How many of us watched the opening ceremony to the Summer Olympics this year? And how many of us thought that the fireworks were pretty spectacular, in spite of all of those fears about air quality in China? Well, there was a reason for the amazing footage. According to Bloomberg, it wasn’t real.

Yes, that’s right. General Electric Co.’s NBC (having spent $894 million for broadcast rights) used some faked computer-generated (CGI) footage to spiff things up, according to MSNBC.

Yes, that’s also right. Bloomberg’s amazing investigative reporting was to simply parrot MSNBC.

But that’s not all. Also amongst the line-up of fakes was the little girl Lin Miaoke who sang “I Sing For My Country.” Because it wasn’t her voice. Originally slated to sing the song was Yang Peiyi. She did a wonderful job of it. How do we know? Because it was her voice that Lin Miaoke lip-synched to. Why did China pull a “Milli Vanilli”? Well, because Lin Miaoke looks cuter.

Wonderful.

But that’s not all. How many of us remember seeing the man who ran the sides of the stadium to light the Olympic Torch? Wasn’t that cool? Hell yes! And how many of us remember seeing him go right past the larger-than-life Blue Screen of Death?

Bill Gates, likely in the audience, probably cringed when he saw the gigantic BSOD from a Windows XP Embedded system crash. Then again, maybe he’s used to it.

All-in-all, the Summer Olympics has not exactly been quite the shining example that China wanted it to be. There has been a lot of disappointment in the world this year. Let’s hope however that this is only in the technical aspect of the Olympics, and that the athletes themselves prove themselves to be as upstanding as we would all expect them to be.