The commentators all breathlessly described how busy China became getting Beijing "ready for the Olympics".
And China's communist leaders sure were busy!
After all, arresting dissidents and potential protesters isn't done in a day, and heaven knows it takes time to shut down factories and restrict residents' driving to clear up the oily smog that obscures Beijing on a normal day.
Today, Ed Morrissey included the pic at the top of the page in "Obama: Know where it’s really great to do business?".
"Unfortunately, most of what the cameras see is just a facade, as Dale Franks points out at Q&O:"
Perhaps, the facades in the top pic were built by the arrested dissidents?
Better not dwell to much on that possibility.
Might get accused of being a conspiracy theorist again.
by Mondoreb
image: top-Hot Air; bottom-RidesAPaleHorse
Pixelaneous #52
China is ready for the Olympics and the resulting influx of English speaking tourists... are you ready for China's readiness?
Which is one step up from just lovely..
But taste like cat
Here, crippie, take my seat.
[We'd be remiss if we didn't mention that these pix came from Engrish.com--where they have 1000s more!
Great with flied lice
A separate entrance for Hos....why didn't I think of that?
Sounds better than canned water doesn't it?
Go over there to die, please. Thank you.
Good to know
Pixelaneous Photo Essays Library
Not nice. Some of my best friends are liquor heads.
Look up and down the aisle twice before proceeding...
Much tastier that the grown up variety..
It would be once you start chewing on it
Starbucks should be very afraid!
I wouldn't tickle this one
Weird, because horsebeans sound delicious.
Where every fashion aficionado in China shops!!!
I knew it!!
What?
If th ere's one thing we don't need help with...
!
'See you after the flight,Uncle Randy!'
Should be in front of half the hotels in town.
So this is where they all end up.
by RidesAPaleHorse
images: Engrish.com
Chilling Chinese "Charity"
Nancy Morgan
RightBias.com
August 9, 2008
China's Dirty Little Secret
The eyes of the world are upon Beijing. Images pour forth daily of new stadiums full of cheering fans, Olympic athletes giving their all and dazzling fireworks in a bustling modern city. The last thing spectators think of as they sit in the new stadiums in Beijing, are the barbaric practises of their hosts. Namely, the lucrative Chinese practise of harvesting and selling the body parts of executed prisoners.
I have images also. The images I have, obtained by Chinese dissident Harry Wu, show a stadium in the countryside, filled to capacity with Chinese citizens. On the stage are a dozen hapless Chinese citizens who have been accused of a crime.
Military officials of the People's Republic of China point out their various crimes and then pronounce sentence. The majority receive a death sentence.
The condemned are led to waiting trucks. A rope is secured around the throats of these prisoners to cut off any last minute statements as they are ferried a short distance to the execution fields. Crowds await, as schools and businesses have closed for the occasion. Attendance is mandatory.
Prisoners are made to kneel. Each prisoner has two guards, one to position the rifle and another standing by. Upon command, a dozen shots ring out and a dozen bodies slump to the ground.
Officials wearing rubber boots stomp on some of the bodies to assure death. Then, all the bodies are collected and taken to the waiting, unmarked white vans. Inside the vans, the kidneys of these prisoners are extracted. Sometimes livers and corneas are harvested also. The vans then travel ten miles to Huaxi University of Medical Sciences in Chengdu, where six patients are prepped and ready to receive these organs into their own bodies.
The Chinese describe this practise as "charity." In Zhenhzou City, a hospital worker who had many times extracted organs at execution sites, said, "A shot in the head, blow away his brain, and the guy is dead. He has no more thinking, ceases to be a human being, just a thing, and we use the waste."
Chinese dissident Harry Wu spent 19 years in a Chinese logai, a prison patterned after the infamous gulags of the former Soviet Union. Upon his release and subsequent settlement in California, Wu traveled back to China several times under an assumed name, carrying a concealed videocam. The images he obtained prove, without a doubt, that China has been engaged in the wholesale trafficking of organs obtained from executed prisoners since, at least 1994.
I produced a film with Harry Wu using this footage. Entitled 'Communist Charity,' it shows an interview with a Chinese doctor making a sales pitch to someone he thought was a prospective organ buyer (Harry Wu). "The quality of our kidneys is better than America," he said, "because we remove the kidneys fast and at the appropriate time. We can guarantee several kidneys in one month. The distance where we remove the kidney and transplant is short. We can do it in, oh, less than 10 hours. In America, it takes more than 20 hours." A sales office in Hong Kong actually provides brochures for those shopping for a new organ.
A Chinese doctor currently residing in Germany was filmed confessing to harvesting the kidney of a patient the night before the execution.
