Gays, Putin, and Skiing! Olympics Megathread: THE POLITICS

[Gallup]

I just found out Sochi only has 300,000 people. Why did they get the Olympics?

Money

Well, besides the obvious.

[Frisivisia]

Money

Well, besides the obvious.

They weren't really giving an Olympics to the city, they were giving it to Russia, and this is important because Sochi's infrastructure is deplorable and an Olympics in the Russian Caucasus would bring Russians and Caucasians together.

[Gallup]

Well, besides the obvious.

They weren't really giving an Olympics to the city, they were giving it to Russia, and this is important because Sochi's infrastructure is deplorable and an Olympics in the Russian Caucasus would bring Russians and Caucasians together.

I bet there was a better place.

[Soviet Russia Republic]

Money

Well, besides the obvious.

An extremely beautiful region that has been a favored resort region, having the games there goes well with long term plans of the region, and the desire/plans to purpose to hold the games Sochi was in Russia before the creation of the Russia Federation.

[Heart Attack Grill]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/0 ... 29443.html

mmm sochi seems like such a wonderful place to visit

wonder how like it'll take before im called a russophobe

[Gallup]

Well, besides the obvious.

An extremely beautiful region that has been a favored resort region, having the games there goes well with long term plans of the region, and the desire/plans to purpose to hold the games Sochi was in Russia before the creation of the Russia Federation.

Maybe for the summer, but the winter? I heard they have to import snow!

[Soviet Russia Republic]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/05/reporters-sochi-hotel-olympics-tweets_n_4729443.html

mmm sochi seems like such a wonderful place to visit

wonder how like it'll take before im called a russophobe

Given how pretty much everything had to be built from the ground up, it would be surprising if you could not find various problems. Which of course should be pointed out in order to punish those responsible for their failings and try avoid such mistakes in the future. That being said huffingtonpost like some other sources as always shows great sensationalism. Oh well, can't blame too them they are just trying make some money. Focusing in on mostly the bad gets more attention than the good (which there are scores of pictures, videos, interviews with different peoples just as athletes, written reports, etc, showing amazing sites)...just as almost every other type of story. I can't help notice some sources though have taken this to the extreme though. Kind of funny really.

A pretty long time? Nothing you said here points you out to be russophobe. Of course basing your opinion on the region from that kind of reporting would be rather...well let's just say silly. Besides, I noticed that large threads about Russia (range of topics) there always seems to be a case where a nation with just two-five posts, usually a more recently created nation, makes simple minded posts such as above and than never enters the thread again. Personally my guess would instead being someone likes to play with puppets for attention. It's rather cute and assuming.

[Ainin]

*insert generic "Go Canada" here*

[The Scientific States]

Pathetic.

http://www.ajc.com/news/news/world/jour ... es-/ndDHQ/

[Regnum Dominae]

Pathetic.

http://www.ajc.com/news/news/world/jour ... es-/ndDHQ/

It really is pretty embarassing.

[The Scientific States]

Pathetic.

http://www.ajc.com/news/news/world/jour ... es-/ndDHQ/

It really is pretty embarassing.

Hopefully Russia doesn't host an Olympic game for a long time.

They were very unprepared. Hotels are uncomplete, they went way over budget, there's a large threat of a terrorist attack etc.

[Regnum Dominae]

It really is pretty embarassing.

Hopefully Russia doesn't host an Olympic game for a long time.

They were very unprepared. Hotels are uncomplete, they went way over budget, there's a large threat of a terrorist attack etc.

I mean seriously, when you're spending more than every other winter olympics combined, you should at least have the hotels built on time.

[The Scientific States]

Hopefully Russia doesn't host an Olympic game for a long time.

They were very unprepared. Hotels are uncomplete, they went way over budget, there's a large threat of a terrorist attack etc.

I mean seriously, when you're spending more than every other winter olympics combined, you should at least have the hotels built on time.

No kidding.

[Gallup]

Hopefully Russia doesn't host an Olympic game for a long time.

They were very unprepared. Hotels are uncomplete, they went way over budget, there's a large threat of a terrorist attack etc.

I mean seriously, when you're spending more than every other winter olympics combined, you should at least have the hotels built on time.

Was Atlanta this bad? I seem to recall that was one clusterfuck of an Olympics.

[Shofercia]

NBC: All Visitors to Sochi Olympics Immediately Hacked

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waEeJJVZ5P8

Welp. Stinks of sensationalism, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are serious information security problems.

