China's medal rank -- a long way to go (update)

It now looks quite certain that China is going to top the TOTAL medal table. Yes, I am aware there is such thing as "total medal table" that most US media has been using but they are nonsense. If you are going to assign equal weight to all medals and discourage over-emphasis on gold, why not the 3rd runner up, or the 10th runner up for that matter? (or simply the number of participants).

The measure that makes more sense though, is what NYT proposed in one of its article. The table ranks countries by counting points, with Gold - 4 points, silver 2, and bronze 1. (I would propose 0.5 for the 3rd runner-up and so on).

(update) Final ranking:
1. China 274 points (51/12/28).
2. USA 256 (36/38/36), only a very narrow margin.
3. Russia 162
4. Great Britain 117
5. Australia 103
6-10 GER 99, KOR 80, FRA 77, ITA 62, JPN 58

However, this is still not a fair comparison. A fair comparison would give that honour to Jamaica (per population) and Zimbabwe (per GDP). China still has a lot of catch up to do, first with the GDP measure, then the population measure. In 2008 China is ranks 65th in Point/Person, and
50th in GDP. (Forsyth used CIA's PPP measure which is controversial, with nominal GDP China's score shoudl roughly x4, and would rank around 30th, decent but still a long way to go.

----
By population (Simon Forsyth)

(note that there are 204 teams competing in Beijing, India's rank of 87th in all measures does not mean it is at the bottom. e.g., India is above HK this year (but behind HK in Athens).

Rank/ Country /Gold/ Silver/ Bronze /Weighted Medals /Weighted Medals /Million

1 Jamaica 6 3 2 32 11.5102
2 Bahamas 0 1 1 3 9.8150
3 Iceland 0 1 0 2 6.6240
4 Bahrain 1 0 0 4 5.6451
5 Norway 3 5 2 24 5.1859
6 Australia 14 15 17 103 5.0406
7 Slovenia 1 2 2 10 4.9770
8 New Zealand 3 1 5 19 4.6164
9 Estonia 1 1 0 6 4.5596
10 Mongolia 2 2 0 12 4.0653

13 Cuba 2 11 11 41 3.5984

14 Georgia 3 0 3 15 3.2286

22 Great Britain 19 13 15 117 1.9251

23 Czech Republic 3 3 0 18 1.7597

24 Korea 13 10 8 80 1.6312

32 France 7 16 17 77 1.2084

33 Germany 16 10 15 99 1.2014

34 Russian Fed. 23 21 28 162 1.1459

35 Ukraine 7 5 15 53 1.1447

36 Canada 3 9 6 36 1.0782

37 Italy 8 10 10 62 1.0662

38 Spain 5 10 3 43 1.0631

41 Romania 4 1 3 21 0.9427

42 Kenya 5 5 4 34 0.9211

43 United States 36 38 36 256 0.8501

44 Zimbabwe 1 3 0 10 0.8123

51 Greece 0 2 2 6 0.5604

52 DPR Korea 2 1 3 13 0.5579

54 Japan 9 6 10 58 0.4551

55 Singapore 0 1 0 2 0.4393

60 Argentina 2 0 4 12 0.2978

61 Ethiopia 4 1 2 20 0.2614

65 China 51 21 28 274 0.2073

66 Thailand 2 2 0 12 0.1844

68 Chinese Taipei 0 0 4 4 0.1750

69 Israel 0 0 1 1 0.1556

70 Brazil 3 4 8 28 0.1474

75 Mexico 2 0 1 9 0.0828

76 Malaysia 0 1 0 2 0.0806

82 Indonesia 1 1 3 9 0.0383

83 Nigeria 0 1 3 5 0.0370

84 Afghanistan 0 0 1 1 0.0314

85 Vietnam 0 1 0 2 0.0235

86 Egypt 0 0 1 1 0.0124

87 India 1 0 2 6 0.0053

---
By GDP is linked here (note this is nominal GDP)