According to Wu, there are 90 hospitals in China capable of performing kidney and cornea transplants. The going price for kidneys in the 1990's was $30,000. Prices have since risen dramatically.
The South China Morning Post reported on Jan. 9, 2000, "Organs from executed prisoners are being offered for up to $300,000 each to Hong Kong liver transplant patients who travel to a mainland hospital." A doctor at Sun Yat Sen University of Medical Sciences in Chengdu told the Post, "The organs are of good quality as they come from executed prisoners."
T. Kumar of Amnesty International testified on this issue at a 1998 hearing before the House Reform and Oversight Committee. "Amnesty International reported on this practise in 1993 and called for China to ban this practise. However the use of organs from this source continues in China, reportedly on a widespread scale." Kumar confirmed that "90% of organs used for transplant in China come from condemned prisoners."
At a conference in Boston, Chinese transplant doctor, Dr. Zhonghue, admitted that Chinese doctors had transplanted 8,102 kidneys, 3,741 livers and 85 hearts in 2005 alone.
Meanwhile, China has broadened the number of offenses punishable by death and, in an amazing coincidence, more and more of the condemned are comprised of 25-year old and younger, healthy non-smokers.
This is one of China's dirty little secrets. Why it remains a secret is the question. Every member of congress and all the major media outlets were provided a copy of 'Communist Charity' years ago. The ensuing silence has been deafening.
Maybe now, with the eyes of the world on China, there will be more interest in making known the ongoing, lucrative and horrific Chinese trade in illicit organs - and the substantial profits which have undoubtedly contributed to the billions of dollars China has spent in an effort to appear civilized before the world during these Summer Olympic Games.
by Nancy Morgan
Nancy Morgan is a colummnist and news editor for RightBias.com
She lives in South Carolina
Article may be reprinted, with attribution
image: dkimages
Google "Censorship" and you get "Google"
While surfing by The People's Cube to see what shenanigans the comrades were up to, the following post caught our eye. It also changed our minds about the topic of this post.
The People's Cube is not the first to bring up Google's holiday logo nuttiness. Little Green Footballs is a regular Google-watcher on holidays. NewsBusters also noted that Google ignored Memorial Day (Google Ignores Memorial Day). Michelle Malkin noticed that Google honors World Water Day, but not Easter.
So, instead of some light-hearted tomfoolery, "Google and censorship" was now in the air.
This Day in History: An Open Letter to Google
Dear Google comrades Sergei and Larry!
The Party looks kindly at your attempts to correct and improve history by unobtrusively modifying the Google logo on notable calendar dates. For years you have zealously informed the masses about progressive and useful events like Earth Day or Earth Hour, while purposefully ignoring Memorial Day (no logo change on this reactionary American holiday). Most recently, you enlightened the unwashed about the Spanish artist Velázquez on June 6 without mentioning the Allied Invasion of Normandy on D-Day, a celebration of which would indeed be offensive to National Socialists.
~
The time is ripe for us to reinforce your amateurish efforts with our brand of historical revisionism that stands on a firm scientific foundation of the Party doctrine. The next big holiday is Independence Day. Review the following list of Party-recommended events and logos for mandatory inclusion.
After a list of suggested logo topics Google might use for the Fourth of July, instead of Independence Day, TPC wound up with the picture below.
The reader is sent to a page entitled, "Google Purges The People's Cube Worldwide". This is how it began:
Dear comrades at Google:
At some point, quite recently, our popular site "The People's Cube" (ThePeoplesCube.com) was purged from Google search results. MSN , Yahoo and other search engines still have it - but Google has erased/blocked any link to the site in its database. One can still find links to us from other sites - but not even one from Google to ThePeoplesCube.com. We tried American, French, German, British, Australian, and Russian versions of Google - they used to give us traffic only a few days ago - but all we got was the same line in various languages: Sorry, no information is available for the URL thepeoplescube.com. And if we clicked on Find web pages from the site thepeoplescube.com we got Your search - site:thepeoplescube.com - did not match any documents.
Sad and outrageous--both at the same time!
"Those bastards!" is the first thought that came to mind. The second was to Google "Google + censorship".
We got over 330,000 references. Including one by Search Engine Watch about Google cooperating like a good lackey in censoring Chinese users. Picture Says 1000 Words About Google's Censorship In China by Danny Sullivan.
Plenty are writing and writing about Google's agreement to censor results for China. But pictures perhaps better illustrate the differences that Google now endorses.
Google Images Censors Too in China from Google Blogoscoped shows you how a search for [tiananmen square] on Google Images China provides happy scenes while over at uncensored Google Images, there are tanks rolling in.
