I support Ethiopian Airlines

Marathon Debacle

The Ethiopian Olympic men marathon team selection process was deeply flawed and it showed yesterday at the London Olympics as none of the Ethiopian athletes made it to the finish line. Here is how LetsRun.com analyzed the selection when the team was announced back in May:

The Ethiopian team ended up being based solely on time, picking the runners with the fastest times in 2012 who had only run 1 marathon. The alternates thus are Markos Geneti and Tadesse Tola who were 3rd and 5th in Dubai.

That means Ethiopia's best marathoner the last four years, Tsegaye Kebede is not even an alternate.  After his London victory in 2010, Kebede was the top marathoner in the world. He was the Olympic bronze medalist in 2008 and the Worlds bronze medalist in 2009. This spring he finished third in London, which is without a doubt the most competitive marathon in the world. Gebre Gebremariam the 2010 Boston Champ, who was 3rd in Boston last year and 4th in New York, also won't be on the team.

If the team was solely going to be based on time, that criteria should have been announced in advance and people might have run different marathons. Regardless, considering all the unknowns in the marathon and different course conditions, going off of time in different races, is a poor way to pick the team.

It's hard to argue with the women's team selected as all 3 are sub 2:20 performers.

Bahraini Ethiopians

The London Olympics offers lots of interesting facts. One of them is how one's citizenship has become so fungible. A case in point: 10 out of the 12 athletes who represent Bahrain were born some place else, 7 of them in Ethiopia.

"You didn't build that!"

Thanks to the redistributionist policies of President Barack Obama, American conservatives are finding their voices again. Surprisingly, they are making use of humor to make their points. Here is one such video from a cousin of Obama. It is entertaining. Enjoy!

I support Chick-fil-A

Whom do you believe?

The BBC reports that Meles Zenawi is getting treatment at a hospital in Belgium. Here are revealing quotes from the report:

"He is not in a critical state. He is in good condition," spokesman Bereket Simon told the AFP news agency.

"He is in a critical state, his life is in danger," the agency was told by a diplomat who asked not to be named.

Ethiopia's 2012 Olympics Team

The full list of athletes here. Good luck to Team Ethiopia!

Marathon (men)

Marathon (women)

10K (men)

10K (women)

5K (men)

5K (women)

Mitt Romney's Speech to the NAACP

The presumptive GOP nominee for President of the United States gave a speech at the NAACP convention yesterday. I thought the speech was substantive and addressed the issues that the vast majority of African Americans should be concerned about: economic and educational opportunities.

Isn't it about time that African Americans stopped putting all their eggs in one basket? Yes, that means that realizing that the more you vote for a party that only promises you more government programs to solve your problems, the less free you will be and the more you will be beholden to the agenda of the statists, whose main goal is to get you hooked to government handouts so that you will keep voting for them. Once the statists get you on the hook for handouts, you will then be impotent to fight back against their other agenda that you may or do not approve of. A case in point: Obamacare! If Obamacare was intended to be a sound healthcare reform, it would have been done incrementally, responsibly (not as an experiment on 313 million people) and with the support of a large majority in Congress.

What is the Higgs boson?

"Stay ignorant, my friends!"

A funny political advertisement, but all true!

George W. Romney

The George W. that should have been a president!

The Milky Way by Royce Bair

You can see Royce Bair's fascinating photos of the Milky Way like the one below and many others at his Flickr page.

Chuck Colson

Chuck Colson has departed, but his legacy (Prison Fellowship, Manhattan Declaration, etc) will remain.

The crime of being an Amhara in today's Ethiopia

This report of ethnic Amharas being displaced from their homes in Bench Maji zone in Southern Ethiopia is very alarming. Their crime: being a native of another region of Ethiopia. Please click here to listen to the 18 minute VOA Amharic report.

Foggy Mountain Breakdown

In memory of Earl Scruggs who passed on today.

Ethiopians: Wake up!

It is reported that the Ethiopian woman that was video taped being abused in the streets of Beirut has committed suicide. Her name was Alem Dechasa. This is a very sad ending to a tragic story! May her soul rest in peace.

While thousands of Alem Dechasas are being abused in the Mideast, the Ethiopian government is bragging that it has destroyed "enemy" camps in Eritrea. Its mouthpieces like waltainfo.com and aigaforum.com have also not carried Alem's story. Sadly, Gadaa.com also posted the story on its web site only after learning her name sounded like an Oromo name. What have become of us? Wake up, Ethiopians!

Modern day slavery

It is very hard to watch this video footage of an Ethiopian woman being dragged into a car against her will in the streets of Beirut, Lebanon, and not be filled with rage. This incident happened just outside the Ethiopian consulate a few days ago. Apparently, this is a common occurrence in front of the consulate.

The abusive and inhumane treatment of Ethiopian women who work as maids in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab countries has been in the news for more than a decade. The Ethiopian government, however, has ignored the issue. This is an abdication of its number one duty, which is the protection of its citizens. Ethiopians must do something about this modern day slavery.

Lamu Port Project

Not sure how long the Lamu port project has been in the drawing boards, but the governments of Kenya, South Sudan and Ethiopia should be commended for embarking on it so soon after the independence of South Sudan.

This Music is Good for You - VIII

Enjoy Antonín Dvorák's 4th movement from his Symphony No. 9 played by the Berlin Philharmonic and the Swedish symphonic metal band Therion (you will need to click on the "Watch on YouTube" link to watch the Therion version). Dvorák composed Symphony No. 9 while on a visit to the United States in 1893.

"I feel duped"

In a new book titled "Die Kalte Sonne" (The Cold Sun), one of Germany's best known environmentalists and an electric utility executive, Fritz Vahrenholt, argues that the official United Nations forecasts on the severity of climate change are overstated and supported by weak science. He writes boldly that "the climate catastrophe is not occurring." Here is an excerpt from an interview he gave to DER SPIEGEL magazine.

SPIEGEL: Why are you taking on the role of the climate rebel with such passion? Where does this rage come from?

Vahrenholt: For years, I disseminated the hypotheses of the IPCC, and I feel duped. Renewable energy is near and dear to me, and I've been fighting for its expansion for more than 30 years. My concern is that if citizens discover that the people who warn of a climate disaster are only telling half the truth, they will no longer be prepared to pay higher electricity costs for wind and solar (energy). Then the conversion of our energy supply will lack the necessary acceptance.