Let's hope today's Western Australian state election isn't decided by 29 votes or less. The people of Eucla, near the South Australian border and more than 1400 kilometres from Perth, have been disenfranchised from today's poll. The state electoral commission forgot to organise a polling booth and then couldn't get the postal votes to them in time.

The West Australian takes up the story.

Friday was arguably the most tumultuous day in New South Wales politics since Jack Lang was sacked on May 13, 1932. Firstly Michael Costa was axed as State Treasurer by Premier Morris Iemma, then Iemma himself resigned after his attempt to reshuffle cabinet was nixed by his caucus.

And all this happened two days after deputy premier John Watkins resigned from parliament to become CEO of Alzheimers Australia.

Costa's dumping was long overdue. A cross between Mussolini, Dick Cheney, and an out-of-control steamroller, Costa had become a destructive influence no longer willing to abide by Labor Party policy and obsessed with his idea of "economic reform". Only collective wimpishness had stopped the ALP from expelling him (though, curiously, he was expelled from the ALP in the early 1980's for simultaneously being a member of the Socialist Workers Party... he has moved a long way to the Right since then).

But it was his ferocious temper, possibly a by-product of his (treated) bipolar disorder, that brought him undone, and it seems that a slanging match with Watkins earlier this week was the catalyst for the popular, if soft, deputy premier finally drawing stumps.

Iemma's departure was inevitable, if coming a little sooner than expected. His political style was much like that of a windsock, but on issues where he held firm (such as electricity privatisation), he was the George W Bush to Costa's Dick Cheney. It was on the privatisation issue that he was behaving in an increasingly dictatorial manner, ignoring popular opinion, party policy, and Parliamentary decision. A believer in government by spin, things reached the level of utterly bizarre when he hired a slew of Channel Nine journalists to join his media unit.

Nathan Rees is the new premier, having been elected to State parliament in March 2007! He looked guardedly promising when interviewed on Stateline last night, and it's clear that he has no time for Costa, saying at one stage "he [Costa] brought down two premiers [Bob Carr and Morris Iemma] and he's not going to bring down a third".

Rees is expected to name his new cabinet on Monday. As well as the removal of Michael Costa, it is essential that he moves Frank Sartor from the Planning ministry. If he axes Reba Maugher and Joe Tripodi, that will be a welcome bonus.

August 27, 2008 - a day of celebration of the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Donald George Bradman. And they celebrated at his birthplace, Cootamundra, the hometown of his youth, Bowral, and in a black tie dinner at the business end of Sydney. Has any other sportsperson, in any sport, anywhere in the world, been celebrated quite so much as The Don?

So many observations, so little enthusiasm. I haven't ignored the Olympics these past nine days, far from it, but I haven't felt the urge to write anything that could be construed as original. Or, more to the point, I just couldn't be bothered.

The Olympic Games only really come to life for me once the athletics get under way. There's one event above all others that is the focal point of the Games for me: the men's 100 metre sprint. Enter Usain Bolt. He has been truly outstanding in this 29th Olympiad. As if his 9.68 in the 100 wasn't enough, there was his 19.30 in the 200. Twelve short years ago I was blown away by Michael Johnson's stunning victory in the 200 at Atlanta. Bolt has knocked off that record.

And then, last night, Jamaica won the 4 x 100 relay. Bolt and Asafa Powell in the last two legs. A truly great team. If nothing else happened in or around the Beijing Olympics, these three finals made it all worthwhile.

More to say later (perhaps), but in the meantime let me pick some winners in the teams events:

Baseball: South Korea to beat Cuba;
Hockey Men's: Spain to beat Germany;
Handball Womens: Norway to beat Russia;
Handball Mens: Iceland to beat France (wouldn't that be one heckofan upset?);
Basketball Womens: let's dream on... Australia to beat the USA;
Basketball Mens: Spain to beat the USA! A silver double, could NBC cope?

