Below The Beltway

It seems that China is having trouble living up to its promises to the IOC:
BEIJING, April 20 — China has spent billions of dollars to fulfill its commitment to stage a grand Olympics. Athletes will compete in world-class stadiums. New highways and train lines crisscross Beijing. China built the world’s largest airport terminal to welcome […]

From a pro-Tibet protest in San Francisco:

Umm, it probably would’ve looked something like this:

They could be holding this year’s Olympics in Vatican City, and I’d still agree with this 100%:
The Olympics are a vulgar, ruinous hullabaloo the chief functions of which are to facilitate graft on a spectacular scale and to act as a vehicle for the promotion of despotic values. They are, at best, unedifying and, at […]

I’m usually a fan, but I’ve got to say that I think Chris Core is being hopelessly optimistic when he takes this position on the Olympics and the protests following the torch around the world:
Ok, what is the deal about attacking the Olympic Torch? Have people lost their minds? Yes, I get that […]

The blue-and-white suited “guards” that are following the Olympic Torch around the world are continuing to raise suspicions:
BEIJING, April 10 — As protesters besiege the Olympic torch on its global tour, a phalanx of tall, tough-looking young Chinese men in blue-and-white running gear have vigorously protected the flame — too vigorously in the eyes of […]

In the course of the same news conference, the head of the International Olympic Committee managed to say two completely contradictory things about the ability that international athletes will have to speak out during the Olympic Games in Bejing.
First, he says that the IOC stands behind the free speech rights of it’s athletes:
BEIJING, April 10 […]

Add John McCain’s name to the growing list of politicians calling for a boycott of the Opening Ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics:
Senator John McCain said today that he would not attend the opening ceremonies at the Olympics, barring significant changes in China’s behavior, if he were president.
During an appearance on ABC’s “The View,” Whoopi Goldberg […]

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has become the latest world leader to announce that he will boycott the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics:
LONDON — Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Wednesday that he would not attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games this summer.
The prime minister has been under intense political pressure over […]

The Los Angeles Times points out that the Olympic Torch Relay didn’t exist before the infamous 1936 Berlin Olympics:
The Olympic torch relay was invented by the Nazis. According to historians, Adolf Hitler wanted to promote his belief in an Aryan master race by symbolically linking the 1936 Berlin Games to the ancient Greek gods and […]

It’s just after 6am in San Francisco as I write this, and the city is bracing for protests as the Olympic Torch relay begins:
SAN FRANCISCO — The Olympic torch arrived at the airport here from Paris in the wee hours Tuesday morning, exited out a side door and was escorted by motorcade to a downtown […]