Should read "anyone who didn't install Kaspersky Anti-Virus at risk of being hacked". Not to mention one can probably get all the personal data from Facebook. FB sells it to virtually any ad agency, so just pose as an ad agency, and get the data.

Why not mention the terrorism in the name of the thread?

Because the OP isn't a wimp.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/05/reporters-sochi-hotel-olympics-tweets_n_4729443.html

mmm sochi seems like such a wonderful place to visit

wonder how like it'll take before im called a russophobe

You posted an article of journalist bitching about everything; not sure what your intent was, aside from making fun of the journalists and HuffPo. I loved this bashing: "tangerines are 3.5 times more expensive in city center than on the outskirts, bawww!" To the idiot who wrote that: welcome to Eastern Europe. Items are usually more expensive, sometimes 3-4 times as much, in places that have to pay expensive lease, than in place where they're actually produced. This is known as common sense, which is absent from the brains of Natalya Vasilyeva and Jack Mirkinson. And no, having a bad hotel room isn't the worst thing that can happen to a journalist Jack. Being shot at, tortured, oh, but that kind of coverage is sooo last century for the likes of you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7FTF4Oz4dI

Of course to a "reporter" like Jack Mirkinson, having a bad hotel room is probably "like the worst thing ever".

Hopefully Russia doesn't host an Olympic game for a long time.

They were very unprepared. Hotels are uncomplete, they went way over budget, there's a large threat of a terrorist attack etc.

I mean seriously, when you're spending more than every other winter olympics combined, you should at least have the hotels built on time.

1) Considering that the next Olympics is after 2020, (in the bid,) it's doubtful that the hotels will still be "uncomplete" or incomplete.
2) See Below
3) So should America never have Olympics in California or New York? There's a terrorist threat. Or, how about we stop being fucking wimps, take terrorism seriously, but not to the point of letting it terrorize us into doing anything else, except for taking decent security measures. Because anything else will enable those fucks to claim a win. You guys want that?

Regarding the costs: only about $3 billion was spent on the Games from the Government Budget. The rest was spent on infrastructure, or came from private financing. I already covered this:

It's spending. Sochi spent $51 billion on the Olympics. Since this is the most, Russophobes usually tout this number as "hurr durr Rusha iz corruptz, lolzorz!" What they don't realize is that Sochi's infrastructure had to be rebuilt from the ground up: http://darussophile.com/2014/01/shreddi ... -good-way/

For instance, it'd be pointless comparing Sochi to Vancouver, since Vancouver had most of the infrastructure in place. Likewise, Russia could've held the Olympics in Leningrad/St. Petersburg, and the cost would be reduced in half, perhaps to even a third or fourth of that sum. But the Games should be in Sochi, for several reasons:

1. Provides jobs for a region that's only been stable for a couple of years
2. Develops sports infrastructure in that region, i.e. Krasnodar Krai has no hockey team, whereas Sakha Republic does.
3. Provides a Russian ski resort, so that wealthy Russians stop spending money abroad
4. Promotes quite a bit of cultural interaction between Russians and Caucasians, thus providing Russia with Unity

And so on...

On the actual Olympics, only $7 billion was spent, out of which only $3 billion was spent by the Government.

The first and foremost attack revolved around the supposed corruption surrounding the Sochi Olympics. In 2010, the Russian magazine Esquire estimated that 48km of roads around Sochi consumed a cool $8 billion of taxpayer money, a sum that implied the asphalt might as well have been made of elite beluga caviar. Julia Ioffe cheerily transmitted these sophomoric calculations to the Anglosphere. The only problem with these actuarial wisecracks? Said road also included a railway, 50 bridges, and 27km worth of tunnels over mountainous terrain… which presumably made it something more than just a road. What was intended as a metaphor for Sochi corruption turned out to be, ironically, a metaphor for unfounded attacks against it...The lion’s share of the $50 billion investment in Sochi – some 80% of it or so – consists of infrastructure projects to make Sochi into a world-class ski resort that will provide employment in the restive North Caucasus, kickstart the development of a Russian snowsports culture, and draw at least some of the more patriotic elites away from Courcheval.

Courcheval is a Russian symbol of elites wasting too much money abroad, and it's also a World class ski resort.

