Beijing Olympics: a resounding success for everything but democracy

Thank you, Jay, for being one of a few Olympic journalists to actually scrutinize the Games in the context of the real world.  This short story notes that the Games were a huge success for host country China, but a real failure in pressuring the Chinese to open their political system and allow basic political freedoms.

Around the sports, there were promises broken. The major Catch-22 was the so-called protest zones. Those alone are not unusual. At the U.S. political conventions in Denver and St. Paul, similar zones for demonstrations have been set aside. They were established in Athens and Sydney, too, for previous Games.

But here, it's been reported in the Western media, if a Chinese citizen applied for a protest permit, they instead were arrested. (emphasis mine)

...As for Darfur and Tibet, they were distant shouts amid the festive din. The only news was that visas were denied to Darfur advocates. It's too bad there was such a news blackout.

Hard to believe that before the Games began, there were a number of highly respected journalists and democracy advocates calling these the Genocide Olympics.  All I heard about was Michael Phelps.

P.S. Though he was awesome.

Why these games could be called the 'genocide Olympics'

You may have heard news reports about the protests during the carrying of the Olympic flame in Europe, but may not know why. Two reasons:

• China's human rights violations in Tibet
• China's prevention of action in the genocide in Darfur, via the UN Security Council.

There's a great NY Times Magazine piece about how one group, Dream for Darfur, hopes to change China's behavior via action during the Olympics.

There are also those who point out that Western countries could be doing more, as much as China is a convenient scapegoat.

Daylight savings won't save energy?

Part of the justification for extending Daylight Saving Time (DST) in the United States was a reduction in energy costs by adding more daylight in the evening hours when citizens are home watching TV and otherwise being sloth-like and inactive (sorry, a little anti-TV prejudice eeking out). The legislation foresaw energy savings as much as 1% (a large number when averaged over all households and businesses in the country).

However, a recent study by two doctoral students at the University of California Energy Institute suggests that energy savings may be at best overstated and at worst nonexistent. Examining a DST-extension that took place surrounding the Olympics in Australia, the two students found that most models of energy savings vastly overstated the actual changes in energy use.

While DST extensions might not save energy, I'm definitely enjoying my "extra" hour of daylight in the evenings. Sunset today: 7:16pm!