Georgia - Taiwan

Cominganarchy draws the Georgia lesson to Taiwan

• ...But that only works as long as no one calls a bluff. In 1996, after China launched so-called “test” missiles toward Taiwan to intimidate the country and influence the election, President Clinton sent two aircraft carriers to the area. The appearance of resolve by the US to defend a small democratic nation appeared solid. Would the same support materialize today? As deterence, probably. But what about after an invasion had begun? The experience in Russia suggests otherwise

Fortunately Mr Shui-bian Saakashvili Chen lost the election, and fortunately the more pragmatic (though no less corrupt nor more competent historically -- hope Dr. Ma will cure that) KMT were in control of the Legislative Yuan, otherwise we could have been hearing a lot more gun fire around the Taiwan Strait than in the Caucasus.

As Cominganarchy pointed out, "plenty of analysts" connects the Georgia lesson with Taiwan, i.e. regarding the reaction of the mighty America.

plus Thomas Barnett :

• For now, the Bush-McCain-Obama calls for cease-fire seem the logical course, but I see no easy fixes. These little breakaway bits (along with others) are sort of Russia's post-Soviet "Taiwan"--something it likes to get all jacked about but essentially harmless to the wider security world (in the sense that no one is really going to go to the mattresses over Abkhazia or South Ossetia). China's got its route on Taiwan (full of indirectness) and Russia's got its centuries-old approach.

I wonder what Mr Kaplan has to say, not that it matters though, just curious.

light viewing: the world complains about the IOC events, except the korean

"各国对游泳比赛蛙泳、仰泳、蝶泳、自由泳×100、200、400、1500导致金牌 过多感到非常不满，纷纷要求增加自己优势项目的金牌数目。
巴西提出： 足球应该分为3人、5人、7人、11人×沙滩、室内、草地。
中国提出： 乒乓球应该分为直板、横板、直板双打、直板单打、直板横板混双。跳水应该分为1m 2m 3m 4m 5m 6m 7m 8m 9m 10m
英国提出：马术应该分成黑马马术、白马马术、红马马术、褐马马术、皇 马马术、斑马马术。
肯尼亚提出：长跑应该分为10000米、11000米、 12000米、13000米。
日本提出：所有男女混合项目应该增加3p、4 p、5p、6p、7p。。。群p。
泰国提出： 除了男子和女子项目外，所有应该加上人妖组。
唯独韩国在这方面没有要求，他 们大声喊到： 菲尔普斯是韩国人 "

Olympic maps

NYT has a few interesting tools for Olympic maps

1) Bubble map for total number of medals (historic and current, bubble size for total number of medals)

2) Map of Gold Medal winner for event

plus charting tool of World records by year -- how human being has "evolved".

Enjoy.

Update: Medal 'modeling', and my comments here

原來中評社是水果報的學生

老師：“既然全世界人都玩親疏有別的時候，那他為甚麼還要由那套「他媽的」客觀公正。”

學生：“在奥运会的历史上，开幕式上对口型“假唱”（配音），并不是第一次发生。 在2006年都灵冬季奥运会时，卢西亚诺帕瓦罗蒂的歌声就是预先录制的。指挥演唱咏叹调的人名叫马吉拉（Leone Magiera,）说，当年的严寒使得帕瓦罗蒂不可能作现场演唱，当时剧烈疼痛中，几个月后，他被确诊胰腺癌症。帕瓦罗蒂在2007年71岁时死亡。 过去NBC电视台也对人们指责其2002年的盐湖城冬奥会的的烟火报导，因为电视台使用了录像带，但是NBC对这种处理辩解说，是为了弄好气氛。”

一對活寶。

令人不得不聯想到當年偉大光榮正確的檔是如何退化，并使得“歌唱祖國”歌詞里那“繁榮富強”霎那化作海市蜃樓，直到50年后的今天我們才有幸一睹那隧道底的驚鴻一瞥而看著林妙可小妹妹感動不已。

今天香港民主老師爺們所作所為，難保不就是50年前的偉大光榮正確的翻版麼？沉淪，就如吸毒一樣，當你開始了第一步後，是很難不繼續下去的。

世事，或許并沒有所謂因果師徒關係，有的只是讓我們看到的一個怪圈。

Is any remedy available for the "bird nest gate"

Regarding the Bird Nest Gate, my view is the same as the Ming Pao Editorial (translated by ESWN here).