While we're at it, let's go for an American silverfest:
Hungary in the men's waterpolo;
Brazil in the women's volleyball;
and in the men's!

Go Iceland!!!

It's my favourite team sport at the Olympics and it's being tossed out for 2012. The baseball (or as they call it in the Netherlands, honkbal) competition began on Wednesday. Australia failed to qualify for the tournament, as therefore there is next to zero chance of any coverage on Channel Seven. Even SBS gives us some vague promises of no more than an hour's coverage on each of Friday 22nd and Saturday 23rd, semis and finals days respectively.

Cuba are my pre-tournament pick for the gold, with Japan for silver and South Korea for bronze. Also appearing: China, Taiwan, Netherlands, Canada and that place just south of Canada.

Good to see Stubby Clapp back on deck for the Canadians. The legendary number 10 for the Memphis Redbirds (indeed they retired his number last year) came out of retirement for the Beijing Olympics.

The Richmond Braves' Scott Thorman hit the first home run of Beijing 2008 in Canada's mercy-shortened 10-0 drubbing on the home side. Taiwan beat the Netherlands 5-0 despite third baseman Chiang Tai-Shan being banned on the eve of the tournament for testing positive. South Korea tipped out the US 8-7, while Cuba beat Japan 4-2 in what could be a preview of the final.

Here's the Olympic News Service summary of Honkbal Day One:

(BEIJNG, August 13) -- An outstanding pitching performance from starter Chen Wei-Yin helped Chinese Taipei to a first-up 5-0 win over the Netherlands in front of some strong vocal support at Wukesong Baseball Field on Wednesday.

Chen pitched a stellar seven shut-out innings, striking out seven, giving up just three hits and no walks to totally dominate the Dutch hitting line-up, before being replaced by Cheng Kai-wen, who took care of the final two innings.

China's Olympic Baseball debut ended in an error-ridden defeat as Canada took a 10-0 win, called after eight innings by the mercy rule.

China's demise began with relief pitcher Liu Kai, who entered the game in the top of the fifth inning and walked four hitters. He hit Scott Thorman with a pitch and also walked a runner with the bases loaded.

Canada's first baseman Thorman opened the scoring with a three-run home run in the top of the fourth inning. He brought in Stubby Clapp and Michael Saunders who hit a single each.

Canada's starter Chris Begg pitched seven innings with nine strike-outs. Chen Wei-Yin took a tough loss with seven hits in seven innings and no walks.

"This was China's first real international game, and there have to be a lot of guys who were really antsy. We have a lot of experience in international baseball and we came here with one mission in mind - to expose any team we play," said Terry Puhl, Canada's manager, on China's performance.

Chinese team manager Jim Lefebvre addressed neophyte China's approach to the grand old game, "The beautiful thing about baseball is you get to play everyday."

The Republic of Korea beat the United States 8-7 in a nail-biter in the Baseball competition on Day One.

The Republic of Korea's return to Olympic Baseball after an eight-year hiatus was a thrilling one, as it pulled out all the stops, including using two pinch hitters in the bottom of the ninth. Pinch hitter Lee Taek-keun hit the game-tying RBI and scored the game-winning run.

Mike Hessman opened the US team's ninth inning rally with a home run over the leftfield fence before Taylor Teagarden and Brian Barden hit a single and a double. With the bases loaded and two outs, Matt Brown singled to center field, driving in two runs to give the States a 7-6 lead.

The final inning proved too much for relief pitcher Jeff Stevens, however, who threw wildly to first base in an attempted pick off, allowing Lee Taekkeun to advance to third. Stevens then gave up the single that won Korea the game.

The United States left seven runners on base, while the Republic of Korea managed to score 8 of 11 base runners.

Brandon Knight was the losing pitcher of record, working four and a third innings and allowing six earned runs on eight hits. Bong Jung-keun took the victory by tossing four and a third but only surrendering three runs on five hits.

Reigning Olympic champions Cuba shaped a 4-2 victory over medals rival Japan on the first day of action.

