I'm not watching the Winter Olympics, not even really following it that closely. But, like everyone else, I've been reading about Skategate, or whatever it is they're calling it. Like a lot of people, I find it all slightly amusing. The whole thing points out one of the things that I always hated about figure skating- the arbitrariness of the judging. Well, that and the the whole frilliness of it all, but that's another issue. I like my sports when they end because the game clock ends or the final out is made or the because the ref's change a call after an instant replay review because of some obscure rule about what constitutes a fumble. Figure skating is all too subjective. It's the same reason why I don't like college football. Judging in figure skating is a lot like the whole polling thing. You know, how Miami or Nebraska will always poll high and go to a Bowl because they're Miami or Nebraska, even if they lose a game or two, but East Bumfuck State will never get ranked high because they're not Miami or Nebraska. But I digress.

Anyways, what I find really amusing about the whole thing is the fact that the judge whose responsible for the whole mess, the one who broke down and admitted that she scored a certain way because of pressure, is the French judge. Because who else would buckle under pressure but the French judge? Because that's what the French do. They buckle under pressure.

I wonder if the Russian officials singled out the French judge because they were thinking the same way. You know, like, they sat there and thought to themselves: "to win, I think we're gonna need to pressure someone. Those Canadians were damn good. Who can we pressure? Hmm, hey, let's go after the French judge. We all know what'll happen if we squeeze her a bit. Hell, if she refuses at first, we can just threaten to invade her country. That always seems to work."

Now, I'm not an expert in Napoleonic France, but I've always kind of believed that part of the reason why Napoleon was so successful was because nobody took the idea of the French taking over Europe seriously. Who would? I'm pretty sure that before Napoleon started invading other countries, other countries were warned, but nobody did a thing about it. I can juse see an ambassador to France or a spy or some sort of expert trying to warn his compatriots of the French threat, but not able to get anyone to listen. I'm sure there was a lot of conversations that went something like this:

"Sire, the French army is arming and amassing. No really, the French. Yes, the French. I'm serious, sire. The French mean to take over Europe. Yes, I'm really, really serious... but...but...I know it's ridiculous but I really think we should do something...will you stop laughing at me?"