Not sure how you define progress, other than the people aren't being murdered on the spot now. They are just harassed and detained for a while. Or as in the case of some dissidents locked up after a show trial for years for no real reason. People protesting the shoddy building that killed their children in the earthquake are harassed and in some cases arrested. People forced out of their homes and livelihoods are given no compensation.

Sure the US has caused plenty of misery in the world. But at least there isn't the widespread human rights violations perpetrated by the government on its citizenry.

The Chinese made certain promises in order to get the Games. They have failed to live up to those promises.

I like watching the Olympics for the off-beat sports you don't get to see all the time. But I am having a hard time getting excited about these Games and am having a hard time deciding whether to watch at all.

good thing she isn't old enough to run, she might steal the youth vote from Obama. :-)

doesn't her energy policy sound a lot like Obama's current stance?

I assume he is grateful that they didn't find him guilty of the more serious charge and that they only sentenced him to 6 more months than his time served. In that situation I think I would be grateful too.

It seems like this kind of thing only hurts Democrats. The list of Republicans who had had a variety of affairs yet gone on to "successful" politcal careers is as long as your arm. Giuliani, Newt Gingrich, McCain as others have noted, David Vitter, I'm sure I could think of a bunch more if I had the time to do the research.

Maybe instead of phrasing the question about programs to allow minorities to "get ahead", the question should have said "draw equal" or something like that. "Get ahead" implies that those minorities will be the "winners" with government assistance no less and others (i.e. white people) will be the "losers".

Everybody likes to rag on NBC, but I have to give them credit for a number of things.

Between the cable hench-networks, the HD soccer and basketball dedicated channels, and the main network there is plenty to watch that has nothing to do with Americans. They had skeet shooting on the Universal HD channel yesterday. Not an American in sight which is fairly shocking to me considering how much we love guns and shooting in this country. Tons of boxing with few Americans present. Badminton! The cycling road race. Team handball! If you like the horse sports they are on non-stop on one channel or another. Every soccer match and every basketball game in HD without interrruption on their dedicated channels. They even cut out the 15 minutes of halftime on the taped soccer matches. Tennis. Weightlifting! Volleyball! Water Polo!

Of course the main network has swimming, gymnastics, diving, beach volleyball and the human interest stuff. But as King notes even that has not been as bad as people like to make it out to be.

And if your sport isn't on one of those million channels you can go to NBC's Olympic website and watch pretty much every other event live in very good video/audio quality. It is basically just the raw feed with the Olympic standard graphics and no commentary at all. Which can be a problem if you don't completely know the rules to a particular sport. Like the whistle every 10 seconds in field hockey.

I also give them credit for not shying away from the political/human rights issue. They talked about it during the opening ceremonies. They have talked about it at various other times including Costas' interview with Bush in which I thought he asked good questions.

So, thumbs up as far as I am concerned to NBC. I have been glued to my couch for the last several days already with my laptop on my lap.

I think it is understandable to a certain extent that former US Olympians will have a somewhat vested interest in the US team. But I will give Daggett credit for just loving gymnastics. He praises the Chinese and talks about them with awe at every turn. Last night he said something to the effect that any of the three Chinese gymnasts would be far and away the top performer on any other team in the world. He talked about their vaulting saying that no one else in the world does as difficult routines.

I will say that some one must have gotten to Cynthia Potter and slapped her around for being too negative. She used to relentlessly pick on every dive pointing out minute flaws. She is much more effusive these days. In fact I think she was a little too forgiving in last night's synchro on a number of occasions.

Bob Barr is one of the biggest hypocrites on the face of the earth. When he was in Congress he was all too happy to impose his political opinions on others. He will be lucky to get 1% of the vote nationwide. I expect it will actually be even less.