Brits poop their white britches over this belgian shake-up

New academic research claims cricket is not English, but was imported by immigrants from northern Belgium.

A poem thought to have been written in 1533 has been uncovered, which suggests the game originates from Flanders.

In the work attributed to John Skelton, Flemish weavers are labelled "kings of crekettes", according to Paul Campbell of the Australian National University.

The discovery challenges the long established theory that the sport evolved from English children's games.

The first definitive references to the game appeared in England in the 1600s, when fines were handed out for those missing church to play.

THE IMAGE OF IPOCRISIE
O lodre of Ipocrites,
Nowe shut vpp your wickettes,
And clappe to your clickettes!
A! Farewell, kings of crekettes!

Poem attributed to John Skelton

Quote of the day

Phelps, on taking hetty bong rips:

"I engaged in behavior which was regrettable and demonstrated bad judgment. I'm 23 years old and despite the successes I've had in the pool, I acted in a youthful and inappropriate way, not in a manner people have come to expect from me. For this, I am sorry. I promise my fans and the public it will not happen again."

But the real kicker:
Debbie Phelps, his mother, cried at the news.

"That hurt worse, maybe, than anything," Phelps wrote. "I had never seen my mother that upset."

woman of the year.

what is there to do other than ride kangaroos?

SYDNEY (Reuters) - A group of boys who stole a golf buggy from a resort in northern Australia sparked a low-speed highway chase when they were pursued down a major highway by two resort employees in a second buggy.

The chase occurred last Monday when the five boys, aged between 10 and 16, took the buggy from the resort near the city of Darwin, the Northern Territory police force said in a statement on its Website.

After running along the main Stuart Highway, the chase ended when police arrived and the boys abandoned the buggy. One of them, a 10-year old, was arrested, but the others escaped.

The buggy was retrieved and returned to the resort undamaged, police said.

just a friendly monetary reminder:

How much did NBC pay for broadcast rights to the Olympics: $894 million.

I'd say: worth every penny.

Is this True? China is Fucked up and MEAN.

From the ~Questionable~ Daily Mail - The bleak concrete walls topped with razor wire and the sentries in towers at the gates are a chilling reminder of a different era.
On the nearby roads, heavily armed guards patrol relentlessly, checking both drivers and pedestrians, constantly alert.

Meanwhile, less than 30 miles away, the world's attention is focused on the world-famous 'Bird's Nest' Olympic stadium and the other venues where a global audience of two billion is watching the Games and enjoying the spectacle of the 'new' China.

The Beijing regime has deployed an army of 500,000 smiling volunteers to help foreigners find their way around the teeming capital city.
Blades of grass have been individually combed. Signs have been erected in English.
Spitting has been banned and taxi drivers have been told to wear ties.

But there's none of that here in the suburb of Daxing, where the only 'venues' are the five camps into which thousands of China's 'undesirables' have been swept from the streets of Beijing and locked up.

Here, down bumpy, unlit roads, is where old habits die hard for China's brutal totalitarian communist regime.
These camps are being used to imprison - without trial or legal representation - people that the regime wants the world to believe do not exist amid the miracle of modern China.

From street children, hawkers, the homeless and prostitutes, to the mentally ill, black migrants, drug dealers and gays caught in public bathhouses, the camps on the outskirts of the city started filling up with Beijing's 'undesirables' last year as part of the Chinese regime's determination to present what it sees as an acceptable face to the world.

It is all eerily reminiscent of the build-up to the 1936 Games in Berlin, when the government cleared similar 'undesirables' from the streets.
Under Hitler's regime many of the Nazi concentration camps bore the slogan Arbeit macht frei (Work makes you free) at their gates.
In China, the camps bear the slogan 'Re-education Through Labour'.

Working up to 16 hours a day and held in cramped, unsanitary cells with only one toilet bucket for dozens of inmates, the existence of the jailed 'undesirables' is something China has done its best to hide.

I'll hold your shuttlecock if you hold mine.

As the Czech Republic's Katy Emmons was on the verge of winning the first gold medal of the 2008 Olympic Games on Saturday, there was at least one person in the venue more nervous than she — her husband and fellow Olympic shooter, American Matt Emmons.

"Whenever you’re watching the other one, you’re always more nervous than the one shooting," Matt Emmons said.

Matt and Katy Emmons are living an Olympic fairy tale. They met in 2004 in Athens, where Katy won bronze and Matt not only won gold, but also made history … albeit not the kind he was hoping to make.