Veteran 37-year-old pitcher Norge Luis Vera picked up the win on the back of teammate Alfredo Despaigne's three RBIs and Alexei Bell's two extra base hits, while 35-year-old Pedro Luis Lazo, a four-time Olympian, entered the game in the seventh to pitch three innings of solid relief to secure the win for experienced Cuban combination.

Darvish took the loss after giving up seven hits and striking out six batters in four innings. Vera only struck out two, but scattered seven hits in six innings and twice forced Miyamoto Shinya to ground out into inning-ending double plays.

Both teams collected nine hits, with Cuba leaving 12 runners on base and Japan seven. Despaigne went three-for-four at the plate while Japan shortstop Kawasaki Munenori went three-for-three.

Eleven gold medals in his Olympic career. Five in these Games to date. Someone stop him. Please.

More Golden Steph for Australia.

And a special mention to Alain Bernard, who regained his world record in the 100 freestyle for five minutes today. He won the first semi-final in 47.20 seconds. Eamon Sullivan won the second in 47.05.

Meanwhile, a Japanese professor warns of the potential long-term damage from wearing the Speedo LZR swimsuit. Not to mention the mental anguish every time the zipper breaks.

More on Togo's Benjamin Boukpeti, with the IOC reporting that he is, quite remarkably, the first African to compete in canoeing in the Olympics.

A victory for Georgia over Russia, albeit in the women's sandvolley. Christine Santanna and Andrezza Chagas defeated Natalie Uryadova and Alexandra Shirayeva 10-21, 22-20, 15-12. Not quite so dignified a scene as at the shooting on Sunday. Of course, it should be noted that Santanna and Chagas are both Brazilian-born, and indeed still live there. Will they be part of the inevitable ticker-tape parade through the streets of Tbilisi?

And harking back yet again to Sunday's women's 10 metre air pistol. Never mind my quip about gold medallist Guo Wenjun looking for photo-ops, Reuters reports that she hasn't seen her father for nine years. Maybe he'll surface now.

Honkbal Heaven began on Wednesday and I'll deal with this separately. But in closing, fifty countries have won medals by stumps on Day Five, and that in itself is heartening news.

Firstly, congratulations to Benjamin Boukpeti, bronze medallist in the men's K1 slalom and Togo's first-ever Olympic medallist. A quick mention of The Phelp of Phelps' third gold medal of Beijing 2008, and his ninth ever, and Leisel Jones' win in the 100 breaststroke, thereby enabling Australia to stay level with the aforementioned Senor Phelps in this year's gold count. Now to more important matters hanging over from last Friday.

Zhang Yimou fudged the opening ceremony. He used special effects. Are you shocked?

The fireworks over Beijing looked a little too pristine to be true, and indeed for the TV cameras they were computer-enhanced. No problem with that in my opinion.

It was obvious that young Lin Miaoke was miming as she did her Nikki Webster turn. But we assumed that at least she was miming her own voice.

Nah.

In the tradition of West Side Story, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, and goodness knows how many Bollywood pictures, China's greatest film director used Yang Peiyi's voice. The reason she didn't appear in person? Too ugly.

Much tut-tutting in the western media, but the fact is that it would have happened anywhere in the world. And not everyone would have been so honest about it.

But did Zhang script the Windows XP software failure during Li Ning's final lap with the torch? At least they didn't rely on Vista.

The world's second most populous nation, India came into the 2008 Olympics with a total of eight gold medals ever. All eight of them in men's hockey. The last of them in 1980. India had never, ever, produced an individual gold medallist.

Stand up, Abhinav Bindra. On Monday he won the 10 metre air rifle shooting event to become India's first individual gold medallist.

Press Trust of India reports that Bindra has an air-conditioned
shooting range with a totally computerised Target Transportation System of international standards at the family farmhouse in Chhatvir, 15km from Chandigarh. Wikipedia is keeping track of all the prizes, in cash and kind, bestowed on Bindra since his victory. I do wonder, however, why the BCCI is giving him Rs 2.5 million. Your IPL megabucks at work??

