Equestrian Is Having an Uncomfortable Moment. Its Olympic Horses Are Not.
Accusations of mistreatment cast a shadow over dressage and other events. Can cooling tents and locally sourced hay change the narrative?
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/03/world/olympics/equestrian-horses.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Ak4.NAk6.W79kF3OhCGh6&smid=url-share

Paywall removed.
For most of the athletes at the Paris Olympics, the accommodations are to be endured, rather than enjoyed. In the name of sustainability, the beds at the Olympic Village feature cardboard frames and inflatable mattresses. The bathrooms are communal. To the horror of the French, the British have even complained about the food.

One group of competitors, though, has no such issues. They are spending the Games in a temperature-controlled, tastefully appointed housing complex set amid the ornate splendor of Versailles. Their food, and often their beds, have traveled with them from home. They each have a staff member to cater to their every need. Life, at the Olympics, should be good for the horses.

“The stables at Versailles are more than just a place to rest,” the International Equestrian Federation said in a recent news release, sounding more like a luxury tour operator than an athletic governing body. “Each horse will enjoy a spacious 4m x 3m box with rubber mats and locally-sourced bedding of straw or shavings.”

The emphasis on equine comfort at these Games is at least partly rooted in defensiveness. A few days before the opening ceremony, a four-year-old video emerged of the British Olympian Charlotte Dujardin, a three-time gold medalist in dressage, repeatedly striking a horse with a whip during a training session at her stable.

Dujardin withdrew from the Games and was suspended indefinitely by the equestrian federation, known as FEI, pending the results of an investigation. She issued an apology, saying she was “deeply ashamed” of an “error of judgment” that “does not reflect how I train my horses or my students.”


Finland’s Joanna Robinson pats her horse, Glamouraline.


The equestrian venue is set amid the ornate splendor of Versailles.

We should be fine since we are 4 hours from the beach. Topsail and Carolina not so much. They may dry out by Labor Day.

They are talking over a foot of rain.

And the FED blew it. They obviously didn't read my post.

https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174821068

Olympics Briefing: The Athlete as Meme
of South Korea. Charles Mcquillan/Getty Images
Author Headshot
By Andrew Keh

Reporting from Paris

It was the video that launched a thousand Halloween costume ideas.



An Olympic shooter in a sporty, chic ensemble — black tracksuit, backward baseball cap, futuristic eyewear — raises her pistol and fires a shot. She appears insouciant throughout, while an announcer chirps excitedly about her score.

Like any internet phenomenon, you kind of need to see it in its natural habitat to get it.

The most "Main Character Energy" I've ever seen in my life.pic.twitter.com/ExuXVxB3VB

— Cartel Del🇵🇸 (@TheCartelDel) July 30, 2024

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The clip was not actually filmed in Paris but rather earlier this year in Azerbaijan, and hardly anyone knew the athlete’s name: Kim Yeji of South Korea. And yet the video has been viewed tens of millions of times and wrangled into countless social media posts, giving rise to a very 21st-century Olympic star.

The Olympics have clambered to stay relevant, adding events like breaking and skateboarding and climbing in recent years to lure eyeballs from the younger generations. But the saving grace of the Games, in the end, may be their seemingly infinite meme-ability.

As the past week in Paris has made clear, the social media era has spawned a new sort of celebrity Olympian: anonymous, ephemeral, more famous as effigy than athlete.

In 2012, the American gymnast McKayla Maroney, in a moment of disappointment, pursed her lips to one side — a fleeting spasm of muscle that sparked memes, commercial opportunities and, eventually, a photo with President Obama.

Four years later arrived the “Shirtless Tongan,” Pita Taufatofua, whose modest achievements in an assortment of sports (taekwondo, cross-country skiing and canoe) were outshined by his perpetually glistening torso.

This kind of fame — happenstance, ironic, digitally induced — has touched several athletes in Paris, like the American gymnast Stephen Nedoroscik, renowned by some now as “nerdy pommel horse guy.”

But the most interesting development has been all the clicks devoted to the shooters, who typically compete far from the big stage. The Turkish pistol shooter Yusuf Dikec had his own 15 minutes of virality, as have Jiang Ranxin of China and Choe Daehan of South Korea, all for basically aiming their guns the way they always do.

It’s all in good fun, but the avalanche of memes can make you forget that these are corporeal beings who exist offline.

Kim, who has won a silver medal already, competes again on Friday with the start of the 25-meter pistol events. Check it out. She’ll probably look cool doing it.

