Free Republic

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Josie Lombardi came downtown this week for a taste of the Olympics accompanied by a friend rather than her husband, because he is on an Olympics boycott. She was thrilled to see the Olympic caldron up close, she said, but after being told she would have to wait five hours to see an exhibit of Olympic medals, Mrs. Lombardi began to think her husband might have a point. “O.K., are the Olympics worth it?” Mrs. Lombardi said while stopping for lunch at Murchie’s, a venerable tea and coffee shop. “I don’t want to be too negative...

BELLINGHAM, Wash. — SNIPPET: "The goal, officials say, is to be ready for any emergency that might be magnified by having the Olympics and a few hundred thousand visitors next door, whether a terrorist attack, a truck overturned on Interstate 5 near the border or disruptions from the big winter storms that often pound the region."