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back to article Chinese make Olympic weather bow to Party's will

Chinese officials have announced that the Beijing Meteorological Bureau has successfully carried out experiments aimed at preventing light rain from washing out the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympics on 8 August. The problem for the games' organisers is that the showpiece Bird's Nest stadium which will host the gala is an …

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  1. Sacha TF Padovani
    Paris Hilton

    Won't succeed

    They can't tell their Celciuses from proper Celsiuses, or Kelvins, even.

    Or Hiltons, to be precise.

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  2. Joe Stalin
    Happy

    Silver iodide

    If I remember correctly the Russians did the same trick for the May day parades in Red Square. But the Russians were stuck for cash and couldn't afford the Silver iodide, so they used cement dust instead. Or does that story belong with NASAs million doller space pen vs the mighty Russian pencil.

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  3. Harry Stottle

    Didn't the Russians do the same thing for the Moscow Olympics?

    I ask because I can't find a link to confirm it. But I seem to recall that they did use cloud seeding techniques, very effectively - for the games - but disastrously for the farmers upwind - whose crops were ruined by unseasonable rainfall...

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  4. Solomon Grundy

    Scary Stuff

    The scale of the Chineese weather experiments is scary. They actually have "rain brigades" in many of the small villages throughout the country who go out with special devices in order to control the weather.

    Fucking with the weather is a bad idea. Everybody knows that.

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  5. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    "head of weather manipulation"

    Cool job title.

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  6. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    Re: Fucking with the weather is a bad idea. Everybody knows that.

    Why? It worked great in Back to the Future 2. And I, for one, welcome our new weather controlling overlords.

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  7. Kwac

    stranded

    Listening to the news today - hundreds of thousands not able make their annual visits to wife & kids for New Year due to worst weather since records began - even had the Chinese PM at a railway station apologising through a megaphone.

    Clearly a successful experiment then.

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  8. MarmiteToast

    @ Solomon Grundy

    Maybe I missed something but how does everybody know that "Fucking with the weater is a bad idea"?

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  9. Ron Luther
    Coat

    Silver?

    Silver? Lead? They are planning to use one of those metal things anyway ....

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  10. paulc
    Black Helicopters

    Snow anyone?

    perhaps this explains the heavy snowfalls in Southern China that have brought the place to a standstill and killed dozens...

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  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Joe and @Harry

    No you're right. I remember seeing it on Tomorrow's World and Pravda ran an article on it a few years ago:

    http://english.pravda.ru/science/19/94/379/15693_weather.html

    Let's hope the environmentalists get sufficiently wound up about weather mod that there's no chance of preventing the driving drizzle that will inevitably blight the 2012 opening ceremony.

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  12. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Re: f**king with the weather is a bad idea. Everybody knows that.

    Apparently, not EVERYBODY.

    This is peanuts compared to what they do to their environment.

    Talk about dropping a grogan on your dinner-plate...

    <coat type="yellow_hazmat_outfit"/>

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  13. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    Twerps

    As if the weather isn't screwed up enough thanks to Al Gore's global warming, now the Chinese are going to make matters worse by actively f*cking with it.

    If weather control is this easy, why aren't we manipulating it to fix the current climate?

    Still, it'll be funny in a few years when everyone dies from silver iodide poisoning...

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  14. Herby

    Suggestion for the Chineese

    Try: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0045152/

    It might work!

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  15. Charles Manning
    Linux

    Just hold a parade...

    ... a hundred miles away. Rain on parade etc.

    "Fucking with weather" is OK for the duration of the Olympics so long as the cloud seeding is scattered enough so as to not swamp out one small region. Not enough time to do any real damage. Longer term efforts cause the real problems (eg. Aswan Dam which has impact throughout the Med and has detectable impacts even into the Atlantic).

    [Penguins coz they won't get hurt by crazy Chinese weather]

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  16. Solomon Grundy

    @ Charles Manning

    The only problem is the Chinese have been experimenting with weather manipulation for several years ahead of the Olympics - in order to ensure perfect weather for the event, validate methods, estimate costs, etc...

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  17. Karim Bourouba

    sod that, just have a bbq in the UK

    If everyone in the UK decides to have a bbq on the day of the opening ceremony then they will dodge the rain.

    It will fall here instead

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  18. error

    @Anonymous Coward

    "If weather control is this easy, why aren't we manipulating it to fix the current climate?"

    Because weather control != climate control.

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