But she’s good at it, too.

Biles and Team USA golden again

I feel like it needs to be said: Simone Biles’ career didn’t need redeeming. She could have never stepped foot on a mat again after Tokyo and still gone down as the GOAT, regardless of her having to stand aside during those 2021 Olympics.



So I’m bristling slightly at the use of the word redemption to talk about what’s happening with her in Paris this week (though, yes, the team itself has used the term fairly liberally). I’m thinking of it more as reclamation — of Biles’ place atop the podium and of her own narrative.



In that context, it was particularly moving to see the Americans so thoroughly dominate the team final yesterday, reclaiming the gold they missed out on three years ago. It's the team's third all-around win in the past four Olympics, also following its win and Biles' individual win at the 2023 worlds.



Even with some wobbles, Team USA didn’t even open the door for any other team to win. Biles didn’t need her highest-difficulty vault (she’s likely saving it for the event final) and stepped out of bounds a couple times on floor, and Jordan Chiles fell off the beam. But the difference this time around was palpable. they smiled and celebrated through it all, their story now one of “uncomplicated joy,” as Dana O’Neil writes.



The final scores from the total blowout:

United States: 171.296
Italy: 165.494
Brazil: 164.497
Biles, now the most-decorated U.S. Olympic gymnast in history, and defending gold medalist Suni Lee will be back in action tomorrow for the individual all-around final. 🍿

Olympics Briefing: Playing to a Roaring Crowd
Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
Author Headshot
By Andrew Keh



Reporting from Paris

Imagine you’re an elite athlete in a niche sport, practicing in something close to solitude, competing far from the spotlight.

Then, one day, you’re teleported into an arena where thousands of fans are screaming as if you were onstage at a pop concert.

This is one of the irresistible promises of the Olympics, a storybook situation that is at once a dream come true and, as it turns out, a bit of a head trip.

Few places at the Paris Games have produced this feeling as purely as the table tennis arena, where close to 7,000 fans have been arriving each day to yell, stomp their feet and wave flags. Though competitions in China, the current mecca of the sport, can generate lively atmospheres, they can’t quite match the uncut, unhinged energy of an Olympic crowd.

“Half the time we’re playing in front of no people, or like 10 people; what’s the point?” said Liam Pitchford, a veteran Olympian from England. “I’d much rather have it like this.”

Still, as Pitchford said, “It can affect you if you let it.”

One of the many athletes affected was Christina Källberg, 24, of Sweden, who admitted that the atmosphere had made her “a little bit nervous” as she stumbled out of the first round.

Other players said the clamor made it hard for them to hear the sound of the ball being hit, which can be helpful for determining its spin.

And anybody who has swung a golf club knows how distracting it can be to catch a bit of auditory crossfire midplay — a common situation in table tennis, with up to four games unfolding at once.

“I was thinking all the time: Focus, focus, focus,” said the 29-year-old Sofia Polcanova of Austria, laughing, “because sometimes I heard somebody cheering like, ‘Vamos Mexico!’ or something.”

But the players would have it no other way.

The Chinese fans have seemed the most knowledgeable and coordinated. The French fans have been the loudest, singing and stomping their feet as if they were at a rugby match at the Stade de France. The players have matched that energy, pumping their fists like gladiators, doing slow victory laps around the floor.

A new American hero

There has historically been, very deservedly, so much talk about the U.S. women’s gymnastics team. But the men’s team got a long-awaited moment in the spotlight yesterday, taking bronze in the team final — the program’s first Olympic medal since 2008.

But it was the finish itself that had everyone buzzing:

Pommel horse specialist Stephen Nedoroscik, brought to Paris for just this one routine, absolutely delivered as the last man up for the Americans.



He'd sat in waiting for more than two hours as his teammates worked their way into medal contention, then removed his glasses and sealed the deal. Clutch.
Like that, a nation’s glory restored … and a new meme born? I mean, the guy’s job is literally just pommel. And pommel, he did. Dana O’Neil came through with this fascinating backstory on the 25-year-old’s already endearing glasses:

Nedoroscik has a disease that renders his eyes permanently dilated.

“But I don’t need to see when I do pommel horse,” Nedoroscik said, a bronze medal draped around his neck and a grin spread across his face. “It’s all by feel.”

He can also solve a Rubik’s Cube in under 10 seconds. It's like he was created in a lab to be the kind of quirky star Olympic fans tend to adore.


