Olympics

Well, that was neat. The olympics are fun because almost everyone sends people to it and anyone can win, the US for example. It was nice to have the most medals because it's like "look everyone, we are a nifty country!" except it's more like "USA!! #1!!" but I think the other countries know we think they're special in their own way. Maybe they aren't the best at sports or winning, but they have a good national anthem or a cute rugby player. The nuances of our respect and appreciation for other countries can be lost with the need for brevity in our chants. We took the most medals, the hosts took the most gold... I was looking at the breakdown of who won what. It looks like the winningest team was great britain, who took .77 medals per million of population. I didn't do the numbers for every country, but I assume india lost, followed perhaps by china, who took the most gold. Togo was the best, they won bronze in kayaking which was amazing to watch.
US----Sweden---Germany----Togo--China-----UK
medals : 110_____5________41________1_____100______47

pop.mil: 305_____9________82_______.55____1329_____61

meaning: .36____.55______.5________.55____.08______.77

This chart is a way to put medals in perspective. But it doesn't mean that the uk is better than the us unless "better" means "titchy small and no one moves there". And did you know that sweden is so old no one knows how long it has been a continuous consolidated kingdom? I couldn't live in sweden without some significant goretex and so on, so it is shocking that people did so long ago.

Do you see how convoluted my attempt at national pride is? "Well done country I've never left that my family has lived in for generations, well done country my country originated from 250 years ago, well done countries my grand- or great grandparents left." I imagine in China it is more straightforward.