Too good to be true

We knew that dude wasn't actually running along the edge of the bird's nest but we did not know the fireworks were not all real. Its just so cheezy and typecial of the Chinese government. I just came back to the States after a year there and let me tell you guys, that money could've been put to way better use feeding people and cleaning up other cities other than the one which will host a bunch of foreigners for 2 weeks. No other country can put on such a show because most representative governments cannot in good conscience budget hundreds of millions of dollars for a 2 hour spectacle. While the show was awesome, I couldn't help but think of the many sad sights I saw during my year in China and how many meals that money couldve bought considering you can fill yourself for roughly 50 cents if you wanted to there.Condo

Opening Ceremony fireworks

If you watched the Opening Ceremony on Friday night, chances are you said something like, "no way that's possible" at least once. It turns out you were right.

London's Telegraph newspaper reports that some of the fireworks which appeared over Beijing during the television broadcast of the Olympic Opening Ceremony were actually computer generated. But -- hold on -- it's not necessarily as bad as you think.

The faked fireworks were actually set-off at the stadium, but because of potential dangers in filming the display live from a helicopter, viewers at home were shown a pre-recorded, computer-generated shot. It sounds dishonest, but I'm not sure it's such a terrible thing.

The Opening Ceremony is, at its core, just one big performance. And isn't it accepted that some things might not be legit at a performance? The final torch bearer wasn't actually running around the top of the stadium, does the fact that everyone could figure that out make it any less? It might have been unnecessarily deceptive, but the firework-faking isn't that big of a deal. But, if I found out that the lighted-drum thing wasn't on the up and up, then we'll have problems, China.

Olympics '08: China Moves to Improve Manners

The 2008 olympics celebration