Oh, and Bindra is a lenovoolympicgamesblogger, albeit powered by Google.

So that makes nine gold medals all-time for India. One in front of the Phelpster, who racked up his eighth in an absolutely scintillating 4 x 100 freestyle final. Maybe it's time to start cheering on the opposition in all of his races from here on in. Beating His Phelpness would be an honour to treasure.

Oh and a Mrs Trickett of Queensland won Australia's second gold medal of 2008 in the 100 butterfly. We've done slightly better than India over the years, though not so at hockey. Jessica Schipper won bronze after a pre-final zipper drama. Speedo claim it's nothing to do with them.

First things first: a raspberry to all those media outlets who went for "Golden Rice" as their headline in honour of Australia's first gold medallist of Beijing 2008, and in particular to those who went for "Golden Steph", and then changed their minds - hello BrisbaneTimes.com.au. Just check the URL of this page to see what their heading for that story was prior to "Gold for Wow! factor girl". Wimps.

As Stephanie Rice won the 400 IM for Australia, runner-up was Kirsty Coventry, who in 2004 became the only Zimbabwean to win an individual Olympic gold medal. Coventry, of course, stills calls Austin, Texas home. Phelpmeister won his first gold of 2008, they'll love that back at the United States of NBC.

And speaking of The Peacock Channel, I can (reluctantly) understand why they've despatched all their brekkie chat show people to China for the fortnight, but what on Earth was Tom Brokaw doing in Beijing for "Meet The Press" interviewing Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson?

Play of the Day, and an early candidate for Play of the Games: the medal ceremony for the women's 10 metre air pistol, with silver medallist Natalia Paderina of Russia embracing third-placed Nino Salukvadze of Georgia in an emotional show of international fraternity at a time when their two countries were laying waste to South Ossetia.

Guo Wenjun won the gold, probably wondering where she could find the nearest Tibetan.

The Games have begun (well they began on Wednesday with the women's football, but hey). It was fun watching the men's road race on Saturday afternoon, with sections of the Great Wall as a backdrop, and in some cases, as the track. It would have been nicer, of course, if the security people had allowed any spectators to be present at the finish line.

Congratulations, in any case, to Samuel Sanchez, who pedalled for 6 hours 23 minutes through a smoggy, humid Beijing afternoon.

It was a bit of a sombre day however, with hostilities between Russia and Georgia (real, not sporting) getting quite nasty. (Russia Today leaves you in no doubt who they believe is to blame, and leaves you wishing for an English-language Georgian TV news channel.) GW Bush has stated that Georgia's "territorial integrity must be respected". He must quietly be wondering if Georgia falls, will Russian tanks roll on into Alabama?

Also disturbing, albeit seemingly unrelated to the Olympics, was the bizarre murder of the father-in-law of the US volleyball coach whilst sightseeing. It's the sort of tourist murder that makes international headlines regardless of the occasion. But it begs the question, how did this happen in the totalitarian state that is China? Is the People's Republic really a dangerous place for your average apolitical tourist?

And to show even further how dodgy things are in Beijing for foreigners despite the massive security, the ABC's Steve Robilliard, on secondment to TVNZ for the Olympics, but bashed up by a drunk while walking back to his hotel on Friday night.

Finally, NBC suits will be slapping themselves on the back after their 12-hour-delayed replay of the Opening Ceremony was watched by 34.2 million viewers in the US (Athens opening 25.4 mil, Sydney 27.3 mil). Yes, it justifies their decision to replay the event, especially with the word of mouth on just how bloody good Zhang Yimou's spectacle really was. But does really excuse them for not showing the event live at 8am that morning? How many people would have doubled up for a second look on Friday night? Advertising dollars rule the Earth.

(I must be getting old. I feel the need for some explanatory notes to the title of this post. I'll put it in the comments shortly.)