both his races and the stag­ger­ing mar­gins of vic­tory were bound to raise ques­tions, but I think the cur­rent drug screen­ing régime at the Olympics can prob­a­bly be trusted.

  • Ralph Hitchens

    Given the recent his­tory of performance-enhancing drug use by top-level track & field ath­letes, it’s nat­ural that some degree of sus­pi­cion would be directed at the remark­able Usain Bolt — and the fact that he’s not an American has noth­ing to do with it. The ease with which he won both his races and the stag­ger­ing mar­gins of vic­tory were bound to raise ques­tions, but I think the cur­rent drug screen­ing régime at the Olympics can prob­a­bly be trusted.

  • Gatesbasher

    So swim­ming is exempt from sus­pi­cion? What about the 4 x 100 relay that Jason Lezak swam the fastest 100 meters in his­tory to win? He must have been on steroids! And the Italians and the Swedes both broke the exist­ing world record to take 4th and 5th place! How come nobody ques­tions their per­for­mances? Could it be because they’re all white?

  • Gatesbasher

    So swim­ming is exempt from sus­pi­cion? What about the 4 x 100 relay that Jason Lezak swam the fastest 100 meters in his­tory to win? He must have been on steroids! And the Italians and the Swedes both broke the exist­ing world record to take 4th and 5th place! How come nobody ques­tions their per­for­mances? Could it be because they’re all white?