Dana has the full recap. Of course, it took a string of on-point routines from the whole team to earn the medal. One other new file in my “normal humans can’t do anything like this” folder:


That’s American Frederick Richard, flinging himself over 15 feet in the air. The bar itself is just over nine feet high — that means his feet are basically at standard NBA basketball hoop height. 🤯

LOOK AT THE HEIGHT FREDERICK RICHARD GETS. 🫨

📺 #ParisOlympics on NBC and Peacock pic.twitter.com/0TrEnIHZ1u

— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) July 28, 2024

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Katie Ledecky wins gold in 1500m freestyle with new Olympic record
Stephanie De Lancey
Jul. 31, 2024 3:35 pm ET
(Updated: Jul. 31, 2024 11:59 pm ET)
https://www.nbcolympics.com/news/katie-ledecky-wins-gold-1500m-freestyle-new-olympic-record

Brazil's Gabriel Medina reacts after getting a large wave in the fifth heat of the men's surfing round 3 on Monday.
Jerome Brouillet/AFP via Getty Images


The photographer who took that pic was on a media boat.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/article/2024/jul/30/paris-olympics-2024-surfer-gabriel-medina-floating-photo-jerome-brouillet-how-it-was-taken

I'm glad I didn't pick this week to go to Carolina Beach. They may dry out by Labor Day.

I think I'll take the day off and play golf.

~~COMPX 8/5/2024~~~~~~~

Previous Close

16,776.16 -417.98

16652 SSKILLZ1
16052 BullNBear52

DJ knocks one through 5-man infield as Yanks walk off Blue Jays
August 4th, 2024
https://www.mlb.com/news/dj-lemahieu-hits-walk-off-single-in-10th-for-yankees-vs-blue-jays

DJ hits them where they ain't!

From Wall Street to Olympic Gold.
https://www.nbcnews.com/sports/olympics/kristen-faulkner-was-not-supposed-go-olympics-won-gold-medal-rcna165070

When a right is on the mound do you think they should sit Judge?

I think it's fair to say if someone bought GME at their 52 week high while Hello Kitty was running it up and GME was selling stock into the run then that person would be a dumbass.

Everyone used to be able to see who was banned, but not anymore. Now, only the mods can.

That is something I don't understand as to why they removed that feature.

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway sold nearly half its stake in Apple
PUBLISHED SAT, AUG 3 20248:22 AM EDTUPDATED MOMENTS AGO
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/03/warren-buffetts-berkshire-hathaway-sold-nearly-half-its-stake-in-apple.html

Buffett has been on a bit of a selling spree as of late with his top holdings. Buffett recently starting downsizing his second biggest stake — Bank of America
, shedding $3.8 billion worth of the bank shares after a 12-day selling spree.

CNBC re-aired a show on Spitzer last night and client #9.

What made INTC so successful was MSFT coming out with a new iteration of Windows every 2 years and INTC coming out with a new chip to answer.

AMD has blown past them.

The entire world is crazy ~~~ financially, socially, fundamentally, politically AND spiritually!

I can't argue with you there. At this point in my life I think my wife and I have done a good job with the kid regarding all of the above. And I'm too old to try and save the world.

There is no give and take anymore or compromising on anything. I know we have had our arguments but we have remained friends because we care about the same things which is our kids in my case and your grands and greatgrands.

Edit: Oh! and one of my daughters' best friends got us a snowman that she snuck in the fridge around the holidays. Every time you opened the door it said something like "It's getting hot in here, shut the door"!.

Actually that makes sense for parents with young kids. My wife and son still opens the fridge looking for something even though stuff is pretty much in the same place from yesterday.

Not sure why Iglesias was riding the pines last night.

Volpe batting 6th gives him an opportunity to drive in some runs based on his OBP and BA which is higher than Verdugo's. Not sure Verdugo could do the same right now.

You need your bottom of the order producing runs. What the Yankees need is a cleanup hitter desperately.

Billy Martin would have sent in a pinch runner for Torres. And now Boone has him in the starting lineup today.

The logic of what they are doing with Marinaccio fails me.

I agree. And understanding the McKinsey philosophy made it easy for me to survive as long as I did until I called it quits on my terms.

But there was a lot of carnage along the way.

The company is still number 1 in the brokerage business world wide and I did quite well invested in the ESPP.

I've watched BA for several years looking for a buying opportunity. To date I haven't seen one.
https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/BA?qsearchterm=ba

I do believe INTC is now oversold. And they didn't pay attention to how AMD took over from them in the PC market.

