The get-together in that Chinese city

[Doc]

Wait, even better than marbles and tiddly-winks - how about dodgeball and monkey-in-the-middle?

Red rover, red rover I call over.... Uruguay!

Schoolyard olympics, I think this is an idea whose time has come!

[Golfhaus]

I would punish at the distance-spitting-off-of-the-swingset event.

[Asherdan]

I feel about these games about like I felt about the Moscow games.

sMets nazi rally comment is closer to a thing than many will admit, I think. Notice the Chairman is still very evident in public there, no matter how the camera tries to down play it.

That said, I don't watch shit-all of any sports nowadays, so I should prolly bow out of this.

[pmcd9]

It all looked like a goddamned Nazi rally to me.

Fake smiles, explosions, thousands of people doing things in mechanical unison so that they aren't beaten.

Call me nuts but it looked like the kind of frightening display of national unity/power/ability-to-waste-resources that connotates a desire to invade a neighboring nation within about three years.

Rush Limbaugh made an almost identical point.

[wombat]

Wait a minute, did they just say on the radio that there's steeplechase racing at the Olympics? Now that I would watch. It's probably on at 2 in the morning though, right?

[Asherdan]

Read about the switch in child 'singers' for the opening ceremonies today. Disgusting to me. Having a 'prettier' child lip synch to the singing of the child some politburo muckety-muck determined not to be the face China presented to the world in the final day cramps my undies. Crooked teeth was one of the slipped reasons.

In a pure competitive commentary:

That guy trying to swim the way no one else has ever done is pretty darn exciting.

The build up to the 100m big bang race is pretty stirring.

I love the equestrian events, specially the jumpers.

Boxing has been a complete disappointment.

Womens volleyball, marquee event for me, knowing the Oden sisters hooked me in. Went to school with Elaina, talked knee rehab with her often.

[wombat]

Read about the switch in child 'singers' for the opening ceremonies today. Disgusting to me. Having a 'prettier' child lip synch to the singing of the child some politburo muckety-muck determined not to be the face China presented to the world in the final day cramps my undies. Crooked teeth was one of the slipped reasons.

I thought this story was actually almost funny. I mean, it's just amazing how the Chinese government doesn't get it, so hard. You'd think that any idiot would realize that this, and pre-taped fireworks, and destroying people's neighborhoods to build venues, and scaring them into getting rid of their pets as we discussed in another thread some time ago... that all of these things would be bad publicity. And that publicity would have a worse effect than crooked teeth on a little girl. And that all of these things would not be secrets in the rest of the internet-saturated world. And that this would NOT have the effect on China's reputation that they seem to desire. Seriously what were they thinking?

[Asherdan]

I mean, it's just amazing how the Chinese government doesn't get it, so hard.

I'm really not a fan of China. In spite of that, I was hoping this Olympics, once awarded, could be a vehicle towards change, or at least a chink in the societal armor.

But yeah, they don't get it so hard. I get the sinking sick feeling that what is being played out on the public stage here isn't being integrated into the proper context here or elsewhere internationally. This is, by Chinas own admittance, the coming out party for the worlds up and coming political and economic 800lb gorilla. Look hard while the mask is slipped a bit.

Oh, I'm sorry. The Olympics should be apolitical, right?

I like me some womens softball. Rising fastballs, ponytails and visors are hawt.

[Arachno-capitalist]

Phelps comes off as kind of dumb as he doesn't articulate himself well at all. Maybe he damaged his brain when he was out getting underage DUIs.

In other news, you will go your whole day without hurting as much as this guy: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=33a_1218642189&p=1. Bonus points for the Chinese minders with blinders at the ready.

[Golfhaus]

During the opening ceremonies, a boy accompanied Yao Ming during his flag-bearing duties. He was 9 years old, and had some scars and stuff... partially shave head, etc.

Turns out he was in school when the earthquake hit a few months ago. He dug his way out, found some authorities, and WENT BACK IN because he knew where survivors were. And when they asked him why he did what he did, he basically said, "I'm a hall monitor. I'm a leader among my class, it's what's expected of me."

We have college students that can't write complete sentences, and the Chinese have 9-year-olds re-entering earthquake rubble because they are a student leader. The neighboring country they're going to invade is us, and we're not going to have a damn clue what to do about it.

[Asherdan]

I think you and I are talking different points on the same die, 'Haus.

Your point has been done done. My point is moving too, but the wave hasn't crested yet.

ALSO: Dislocating an elbow is the shits. Mine left the ulnar nerve channel narrowed so every now and then I extend the arm and something goes pop in there and then I gots crazy dead lower arm and hand pain for like 10 minutes. Ouch.

[Arachno-capitalist]

Im completely underwhelmed by a country where 1 out of 10 people can't read or write, half of the people are farming, and the top 10% is doing 35% of the consumption.

Literacy: Total population: 90% Females: 86%  - The total population averages 6 years of education.
GDP - per capita (PPP): $5,300 (U.S. is $45,800)
Labor force - by occupation: agriculture: 43%
Household income or consumption by percentage share: highest 10%: 34.9%
Electricity - consumption: 2.859 trillion kWh (we use a trillion more kWh). Petroleum consumption is also small in comparison.

For all of those people they aren't producing much of value. $5k PPP? That's laughable, really. The country is staffed by low-skill uneducated laborers.

[Doc]

While you're comforting yourself with stats A-Cap here's another for you: 1.3 Billion people.

With more than 4 times the USA's population and a society used to doing what the government tells them it doesn't matter if they have a smaller proportion of educated people because in raw numbers (maybe not yet, but soon) they'll still have more than us and those poor uneducated slobs your dismissing? They're going to be the power to back it up whether militarily or in terms of cheap manual labour.

My history's never great but wasn't the USA's economic rise basically due to it's huge industrial ability based on low-pay factory jobs?

My (incredibly, deeply uninformed) guess is the main thing holding them back so far is that their social structure is so borked they have too much trouble keeping their own house in order to worry about the rest of the world.

[Asherdan]

OK, how the hell does a guy from down under come to use the phrase "Borked"?

ALSO: I agree with your input there, Doc. How comforting is it having them in  your backyard?

[wombat]

Phelps comes off as kind of dumb as he doesn't articulate himself well at all.

I don't think it's fair to expect athletes to be articulate. I mean, my editor doesn't expect me to swim on top of being able to write a coherent 800 word story, you know?