Derb on the gathering wave of revulsion over China’s behavior:

All sort of other ideas for embarrassing the ChiCom gangsters are buzzing around. Some are suggesting, for example, that athletes simply not show up for the opening ceremonies…There is also the idea, which I rather like, that an entire national team might shave their heads the night before the ceremony to show solidarity with Tibetan monks and nuns, the bravest and most persecuted of Tibetan patriots.

And he notes that this is unfamiliar territory for Beijing:

At the Olympics, the Maoists will be dealing with free people from free nations, and there is only so much they can do to control them. It’s not clear they understand this. They’ve been living for decades in a bubble of unchallenged power, and are not very imaginative.

And this is important. While societies and markets are instinctively adaptible, governments are not. People coloring outside the officially-approved lines is hard for these systems to deal with. A simple thing like “conservatives voting conservative” has flummoxed the Minnesota DFL and Media (pardon the redundancy) for over 20 years; the Chinese, obviously, could have it much worse.

And speaking of the market:

The opportunities for embarrassment are endless, and the prospect of it very delicious to anyone who loves liberty. Personally, I hope their stinking Olympics is a huge fiasco, and I see encouraging signs it may be.

On the one hand, Derb is right; Communism is just not good at making big things happen. On the other hand, the American media has a huge investment in presenting a spectacle – not a news story. I don’t anticipate much light being shown on the cockroaches.

Now, if the attendees include bloggers?