My tangentially related question is, why are the currently-running Paralympics in Vancouver being ignored by the protesters? Surely the same issues that were being demonstrated about during the Olympics still apply? No Paralympics on stolen Native land? Homes for the homeless before Paralympics? Come on guys. You don’t want to look like hypocrites, surely. It’s almost like the Paralympians don’t deserve the same treatment from the activists as the Olympians. I like to think they’d actually like being protested a little.

Personally, I could live just fine in a world without luge. You want to be an athlete, go right ahead. I don’t want to pay for it with my tax dollars and I certainly don’t want to see local businesses ground under so that some curler gets to pursue his dream.

And that makes it a good reason to find something more useful to do with your time. Why have to worry about whether you are properly shilling for THE MAN?

(A Bit of Fry & Laurie)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6CkltzGAxY

You can’t shake hands with the devil and say your only kidding. The “sponsorship” helps drive a free market economy that is ruining our planet.

Athletes may be just “following their dreams”, but there is a real cost for that dream that everyone else (and the environment) has to pay.

When I read about that bill in the UK ; and yes, Vancouver and the Federal Government passed similar stupidities, not their last time we might thing, I thought about that. It is getting worse.

Good luck to you fellow Britons.

Now if the sponsors where given the status of shareholder in the Olympics and be financially responsible of the debts incured…

The Olympics is a scam, pure and simple. Look at how they’ve locked down the IP, tighter than the Super Bowl (do I have to send the NFL money now?) and profiting obscenely off the attention the big draw pro-sports get. It’s not about the joy of sport, it’s about cash on the barrel. And under the barrel, and in neatly sealed envelopes that arrive in the dead of night filled with non-sequential Euros, and bearer bonds…

Why? – because the Olympics was about the purity of athleticism, and the ‘purest’ athletes were those found in elitist university athletics programs and the officer class of the military. Who else has the horse riding, pistol shooting, sword fighting, swimming and running skills needed to compete in the modern pentathlon?

I like watching the competitions, but I hate the corporate douchebaggery that has invaded the Olympics. The only way I could stand to watch the NBC Vancouver coverage was to watch it using a DVR.

@ acb #19: It’s already happening – we’ve already had Beijing ’08, and Sochi ’14 is coming up. The UK is already well down the authoritarian path, so it isn’t a bad fit.

Economic realities are striking home. Schools paying for busing to away games is falling by the wayside. Fuel to run busses for basic education is getting so expensive that schools are eliminating it.

And you’d expect the general population to pay even more for the Olympics through taxes? Sorry, but the economic hits and public money already taken for the goofy remakes and disruption that create the post-Olympics hangover are starting to hit home.

Just another political beast wanting to feed from the public money trough, come get your earmarks, subsidies and special interest funding here. Line up for the free money, tax revenues are endless…

Is ORG on this case yet?

We should be asking, why have commercial interests been allowed to have influence over the police?

Coca Cola and McDonalds as main sponsors? Why not just go all the way and have sponsorships from pharmaceutical companies and steroid makers?
These sponsorships just violate everything that should be good about these events. The paranoia in IP bull clears the rest of the good things out. Rotten from the inside.

the whole thing is tawdry. i was dismayed when we got the olympics, simply because of the changes in my home town i knew this would bring about. enforced land grabs (sorry, compulsory purchase orders), large scale re-landscaping of a large part of the east end, etc. cities need their dead zones, or its retail parks all the way.

to my mind, those 120 year old allotments that got buldozed were inestimably more valuable than this whole 10 day steroids-lycra-fest.

wankers.

At least its starting to seem that way.

When the Olympics were revived in the late 19th century, I bet everybody still had good sportsmanship and national pride in mind. Today, its just another money machine. There’s enough evidence for that, starting with the 2000 Olympic games in Sydney, which were alright by their own standards, but bought off of the IOC because of the prestige and the money.

I cannot say when that whole olympic spirit and sportsmanship got lost, but I can say that I don’t think it’ll ever come back, so really, all I can do here is pity the poor people whose towns are hosting the Olympics, and hope mine never does.

The sooner this wealth-shift charade masquerading as a ‘good’ gets stopped, the better for all.

$6 billion and counting from a province with a population of 4 million — all to watch grown people play games and to instill a false pride that comes with unknown countrymen winning a hockey game.

But at least it gives the government something to work with, namely a bunch of softened-up brains willing to completely disengage their own thinking in favour of the state propaganda.

I regret to make known to others what is abundantly clear here, and that is that the collective wisdom among Canadians is now almost zero.

IMHO, given that the Olympics are a merchandising exercise which invariably involves notionally liberal states bending over to placate corporate sponsors by suspending civil liberties, perhaps it would be better if future Olympics were held only in totalitarian states, where the legal frameworks are already in place. Pyongyang 2016 perhaps? I hear the North Koreans put on a killer show…

Anything that attracts that much money is going to be corrupt. End of story.

The Guardian:
“The government was accused tonight of giving itself draconian powers to clamp down on protests at the 2012 Olympics. Critics said the powers were so broad they would potentially give private contractors the right to forcibly enter people’s homes and seize materials…”

Reuters:
“Police will have powers to enter private homes and seize posters…”

Cory:
“Police powers to force spectators to remove non-sponsor items, enter houses, take posters.”

So there’s this guy you know, and you’ve heard he throws a wicked party. So you invite him to host one at your house. “Sure”, he says, “but the place will need a bit of work first. Get an extension built. And a conservatory. And a swimming pool. We’re going to need lots of parking. And a wider driveway. Oh, and redecorate every room, please.”

You agree, because after all, he throws a wicked party.

The people start to arrive. The host charges them all a load of money to get in. He brings in his friends to sell them drinks, to provide the music, everything. Anybody else seeking a piece of the action is taken outside and beaten up. You get a cut of the proceeds, but it’s a drop in a bucket compared to what you had to spend on fixing up the house.

The party ends, the host and his friends leave with suitcases full of cash, and everybody talks about what a wicked party it was. Word spreads, and sure enough other people are queueing up to have this guy throw a party at their place.

You’re left with a hell of a hangover, a giant clean-up op, an expensively-upgraded house you’ve no need for, and decades of crippling repayments.

But hey, it was a wicked party, right?

I hear the London is going to have shark-jumping as an official event.

Seriously, Britain, it’s time you stood up and made a stand. Your police forces are beyond control. They aren’t upholding the law, they are making their own laws. Without a trip through the legislature and a signed piece of paper, any so called “law” these police forces make up is meaningless and enforcing it is an abuse of powers. From public photography, to the posters in your home, to the clothing you wear, the police are enforcing their own will without a law to back it up. For God’s sake, freedom, and everything else your country stands for, do something already!

Trademark insane massive organization meets Orvellian power tripping surveillance state.

It’s not so much that the Olympics have been taken over by giant, soul-stealing corporations. The IOC is a giant, soul-stealing corporation.