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Fox Boy, you're my hero. heart

I still wonder how Handball and Table Tennis qualify as Olympic games. xD

EDIT: YOU CANNOT DENY THE CUTENESS. D<

I am rooting for the USA, and Japan for my friend. xd

I am looking forward to the swimming. 3nodding There's this one guy (I forget his name) who is going to try for all 8 medals in swimming.

Well, I feel like the Olympics have gone through periods where they have been very political, and periods where they haven't been nearly as bad. I mean, when Hitler was in power, they were held in Germany sometime in the 30's, and it ended up being a lot about Germany showing the might of their country through the competition, so on and so forth. Also, during the Cold War, many of the Olympic games were dominated by the struggle of Communism vs. Capitalism.

This isn't really the first time that politics have been a major deal in the games, it's just the first real time that many of us have experienced, thus it seems like this one has been the only one.

I find the opening ceremonies fascinating, I may not like the things that China does, but they can put on one hell of a ceremony. And the architecture of the buildings built solely for the games are just amazing to look at. It will be a very interesting Olympic games indeed.

Go US!!!!!

i was pissed that taiwan had to be called something OTHER than taiwan.

oh, and that they weren't allowed to carry their own flags. wtf is up with that?

as far as the pollution in beijing, when they decided to host the olympics there, the pollution wasn't as bad. and its not like the smog of "any city". this is crazy a** "hey! we're industrializing!" pollution. think like, england circa 100 years ago.

they've had factories shut down for a month AND the government forced half the cars out of beijing in order to improve it to the gray cloud it is today.

when the HOST COUNTRY says "yes, we know its bad so we'll put a whole assload of people out of work for a month AND ban half of our commuters from using their cars!" you know its bad. sweatdrop

but, the ceremonies were beautiful and i actually teared up at that little earthquake survivor kid. heart

i will, of course, be cheering for america and only us, cause that's how i've always rolled. xd i hope we smoke the competition! xd

uh, in the spirit of good sportsmanship and whatnot, of course...

rofl

edit: also, i'm not a big fan of the mascots since one of them is deliberately used to try to make people believe that tibet is HAPPY with china right now. in case you didn't know, when the mascot was first unveiled, it caused a HUGE uproar...idk if anyone else really cares about foreign relations like i do though, so...yeah.

not that i don't acknowledge that tibet was a crazy-a** "i will kill you if you don't worship like we worship" kinda place BEFORE china took over, i just bristle at the idea of any country taking over another country without the wuss-country having a say in it...which is why i get miffed @ my own country and politicians so often. sweatdrop

edit^2: did anybody else think it was funny that other countries' athletes kept coming over for kobe bryant's autograph? reminded me of jordan and the dream team. 3nodding

edit^3: Since when did it become alright to ruin worldwide events with political issues?

dude, this has been going on since...well, since forever. and its not like we're all ganging up on china, they've done some ******** up stuff of their own...like not even PARTICIPATING in the olympics FOREVER...and the whole state-run athletic program that HURTS their athletes?

besides, we have people come over and protest over here all the damn time from other countries. know what we do? we say "oh hey, make sure you get a permit!" and yes, so long as the protest doesn't endanger the public ((ie: you can't set s**t on fire or fire guns into the air)), we allow it. silencing ALL forms of protest is...well, its just wrong. its wrong and fake.

besides, we don't want to ignore countries who don't like each other. we could have another olympic massacre that way and no one wants that. crying

Omg - Thomas Daley is adorable >.<
lol, he's 14 - that makes me a ***** D:

Pretty sweet that the Czech Republic took home the first Gold xD

About the smog comment; why do you think London has started charging people for entering the City with a vehicle? London 2012. They're trying to put on a pretty face, for the Olympics, to try and make up for the shitty weather. =) Come 2012, you'll start hearing people on the news saying, "Well, 2012 is definitely overshadowing China 2008 in terms of atmosphere." all because its in a country that is liked; at least mostly, anyway.

As for the Olympics, I don't actually really watch them, because I always seem to lose interest through all the commercials that go on, between each event. I don't know about other country's networks, but commercials are the bane of British Television. I might see if I can pay enough attention to the swimming and other water-related Olympic games.. and the Javelin. I wanna see if someone goes home looking like my Mule. XD

I think it was like Women's Rifiling.

GAWD - America has some of the worst coverage. I get tired of hearing these dudes' voices and only watching such generic events >.>

America took three medals in fencing - 1 gold, 1 silver, and 1 bronze.
China's got two gold medals though, one in weightlifting and the other in rifiling.
If you want to keep in track: http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/beijing/medals