They've "expressly prohibited" turning anything from the Olympics into "animated formats such as animated GIFs (i.e. GIFV), GFY, WebM, or short video formats such as Vines."

Kamila Valieva is a teenage figure-skating star from Russia. It turns out she failed a drugs test in December—but officials decided not to disclose the results until she helped her team win gold in Beijing's Winter Olympics this week.

Valieva tested positive for trimetazidine, which is used in the prevention of angina attacks, but is on the banned list because it is classed as a cardiac metabolic modulator and has been proven to improve physical efficiency.

During International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach's first public speech after arrival in Tokyo, he referred to the people of Japan as "Chinese." Video below.

"Our common target is safe and secure games," Bach said. "For everybody — for the athletes, for all the delegations and most importantly also for the Chinese people… Japanese people." — Read the rest

The International Olympic Committee announced on Monday that breakdancing will be an official event at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. From The Guardian:

It made its Olympic debut at the 2018 Summer Youth Games in Buenos Aires. The IOC has confirmed it will be staged at a prestigious downtown venue, joining sport climbing and 3-on-3 basketball at Place de la Concorde.

International Olympic Committee member Dick Pound announced today that the summer games in Japan will be postponed until at least 2021, citing the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

"On the basis of the information the IOC has, postponement has been decided. The parameters going forward have not been determined," said Dick Pound, a longstanding veteran of the organization. — Read the rest

The International Olympic Committee took the unprecedented step of announcing the 2024 and 2028 Olympic host cities (Paris and LA), because both cities were bidding unopposed, and LA had to be bribed with a $1.8B "grant" from the IOC to agree to host the games.

Oslo wanted to host the 2022 Winter Games, but has decided against it because of the International Olympic Committee's demands for special treatment. The IOC's imperial arrogance and opulence would be amusing—were it not the tip of an iceberg of corruption and despotism that floats from city to city every two years. — Read the rest

One year ago today

Princess Vader goes to Disneyland: This little girl reportedly visited Disneyland with her parents in her adorable princess Vader Hallowe'en costume, taking it for a test drive.

Five years ago today

Olympics reach a new low: trademarking the Canadian national anthem and threatening lawsuits over competing uses: The International Olympic Committee has trademarked a line from the Canadian national anthem, "with glowing hearts," and is threatening to sue anyone who uses the line in Canada, as part of the Vancouver Games. — Read the rest

National treasure Stephen Fry published an open letter to UK Prime Minister David Cameron and the International Olympic Committee asking them to move the 2014 Winter Olympics from Russia in response to Russia's banning and scapegoating of LGBT people. Fry compared a 2014 Russia Games to the 1936 Berlin Games, which legitimized Hitler and greatly aided his cause. — Read the rest

Comedian and national treasure Stephen Fry has written an open letter to UK Prime Minister David Cameron and the International Olympic Committee calling on them to move the upcoming Winter Olympics from Russia to another country, specifically, any country in which homosexuality is not criminalized and LGBT people are not violently scapegoated as they are in Russia. — Read the rest

AirShowFan sez, "Insightful article about the protests in Brazil, which make clear that it's absurd for a government to spend billions in public funds for sports tournaments that (a) bring no clear benefits to the country and (b) violate citizens' rights. — Read the rest

At the latest San Francisco Drone Olympics (now called DroneGames, thanks, no doubt, to awful bullying from the organized crime syndicate known as the International Olympic Committee), there were many fascinating entries, but the champion was James "substack" Halliday's Virus-Copter (github), which made wireless contact with its competitors, infected them with viruses that put them under its control, sent them off to infect the rest of the cohort, and then caused them to "run amok." — Read the rest

Leah sez,

Bespoke troublemakers, the Space Hijackers, have announced that they are the Official Protesters of the London 2012 Olympic Games. To this end, they've launched a site where you can register for tickets for the official protests. They have also outlined the top ten reasons why the Olympics are worth protesting against.

BB guestblogger Andrea James: Olympic sex tests impose false order by labeling some human diversity as "disorders."

Following the Caster Semenya debacle, The International Olympic Committee plans to create health centers that would seek to diagnose and treat athletes who have "disorders of sex development." In other words, being born "intersex" is a disease? Not long ago, doctors and psychologists in the US thought homosexuality was a curable disease (some still do, but most of us regard these "professionals" as kooks). — Read the rest

The International Olympic Committee has trademarked a line from the Canadian national anthem, "with glowing hearts," and is threatening to sue anyone who uses the line in Canada, as part of the Vancouver Games.

This is par for the course. The IOC is a corrupt, bullying, greedy, hypocritical organization that uses trademark laws to limit the free speech and commerce of people who have the misfortune to attend or live near the games — for example, in Athens, they forced people to take off or cover up t-shirts that had logos for companies that hadn't paid to sponsor the Olympics; and in Washington, they attacked decades-old businesses named after nearby Mount Olympia. — Read the rest

(UPDATE: In two words, probably not. It appears that the files currently being served from the Olympics 2008 website likely do not contain malware. However, one aspect of the testimonial below still can't quite be explained. Detailed findings at the end of this post, from a security researcher who kindly looked into this for us. — Read the rest

The London 2012 Olympics won't use security technology unless it's being provided by a major sponsor of the event. No matter how much safety your product would contribute to Londoners, there's no chance of it being used unless your company bribes the International Olympic Committee. — Read the rest

This page contains a list of companies that are purported to have "fired, threatened, disciplined, fined or not hired people because of their blog."

1.) Delta Air Lines
2.) Wells Fargo
3.) Ragen MacKenzie
4.) Starbucks
5.) Microsoft (some say yay, some say nay)
6.)