I do not grasp the necessary intricacies of what Friedmanite economics entail, therefore nullifying the sign/signifier of this hermeneutic and, some might say, tautological comment.

What on earth does any of that have to do with Friedman? Friedman was against "massive deficit spending" and a large police state. He certainly would have been against the government funding sports stadiums. Where in the "Chicago Boys" economic recommendations does it say to invest in sports stadiums, expand the police state, and demolish slums in anticipation for international events?

This is silly.

I think the fact that your best real, interesting, global news has moved from the bbc to al j is intersting in and of itself. the west will be less pretentious and more pretentious in its stagnation (not decline, dont make that mistake). i still like the ol anglo of the bbc myself, but i do appreciate the al j.

Of course, Brazil won the World Cup and probably the Olympics via outright bribery. Which points another finger at the future. See Triesman's revelations today, about the 2018 and 2022 bids. When he was on the England committee, the Brazilian committee member said "come and tell me what you've got for me". The Trinidadian FIFA VP flat-out asked for GBP 2.5 million, while the Paraguayan demanded a KNIGHTHOOD for his vote.

Ever since I moved to Britain I've noticed that around a third of the "most-read stories" on the BBC News site are essentially press releases promoting something that's on one of their TV channels that week. A lot of the news site is quality, but you can pretty much treat all of their science coverage as though it were USA Today.

we saw this leading up to the winter olympics in salt lake city, albeit on a small scale. the u of utah campus became a veritable police state even though the olympics became our "spring break," including new fences and plenty of military personnel armed with what appeared to be automatic rifles; homeless being shipped out of town; "protest zones" that amounted to little more than what the homeless received, etc.
to say that these measures mark the future of international sport is incorrect - it's also been this way for some time. why would bric countries have a monopoly on fascistic security regimes?