Consequent criticisms become increasingly deranged and unhinged from reality, much like the murderous HAL supercomputer fading away into childish gibberishness after it gets turned off. Thousands of people got evicted, their land stolen from them… except that the average compensation per person was $100,000. Sochi is apparently built on the bones of Circassians… well, if it’s a graveyard, I wonder what that makes the North American continent - a death world? The assertion that Sochi is an ”unsuitable subtropical resort” with no snow… an assessment that would surely surprise the denizens of California’s Bay Area, who go skiing in Tahoe up until late April, and where average February temperatures are significantly higher than around Sochi. If anything, conditions are looking downright steezy. The metaphorical rock-bottom was attained by the BBC’s Steve Rosenberg, who made a photograph of a pair of side-by-side toilets that were then splashed around the media – up to and including The New York Times - as evidence of the graft and imbecility that characterized the Sochi preparations. The only problem being that the photograph was taken in the middle of a renovation. But, hey, we wouldn’t want to deny the Brits their toilet humor, now would we…

[Gallup]

NBC: All Visitors to Sochi Olympics Immediately Hacked

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waEeJJVZ5P8

Welp. Stinks of sensationalism, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are serious information security problems.

Should read "anyone who didn't install Kaspersky Anti-Virus at risk of being hacked". Not to mention one can probably get all the personal data from Facebook. FB sells it to virtually any ad agency, so just pose as an ad agency, and get the data.

Why not mention the terrorism in the name of the thread?

Because the OP isn't a wimp.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/05/reporters-sochi-hotel-olympics-tweets_n_4729443.html

mmm sochi seems like such a wonderful place to visit

wonder how like it'll take before im called a russophobe

You posted an article of journalist bitching about everything; not sure what your intent was, aside from making fun of the journalists and HuffPo. I loved this bashing: "tangerines are 3.5 times more expensive in city center than on the outskirts, bawww!" To the idiot who wrote that: welcome to Eastern Europe. Items are usually more expensive, sometimes 3-4 times as much, in places that have to pay expensive lease, than in place where they're actually produced. This is known as common sense, which is absent from the brains of Natalya Vasilyeva and Jack Mirkinson. And no, having a bad hotel room isn't the worst thing that can happen to a journalist Jack. Being shot at, tortured, oh, but that kind of coverage is sooo last century for the likes of you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7FTF4Oz4dI

Of course to a "reporter" like Jack Mirkinson, having a bad hotel room is probably "like the worst thing ever".

I mean seriously, when you're spending more than every other winter olympics combined, you should at least have the hotels built on time.

1) Considering that the next Olympics is after 2020, (in the bid,) it's doubtful that the hotels will still be "uncomplete" or incomplete.
2) See Below
3) So should America never have Olympics in California or New York? There's a terrorist threat. Or, how about we stop being fucking wimps, take terrorism seriously, but not to the point of letting it terrorize us into doing anything else, except for taking decent security measures. Because anything else will enable those fucks to claim a win. You guys want that?

Regarding the costs: only about $3 billion was spent on the Games from the Government Budget. The rest was spent on infrastructure, or came from private financing. I already covered this:

It's spending. Sochi spent $51 billion on the Olympics. Since this is the most, Russophobes usually tout this number as "hurr durr Rusha iz corruptz, lolzorz!" What they don't realize is that Sochi's infrastructure had to be rebuilt from the ground up: http://darussophile.com/2014/01/shreddi ... -good-way/

For instance, it'd be pointless comparing Sochi to Vancouver, since Vancouver had most of the infrastructure in place. Likewise, Russia could've held the Olympics in Leningrad/St. Petersburg, and the cost would be reduced in half, perhaps to even a third or fourth of that sum. But the Games should be in Sochi, for several reasons:

1. Provides jobs for a region that's only been stable for a couple of years
2. Develops sports infrastructure in that region, i.e. Krasnodar Krai has no hockey team, whereas Sakha Republic does.
3. Provides a Russian ski resort, so that wealthy Russians stop spending money abroad
4. Promotes quite a bit of cultural interaction between Russians and Caucasians, thus providing Russia with Unity

And so on...

On the actual Olympics, only $7 billion was spent, out of which only $3 billion was spent by the Government.



Courcheval is a Russian symbol of elites wasting too much money abroad, and it's also a World class ski resort.

This will not be good for Russia. All journalists care about is there hotel room, and NBC will bitch about that forever.

[Ainin]

I mean seriously, when you're spending more than every other winter olympics combined, you should at least have the hotels built on time.

Was Atlanta this bad? I seem to recall that was one clusterfuck of an Olympics.

500 cheerleaders and 25 pickup trucks as an opening ceremony.

Stay classy, Atlanta.

[Shofercia]

An extremely beautiful region that has been a favored resort region, having the games there goes well with long term plans of the region, and the desire/plans to purpose to hold the games Sochi was in Russia before the creation of the Russia Federation.

Maybe for the summer, but the winter? I heard they have to import snow!

