Net Still Not At Olympics

angkor writes "It's two years later and the net is still largely shut out of the Olympics It seems like we were talking about this in relation to the last Olympics yesterday."

Comments

Re:Hypocritical bullshit

[Deagol]

Not only is the spirit of the games gone (if it was ever there), the residents of the hosting locale get the shaft, too.

I live in Salt Lake. As a citizen, I don't mind the world "shitting in my backyard" -- I'm no xenophobe and I welcome diversity. However, as a taxpayer, I've been quite outraged by most of the crap that's gone on these past few of years.

There's too much to bitch about, but my personal favorite was the $450,000 spent to give every bloody city employee an official 2002 Winter Games jacket.

Then there's all the cloak-and-dagger security bullshit going on around here. I work at the Univerity of Utah, and I'm working from home for most of February because it's too damned tough to get to campus! There's 3 black military choppers constantly flying overhead. A guy I work with was accosted by the Secret Service. He's foreign -- looks and sounds foreign -- and made the mistake of biking up to the hill overlooking the stadium to take a few digital snapshots. He was questioned, his pictures were deleted, and he was released.

Meanwhile, all of the on/off ramps into the city are totally un-guarded. Mostly industrial areas, the lots underneath these bridges are perfect places to park large trucks (which is normal anyway) full of explosives. I guess nobody cares about the mere visitors to Salt Lake -- only the corporate sponsors at the venues.

And what's it all for? So Budwiser and Nike can pimp their wares without any trouble. You really think that if this many people gathered for a non-commercial event (a protest perhaps), that they'd enforce a 45-mile radius no-fly zone around the event? No fucking way. This is all about selling stuff, people. I just feel bad for the businesses downtown that are effectly shut down due to the strict security perimeter.

If you want to read some independent local SLC journalism, I encourage you to read the City Weekly: http://www.avenews.com/index.html

Yeah -- I'm bitter. The TV in my house will be off for the month of February. The networks won't be getting my eyeballs (they lost them at Sydney).