We are already there with the company sponsors and I think it will slowly move away from a national pride thing.. sadly though because that is one of the biggest pieces of the pie for me.. seeing our athletes.. whether they do well or not, although I DO like when they do well.

And as my previous message said I don't think the Olympics are some cure-all for all the world's woes, but it opens up channels on an ongoing basis.  

Clearly there is a big difference in how we see things and simply restating them over and over accomplishes little or nothing, so screw it, I declare war on Hawkeyeville.. as long as Diddly-town is willing to continue to provide the much needed tech support to Shabaduberg we will hold our forces from infiltrating his territory during the war... you satisfied Hawkeye?  You brought this on yourself and your fellow country-men!

  I thought we were having a pretty good debate, and, having re-read the entire thread, I don't think we repeated ourselves.

  I am however, still waiting for that list of good that you said you could come up with.

  I don't think we're at the point of the Microsoft Relay Team (for example) yet.  We still have the facade of associating competitors with countries.  I was referring to true corporate teams... no national boundaries.
  Think of the marketing!  Whomever wins gold gets a 30 second commercial!  

  Oh, and Diddly-town doesn't help anyone without some kind of gain.  Frankly, in a war, the smart bet is on Hawkeyeville.  

I don't think we're anywhere close to having corporate teams in the olympics.  Why?  Because, I don't believe there would be anywhere near the support for the teams like in there is for national teams.  So, in that I agree with Shabadu.

Wow.. this is a monumental moment.. Hawkeye agrees with me.. mess.. I'm gonna have to pull a Stronach (or however you spell her name) and switch sides!

Seriously though, simply through DEBATING the Olympics we have forged a new alliance between Hawkeyeville and Shabaduberg, so just imagine what the REAL Olympics do for REAL nations!

Either way, the list I said I could come up with will be printed in Automag Daily next week - be sure to read it, the list will be in size 3 font but take 17* pages, so trust me when I say it IS a long long list


* Please note that at least 16 1/2 pages are legalese to help cover Shabadu's a** in the 10 or less reasons he managed to come up with in the short time he alloted to think about this proposition.