Shoot! Shoot! That octopus is strangling that man

The further you read, the better this story gets.

Bagpipes provoked Olympic alarm
A bagpipe player sparked a security alert at the Olympics - after Chinese police mistook his musical instrument for "some kind of weapon".

The Borders piper was in China to carry out a sponsored walk along the Great Wall to raise funds for the National Deaf Children's Society.

Mr Aitken said: "I'm not all that good on the pipes [how can you tell?] so I thought I'd go off on my own and have a practice before I had to play in front of the people I was doing the walk with.

"I had a silly soldier's hat on and my kilt and a few locals gathered round and seemed to be enjoying me playing, but just as I finished a police car pulled up with four officers.

"They weren't happy and it emerged that it was heightened security all over China because of the opening ceremony."

It took the intervention of a passer-by to explain to police what the bagpipes were.

"It was pure luck that a tourist guide was passing and stopped them from arresting me by explaining what bagpipes were - they thought the pipes were some kind of weapon," said Mr Aitken. [BBC]

They sure aren't a stealth kind of weapon.

You know what "perfect pitch" is to a bagpipe player? Being able to hit the middle of the lake.

Yes, we promised to provide free access to the Internet - except...

The Beijing Olympic Games, I hear, were to be the occasion for China to stride boldly onto the global stage and proclaim themselves to be a major player.

There's a problem with being on the stage: The lights are pretty damn bright. Even an audience who wants to see you succeed can see the theatrical makeup.

China's communist government routinely filters its citizens' access to the Internet, but in the runup to the Olympics Chinese officials and officials with the International Olympic Committee vowed there would be no censorship of the Internet for accredited journalists covering the games.

Some sites were unblocked 10 days ago after reporters arriving to cover the games found them blocked and complained to the IOC, but others remain inaccessible, including sites related to the Tiananmen Square protests, Tibet, Taiwan and the Dalai Lama.

...A statement by Chinese officials indicated they had gone as far as they intend to go.

"As in any other country, there are some kinds of limitations," Wang [Wang Wei, executive vice president of BOCOG, the Olympic organizing committee] added. "However, I think we are going to provide sufficient access for the media to cover the games."

[From AP: Some Web sites remain blocked at Beijing Olympics]