Matt entered the finals of the 50m rifle 3 position final with a huge lead, and essentially only needed to hit the target to win. But instead of securing his second gold of the games, he aimed at the wrong target, received a score of zero, and plummeted to eighth place.

Katy, who was watching the match, felt so bad for Matt that she approached him at a beer garden later that day to console him. The chemistry between the two was instant. They began dating, and the couple married in 2007.

Beijing is their first Olympics competing as husband and wife.
"Whenever you’re watching the other one, you’re always more nervous than the one shooting," said Matt Emmons after watching his wife win the gold medal.

Katy is hoping to help Matt remember to aim for the right target at his events on Aug. 15 and 17. Taking home four gold medals between them would certainly add a storied chapter to their Olympic romance, but for Katy and Matt, the happily-ever-after doesn’t depend on hardware. They are going to try to add a little Olympian to their family.

"We’re hoping to start after the games. We’re hoping to start soon. That’s something that’s very important to us," Matt said. "Family is much more important to us than sports, so we’re looking forward to it."

Our President, MY Hero.

Phellps is my GD

"Eat, sleep and swim. That's all I can do," Phelps, who won two more gold medals today, told NBC when asked what he needs to win medals. "Get some calories into my system and try to recover the best I can."

Phelps, 23, will swim 17 times over nine days of competition at the Beijing Games - meaning that he will need all the calories he can shovel in his mouth in order to keep his energy levels high.

Phelps' diet - which involves ingesting 4,000 calories every time he sits down for a meal - resembles that of a reckless overeater rather than an Olympian.

Phelps lends a new spin to the phrase "Breakfast of Champions" by starting off his day by eating three fried-egg sandwiches loaded with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, fried onions and mayonnaise.

He follows that up with two cups of coffee, a five-egg omelet, a bowl of grits, three slices of French toast topped with powdered sugar and three chocolate-chip pancakes.

At lunch, Phelps gobbles up a pound of enriched pasta and two large ham and cheese sandwiches slathered with mayo on white bread - capping off the meal by chugging about 1,000 calories worth of energy drinks.

For dinner, Phelps really loads up on the carbs - what he needs to give him plenty of energy for his five-hours-a-day, six-days-a-week regimen - with a pound of pasta and an entire pizza.

He washes all that down with another 1,000 calories worth of energy drinks.

Phelps remains on course to at least equal Mark Spitz's record of seven gold medals won at the 1972 Munich Games.

At these Summer Games, a typical day for Phelps starts with a 5 a.m. wake-up call. Most of his races have taken place between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. ET when in China - 12 hours ahead of East Coast time.

what it must feel like to be all sorts of awesome

this girl.
i love her.

Russians back drugs, claims IOC.

IOC drugs chief Arne Ljungqvist on Tuesday accused Russia of systematically doping after seven athletes were hit with suspensions which could lead to four-year bans.
The 77-year-old Swede, who is also a vice-president of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), expressed his huge disappointment at what had taken place.

"A year ago I would have answered no," said Ljungqvist referring to whether he thought it was a case of systematic doping.

"However, I agree that it is a case of systematic doping. This would fall under the new WADA code that carries a four year ban."

The Russian scandal arose last week when the IAAF provisionally suspended seven leading Russian female athletes - five of whom were in the Russian Olympic squad - for the suspected switching of urine samples in drug tests last year.

The controls showed discrepancies in their DNA results, the IAAF said, which indicated the samples given were not from the athletes in question.

Yelena Soboleva, who has clocked the fastest times in the world this year over both 800m and 1500m, was targeted as well as fellow middle distance runners Svetlana Cherkasova, Yulia Fomenko, former double world champion Tatyana Tomashova and Olga Yegorova.

Yegorova has already courted controversy as the IAAF ruled she could run in the 2001 Edmonton world championships because French authorities had failed to test her blood as well as her urine when she tested positive for EPO at a Golden League meeting in Paris.

She went on to win the title in Canada amid boos from the crowd while Britain's long-distance star Paula Radcliffe held up a placard in the stands saying 'EPO Drug Cheats Out'.

Hammer thrower Gulfiya Khanafeyeva, a former world record holder, and reigning European discus champion Darya Pishchalnikova, were also named in the affair.

holy hot swimmer batman.

