Alan in Montréal

Perhaps a viable alternative is for the foreign media and maybe even special guests and athletes to put pressure on the Chinese government by way of some honest reporting during the Games. One has to wonder whether or not China would risk apprehending a foreigner who spoke out honestly about or editorialized about what they see. Athletes wearing some common small marker like a ribbon for example may just be enough to ensure that China is suitably embarrassed for continuing to occupy Tibet. I agree that a boycott is not the best solution. It is indeed unfair to the athletes and others, and particularly unfair to the Chinese people who are enthusiastically awaiting the arrival of the Games. But China must also realize that it they are going to host this prestigious event which is supposed to promote peace and humanity, they must play the game as well.

I guess what bugs me the most about this situation is the fact that when people raised China's human rights stance and record as a reason not to award the 2008 Games to Beijing, the official response from the IOC and the Chinese government was that giving China the Games would put so much attention on Beijing and the Chinese government that they would be forced to consider new ways of managing their people and country. (Paraphrasing, of course.) In fact, this is not the case, and a mere 6 months before the opening ceremonies, China is blatantly cracking-down on human rights and dissension in Tibet -- thumbing its nose at world opinion. I just wish the IOC would have been honest and said "we don't care about nor wish to get involved in China's human rights issues. We think the Games afford us a wonderful financial opportunity, not to mention the virtual guarantee of a flawless Games with wonderful ceremonies and inspiring venues, due to China's ability to engage masses of people and resources with no worries about internal scrutiny or budget-watching." At least that would be honest. But this crap suggesting the IOC and Games can influence a nation towards benevolence and respect for its citizens just makes me want to gag....

When protesters condemned the IOC's decision to award the 2008 Games to Beijing, the IOC and indeed Chinese authorities proclaimed that in fact awarding the Games to China would push it towards it a new era in respect for human rights. With what we have witnessed in Tibet over the past week, I guess that theory is out the window now. And while there's a growing buzz about possible boycotts to China's 2008 Games, the IOC's Rogge has predictibly resorted to that old reliable "why punish the athletes?" argument. I say the pressure on China, by way of a threatened boycott, should continue until Beijing backs down and begins respecting the very values that the Olympic Games is supposed to promote. One World, One Dream? I think not.

Lenric: For what it's worth, I happen to believe that Beijing 2008 will be the most spectacular Summer Olympic Games ever, and it will be very difficult for any other nation to outdo China's efforts. Despite what you may think, I am very much looking forward to Beijing 2008.

Lenric: I cannot for the life of me figure out exactly what you are talking about, but from I'm able to piece together, you don't seem to know too much about Canada or Canadian politics. You questioned if a foreigner had the right to protest in Canada in favour of Quebec separation, to which I replied yes. I don't know where you went after that.

Sorry Jeremie, but I disagree to a certain extent. Although the Games should be about sport and not politics, China openned itself up to scrutiny on this issue. China did bid knowing that there were human rights issues in 2002 when the bid was going down, and it was China who answered these concerns by indicating that "giving us the Games would actually quicken reform". Evidence actually suggests that the opposite is true. And just like every other hosts, it's China that is pushing the political side of the Games by openly telling its people that the Games will give them the opportunity to show the world what they are capable of, etc. I do not in any way advocate a boycott. They are useless. However, the mere threat of a boycott may help to push things forward just a bit in China. In the end, I don't support any boycott at this time.

This is one of the silliests responses I've read regarding this issue. If you want to engage in a debate, let's do so, but resulting to insults ("Do you have a brain...") means it's not worth my time. Next time, instead of getting defensive, try a more logical intelligent response. By the way, this is the SECOND major promise they've not kept. The other involved a little promise to clean-up the environment, but one year out, news reports of the "one year countdown" were rife with pictures and stories about the unbelievable air pollution. Oh - we won't even go near the "farming live organs from political prisoners" allegations at this time.

I hope they have a way of "fixing" those shadows from the "bird's nest". That's going to be horribly distracting for the athletes and fans and will look like CRAP on TV when covering events.

Pretty picture, but they must have had to air-brush the pollution out of the pic. Great venues are going to be overshadowed in 2008 by unbreathable air in Beijing. You watch. Beijing 2008 will be remembered for the absolutely horrible air pollution.

London's problems start with it's "oops - someone barfed" logo.

That's nonsense. Firstly China promised changes in its bid - in fact, promoted changes in human rights issues as a reason for the IOC to give them the Games. Secondly, according to your logic, no one had a right to complain or fight Nazi war crimes in WWII because it was an internal German affair. Don't be ridiculous. Human rights issues transcend national borders. And China promised the world changes. You cannot just now walk away and say "hey - it's none of your business and stay out of it." China answered critics promising changes if awared the Games. They committed to it. They have to live up to their promises. Having said that, I think the US Congres is blowing a lot of hot air here and taking advantage of the situation. BUT - this does not mean China should not be held to its promises.