I am not going into the alternative one could have taken, which are plentiful (e.g. having the 2 girls sing side by side, etc). We do not have a time tunnel.

But there is indeed remedy, if taken, would more than compensate China (and the people responsible) with the honour it lost. The remedy is very simple, but requires some courage, quite some substantial courage. I would ask for all those responsible, Director Zhang Yimou, Music Director Chen Qigang, BOCOG chairman and the Politburo member to issue a public apology to the world, the nation and the 2 girls. China will not lose face, instead, it will earn enormous respect from the world.

This is how to turn a disaster around, just as they did during the earthquake.

The BOCOG and Mr Chen Qigang had done some damage control by telling the truth. But this is not enough. Can we expect such courage from the Chinese leaders, "for the nation's interest"? Is China really becoming the country our "Motherland Hymn" sings to?

Olymic spirit

The Silver and Bronze Medalists of 10m Air Pistol. (story)

The Gold Medalist (China's Guo Wenjun) perhaps was not aware of the politics outside the stadium, and appeared puzzled when they took a picture shunning her. So she gave an Olympic doll she received to the Russian lady as a gift.

p.s. congrats to India for its first non-hockey gold. The CCTV reporter who wanted everybody to remember Beijing should be happy (he wished Phelps will win 8 gold so that everybody will also associate his 8 golds with Beijing).

Happy Olympic

Update:
1) An imperfect perfection
2) youtube's video was taken down, try this cctv link (slower, but should work), or sina video

This is the most touching moment of the opening ceremony, i.e., if the CCTV commentator could wait for the song to finish before commenting.

p.s.1. the French voice over is pretty distracting. Did they used that to entice Sarcozy to come?
p.s.2. Challenge: where the hxxx have the Fuwas gone? Answer here, alternative answer: Uncle Liu Huan himself is. alternative 2: sent over to Xinjiang

pattern? high risk hours

1) New York, Sep 11, 2001 -- (AA11) 8:46am, (UA175) 09:03am, (AA77) 09:33am, (UA93) 10:03
2) Kunming, July 21, 2008 -- 7:00am, around 8:00am
3) Kashi, August 4, 2008 -- 8:00am

Does this show pattern / correlation? Do they prefer morning for whatever reason (72 virgins or other religious reason)? Are these high risk hours so that more resources should be put into countering them?

Read list 2008 July

Dark Journalism
伟大的BBC，执著的敬业精神

中国与周边国家领土争议图
一些无法否定的事实------大家牢记
真实朝鲜
The Sino-Russian border

Overseas departments and territories of France

與造皇者競爭
'I Was Scared to Death'

礼物
The Chronicle of Run Run Fan
范跑跑事件下个拐点在哪里
谁能拯救农民工
中国最近20年对外发生的鲜为人知的军事冲突
上海三年来唯一高考满分作文: 他们
时尚与环保
闯义乌
Movie ticket price in china - a sampling 给法治一次机会
From Mao to Wow! - Vanity Fair
CHINA'S RACE FOR NUCLEAR
我在瓮安县被政府工作人员删除的数据恢复了
高考完后又是中考(zz)--笑得我做了三个俯卧撑

釣魚台問題簡析 馬英九
论中日东海海域划界问题及其解决
Interpreting the Pending Deal on the East China Sea Gas Fields
台湾网友 东海油气田的特殊性与战略价值（图文）！
Defining victory

BURMA AND THE GRAY LADY