For today's post we'll go to Beijing.

With the Olympics fast-approaching, there has been a flurry of attention paid to the poor environmental conditions, and the poor human rights conditions. Apparently, there are also poor journalistic conditions, in which journalists are trapped behind the very devious Chinese firewall.

Apparently, any site that speaks ill of China (likely now including this blog), will not load on browsers in China. If the Olympics were JUST a sporting event, this wouldn't very much matter. There shouldn't be any impact on reporter's ability to write about the smog-choked road races and weight-lifting contests, but the Olympics are so much more.

the Olympics are a time when the world comes together to celebrate sport, a concept that I think is awesomely powerful. I've always objected to the politicization of the games, but at the same time, it's hard to overlook the fact that China spend untold billions on hosting the games, while it's country is in such poor environmental shape. And that is a story that needs to be told.

In fact, you have to wonder, couldn't the energy used to police the internet be better spent working to solve some of China's social ills? Just a thought.

I'll be back with another post tomorrow, so you have that to look forward to.