Junkyard Cesspool Wars 2016: Day 1 Evening

(In British- Scrapheap Poo Pit Challenge)

I stand accused of being unfair to Brazil and mouthing the Imperialist Exceptionalist tropes that mark our Northern fully industrialized (hah!) First Worlder institutionally and systemically privileged status.

Guilty! I’m the whitest guy you’ll ever meet. Nurses greet me with- “Son, the last time someone came in with numbers like that, they’d been shot.” Oh, how’d they do? “They died.”

I think this person doesn’t understand what I find humorous.

The Intercept’s Olympics Guide for Identifying Brazil’s New Leaders
by Glenn Greenwald and Erick Dau
Aug. 5 2016, 11:46 a.m.

With the 2016 Summer Olympics officially opening today in Rio de Janeiro, the world’s eyes will be on the nation of Brazil. Ever since the actual, legitimate, democratically elected president, Dilma Rousseff, was suspended in April pending a final impeachment vote scheduled for later this month, there has been a new set of political leaders who rule the country — from the very same center and right-wing parties, and often the very same people, who were repeatedly rejected by voters as they sought to obtain the political power they now, without an election, are fortunate enough to wield.

Beyond the anti-democratic means they used to seize power, Brazil’s new leaders — most of whom were also key plotters in Rousseff’s removal — are themselves the targets of serious corruption investigations, drowning in all sorts of official allegations. Given that impeachment was justified based on the need to fight corruption, that is an ironic fact indeed (despite the high number of politicians in Dilma’s party implicated in these personal corruption scandals, including her predecessor, Lula da Silva, she herself never has been). Thanks to the legal “privilege” high-level Brazilian officials have gifted themselves — whereby they can only be tried by the nation’s Supreme Court, which is so backlogged that it will be many, many years before that is remotely possible — most of these corruption scandals are unlikely to be legally adjudicated for some time. In most cases, officials have denied their own guilt, though the accusations are based in credible evidence.

The corruption scandals plaguing Brazil’s new leaders are so widespread that it is often hard to keep track of, so The Intercept is publishing a guide to help identity them as they emerge and appear throughout the Olympics.

I strongly urge you to click through because it’s a festival of linky goodness. Glenn has been covering this since day one, though he has an ax to grind. He lives in Brazil.

Isn’t it ironic (just a little bit) that Team U-S-A U-S-A got its first Gold in 10m Air Rifle (don’t you dare call it 35′ BBs). Congratulations Ginny Thrasher.

I haven’t yet mentioned the nearly daily “controlled detonations” where the rapid response anti-terrorist team blow up some random piece of lost property just for practice. Today it was an unattended backpack near the finish of the cycling course.

How bad is it? About this bad-

Angry fans miss Olympic events on Rio’s shambolic opening morning
Reuters
Saturday 6 August 2016 13.26 EDT

The Rio Olympics got off to a shambolic start on Saturday with fans queuing for hours to enter arenas and some missing their events as many athletes competed in front of eerily empty stands.

Games organisers apologised for dropping the ball on the first day of full competition, the morning after a dazzling opening ceremony, as iconic venues such as Copacabana beach for the beach volleyball saw only a few hundred spectators.

Outside, lines stretched for several blocks as angry fans stood in the scorching sun, waiting as security staff struggled to cope.

“Indeed we have problems in some [security checkpoints] in the Olympic Park and we apologise for everybody standing in line outside the venues,” the Games spokesman Mario Andrada told reporters. “We need to upgrade that part of the Games. We moved people from Rio 2016 [organisation] to speed up the mag and bag [security checks] and within the next hours we will be in much better shape.”
…
Games organisers blamed the situation on a lack of coordination between various groups of security personnel, including the police, Games staff and private security firms.

What should have been a celebration of the start of South America’s first Olympics instead turned into a damage‑control operation, with Andrada vowing an immediate improvement. “It is the first morning of the Olympic crowd and some of the systems did not talk to each other,” he said.

“It was a problem of coordination. We need to explain to the public. We owe them an explanation and we owe them an excuse.”

Only a few hundred spectators made it into the gymnastics arena, which can seat 13,500 people. There were also many empty seats at the boxing venue on Saturday morning as the first professionals in Olympics history entered the ring. Handball and hockey matches also experienced far from full stands.

The Creature Emerges!

Rio is doomed! Doomed I tells yah.

Serbian Olympic rowers sink in ferocious conditions on Rio waters
by Sean Ingle, The Guardian
Saturday 6 August 2016 10.59 EDT

Most Olympic rowers have spent months fretting and prepping about the dangers of Zika-infested mosquitos and adenoviruses lurking in the Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas. Few, though, were ready to face vicious crosswinds and waters so choppy that it left a Serbian boat capsized and others claiming these were the worst conditions they had ever encountered.

Matt Smith, the executive director of rowing’s governing body, Fisa, defended the decision not to postpone racing – but warned rowers that conditions were likely to get even worse on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, which could even lead to rounds being cancelled.

“It’s a small regatta, with 550 rowers, so we can pretty easily make up one day,” he said. “But if we get two or three knocked out then we go into contingency mode, and into scenarios where we possible drop rounds. We told team managers on Thursday that if you lose rounds of racing, your results from previous races could determine your placement in finals or semi-finals. They are on notice that every race matters because if we lose two or three days’ racing it could be the case.”

Smith was speaking after loud complaints about racing on the opening day being allowed to go ahead, despite the weather, which led to several rowers nearly capsizing before the Serbian men’s pair of Milos Vasic and Nenad Bedik went into the water when their boat caught a crab. Usually rowers have to finish the course to be allowed to race again in the repechage. Fisa, however, ruled that because of the conditions and the fact they were behind in the schedule, the rowers could take a DNF – did not finish – and still compete in the repechage on Sunday at 9.30am.

Fisa also denied that the Serbians faced any dangers from falling into the water. “It is nearly drinking water,” Smith said. “It’s swimming quality. It’s really good. Some might say there are viruses there, but it’s amazingly good right now.”

Most rowers did not take such a rosy view. The Australian Kim Brennan, a competitor in single sculls, was a particularly vociferous critic, insisting the course was “not rowable”.

“I do think it should have been called off,” she said. “And speaking to a lot of rowers in the boat park there’s a lot of discontent. We’ve put 10 years plus into this and to have it decided on a little bit of lottery, and what waves hit a boat at a particular time, is a little bit disappointing.”

Ok, so not Guanabara Bay. They may not mutate provided we pump enough Cipro in them.

Tonight

(all times ET)