The Obamas can celebrate another humiliating waste of his valuable time. Dropping incredible matters of international importance (like Afghanistan and Iran), the President raced to Copenhagen to push the Olympic site selection committee to pick Chicago as the site of the 2016 Olympics. Obama agreed to do this to help Chicago’s increasingly obsessed Mayor Daley, who convinced people to spend millions of dollars of their own money to promote Chicago as a site.

Chicago was clearly a shoe-in, but President Obama was confident once again that his charm and charisma—and personally meeting with the chairpeople—would seal the deal.

Voting results came out moments ago.

Chicago obtained almost no votes (and may have received none) and was eliminated in the first round.

Daley is no doubt crushed—this concept of bringing the Olympics to Chicago started with him years ago, and each month he has become progressively more occupied with this goal, to where the City of Chicago is in a horrific budget mess, rampantly increasing crime, and a series of embarrassing allegations all related to his total neglect of his duties. But it was the Olympics, Daley countered. Getting them to Chicago will change everything.

Now he gets to return to work on Monday, and maybe he can start cleaning up the mess his obsessive White Whale has created in its wake. The good news is that the investments so far have been private, and not at Chicagoans expense.

And what of the President? What a well-polished middle finger he received when the announcement came out, specifically and immediately mentioning that Chicago is out and received the least amount of votes…a very pointed comment.

It seems that the President’s popularity is as low abroad as it is at home. Clearly Chicago is not going to host the Olympics because President Bush hates black people.

The Volgi has been asking either the Mandarin or the Czar to write about Chicago’s reaction to the Olympics for weeks now. We have resisted, because we both discount the notion that this would be a boon for Chicago. Not that we would not want the Olympics here: that would likely be fun, exciting, and would be a great way to show off what a rich, amazing, and gorgeous city we have. But the benefits beyond that are hopeless. The money would evaporate quickly, and never be found. And while millions of people worldwide would have a better impression of Chicago, nothing would change for its residents: a week later, very little evidence would remain, and we would back back to crime and unemployment and scandals.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.