the olympics

pk · Post by pk » Mon Aug 11, 2008 10:59 am

tr0tsky wrote:tibet has the right to national autonomy and that should be defended to its fullest, but the whole issue is covered in masses of hypocracy.

1) the dali lama was an unelected feudal land baron that kept the tibetan people in abject poverty, tied to land they could never own with a tibet that had living standards at levels similar to that of the 15th century.

2) western governments refusal to support other national liberation struggles such as in ireland and palestine shows their real motive here,

tr0tsky · Post by **tr0tsky** » Mon Aug 11, 2008 9:22 pm

I agree that there are variables but surely the right to national self-determination is universal.

The point that I'm making is that there exists a lack of consistency of what Western governments perceive to be 'good' national claims and 'bad' national claims.

It's pretty clear what the factors are that shape these opinions.

datura · Post by **datura** » Mon Aug 11, 2008 9:24 pm

That brit girl that won the gold in the 400m was ridiculous, she had no right to win that at all, what a great last 20m. Would have loved to see that live.

Coppola · Post by **Coppola** » Mon Aug 11, 2008 9:43 pm

what about the faking of the opening fireworks? did anyone hear about this?
i have been away and didn't see it but i heard on the news today that they used computer graphics and broadcast them on TV.

anyone know the facts?

nesslei · Post by **nesslei** » Mon Aug 11, 2008 10:30 pm

BEN? wrote:what about the faking of the opening fireworks? did anyone hear about this?
i have been away and didn't see it but i heard on the news today that they used computer graphics and broadcast them on TV.

anyone know the facts?

haha i joked with someone that they looked computer-generated!!?!11!!

nesslei · Post by **nesslei** » Mon Aug 11, 2008 10:32 pm

datura wrote:That brit girl that won the gold in the 400m was ridiculous, she had no right to win that at all, what a great last 20m. Would have loved to see that live.

well, she had every right to win really. how stoked was she?! "thanks to my family watchin on tha sofa at home... my boyfriend... wow!!"

datura · Post by **datura** » Mon Aug 11, 2008 10:44 pm

nesslei wrote:
datura wrote:That brit girl that won the gold in the 400m was ridiculous, she had no right to win that at all, what a great last 20m. Would have loved to see that live.
well, she had every right to win really. how stoked was she?! "thanks to my family watchin on tha sofa at home... my boyfriend... wow!!"

It was brilliant, no one expected it either, hopefully she can go on and take that confidence into the relay and the 800..the great thing about the olympics is that it give people like this the exposure they deserve after all the hard work they put in to make it. They are not pampered millionaires.

I hate missing all the finals because of the timings

datura · Post by **datura** » Mon Aug 11, 2008 10:47 pm

btw, what is this?? from the opening ceremony?

and bush likes beach volleyball apparently

and no one knows kobe

nesslei · Post by **nesslei** » Mon Aug 11, 2008 11:36 pm

go on bushy boy, go out with a bang.

tempest · Post by **tempest** » Tue Aug 12, 2008 12:04 am

for once i agree whole heartedly with bush...

that K1 kayaking looks like hard work... weightlifting was pretty good last night, i just keep waiting for the guts to spill out of their arsehole tho

municiple · Post by **municiple** » Tue Aug 12, 2008 2:25 am

The first set of fireworks were def for real, I was sitting next to one of the launchers in the city (next to the Bell Tower, where those people got stabbed the next morning). It was fantastic. Then, at midnight the entire city sky was filled with fireworks for a good 15 minutes.

Don't believe the hype.

iamangelaplease · Post by **iamangelaplease** » Tue Aug 12, 2008 3:35 am

sapphic_beats wrote:
big ups the US men's relay team for a stellar win! w00t!

yesssss!

phelps 3 for 3 so far!
yarrr!

nesslei · Post by **nesslei** » Tue Aug 12, 2008 8:39 am

municiple wrote:The first set of fireworks were def for real, I was sitting next to one of the launchers in the city (next to the Bell Tower, where those people got stabbed the next morning). It was fantastic. Then, at midnight the entire city sky was filled with fireworks for a good 15 minutes.