The love affair with MSFT PCs is certainly over.

Spitzer couldn't understand that the insurance brokerage business was a good old boys business where kickbacks on commissions was a necessary evil.

We kicked the CEO upstairs and brought in a guy from McKinsey who outsourced everything that didn't contribute to the bottom line.

Thanks. that is a much better link.
and an incentive award target of $17.5 million in stock, vesting over three years, again with the actual payout based on company performance."

The newspaper got it wrong

It's 1.25M in cash.
$8M in RSU stock.
$8M in ISO stock.

And they all vest over time broken out over several years.

But the RSUs aren't based on company performance while the ISOs are. And exercising the ISOs need to be held in stock and not sold same day or the IRS will come calling.

That was back when Cisco was trading over $100.

The company I worked for ran afoul of Eliot Spitzer over how we treated commissions and the stock cratered big time. The end result was all the stock options were now under water. The company got the bright idea to simply re-price the option exercise price without dotting all the Is and crossing the Ts with the SEC. I spent a good year making the employees whole while writing a nice check to the IRS.

Of course no tears were shed when Eliot ran afoul of the hooker. lol.

Here is a chart for the last 5 years. It's down 47%. And dropping this morning. Good luck.
BA Chart

I'm thinking the Fed should have cut rates this week.

How a baseball organization from New York brought joy to Ukrainian refugees
August 1st, 2024
https://www.mlb.com/news/new-york-empire-baseball-brings-joy-to-ukrainian-refugees
The children came to ballfields, parks and soccer fields in Warsaw and Kutno from across Europe. They were mostly from Ukraine -- with some from Lithuania, Estonia and beyond -- but all had been affected by the war currently raging across Eastern Europe and were now living as refugees inside Poland. They may not have shared a language, a homeland or have had any history with baseball, but it didn't matter.

They were outside, they were playing and they were having fun.

"I can't believe how much joy they experienced playing a game that they'd never played before," Jordan Baltimore, CEO of New York Empire Baseball told MLB.com after returning from Poland recently. "The language barrier, which we thought was going to be a disaster -- and don't get me wrong, it was challenging, even with translators -- but the language barrier went away when you were just playing a game. It just didn't matter."

There were bigger questions to answer than simply how to teach baseball, though.

"How do we go engage with children, particularly the Ukrainian ones, who are refugees?" Baltimore asked, his words coming out choked as he fought back tears. "They're all living in a hotel. Most of them have a single parent, because dad is home either fighting in the war, or unfortunately [having passed away]. They're strangers in a strange land."

A group of children run during a recent baseball camp hosted by New York Empire Baseball in Poland.
A group of children run during a recent baseball camp hosted by New York Empire Baseball in Poland.
This was New York Empire Baseball's second trip to help with Ukrainian orphans now living in Poland. The first trip took place two years ago, put together with a wish and on a whim. The organization, which offers instruction and teams for all skill levels, travel ball for advanced players and performance training for its most promising athletes, had recently launched a 501(c)3 charitable organization to help further local initiatives. They hosted $1-a-day baseball camps in Harlem and teamed up with Louisville Slugger to donate 1,000 bats to children throughout the city.

But Baltimore wanted to do more, which meant going beyond the borders of New York. So, when the war in Ukraine started, Baltimore looked to see how the organization could donate to those in need. With some help from cookbook author and GOOD+ Foundation leader Jessica Seinfeld (she's also married to comedian Jerry Seinfeld, and the two have children enrolled in New York Empire's programs), Baltimore got in touch with a cooking school in Poland and offered to help. It would be for one day, with a small baseball camp and an offer to help donate supplies.

For all that work simply getting to Poland, they asked, why not do more?

So, with baseball executive Sandy Alderson and the U.S. State Department also on board, the trip was expanded. Baseball, though, was simply a bonus.

"Our original trip was very humanitarian based and was focused solely on the orphans," Baltimore explained. "The story back then was that 10 orphanages from Ukraine were consolidated into one outside of Warsaw. That was the focus of our original trip -- and they had never played baseball or done anything like that. So, we went and cooked and cleaned and served food. And then, taught baseball with a few hundred children who have no families. It's been on our mind ever since to go back."

Courtesy New York Empire Baseball
Courtesy New York Empire Baseball
After two years of waiting, Baltimore and the New York Empire Baseball Team were finally able to return. This time, with help from U.S. Ambassador to Poland, Mark Brzezinski, baseball was part of the humanitarian mission.

