So what’s the real story here? We checked with the folks at GoDaddy, who initially acknowledged having seen the reports but ultimately came back with a “no comment” on the matter. Moonlight speculates the move may have an Olympic connection, and its logic makes sense: The Chinese government had banned anyone but the nation’s Olympic gold medalists from registering domains based on the athletes’ names within the “.cn” suffix. It even “advised” anyone who already owned such a domain to turn it over to the medalist “as a gift.”

Moonlight says the government wants to go a step further and force people to turn over those domains if they don’t do so on their own. If the domain is registered with an outside company such as GoDaddy, however — as opposed to with China’s own CNNIC domain registry service — the government won’t be able to gain control and seize the name.

That theory, of course, is no more than speculation at this point — though, from the looks of it, an official explanation may not be in our sights any time soon.

Related posts:

1. China Targets Google, Baidu Over Porn
2. Hey China: The Olympics Haven’t Helped Your Image
3. Google opens up Adsense for Domains: now more people can typosquat and make money!

The newest tidbit is about iTunes and China’s apparent blocking of the site in the midst of its international moment. Computer users in Beijing say they haven’t been able to download songs all week. Speculation points the sudden silencing to a Tibet-themed album made available on the service. The Art of Peace Foundation says several dozen athletes downloaded its work “in an act of solidarity,” and the site was blocked soon thereafter.

China’s government officials have not responded to any press inquiries. Apple, for its part, is only saying it’s “aware of the logon problems” but has “no comment at the moment.”

Oh yeah, and those medal-winning Chinese gymnasts? Newly uncovered documents may finally prove what everyone’s suspected all along: that more than one of them is underage and not eligible to be competing.

Add all of this to the opening ceremony saga, the questions over judging validity, and the backing down of promises for “complete media freedom” for press — not to mention the hoards of quickly quieted and slyly arrested protesters all throughout the days — and the Games haven’t exactly brought China the glory it wanted. It’s a damned shame, too. But beneath the eerily plastered-on smiles being shown for the cameras, the entire world has seen a disturbing and consistent picture of censorship, dishonesty, and questionable treatment of people.

You can put on all the fake fireworks and lipsynced performances you want, but when the charades are over, there’s little to celebrate — and no one is being fooled.

Related posts:

1. China arrests four bloggers over earthquake rumors
2. This time it’s fake minorities [Olympics]
3. China Fired Rockets to Stop Olympic Rain

According to reports, the children appearing in costumes representing China’s 55 minority groups at the Olympic opening ceremony were fake. The children were performers from the Galaxy Children’s Art Troupe, a group that only includes children drawn from the Han Chinese majority. According to Wikipedia, China has 55 minority groups consisting of an official figure of 123.33 million people, or 9.4% of the population. Visually some of the minority groups have little differences to the Han population, but others are distinctly different, including a Russian minority who are white.

There is delicious irony in China showing the word that it embraces its minority groups by showing fake minority group members. Even those with pro-Chinese sympathies will shake their heads at this.

It also begs the question: is anything at the Olympics real? There have been allegations of biased judging, empty stadiums, promises of foreign press freedom that has seen journalists beaten, boards hiding construction sites and obvious poverty… and probably a whole range of other things covered or faked as well. China could have used these games to highlight the good in the country, but in their own controlling paranoia they are actually causing more negative press than would have otherwise been the case.

Related posts:

1. Hey China: The Olympics Haven’t Helped Your Image
2. Did China fake its spacewalk?
3. Obama Travels To Copenhagen; Makes Push For 2016 Olympics In Chicago

Organizers have been upping the number of rubbers every year since they started offering them to athletes back in ‘92. Apparently, they severely underestimated the athletes’ abilities in 2000: The original supply of 70,000 ran out in no time and cartons of extras had to be rushed in.

This year, it’s not just your average Trojanman making the rounds, either. All sorts of varieties are floating around, including some condoms with the Olympics mascots printed right on them. Here’s where it gets good. The 2008 Olympics mascots are Beibei the fish, Jingjing the panda, Huanhuan the Olympic flame, Yingying the Tibetan antelope, and — I kid you not — Nini the swallow.

One guess which design is the most popular.

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Chen Qigang, the General Music Designer of the Opening Ceremony, revealed that the voice everyone heard singing at the Opening Ceremony was actually a pre-recording of another child, Yang Peiyi, a student of the Attached Primary School of Beijing University at Zhongguancun on a television interview, according to a report at China Digital Times.

This is the translated transcript

Chen Qigang: The first condition was that the director wants the image to be very cute. We selected about ten children… Then we had to choose one from those who had a good image who can sing well…

We chose one ten-year-old child, whose voice was really good. All the rehearsals were using her singing… In the end the director thought her image was not the most appropriate, she was a little too old… so regrettably, we had to let her go.

Then, as we chose another singer, the standard was that she needs to be seven years old. Lin Miaoke (林妙可) was one of them, another was Yang Peiyi (杨沛宜), and there were others.

Then we went to the Central People’s Radio Station to do the recording…

Finally we made the decision that the voice we would use was Yang Peiyi’s.

TV Host: Yang Peiyi?
林妙可~北京奥运会开幕式上演唱《歌唱祖国》的小女孩
[via Apture]

Chen Qigang: Yes.

…The reason was for the national interest. The child on camera should be flawless in image, internal feelings, and expression.

Lin Miaoke is excellent in those aspects. But in the aspect of voice, Yang Peiyi (杨沛宜) is flawless, in each member of our team’s view.

TV Hostess: … So the one in front of camera is Lin Miaoke, but the voice [we heard] is from Yang Peiyi?

Chen Qigang: Yes. This was a last minute decision, we had to do it. We had been through several inspections，they were all very strict. When we rehearsed at the spot, there were spectators from various divisions, especially leader(s) from the the Politburo, who gave the opinion: It must change. This is to say, we had no choice.

… We have a responsibility to face the audience of the whole country, to give this explanation. Everyone should understand this in this way: this is in the national interest. It is the image of our national music, national culture. Especially the entrance of our national flag, this is an extremely important, extremely serious matter. Then we made such a choice. I think it is fair to both Lin Miaoke and Yang Peiyi.

That is to say, we have a perfect voice (in our team’s view), and a perfect image and representation, two combined together.

…But as far as Lin Miaoke is concerned, since we have two recordings – one from Lin Miaoke, another from Yang Peiyi – and their voices are not too different, so when Lin Miaoke was singing, she may not have realized that was not her own voice.

Here’s the fake singing in action for those who missed it:

Related posts:

1. Yang Peiyi Olympic Ceremony Lip-Syncing Exposed (VIDEO)
2. This time it’s fake minorities [Olympics]
3. Former Taiwan President, Wife Get Life Sentence For Corruption

For that moment where Kazakhstan is going for the gold and you’re completely bored, presenting round one of our Olympic sport substitution list: water sports.

Note that the following games require Flash and will not work on an iPhone

Rowing

The heats of the rowing are already under way at Shunyi, Beijing’s Olympic rowing venue, and you can be part of the action with Extreme Rowing!

Diving

Not everyone’s favorite sport, but Monkey Cliff Diving adds new dimensions.

Kayaking

Olypmic kayaking delivers excitement galore as men meet whitewater in a race for the gold.

Yachting

Join Captain Chaos in the race for Olypmic Yachting gold….

Swimming

Join Teddy as he swims for gold by following this link. (we won’t embed it because of audio autoplaying).

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