I know it's Slate, so I should say a Hail Mary as penance right there. But this article about the potential for problems at the Olympics is fairly informative.

Some of the leading potential disasters are fairly well-known: Tibetan protests, terrorism, pollution, bad food, and government meddling with the broadcast signals are standard issue.

But what are some "outside the box" hazards the Games will potentially face?
Personally, my favorite is an attack of algae

Photographs in the Chinese media showed rickety wooden boats overflowing with green mounds of algae collected from the sea. One photo showed a young boy crouched on a beach beside piles of the leafy glop as a dump truck carried off a large load of algae. State media reported that 100,000 tons of the algae had already been taken out of the water. Much of it was being transported to farms as feed for pigs and other animals, according to news reports.

Residents of Qingdao have been anticipating the city's Olympic moment for several years.

One local newspaper reported that 11,000 college students had volunteered for cleanup duty during the weekend. Several companies organized teams of employees to help.

The massive algae outbreak comes as some sailing teams are already in Qingdao preparing for the Olympics.

Photographs in the Australian press showed an Australian team seemingly stuck in a carpet of algae during a training run.

But locusts seem to be knocking on the door for recognition as well.

  According to Gao, five regional specialized teams had also rushed to the affected areas to help with pest eradication.

    The region's three areas close to Beijing have 1.3 million hectares of grassland suffering locust plague, including 560,000 hectares severely hit.

    "The first generation locusts this year in the areas have already hatched," Gao said. "The harm they do is obvious."

    Locusts are a major destructive pest on grasslands. Locusts have been afflicting large swathes of grassland every year in Inner Mongolia, which has about 78 million hectares of grassland, or one fifth of the country's total.

    In August, the grassland region will encounter a peak of second generation locusts. However, there have been no reports of large swarms of the pest flying from the region to Beijing in recent years.

Kinda makes me glad that I will be at home watching the Games.

Posted by: eddiebear at 10:47 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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