lol they seriously had a prettier six year old lip-sync for another six year old?

The one fun part is imagining these officials, some of whom have to be used to people accepting their BS, having to deal with our lovely fourth estate. Love the part about the AP saving the webpage with the age of the gymnast, because they knew it would be taken down.

i lol'ed

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/oth...-ceremony.html
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...017275,00.html

I personally didn't find the lip sync thing terribly upsetting or surprising, mostly because I'm pretty sure we'd do the same kind of ****. Or if we wouldn't, we'd just cut straight to the pretty girl in the first place. EDIT: This isn't to say that it's good or terribly defensible behavior, it's just that I think using this as an epitome of how ****ed China is is kind of unfair.

As for the rest, meh. I guess it just doesn't really bother me.

> Switching singers is not about politics
> The "fireworks" were not about politics
> Ticketing is not about politics
> The IOC's behaviour is not about politics
> Beijing being a hole is not about politics
> The Spanish episode is not about politics

That leaves 2 out of my 7 complaints being "political" in the narrow sense you are implying. All the others are about sport or they are about the spirit of the Olympics.

If reading comprehension was an Olympic sport you'd miss the repchage by several barge poles.

You lost me here.

If you want to see just how ******ed Davey Johnson is, MSNBC is replaying the game right now and they're in the 10th, so the incident is coming up next inning.

I don't really get this so called scandal either.

This is something that happens at castings every single day.

It's a little unclear from the telegraph article who made the call.
First it mentions someone from the politbureau then later the director.

Obviously Zhang Yimou is an extreme perfectionist when it comes to aestetics. That's how he creates these magical images and I'm sure he has done similar things hundreds of times in his movies.
It would be completely standard for him and I doubt there are any evil intentions behind it.
If Steven Spielberg had been part of it which was the original plan, do you think he would have objected?
I'm sure Spielberg throughout his career has rejected hundreds of kids at castings for similar reasons as these.

There are just so many other things you can criticize China and its regime for other than something silly like this.

I agree that the IOC sucks but once they wen't with China there were never going to be any criticism from their side of things.
Too much at stake simply.
Instead if you're going to point the finger then point it at other governments (US and EU) and various big companies.
They're the only ones with at least some pull when it comes to putting pressure on China and whether that's even the right thing to do or if it's the current tactic that most think has worked very well for years now, which is the right path, that's something which is a very long debate and of course very political.

Thanks for the help on my questions guys. I don't know or care if the "live" stuff is deliberately deceptive but it's annoying to have the LIVE thing in the corner while simultaneously surfing the net and deciding to check in on earlier results only to be spoiled well in advance on the very event you're watching.

And the baseball extra inning rule...lol. So ridiculous. They've wanted to get rid of this sport. Just get rid of it already if you're going to tard it up.

As for the venue, I totally agree with what I heard Colin Cowherd say a few weeks back - China is just such a bad venue for this. Do you think that any of the NBC cast wants to be there? It must be absolutely miserable. The idea of having it in a capitalist country with more of a party atmosphere was spot-on. I'd be interested in hearing from people who come back from this if they had a good time, preferably ones who have been to previous Games and can compare.

I agree that female competitors in almost every sport need to be very muscular in certain areas in order to compete. This is most evident during SI's annual swimsuit edition - the models are all waiflike but the few athletes they do are fairly thick.

That said, I find athletic girls extra attractive so that goes a long way to offset their musculature. Serena Williams for example is way too thick for me but I think Venus is fairly hot. Shawn Johnson is only like 3'6" or something so a little too thick/squatty but Sacramone is much better proportioned (she actually has breasts) and as such I think she's pretty damned hot.

FWIW, what just happened in the baseball game (bunt off the face) is not fun at all. Pretty easy thing to do. Sucks for that guy.

someone should explain to the USA manager that blaming the pitcher for it is ******edly LOL

You doubt that they are underaged? Wtf?

it makes me so angry that they won the 85kg competition. Everyone expected them to sweep the lighter weight classes, but 77kg and 85kg were supposed to be a battle, and China only had one 85kg lifter who even had a chance at the gold, Rybakou was really supposed to win. Sigh. Disappointing. There's no way they will Gold 94, 105, or 105+ though. Those are for the Eastern European lifters

I got a bad feeling about Phelps tonight.

marge, sweet reverse jinx!

Oh, when I was in Vegas for the 4th of July I was hanging out with some of the Pokercast guys (very cool guys BTW). One of them, I think I remember who it was but I'll leave him anon unless he sees this and wants to out himself, said that he worked several consecutive Olympics in some sort of technical/media capacity. This included regular meetings with NBC on-air personalities.

He said that Bryant Gumbel was just absolutely THE biggest douchebag to deal with. I think he also said that Greg Gumbel was pretty cool.

Of the places he did I believe he said that Barcelona was his favorite host city. I think he also said that Seoul was his least favorite. Damn I wish I could remember it all, I wasn't even drunk at the time, but he definitely had some interesting stories.

When are they just going to get it over with and have it in Vegas, New Orleans, or Amsterdam?

1928

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtrDgAcOV_c

chad johnson is amazing regardless,but start watching at 3:45 for pure amazing

Finally something I can agree with Tuq with. I think girls who are athletic are extremely hot for the most part.

I think Natasha Kai who scored the winning goal for the US women this morning to be the hottest of them this olympics

Her?

msnbc is slightly tilting me by insinuating that the winner of the 100m race will be the fastest human on earth. What if the winner doesn't break the world record that was set a couple of months ago? And why is the 100m the benchmark for being the fastest human on earth? I get that its commonly accepted that the 100m race is sorta the pinnacle of sprinting but what makes the 100m sprinter "faster" than the 200m sprinter or the 400m. Hell why not have a 50m sprint to determine the fastest human in the world, or better yet a 5m sprint to see who has the fastest reaction time. They should be crowned fasted human in the world!! imo.

/nit

(they really need to start showing some more events soon lol)

Ugh man I just can't get into a chick with all that ink. Glad we agree on something though, it took awhile but I figured it would happen eventually.

but this girl from the Australian bball team is ****ing close