"[The State Department] felt that it would be a wonderful outreach for Polish and Ukrainian children in the community for us to be there," Baltimore explained. "There we were, when the ambassador shows up and starts coaching baseball right alongside us. He insisted on being hands on and he started playing with the kids and actually participating in the drills. It wasn't a photo op, it was, 'Yeah, I want to do this.'



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The organization brought baseball equipment, ordering online what couldn't be stuffed into equipment bags brought from America. They had New York Empire Baseball caps in different colors -- red and white for Poland, blue and yellow for Ukraine -- for the children to wear. And the days involved teaching the very basics of baseball.

"The way we typically teach the game is what we call 'The games within the game,'" Baltimore said. "First, you have to learn how to run the bases and why. Then you learn how to catch and throw. Then you learn that there's first base, second base, third base and home."

They can then jump in with "The First Base Game," where a player has to run to first base before the other team catches a ball and makes the throw. It is about taking the larger concepts of baseball and distilling them down into fun and digestible ways to get the kids out on the field and moving around.

"One of the things we noticed was there was very little fear of failure. It was, 'Hey, I'm going to run as fast as I can,' 'I'm going to swing as hard as I can,'" Baltimore observed. "For the kids who were embarrassed when they couldn't do well, one of the life lessons that we kept sharing over and over -- through a wonderful translator -- was that it's OK to make mistakes. You don't have to worry about being judged. It's what you do after the mistake that counts. That's true in baseball. It's true in life."

The magic wasn't in creating new ballplayers or Major League fans. It was simply helping bring joy to these young lives.

"There were some moments, especially on the first day, that kind of hit like a ton of bricks. Like, when a kid would come up to you and just give you a hug, and you don't even know why," 19-year-old Julian Malenda, a special assistant to Baltimore, said. Malenda will be heading to Baruch College this fall, but the experience in Poland has already changed him before he ever sets foot on campus.

"You realize it's the opportunity to just play and have fun and enjoy a game. It doesn't matter what game it is, it's just that moment for them, how much it means. It showed me how much it meant, like, 'Wow, they're so appreciative of the time to enjoy baseball,'" Malenda said.


Back in New York, Baltimore already is thinking of what he can do next time -- how they can reach more young children and hopefully inject a little hope and fun into their lives.

"Baseball is a medium for joy," Baltimore added. "It's a medium for learning life lessons. Everybody always talks about how baseball is a metaphor for life and that's right. You can't control the outcomes. You can only control yourself and the inputs and believe that good things will happen over time. You're going to fail, and you can pick yourself up and dust yourself off, and there are going to be bad things that happen. The joy and life lessons were the goal, and baseball was a medium, because that's what we do."

"It was very, very eye opening," Malenda said. "To think that baseball can have that impact. It really opens doors for myself, like, 'What can I do with my life and my future to have that impact?' Your life doesn't have to be just a job and a family, but you can go have an impact on people. Whatever the impact may be, big or small, you can go and try to positively change someone's life with baseball or not with baseball."

Skenes remains runaway leader in latest Rookie of the Year poll
Cowser, Gil neck-and-neck in AL
12:50 AM EDT
https://www.mlb.com/news/paul-skenes-colton-cowser-lead-rookie-of-the-year-poll

I coached a kid in LL and Pony League who was an outstanding catcher. I told him what ever you do don't play football in high school and just keep playing baseball. He tore his meniscus playing JV football in HS and he was never the same catcher playing baseball in HS. All through HS ball he had to where a brace on his knee and couldn't run for crap and couldn't play catcher anymore.

This is heartbreaking for any baseball fan to see.

'Guy can't catch a break': Trout done for '24 with another tear in knee
12:26 AM EDT
Angels general manager Perry Minasian said on Thursday that Trout received an MRI on Wednesday that revealed another tear in the left meniscus that was surgically repaired earlier this year.
https://www.mlb.com/news/mike-trout-to-miss-rest-of-2024-season

I sold all my ARM earlier this week. And I have my eye on INTC this morning. Down 22% this morning.

~~COMPX 8/2/2024~~~~~~~

Previous Close

17,194.15 -405.25

17152 BullNBear52
16999 SSKILLZ1

Your problem is you assume what people are invested in as well as their trading patterns in stocks. So tell me how long did you own Boeing and do you still own it?

It seems you have a problem answering that question while you continue to pump Boeing here.