By that standard, who gives a fuck about the Olympics in the first place?
You’re right, the press should stop investigating stuff - better to assume that if anything important goes down, the interested parties will work it out on their own without the public getting involved.
As far as proof of this stuff goes, what do you want to see beyond the birth certificates showing these girls are younger than the Chinese government says they are?
The thing that confused me was why they had a 9 year old on stage in a maternity dress.
Are you honestly suggesting that the Olympics as a whole are now tainted by a few technical effects alterations in an open ceremony production? Unless the Chinese athletes are being CGI’d during their athletic performances I find the whole concern to be ludicrous nitpicking of the worst kind.
Links? If this is concrete why hasn’t anyone personally hand delivered those documents to the IOC head office and made a case yet. If it’s that cut and dry it shouldn’t be hard to get their asses disqualified and cause a major loss of face.
No really, that’s a genuine question. If there are documents and all sorts of evidence backing it up aside from a competing nation’s former coach trying to add an asterix then what’s with the delay?
This should be the scandal of the Olympic decade here…of Marion Jones proportion. Let’s have that smoking gun and get 'er done.
Didn’t you see the BSOD during the opening ceremonies? Bill Gates sure did: CTRL+ALT+DEL: software malfunction at the opening ceremony
ETA: More pics here: Blue Screen of Death Strikes Bird's Nest During Opening Ceremonies Torch Lighting
Uh, seeing as I never said anything like that, NO, I’m not suggesting it.
Here’s a New York Times story on the subject.
[Asterisk, not asterix.] I’ll submit two reasons: nobody wants to piss off China, who holds all the relevant records and can get rid of any evidence that doesn’t prove what it says, and nobody really wants the scrutiny because everyone cheats and they think it’ll make the Olympics as a whole look bad.
Wait…so no one was afraid to claim that they are cheating but they are afraid to take the additional steps of delivering it to the IOC as evidence or try and initiate an investigation?
Also, they say they pulled this information from some obscure database online? That must be quite a task to file the identity of 1.3 billion people on the internet for western agencies to peruse at their leisure.
I don’t buy it. I have concerns about China on some things too but I feel there is a bit of an agenda here and it’s just as lame as the censoring nationalistic biased spew you see in Chinese papers.
People busted Eastern European dopers all the time back when the USSR was something to be feared. People withdrew their athletes from competition as protest all the time back in the day. I don’t see China as being more or less feared than the USSR. I think there just isn’t enough genuine solid evidence to back anything up.
:eek:
And my Mac was made in China…
You’re mixing “no ones” here. The press is not afraid to put the evidence of cheating out there, as you’re seeing. Countries and Olympic delegations seem more reluctant.
Try reading more carefully, okay? You’re BSing. The databases were described as a listing of Chinese gymnasts, of which there are not 1.3 billion in China. They even mentioned a specific competition and a specific date. Nobody said anything is “obscure,” they used the most popular search engine in the world.
I’m not talking about fear that somebody’s going to invade or blockade anyone. But I think all the major Olympic delegations have skeletons in their closets and they’re happy with a detente - and since China has the records and the passports of the gymnasts, this seems like it would be a hard accusation to prove considering the effort it might take. But if He is listed in older records as as being born in 1994 and then suddenly is discovered to be the proper age for the Olympics in a newer document, I know what that suggests to me.
Harvey Araton adds, in a piece that is obviously commentary and not objective,
That’s a lot of conjecture.
If they are so dead set on setting the record straight about China it wouldn’t be far fetched for a large powerful newspaper like the NY times to send some of their “award” winning journalists to compile the evidence. They could submit it officially with complete press coverage in order to force a response. This idea that there’s a far reaching conspiracy preventing all this is truly lame but not unexpected on the internet.
I just don’t buy that they have all this supposed evidence and nothing is being done. Even if it is circumstantial it could kick off a major investigation. Some of what’s going on here seems very agenda based to paint the Chinese athletes in the worst light possible.
Granted.
Have you heard of visas? China doesn’t have to let them in and doesn’t have to share anything with them. As it is, China is not allowing the Olympic reporters unrestricted Internet access. And if they could get reporters in there, which Chinese officials do you think will cooperate with this investigation?
To who, the IOC? I think we’ve seen how much the IOC cares about this right now. If this story has legs and sticks around maybe they will make an investigation.
So you don’t think they actually Googled the stuff they said they Googled? 
Not if the investigators aren’t interested. Do you think the FBI is going to get into this? If the IOC decides this is not a good idea to investigate, regardless of the truth of the accusation, then they are not going to look into it.