Don't believe the hype.

....

badger · Post by **badger** » Tue Aug 12, 2008 9:25 am

municiple wrote:The first set of fireworks were def for real, I was sitting next to one of the launchers in the city (next to the Bell Tower, where those people got stabbed the next morning). It was fantastic. Then, at midnight the entire city sky was filled with fireworks for a good 15 minutes.

Don't believe the hype.

looks like no one has bothered to read the article.... which said that the fireworks were 100% real but they used computer generated graphics in the footage that was shown on TV because they didn't think they could capture it properly on camera

nesslei · Post by **nesslei** » Tue Aug 12, 2008 10:12 am

badger wrote:
municiple wrote:The first set of fireworks were def for real, I was sitting next to one of the launchers in the city (next to the Bell Tower, where those people got stabbed the next morning). It was fantastic. Then, at midnight the entire city sky was filled with fireworks for a good 15 minutes.

Don't believe the hype.
looks like no one has bothered to read the article.... which said that the fireworks were 100% real but they used computer generated graphics in the footage that was shown on TV because they didn't think they could capture it properly on camera

well that's just plain bizarre

badger · Post by **badger** » Tue Aug 12, 2008 10:31 am

it is a bit strange that they spent millions (and over a year

) sorting the computer generations that in the end people like you could spot straight away when they'd done the real thing anyway, but i guess they just wanted to be sure it all looked perfect

badger · Post by **badger** » Tue Aug 12, 2008 1:44 pm

sapphic_beats wrote:
Piston wrote:we will all be speaking chinese in 200 years
200 years? i give it less than 50 years.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/st ... seeing_eye

just read that and it's a very interesting, if worrying, read

As The New York Times recently reported, aiding and abetting Beijing has become an investment boom for U.S. companies. Honeywell is working with Chinese police to "set up an elaborate computer monitoring system to analyze feeds from indoor and outdoor cameras in one of Beijing's most populated districts." General Electric is providing Beijing police with a security system that controls "thousands of video cameras simultaneously, and automatically alerts them to suspicious or fast-moving objects, like people running." IBM, meanwhile, is installing its "Smart Surveillance System" in the capital, another system for linking video cameras and scanning for trouble, while United Technologies is in Guangzhou, helping to customize a "2,000-camera network in a single large neighborhood, the first step toward a citywide network of 250,000 cameras to be installed before the Asian Games in 2010."

this seems very much like a 1984 situation where people are under survelaince 24/7 and unable to live life as they wish
and this:

municiple wrote:The political issues of China exist, but the majority of the people couldnt care less. The people who make a fuss are the people who are breaking the laws (sure, those law may be shitty, but show me a country that does not have shitty laws)

seems to prove that even more. in 1984 people are so indoctrinated that they don't even know how bad their lives are (not necessarily saying this is the case in china as i have absolutely no experience to base an opinion on) and the majority of proles live life in blissful ignorance, but for some living in such a police state is a living hell. to say that you don't have to worry about it if you aren't breaking any laws is spectacularly missing the point

and the fact that many US companies are making vast amounts of money selling things like facial recognition software (despite a ban aimed at stopping the US from selling anything to China that could be used to repress its people) is typical of the unethical business practised of the "civilised" west. and even worse than that the US is actually learning from and copying many of the techniques that china has employed to do the same thing at home

this quote from one of the chinese officials involved in controlling use of the internet speaks volumes

Bush helped me get my vision

as people have already said in this thread, china's human rights abuses are by no means unique so perhaps people need to look closer to home rather than just focussing on what seems to be the fashionable past-time of china bashing

oddfellow · Post by **oddfellow** » Tue Aug 12, 2008 1:55 pm

All that technology is being implemented here as well. The laws arent as extreme as they are in china but the same still applies. If your hanging out with your mates in a group and there is CCTV near by you can be sure that your being monitored.

The automated technology worries me. I cant think of anything more anti-social than a system that monitors the way you walk and look and assesses if your a thread or not.

the olympics

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