The Spy Games

 The Winter Olympics are just a couple of weeks away now, which should fill the Blob with joy because the Blob loves it some Winter Olympics. This is mainly because the Booger Yourself Up quotient is very high.

You've got downhill skiing and luge and luge-for-the-even-more-insane, aka, skeleton. There's an event for people who, as kids no doubt, used to jump off the roofs of their houses (ski jumping). There's an event for people who like to mix firearms with oxygen debt (the biathon), and short-track speedskating, which is a little like NASCAR at Martinsville, only with switchblades.

It's all glorious fun if you're a big fan of calamity, which the Blob is. But somehow this time around the Blob can't muster the customary enthusiasm, even if it knows there'll be curling involved.

This is because it's in Beijing, China.

And the Chinese are notorious for their human-rights violations.

And no spectators from outside the country will be allowed on account of the Bastard Plague.

And, oh, yeah: The Chinese especially enjoy hacking other people's technology. They're as fond of doing it as the Russians, those fascist jackholes.

Therefore, because no one trusts the Chinese not to spy on the athletes while they're in Beijing, four nations -- the U.S., Great Britain, Canada and the Netherlands -- have taken the extraordinary step of advising their athletes to leave their phones at home and take burner phones instead. This might make it harder to keep in touch with their families, but it also means the Chinese won't be monitoring their phones and stealing their personal stuff.

And isn't that a hell of a note.

The whole philosophy behind the Olympic Games, after all, is that sport can bring nations together in mutual respect, no matter their ideological differences. It's largely a fantasy, of course, but that's the ideal. 

Now the nations will come together again in Beijing, but hardly in mutual respect. With very good reason, they'll come together with mutual suspicion of the host.

Citius, Altius, Fortius, We-Don't-Trust-You-ius. 

Now there's an ideal for ya.