Here a ring, there a ring. . .

The Beijing Olympics is fittingly underway, and the opening ceremony showed us the following:

1. Dem Chinese sho do have some nifty gaming technology. How about a two football field-sized Koala pad?
2. A totalitarian government can, indeed, get large numbers of people together and get them to do ANYTHING it wants, and in a simultaneous manner.
3. 20 years ago, there was officially NO confucianism in China. At least that's what the government of China told us. Last night they brought 2,008 of 'em, funny hats and bamboo scrolls and all, and paraded 'em before the World. Hmmm. . .
4. Even though China endeavored to prove to the World that it's light years ahead in technology, they still featured cheerleaders in Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader autograph-model white naugahyde thigh-highs. Apparently kitsch, like Dim Sum, is universal.
5. Even though you can put on the most spectacular production the World has ever seen, George and Laura Bush will STILL be bored. Did you notice him slumping in his chair and checking out his watch a couple dozen times? They are soooooo ready to git back to Crawford. And so am I.

As the Canadian Olympic delegation marched in, Bob Costas and Matt Lauer discussed the practice of paying ringers to join an olympic team and paying said ringers for medals. Canada does it, and Brunai and the good ole U.S. WTF are we having an olympics FOR, anyway? As Jerry Seinfeld says, we're just cheering for laundry here, for any merc who can fit into a uniform just so we can have national pride that we didn't earn. Therefore, I have switched my allegiance during the Olympics to those nations who have entered the Olympics in the true spirit of fair competition and the thrill of competition at a higher, faster and braver level. Nations like Andorra and Swaziland and the like, nations with no organized sports program because they'd rather buy CLOTHING and FOOD, nations who have no freakin' hope of even competing against the Big Boys and Girls but who dress up in their wild costumes and parade around the Bird's Nest anyway and have one Hell of a time celebrating all that's RIGHT about sports. And don't get me started about doping and steroids. Yet. Go Lichtenstein!