LONDON (Reuters) - Swimming just got a little uglier. With the extreme, across the board use of the new Speedo LZR Racer, men are covered up like its 1910. DESTROYING all the reasons that watching those buff, shimmering dudes is my #1CHOICE for Summer olympic games.



Britain knows what people want though, and Coca-Cola's energy drink maker Powerade knows how to give it to 'em.

Some of Britain's top athletes have decided to bare all ahead of the Beijing Olympics.

Triple jumper Phillips Idowu, cyclist Rebecca Romero and swimmer Gregor Tait have all been photographed taking part in their individual sports stark naked as part of Pwerade's most recent campaign.


"Everyone is used to seeing athletes in competition or winning, but we wanted to give people the chance to see the real make-up of an athlete and their muscle and power," said Cathryn Sleight, marketing director for Coca-Cola Great Britain, which launched the Powerade campaign.

Idowu said the photo shoot was "definitely one of the more unusual shoots I've taken part in, but also one of the most enjoyable."

Jihadists move East

Aug. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Police locked down Kashgar, cut Internet access in China's westernmost major city and detained journalists after an attack yesterday by members of the Uighur ethnic group killed 16 officers, according to media reports.

Two reporters working for Japan's Chunichi newspaper and Nippon Television Network were detained by police for two hours and beaten before being released, Kyodo English News said, citing the journalists' employers.

``Journalists are forbidden to enter the area controlled by border police, but the two disobeyed the rules,'' Kashgar's government spokesman Eskar said today, according to a report by state news agency Xinhua. ``We are sorry for the incident and the damage to the equipment that belonged to the reporters.'' [but not for the beating, they totally deserved that. Being reporters. Talking about what they see. Attackson cops. Totally deserved it.]

Police detained two suspects after yesterday's attack, describing them as ethnic Uighurs, a predominantly Muslim minority group in Xinjiang province, state-owned Xinhua said. The authorities, counting Xinjiang's East Turkistan Islamic Movement as China's largest terror threat, have clamped down on the region's security and detained Uighur suspects ahead of Beijing's Aug. 8 Olympic Games.

Kashgar's population of 3.3 million people is 90 percent Uighur, mostly Muslims who speak a different language and bear little resemblance to ethnic-Han Chinese. They are fighting to get their own nation, between China and Tajikistan.

Police found nine home-made bombs, a gun, machetes and literature about a ``holy war'' at the scene of the attack, China's Public Security Ministry said today in a statement without giving further details.

a note on the beatings:Chunichi's newspaper photographer Masami Kawakita, 38, and Nippon Television's reporter Shinji Katsuta, 37, suffered light injuries after they were taken from their hotel by police and beaten, Kyodo said today. Kawakita's equipment was partially destroyed, Kyodo said.
The border police have apologized after they ``clashed'' with the journalists who were trying to film a restricted area under police control, Xinhua said.

Dog Poo stops Champions, too.

VILNIUS (Reuters) - Two-time Olympic discus champion Virgilijus Alekna encountered an unusual problem at a final pre-Beijing training session in Lithuania at the weekend -- his practice venue was covered in dog poo.

"Dogs were doing what animals usually do, defecating and peeing," the professional bodyguard told Lithuanian daily Lietuvos zinios after the stadium he was using to train was used for a dog show on Sunday.

"There were lots of dogs and they have left lots of things behind ... and nobody even tried to collect them.

"I have no idea how can I train in such conditions ... and who would clean the discus after every throw."

Alekna said he was looking for another training ground, probably in Kaunas, about 62 miles from the capital Vilnius.

The 36-year-old won the discus at Sydney in 2000 and Athens four years ago.

China puts rules around Beijing. DON'T HAVE FUN!

BEIJING (Reuters) - Some rules for the 2008 Summer Olympics:

Do not sleep outdoors. "maintain public hygiene and the cultured image of cities."

Do not let the stifling summer heat tempt you into streaking, do not get drunk nor set off fireworks nor wave "insulting banners."

Anyone with mental illnesses or sexually transmitted diseases is banned.

Lighters have been banned on domestic flights.

Commuters are being asked to take a swig from water bottles on the subway to ensure they do not contain suspicious substances.

-Dog meat is off the menu in the Chinese capital during the Olympics in case animal rights groups are offended.
-Out goes the traditionally named "husband and wife's lung slice" appetizer which is being replaced by the more linguistically correct "beef and ox tripe in chili sauce."

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said: "China is a safe place. Please be assured. China is a nation with great hospitality and courtesy."