Archive for the '2008 Olympics' Category

China: Olympic Gymnasts

Posted in 2008 Olympics, Humor on August 15th, 2008

A rare photo of one of China’s 2012 Olympic gymnastics hopefuls. She’s training hard for 2012 Summer Games – between naps and diaper changes.

Chinese Olympic gymnastics hopeful training for 2012 Summer Games
With a grateful H/T to Dame Wiggy!

Darfur Yes, Cheek No

Posted in 2008 Olympics on August 6th, 2008

By Chris Chase-Photo via Getty ImagesThe 2008 Summer Olympics – also called the 2008 Genocide Games – will start on Friday August 8th, but they’ll start without Olympic gold medalist Joey Cheek. China has revoked the athlete’s visa.

Joey Cheek is co-founder of Team Darfur, a group of 70 athletes who are striving to raise global awareness of the human-rights violations taking part in the Darfur region of Sudan.

China’s military, economic and diplomatic ties to Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir’s regime have apparently made it undesirable – for the Evil Old Men in Beijing at least – for Cheek to enter China during the Games.

I am saddened not to be able to attend the Games. The Olympic Games represent something powerful: that people can come together from around the world and do things that no one thought were possible. However, the denial of my visa is a part of a systemic effort by the Chinese government to coerce and threaten athletes who are speaking out on behalf of the innocent people of Darfur.

— Joey Cheek

China has also revoked Cheek’s partner and Team Darfur’s co-founder, former UCLA water polo player Brad Greiner’s visa as well. Both activists were told that they had no recourse in the matter and that China did not owe them any explanation as to why they had been banned from the country.

This seems like another typically stupid and childish move by the Chinese. It’s not like any new damning evidence would be brought forth by Cheek or Greiner. The whole world is quite aware that China has consistently violated the 2005 UN Arms Embargo against Sudan by providing the weaponry that al-Bashir needs to complete his ethnic cleansing of Darfur. The whole world is also quite aware that Sudan pays for those arms with oil that China needs to fuel its growing industrial sector.

I guess the Chinese are just tired of hearing about about their collusion with other genocidal states and their utter inability to conduct themselves with anything remotely resembling human decency.

InfoWar – African Style

Posted in 2008 Olympics, Politics, Society on July 4th, 2008

InfoWar or Information Warfare is the use and management of information in pursuit of an advantage over an opponent. Information warfare may involve collection of tactical information, assurance that one’s own information is valid, spreading of propaganda or disinformation to demoralize the enemy and the public, undermining the quality of opposing force information and denial of information collection opportunities to opposing forces.

InfoWar has always been important in political and military struggles. In the modern world it possibly even more important for adversaries in a conflict to control and shape the information available.

Below is a video reporting on how some African citizen journalists – read that as Bloggers – are waging campaign of information warfare against the ruling parties in their lands who seek to maintain their authority at least partially by controlling and censoring what information is provided to their citizens and the world through the media.


This video is courtesy of Current_TV

These are some very brave and committed people who daily risk their freedom and their lives in an ongoing attempt to break their governments’ stranglehold on information dissemination. Across the globe citizen journalists – bloggers mostly – are engaged in an asymmetric war of information. They often manage though the porous nature of the internet to do what the Main Stream Media (MSM) is unable or unwilling to accomplish – the free and open release of information about unpopular, uncomfortable, and/or unprofitable issues.

Rogge Admits Error

Posted in 2008 Olympics on April 10th, 2008

Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), when asked if he regretted awarding the 2008 Olympics to China, admitted that it had not been a wise and a sound decision.

I’ve said that it is very easy with hindsight to criticize the decision. It’s easy to say now that this was not a wise and a sound decision.

— Jacques Rogge
IOC President

Yet Rogge defended himself by claiming that Beijing had “clearly the best bid” and offered the strong incentive of taking the Olympics to a country with 20% of the world’s total population.

This is a total load of bullshit! The only way that China had the best bid would be if criteria other than the IOC’s own Applicant City Evaluation Report was not only considered but weighed far more heavily than those official evaluations.

China’s Olympic Bid

Posted in 2008 Olympics on April 10th, 2008

I’ve performed some research on China’s bid for the 2008 Olympic Games. Below are my findings on the accuracy of Rogge claiming that had “clearly the best bid.

Applicant City Evaluation Report Results From August 2000

Beijing Toronto Paris Istanbul Osaka
General Infrastructure 4.6 7.0 8.1 4.2 7.6
Accommodation 9.9 7.8 10.0 6.2 9.7
Olympic Village 8.5 7.0 8.0 6.4 7.0
Sports Infrastructure 7.1 7.9 7.9 6.9 7.0
Transport Infrastructure 7.0 8.1 8.4 6.9 7.4
Total Score: 37.1 37.7 42.2 30.5 38.7
Average Score: 7.41 7.54 8.44 6.09 7.73

According to these scores China was only the top contender in one category – their proposed Olympic Village. Overall China had the 2nd lowest composite score (37.1). Paris achieved the highest composite score (42.2). China also had the 2nd lowest Average Score (7.41), an average of the individual scores in each IOC category, whereas Paris once again had the higest score (8.44).

With Paris not only having the highest overall and average scores, but also having earned the highest individual scores in: General Infrastructure, Accommodation, Sports Infrastructure (tied with Toronto), and Transport Infrastructure, it seems that Paris and not Beijing had “clearly the best bid.

The situation is actually worse though. The chart below details Beijing’s scores per category vs. the mean average of all the Applicant Cities.

Beijing Average Difference
General Infrastructure 4.6 6.3 (-1.7)
Accommodation 9.9 8.7 1.2
Olympic Village 8.5 7.4 1.1
Sports Infrastructure 7.1 7.4 (-0.3)
Transport Infrastructure 7.0 7.5 (-0.5)

This shows that Beijing actually scored below the average in 3 out of 5 categories. China had a mean average score 0.2 points below the composite average. It seems strange that such a score could indicate that Beijing should have been considered for the short list of Applicant Cities that the IOC would have voted on to host the 2008 Olympic Games, much less that Beijing would win that election.

Something else must have prompted the choice of Beijing as the 2008 Olympic Games’ host city. It obviously wasn’t their comparative ability to manage such an endeavor. The IOC Evaluation Committee certainly found them wanting.