I don't know what the coverage has been like in the US, which as Jeff points out has stronger economic links to China than Britain, but over here protests have been covered, most articles on China refer to their history of human rights abuses and problems within the country and people have questioned in the news whether or not it was right for China to host the Olympics. I believe that your own president made comments to that effect.

And besides, whatever we might think of China politically - and despite your anger over "decades of communism", there is nothing intrinsically bad about communism, it all depends on the practice - there's still over a billion people there. It would probably be stranger for China not to have an opportunity to host the Games. Individuals can be as cynical as they like about the Games being used as a symbol of friendship, but it is supposed to be about sport and teamwork and patriotism. If we look at it from that angle, then China is one of the natural choices as a host country; it has the world's largest population and many of its people are happily supporting the ideals of the Olympics whilst remaining angry at state oppression. It's not that people are forgetting about the human rights problems and the crack downs on people, but that they're choosing to see the Games as something outside of the state and the government. After all, there's an International Olympics Committee, not one just consisting of a few governments, but one that's inclusive.

I think that we forget, sometimes, that any host nation in the next few years will have extremely tough security measures. I can't imagine protesters being allowed to actually disrupt events at a Games in the US or UK, can you? The ban on protests in China is severe and needs to be changed for the good of the people, and, from the point of view of the regime, to strengthen the public feelings towards the state. But people smuggling banners into sporting events would definitely be a problem even at a different Games. The Athens Games in the 2004 led to people being moved on - not to the extent that has happened in China, obviously, but it still happened. International terrorism is a threat and part of the security measures in China at the moment are a response to it. Clearly some of their security is simply to deter opposition - I'm not denying that. But there are other factors especially when you consider the bombs that have exploded in China recently and the murder that happened today in Beijing, which is actually unusual.

Finally, from everything I've read, that stadium is nothing like a "piece of shit", as you eloquently put it. If anything, both the architect and the stadium itself are well respected, and it's been seen as a great symbol of modern China.