Lord Coe blasts horrible Chinese thugs who barged their way through London

[Flashermac]

I'm sure he does nowafter being told three times

 

Effing PC hates me! Yesterday everything also started coming up in random Thai letters.

 

 

Damn that George Bush!

 

 

 

[Flashermac]

US Olympic torch relay descends into farce

 

 

The Olympic flameâ??s procession through San Francisco drew world-wide ridicule when the torch-bearers ran only a few yards before disappearing into a warehouse, only to re-emerge on a bus half an hour later.

 

After furious clashes between Free Tibet protesters and pro-China demonstrators, the authorities seemed to panic and abruptly changed the route, cutting it by half and scrapping the closing ceremony.

 

What Chinese Olympic organisers have called a â??Journey of Harmonyâ? quickly became the mystery tour of the missing flame. By 1.20pm local time â?? 20 minutes after the scheduled startâ?? even the TV news helicopters had lost track. Then the runners were glimpsed at last for a brief moment, only to vanish into a warehouse on Pier 48 seconds later.

 

Eventually the torch-bearers, flanked by their Chinese minders in blue shell-suits, got off the bus and posed for photographs before jogging down Van Ness Avenue, their destination unknown.

 

To add to the confusion American officers in blue track suits almost identical to their Chinese counterparts also made an appearance, mingling with the battle-hardened â??flame-guardsâ? from Beijing.

 

The cityâ??s Mayor defended the decision to scrap the original route by citing security fears. â??We assessed the situation and felt that we could not secure the torch and protect the protesters and supporters to the degree that we wished,â? Gavin Newsom said.

 

â??I think itâ??s cowardly. If they canâ??t run the torch through the city, it means that no one is supporting the games,â? said Matt Helmenstine, 30, a teacher carrying a Tibetan flag.

 

Two hours before the Olympic flame began its undignified trek through the deserted streets and freeways of San Francisco, The Times witnessed the tension between pro-Tibet groups and Chinese demonstrations, some of whom had reportedly been bussed in by the Chinese Embassy.

 

One man, red faced, screaming and waving a â??Free Tibetâ? flag, was hauled out of the crowd by black-uniformed police and thrown into the back of a riot van. The police were immediately surrounded by a chanting mob shouting, â??Free him now! Free him now!â?Â

 

The stand-off ended when a dozen more officers arrived, each one armed with what looked like long, thin black baseballs bats. Meanwhile, the proTibetans became distracted by a group of pro-Chinese demonstrators waving red flags. The two groups stood face-to-face, shouting their slogans at each other. It was later reported that an American man who challenged the Chinese, calling them communists, had been beaten up.

 

When San Francisco first agreed to host the Olympic torch on its way to the summer games in Beijing, no-one could have imagined such scenes. But since the torch began its world tour from Greece, outrage over Chinaâ??s military crackdown in Tibet has sparked increasingly bitter protests.

 

In London and Paris, pro-Tibet groups tackled the runners and used fire-extinguishers to try to put out the flame. Chinaâ??s heavy-set â??flame mindersâ? only aggravated matters.

 

[color:red]The authorities in San Francisco faced a different problem: more than a third of the cityâ??s residents claim some kind of Asian heritage.[/color] Many of them took to the streets in support of the Chinese Government â?? raising the spectre of violent confrontations.

 

...

 

 

 

Times

[Hugh_Hoy]

The present government in Beijing is, to my mind, a racist, fascistic, murderous dictatorship. Why should such a travesty of government be allowed to promote itself in the City of Saint Francis?

 

I did not view the torch display as promoting the country of China...merely a celebration of the Olympics itself.

 

BTW, I can imagine that if 99% of the protesters didn't get their clothing/shoes at the Goodwill or Salvation Army thrift shop, they got em at Kmart or Walmart which = PRC. (Even the Tibetans...555)

 

HH

 

[Guy Himmaparn]

Well, nobody got hurt and everbody is pissed off.

 

Shall we call it a success? That's how Gavin will portray it, especially since his political opponents are now claiming that the change in plans came directly from the Chinese

[rogueyam]

I did not view the torch display as promoting the country of China...merely a celebration of the Olympics itself.

 

Many of the pro-Chinese spectators and participants in yesterdays events saw things quite differently from this. So did the Chinese government and their party-controlled media. To them this was a propaganda opportunity for communism and China.

 

Here's an example.

 

BTW, I can imagine that if 99% of the protesters didn't get their clothing/shoes at the Goodwill or Salvation Army thrift shop, they got em at Kmart or Walmart which = PRC.

 

I agree that there were probably very few boycotters of Chinese-made goods among the protertors overall. There were a few people there promoting such a boycott, however. As for me, my Perry Ellis belt was made in China, my Timberland shoes in Vietnam, my Levis jeans in the Dominican Republic, my Jockey long-sleeve turtle-neck t-shirt was made right here in the U.S.A. (yay!), and my hand-made yak wool jacket was made in Tibet by a Tibetan from whom I bought the thing personally in Lhasa in 1987.

 

I shudder to think of what all that poor fucker has been through at the hands of the communist savages in the intervening twenty plus years.

[Hugh_Hoy]

You mean you don't "look for the union label"? 555555555

 

Anyway, the example of Chinese "propaganda" was taken from a Chinese news source. I'm inclined to think that it would promote a Chinese perspective, but not necessarily a PRC perspective.

 

Anyway, I think it is sad that an Olympic celebration gets hi-jacked by a bunch of idiots who probably those who were also venting against "machines", whale hunting, global warming/cooling, and liver spots. Just my take.

 

HH

[chuckwoww]

Those lefties are so naive. Enterprising Tibetan yak wool dealers have Chinese partners in San Francisco and Oregon. Even got their own websites.

 

http://www.potalagate.com/Qstore/Qstore.cgi

[Hugh_Hoy]

Hey...I have one of those temple bells they're hawking. They come in different sizes. If authentic reproductions, they're made of several different precious/semi-precious metals according to some formula that makes them "special". If you run a pencil or other wood dowling-type around the edge just right, you can get a ringing/vibration that you will swear is gonna break a window. I mean "loud" and high-pitched!

 

(I picked up my reproduction from a shop on Sukhumvit about maybe 40 yards west of Soi 11 almost 20 years ago. Shop was still there 6 months ago.)

 

HH

[chuckwoww]

Good for you Hugh. I always knew you were a hippy at heart. Tell the truth I've gotten quite cynical about all this stuff. I think the Tibetans have about as much chance of being independent as the Palestinians.

[rogueyam]

Anyway, the example of Chinese "propaganda" was taken from a Chinese news source. I'm inclined to think that it would promote a Chinese perspective, but not necessarily a PRC perspective.

 

From wiki:

 

The Xinhua News Agency is the official press agency of the government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the biggest center for collecting information and press conferences in the PRC. It is one of the two news agencies in the PRC, the other being the China News Service.

 

Xinhua is an institution of the State Council of China. Despite criticism, its worldwide press freedom index ranking has improved in the past years. Xinhua reports directly to the Communist Party of China's Public Information Department.