Tonight, at PowerHouse Arena, it is the Brooklyn Launch Party for Tom Scocca's Beijing Welcomes You, a nonfiction chronicle of what Beijing has so recently become. As China is now (well, as usual) so much in the news, we asked him some questions!

Choire Sicha: Tom Scocca, as you have written a book called Beijing Welcomes You: Unveiling the Capital City of the Future, which is brand new and good and also a book I have read, you are the only expert on China.* (*That I personally know.) Is this a great week for China or what?

Tom Scocca: If you set aside the fact that all [...]

Holy Jesus, they're really going to build this Anish Kapoor structure in London for the Olympics. Higher than the Statue of Liberty! I unabashedly love Kapoor and think he's a genius and this is kind of amazing-bonkers! I wish it wasn't red though? But that's useful, because it'll disguise all the blood from the many knifecrimes that shall occur upon it.

South Korean darling Kim Yu-na was an absolute stunner last night in the ladies free skate, shattering her own world record score and twirling her way to the gold. Aerial ski jumper Jeret Peterson-known assonantly as "Speedy"-landed a "Cirque du Soleil on skis" move called the Hurricane that he had not successfully stuck in competition since 2007; he won a silver. The Canadian women's hockey team boozily Owned The Podium (and almost Drove The Zamboni) after winning their third Olympic gold. And still, all I could think about as I lounged on the couch and let the NBC broadcast team play cat's cradle with my heartstrings [...]

"As the Olympic cauldron is lit, the unique magic of the Olympic Games will be released upon us. Magic so rare that it cannot be controlled by borders. The kind of magic that invades the human heart touching people of all cultures and beliefs. Magic that calls for the best that human beings have to offer. Magic that causes the athletes of the world to soar-and the rest of us to dream." -Slate's Olympics Sap-O-Meter is back! Now you have no excuse for actually watching the Olympics!

I'm confused: The Republican argument that Barack Obama shouldn't go to Copenhagen to lobby for Chicago to host the 2016 Olympics is that he's got to run a war and fix the economy and handle health care? All of which, they also argue, he is completely fucking up? I mean, if that were the case, wouldn't you want the guy to take a couple of days off? Maybe I'm missing something.

Oh, right, the mascots for the London Olympic Games. These are them! Meet Wenlock and Mandeville.

Here is a very homosexualist post-Olympics appreciation of the men of bobsleigh land (including Australia's Duncan Harvey, whose favorite bands are Bon Jovi and Guns 'n' Roses, rowr), ending with a call for a "calendar of naked bobsledders" and the caveat that if you put up one of the few hot bobsleigh chunkos in December, it'll make "Christmas merry for shrieking, starstruck fatsos everywhere." God bless the bears and their enthusiasts, and hoorah for bobsleigh. I miss the Olympics now even though I was sick of them.

Has anyone done one of these yet where Hitler is outraged that it's been 24 hours since some kind of "significant" event and there hasn't been a Downfall parody of it uploaded to the Internet yet? Because that could be kind of funny. Anyway, here ya go. [Via]

Say, that's cool. The medals to be awarded at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver will be made out of melted-down electronic devices. Maybe the folks running the Rio Olympics in 2016 can make theirs out of police helicopters?

We already knew that London's Olympic Stadium would be literally made of knives. Now the London 2012 chairman Sebastian Coe has hinted at the identity of the mascots for these coming Olympics: they will be "made of steel" and they will be "aimed at children." Oh dear. Let's take a look at the proposed designs for the stadium and the mascot!

It was supposed to be a Canada-Russia Olympic final-with a subplot of Sidney Crosby vs. Alexander Ovechkin-continuing an international hockey rivalry that really began in 1972 with the epic Summit Series (a series that made Paul Henderson, and his shot heard round the world, a national hero forever).

But then, the US shocked Canada 5-3 in the preliminary round. "Fluke," every Canadian fan nervously thought, as their team outplayed and outshot the Americans 45-23. However, in Sunday's wonderful gold medal game, coach Ron Wilson's young underdog squad played the mighty, talented Canadians dead even.

Hey, Lindsey Vonn won a gold in women's downhill! Even I, who dislikes both sports and winning, sort of admire this.

Ouch! Chicago has been eliminated in the first round of voting for the host city of the 2016 Olympics. Why does the world hate Barack Obama?