080808 Cometh – Olympic Post

August 6, 2008

I’m getting excited for the olympics to kick off in Beijing two days from now.  I’m not sure if I’m looking forward to the games as much as the potential story lines coming out of censorship-ridden China.  To date, the Chinese government has restricted use of automobiles around the city to try and reduce the gross smog, they are shooting chemicals in the sky trying to change the weather (August is rainy in China), they are putting up propaganda flyers advising locals to not speak to foreign olympic tourists regarding chinese culture/history, and going to various other lengths to censor the media and message coming out of their country (like censoring the internet).

On a less communist slaint, check out this cool interactive map from nytimes.com on the history of medals won at the olympics, by country and year:

Some of the Interesting Years: 1904 – US Dominates!, 1980 – US Doesn’t Show Up in Moscow, 2004 – Countries all over the world are developing better athletes.

Advertisement

Can China Control the Weather?

December 5, 2007

Here’s an article talking about China’s research and activity into ‘cloud seeding’ in which they believe they can ‘make it rain’ : http://science.howstuffworks.com/cloud-seeding.htm

No…not like this guy (although he makes it rain too):

Make it rain