Just a comment here: The Beijing 2008 website just SUCKS when it comes to photos of venues. The venues are beautiful and deserve much more photo coverageon the Beijing 2008 site. They currently use old, small graphics, mostly concept drawing and not even real photos. Beijing 2008 website... get it together.

To answer your question, yes, it is legal! If you know anything about Canada, you will understand that we have very liberal freedoms of expression and association, in fact, there is a federal political party who runs for federal parliament on a separatist platform. If you are in Canada legally, you have to right to speak-out as you please, provided you do not promote racial hatred or incite violence. In my opinion, this is China's problem. China promised the IOC that we would see changes to human rights policies and in fact openly promoted their bid based on the fact that winning the Games would force change in China. We have seen none of that. Did you know that over 1,000,000 Chinese citizens have been "moved" wiht virtually no say or recourse in order to make room for Olympic venues, or to move them away to avoid embarassment?

Mr. X: The real story here, and the one you didn't comment on, is that the RCMP (and most likely VANOC) have been hiding this from the public -- on purpose. So once again, the Olympic Circus will suck up more money than it should -- money that it wasn't supposed to suck-up, and money that could be put into something much more useful. Like education, health, etc. And to this day there isn't one credible study that shows that ANY previous Olympic host has seen any financial benefit from being a host, once the total true costs of staging the Games is included.

Mr. X: The real story here, and the one you didn't comment on, is that the RCMP (and most likely VANOC) have been hiding this from the public -- on purpose. So once again, the Olympic Circus will suck up more money than it should -- money that it wasn't supposed to suck-up, and money that could be put into something much more useful. Like education, health, etc. And to this day there isn't one credible study that shows that ANY previous Olympic host has seen any financial benefit from being a host, once the total true costs of staging the Games is included.

Welcome to Olympic Reality! These Games, like all others lately, are going to cost BC $billions and about 6 weeks after they're over, people will begin to know how the costs got out of hand. Only the IOC can be so bold as to force bidding cities to pay millions in costs just to bid on the Games that will eventually cost them much, much more, and always leave taxpayers holding the bag.

What ever happened to the forum software change/upgrade?

You can also count on a couple of francophones performing. The ceremonies are national in nature, and there is lots of talent in Quebec these days!

Fair enough. Thanks.

Your HTML has a problem and doesn't render well in Netscape, Firefox, or Mozilla. Attached is a sample, however, if you go here: http://tinyurl.com/c2vj8 you'll see that there are lots of errors in coding that make it non-compliant. Look at the pic:

Moderator: I'm getting wierd stuff in Mozilla Firefox which usually means an HTMl problem. I ran the Ikonboard URl on this site through the HTML Validator. You've got problems that need to be fixed!!!! Go here: http://validator.w3.org/check?u....rbose=1

Moderator: Can you do something about that damned add that "speaks". It says "Hi my name is Tina -- etc". It's a Flash add for the Univeristy of Pheonix, and it's very intrusive. It scares the heck out of me everytime I go to a page that has it, and I think this is carrying the adverting just a bit too far!

Geez - NOTHING! And other users of Mozilla and Mozilla Firebird report the same thing in the forum.

Honestly, I'm not sure why. Since you've raised the issue I've tested it on a variety of machines and browsers and they all seem to work. In mozzilla, did you bookmark GB before or after you raised the question? If before you may want to delete it and re-add it. I added a line of code that could help. Tried your suggestion and it still didnt' work. BUT, I posted a request in a Mozilla Firebird forum and this is what I got back. I hope this resolved the problem, Mr. Moderator.... No, I don't see the icon. It's being served with the wrong content-type: Headers for http://www.gamesbids.com/favicon.ico * HTTP/1.1 200 OK * Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2003 17:33:22 GMT * Server: Apache/1.3.26 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.8.9 OpenSSL/0.9.6a * Last-Modified: Tue, 13 May 2003 16:33:18 GMT * ETag: "1aa4c5-2fe-3ec11e4e" * Accept-Ranges: bytes * Content-Length: 766 * Keep-Alive: timeout=15, max=100 * Connection: Keep-Alive * Content-Type: text/plain The webmaster needs to add the following line to .htaccess: AddType image/x-icon .ico Let me know once you try it and I can confirm if it works or not.

Well, Mr. Moderator - your favicon still doesn't work in Mozilla or Firebird. I don't get it. Every other website's does.