Tahoe was also at risk of doing the same. Should we have cancelled those Olympics?

[Gallup]

Was Atlanta this bad? I seem to recall that was one clusterfuck of an Olympics.

500 cheerleaders and 25 pickup trucks as an opening ceremony.

Stay classy, Atlanta.

Why? Why cheerleaders?

[Shofercia]

Should read "anyone who didn't install Kaspersky Anti-Virus at risk of being hacked". Not to mention one can probably get all the personal data from Facebook. FB sells it to virtually any ad agency, so just pose as an ad agency, and get the data.




Because the OP isn't a wimp.




You posted an article of journalist bitching about everything; not sure what your intent was, aside from making fun of the journalists and HuffPo. I loved this bashing: "tangerines are 3.5 times more expensive in city center than on the outskirts, bawww!" To the idiot who wrote that: welcome to Eastern Europe. Items are usually more expensive, sometimes 3-4 times as much, in places that have to pay expensive lease, than in place where they're actually produced. This is known as common sense, which is absent from the brains of Natalya Vasilyeva and Jack Mirkinson. And no, having a bad hotel room isn't the worst thing that can happen to a journalist Jack. Being shot at, tortured, oh, but that kind of coverage is sooo last century for the likes of you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7FTF4Oz4dI

Of course to a "reporter" like Jack Mirkinson, having a bad hotel room is probably "like the worst thing ever".




1) Considering that the next Olympics is after 2020, (in the bid,) it's doubtful that the hotels will still be "uncomplete" or incomplete.
2) See Below
3) So should America never have Olympics in California or New York? There's a terrorist threat. Or, how about we stop being fucking wimps, take terrorism seriously, but not to the point of letting it terrorize us into doing anything else, except for taking decent security measures. Because anything else will enable those fucks to claim a win. You guys want that?

Regarding the costs: only about $3 billion was spent on the Games from the Government Budget. The rest was spent on infrastructure, or came from private financing. I already covered this:

This will not be good for Russia. All journalists care about is there hotel room, and NBC will bitch about that forever.

It won't be good for those "journalists". All of their whining is getting really pathetic, and soon the readers will be tuned off. And they'll look for better journalism online, one that covers sports, not tangerine prices. If I was in Putin's shoes, I'd start paying money to online journalists, not to control them or get my point across, but to get people to ignore those "journalists", because at this point, ruthless and unbiased coverage of Russia will still be better than this type of "journalism".

[Gallup]

This will not be good for Russia. All journalists care about is there hotel room, and NBC will bitch about that forever.

It won't be good for those "journalists". All of their whining is getting really pathetic, and soon the readers will be tuned off. And they'll look for better journalism online, one that covers sports, not tangerine prices. If I was in Putin's shoes, I'd start paying money to online journalists, not to control them or get my point across, but to get people to ignore those "journalists", because at this point, ruthless and unbiased coverage of Russia will still be better than this type of "journalism".

RT was supposed to be like that, now it's turned into a pro-Russia lapdog.

[Ainin]

500 cheerleaders and 25 pickup trucks as an opening ceremony.

Stay classy, Atlanta.

Why? Why cheerleaders?

Cheerleaders in Ford F-150s are apparently an ideal demonstration of American culture.

[Gallup]

Why? Why cheerleaders?

Cheerleaders in Ford F-150s are apparently an ideal demonstration of American culture.

Now I understand why NSG dislikes America.

[Shofercia]

Speaking of Olympic Clusterfucks:

Summer Games in Berlin: Boxer dies due to injuries sustained in the fight. The "Greater" Race failed to properly treat him.
Winter Games in Innsbruck: Luger dies during practice run. Skier dies due to collision in practice. Two in one. WTF Innsbruck?
Winter Games in Albertville: Ski Jumper dies in practice, due to collision with a snow machine. Yep, organizers failed to move a snow machine. Were probably taking a nap.
Winter Games in Vancouver: Luger dies due to crash in practice. Organizers were warned that the track was too dangerous beforehand, and said "lolwut?"

Those are real clusterfucks, much worse than cheerleaders or hotel rooms.

[Shofercia]

It won't be good for those "journalists". All of their whining is getting really pathetic, and soon the readers will be tuned off. And they'll look for better journalism online, one that covers sports, not tangerine prices. If I was in Putin's shoes, I'd start paying money to online journalists, not to control them or get my point across, but to get people to ignore those "journalists", because at this point, ruthless and unbiased coverage of Russia will still be better than this type of "journalism".

RT was supposed to be like that, now it's turned into a pro-Russia lapdog.

If you don't succeed, try again!