They don’t need to actually go to China. They can go to the IOC office elsewhere and file a formal complaint and bring the cameras turn it into a media circus. That’s a sure fire way of eliciting a formal response. There’s a lot of insinuations in that article about far reaching conspiracies and judges who will penalize countries that complain etc… that seem very far fetched.
Then again this is the same paper that gargled and swallowed all of Bush’s Iraq “yellowcake” evidence too so maybe I shouldn’t be too surprised here.
No i’m confused as to how a few unverified dates on the internet count as hard hitting proof of wrong doing here. If they went to all this trouble in falsifying documents then why bother putting info up on the internet?
No, I think what is happening here is that people want to believe it’s true no matter what. There’s a sheen of nationalistic self righteousness at play here. That’s the real insinuation.
Then what do you want them to do? Their journalists are looking into this and already found some evidence, but now you’re demanding the paper investigate? I don’t get it.
That’s not the job of a newspaper.
Far fetched how? Only a couple of years ago, there was a controversy where a figure skating judge said she was pressured to let the Russian team win, and organized crime was allegedly involved.
The old dates were up for years and were later removed, and in one case, blocked by Chinese censors. Hence the need for Google cache. You apparently think a journalistic investigation starts with the conclusion.
Ha! Not only are you the first person to ever accuse me of nationalism - and you’re wrong - I don’t give a fuck for gymnastics and I don’t much care for the Olympics. I still think the facts in this case point to one conclusion.
Macs don’t bluescreen and Windows isn’t made in China.
Returning to the OP, here’s some video that shows the real fireworks, unless it was planted by Chinese government agents:
Honestly, the real ones look pretty sweet and I actually like the ground view better than the air view. It really gives the impression that an invisible giant is going to step on you.
[Off Topic] If you want something to hate China for, personally I’m still pissed about their coverup of the February 15, 1996 crash of the Long March 3B rocket. They would have listed the death toll at zero if they thought they could get away with it. Only after video leaked out did they raise their number to 56, which is still meaningless and it’s probably more like 200-500. (cite, scroll down) I couldn’t care less about underage Chinese gymnasts or CG fireworks when they’ve done so many other things that are so much worse.
God I love freedom of the press in the US.
First, the birthdates were posted before anyone knew these girls were going to be in the Olympics. When they got on the team, that was when they got embarrassing. Second, the IOC’s response, as shown in the Times article, was that the passports had a date making the girls legal, so all was fine. It is kind of hard to prove a forgery when the forger is the legitimate issuer of the document. Obviously the IOC is not going to stir things up.
Third, who is being nationalistic here? That an underage gymnast gets disqualified is not helping any one particular team. It’s not like the US gymnasts would suddenly get gold.
Fourth, are you seriously claiming that the Chinese government wouldn’t change the birthdate to help win medals?
This reminds me of when the environmental engineer at a place I worked came back from China on a tour, and gave a talk, with pictures, showing a lot of the pollution. A certain segment of our work population had a total fit that she was so anti-Chinese to have the nerve to show those pictures.
I read an interesting article about a poll. taken worldwide, on the perception of China in the world. Twice as many Chinese thought the world viewed them favorably as actually did. There was also a question on the perception of human rights in China - but the pollsters were not allowed to ask the Chinese that question.
No, we get the beachball from hell aka the pinwheel of death, instead.
FTR, I think BOTH those girls are cute as buttons. I also think they both look “Chinese” (whatever that may mean). I’m glad that the singer’s name is at least out there and she’s not hidden away ala Debbie Reynolds’ character of Singin’ In The Rain fame… (and Marni Nixon).
Is there a video online of the opening ceremony?
And now, it turns out the pretty little girl was lip-syncing. What’s Chinese for Milli Vanilli?
First one to say “Mirri Vanirri” is a racist
They were involved in world competition already. If they were being groomed as competitors for future Olympics it doesn’t make sense that all their profiles would be online like that. No really, think about this one for a minute and realize how lame it is.
Actually didn’t one official pretty much say he’d look into it if an official complaint was made? No one except the former U.S. coach has said anything. It just seems like he’s trying to add an asterix besides the Chinese athletes to excuse the current team’s chances at a gold. After all his wife is the current coach.
No it’s not obvious. The IOC didn’t hesitate in kicking out a spanish doper and they haven’t hesitated in the past in stripping medals with evidence. Re: Marion Jones.
It seems like the whole “cheating” accusations has reached a crescendo and directly corresponds with the number of gold medals China has won when competing with the U.S. It’s funny how it seems like mainly the main competing nation is obsessed with this and no other country has brought this up even though they are also in the same events.
You’re assuming the worst to justify a conspiracy. Unless there is more proof aside from a few online profiles then it’s sort of silly to presume anything.