the gang's all here

Dictatorship hosts international schmooze-fest for global overclass, as, far below, muscular automata field test cutting edge pharmaceuticals. Behold, peasants!

Among the CEOs expected to attend the Games are BP PLC's Tony Hayward; Blackstone Group LP's Stephen Schwarzman; Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s H. Lee Scott Jr. and Terry Leahy, of rival British chain Tesco PLC; Rupert Murdoch, of News Corp., and Motorola Inc.'s Greg Brown. Yahoo Inc. CEO Jerry Yang may be there, though a representative says his plans aren't final. AT&T Inc. CEO Randall Stephenson plans meetings with customers, partners and employees while he is there, a company spokesman says.

Also on the list: the top executives of dozens of Olympics sponsor companies, including McDonald's Corp.'s Jim Skinner, Volkswagen AG's Martin Winterkorn and General Electric Co.'s Jeffrey Immelt. Many of these companies will hold board meetings in Beijing.

The Games draw chiefs of countries, too. George W. Bush will be the first sitting U.S. president to attend an Olympic Games opening ceremony on foreign soil. Despite controversy over some of China's policies -- as seen in the demonstrations during the recent Olympic-torch run -- the number of heads of state planning to attend the opening ceremony is roughly double the number who attended the opening of the Athens Games four years ago.

China's government, worried about security and the prospect of unsightly protests, has made it more difficult for ordinary tourists to get visas this summer and has encouraged many of Beijing's poorer migrant workers to return to their homes elsewhere. But for VIPs, the city is rolling out the red carpet.

So much better without the plebs, don’t we think. Apparently there’s not enough air-conditioned executive boxes to go round, so the bosses of mid range companies and the heads of insiginifcant states will have to make do with special seats. I’m sure the bloke in charge of Kwik Fit will get on very well with the President of Samoa.

Christ on a bike: it’s a snapshot of everything that’s wrong with the world. Why not cut the athletics crap and go straight to gladiators?