Some they think that awarding the Olympic games to China was a serious attempt by the IOC to affect change in a country that had flouted the human rights of its people for decades. If it had been, then what arrogance on the part of the IOC. It is more likely that in an attempt to attract the attention of the world to the fact that Communist China could play the free economy game and do it better than the rest of the world, they cynically ‘played’ the IOC manipulating the evident corruption within the organization…. and won.

So what we are left with is a distasteful display of Chinese mockery effectively killing the Olympic ideal and showing the games for what they have now become; an exercise in commercial exploitation.

It should have been evident early on that the Chinese had no intention of changing its policies towards human rights. The eviction of 250,000 of its own people from their homes to make way for the Olympic Village to house athletes should have been warning enough that the IOC had made a serious error in judgment. If that was not enough then their treatment of the citizens of Tibet should at least provoke some reaction from the leaders of the free world.

Maybe the fact that China now holds a large proportion of the debt  of western economies is an indicator to the lack of response by our leaders. If so then we are in an inevitable downslide. I for one, whilst I love a good Chinese, dont fancy eating it every day!

The best response to  the Chinese is to hit them where it hurts. Stop buying the products they manufacture and when it comes to the Olympics….if our leaders will not take action, then we must do it as individuals. Cancel your trips to Bejing if you were thinking of going. Don’t watch the coverage on the TV. If you are a company thinking of buying advertising slots on the networks…..don’t. In these times of economic hardship we are starting to check the labels on what we buy a little more carefully. Parents are already boycotting toys made in China due to the sub-standard paint jobs containing lead. Lets all check where what we buy is manufactured and where possible avoid the goods made in China. It’s not easy. Shopping at Wallmart these days is like a trip down a Shanghai high street store. Maybe they also need a reminder of who they are?

If we want the Chinese to change then we must stop supporting their economic progress and more immediately a boycott of these Olympics by the people of the world will send a message that whilst ignored in the short term will prove benefit in time.

P.S. They should also sack all those who voted for the Chinese to hold the games in the first place. What prats!

The Federal Reserve cut interest rates by three-quarters of a percentage point yesterday as part of another attempt to hold up the financial institutions on Wall Street from further speculation worries. The stock market took some confidence from the move and posted the largest one day gain on the Dow Jones index for quite some time. But as far as struggling home-owners are concerned, the rate cut has done little to ease pressure on their burden. In fact, by cutting interest rates and further weakening the dollar, the Fed had invited higher oil prices, increasing energy and transport costs at a time when most households are already feeling the pinch.

The rate cut which is the third in as many weeks follows the collapse of Bear Stearns, who were eventually bailed out and purchased by JP Morgan for the sum of $2 a share. Bear Stearns had been trading a year ago at nearly $150 dollars a share and fell victim to a run on their shares following rumours over their exposure to the sub-prime mortgage market and the extent of the losses they may have suffered.

The positives from this story are that the Federal Reserve was able to move quickly to back the takeover, helping to minimize the loss of confidence in the general banking sector. The negatives however, which will effect more on the average blue collar worker in America through the imported inflation that the lower dollar will bring, seems to reflect more on the political view of the current administration, who will bend over backwards to prop up the corporations at the expense of the man in the street.

And when your stoic republican points towards the tax rebate that is about to be delivered to every household, as an indication of what the government is doing for the average American in this time of need, don’t be fooled. The maximum $800 dollars rebate is more of a cynical move to help prop up the employment market before a presidential election than it is designed to combat higher gas, food and energy costs.

If the administration wanted to do more to help those affected by the current mortgage crisis they could start by suspending the ability of the banks to foreclose on homeowners by auto-computer programs. A large problem with the mortgage lenders at the moment is that they have out-sourced their administration to companies who are ill equipped or poorly trained to deal with the problems that are arising. These outsourcing companies never foresaw the numbers of cases that they would be dealing with and computerised most of their procedures to cut costs. What has resulted is computerised foreclosure, without consultation and where consultation occurs, it may already be too late to achieve a positive result.

If each case was required to be reviewed independently, it could be determined whether it was sold incorrectly to begin with and where possible it could be re-written so that those home-owners who were never going to be able to afford the true cost and were effectively swindled, could refinance under terms they may allow them to keep their home. This would, of course, create a back-up of cases, but this effective delay in foreclosing on peoples homes maybe the delay required to unravel the truths behind the companies that made billions of dollars profit from those who could least afford it.

About the Author

Neil Ebsworth is the founder of AMLASpain, the MLS for properties in Spain and with a home for sale in Mount Pleasant SC real estate in the US is keen observer of US Real Estate trends

Photography as a process goes back many hundreds of years but it was not until a Frenchman, Louis Daguerre continuing the work of his late business partner, Nicephore Niepce combined the use of mercury vapour and fixing salts to produce a process that we today still recognize as the first photographs. His discoveries, announced in 1839 are still part of the process used today in Polaroid photography today.

The process was refined by many of the next few decades until George Eastman made a breakthrough with his patent for a photo emulsion film in 1884 rapidly followed in 1888 with the first patented camera. The same year, the Kodak Company was founded. Its first camera cost $15, a lot of money in 1888. By 1900 Eastman introduced the Brownie at a cost of just $1 and the world of mass photography was born.

Since that day, it has not been the process as much as what the camera captured that has held us captivated across the years. The statement that “The Camera Never Lies” is probably destined to the history books with the invention of the digital era, although there are many examples of the use of trick photography to fool the eye ever since the camera was first put into the public domain.

As early as 1917 and the case of the Cottingley fairies, the photograph has been used to twist the perception of its audience. In the Cottingley hoax, two girls, Fraces Griffiths and Elsie Wright purported to have taken photgraphs with fairies that lived at the stream at the bottom of the garden where Elsie and her parents lived. The photographs created a furore when published alongside an article by Arthur Conan Doyle, who, completely taken in by the fabrication, used it a proof that spirits existed and could be photographed.

It took over sixty years before the two girls, now elderly ladies finally came clean and told the world that the pictures were fakes. But for those sixty or so years, the world believed, well most of them, that the fairies were real.

Photographs have also been used on many occasion in an attempt to disprove a fact. Most notable amongst these attempts are the photographs of the Apollo Moon landings by conspiracy theorists who believe the landings never took place, and that the whole Apollo program took place on a Hollywood style set in the Nevada desert. The most famous of the images ‘proving’ their theory is that of the American flag which seems to be fluttering in a breeze. A breeze, of course, which would not exist on a moon with no atmosphere.

The most famous pictures taken by a private individual and still the cause of many conspiracy theorists today is the footage filmed on an 8mm home movie camera by Abraham Zapruder. The film, probably the best known 90 seconds of moving picture history, depicts, of course , the final moments of the life of then President, John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

Shot from an elevated position above Dealey Plaza, the film was the primary source of evidence used by the Warren Commissions enquiry into the assasination an it is the footage of the third bullet hitting the president that caused many to speculate about the nature of the ‘lone gunman theory’ and the evidence of several gunman firing from the grassy knoll.

Today, with digital media, the camera nearly always lies. The ability to distort the digital image is available to everyone with a computer and the click of a mouse. The results can be as spectacular in their imagery as they are in their deception. They can bring humour and sorrow, change the fortunes of careers or bring news to the world. But for all the complexities of their electronic wizardry one thing is certain.The emotion, whether real or manufactured, portrayed by the still image, still manages to capture a moment in history that forever defies the passage of time.