I took a look for just [tiananmen] at Google Images China versus Google Images. Here's a side-by-side:
Below are a few of the forbidden pictures the Communists and Google forbid the Chinese surfers to see.
The comrades at the People's Cube will survive nicely the Soviet-style antics by a search engine apparently full of hubris. Google is the darling of Wall Street--for the moment. But those things have a way of changing when a company is unresponsive to its customers--of which the People's Cube is but one.
The Googleteers are on top at the moment, but stunts, such as pulling the web pages of the brave workers at the People's Cube from its search engine, will land Google in a place that familiar to many companies that were once on top: on the bottom.
Just 20 years ago, K-Mart was the number one retailer, light years ahead of Wal-Mart. Just 45 years ago, Carling's Black Label beer was mopping the floor with Budweiser. How long will it be until "Google" is only a funny-sounding stock worth pennies?
Not as long as you think--if the search engine company keeps trying to finesse freedom and censorship.
Whether it occurs in China or the People's Cube.
by Mondoreb
Source/images:
* This Day In History: An Open Letter to Google
* artforprofit
* photobucket
* fas.org
* Picture Says 1000 Words About Google's Censorship In China
April 7 2008 7 pm
In this report:
* Olympic Protesters Cross Golden Gate Bridge
* Clinton Talks about Her Latest Stand on Iraq
* Tibetan Monks Storm China Media Tour
* Katie Couric is NOW concerned about the troops' well-being
* Tech report
* Ship made of ice cream sticks tries to sail around world
by Mondoreb
Source: DBKP Video News Break: Katie Couric Discovers She is NOW Concerned about Troops
DBKP.com - Bigger, Better!.
Back to DBKP at Blogger Front Page
The Chinese government probably had no idea.
Eight protesters in Tibet were shot dead by Chinese police and the idea of a protest-free visit by the Olympic flame relay through London is dead also.
The police feared violence could disrupt the event.
Campaigners vowed to redouble their protests after hearing of the deaths yesterday during one of the bloodiest clashes since pro-independence protests began last month.
They said that they would target the Chinese Ambassador to London, Fu Ying, who is scheduled to take her turn carrying the torch as it makes its way from Wembley Arena to Canary Wharf. Last night the Chinese Embassy declined to confirm whether she would take part. A number of celebrities have withdrawn from the event or made themselves unavailable in protest at China’s heavy-handed crackdown on Tibetan protesters who are demanding independence.
RidesAPaleHorse has a small suggestion for ensuring the safety of the Olympic Torch when it reaches London. He submitted the above photo as proof it could work.
It reminds one of Oliver Wendell Holmes: "Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions."
by Mondoreb
image: RidesAPaleHorse
Sources:
* Olympic Flame Sparks Protests over China, Tibet
* Police Fear Olympic Torch protests after China shootings in Tibet
DBKP.com - Bigger, Better!.
Back to DBKP at Blogger Front Page
Beijing, ChinaWe ran across a superb account of dining in China at a "specialist penis and testicle emporium".
From the book, The Danger Zone, author Stefan Gates gives a sublimely hysterical and all "too accurate" account of dining in Beijing at the Guo-li-zhuang restaurant whose specialty is penises.
The place looks like a smart kaiseki ryori (Japanese haute cuisine) formal restaurant, complete with underfloor stream, separate secluded dining rooms and hushed, discreet staff. I have come determined to avoid euphemisms - we’re making a current-affairs programme for the BBC - but I’ll admit the temptation is strong.Gates goes on to describe, step-by-agonizing-step, the meal he's ordered, how it's prepared, the patrons, Communist Party officials and wealthy businessmen whom he says are "one in the same".
He said what?
Read rest of "Beijing's Fine Dining and Penis Emporium".
By LBG
Source - Times Online
Image - Beijing
DBKP.com - Bigger, Better!.
Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.
Chinese Hostage Negotiations
A Recent Case Study
In this country, we would block off the street, take 12 hours to talk him out of it, spend $5 million giving him a fair trial, and pay his food and lodging for life.
No wonder their products are cheaper than ours.
by RidesAPaleHorse
images: RAPH
DBKP.com - Bigger, Better!.
Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.
Restaurants are cashing in on the newest dining sensation, Naked Sushi Nights. At $75 bucks per person, one can dine on sushi on a "naked spread."
Well, not so naked, says Thom Pham, who runs the Temple Restaurant in downtown Minneapolis. Pham says banana leaves and flowers will cover the "unclothed" persons chosen to be the sushi's platter, who lie in the center of the table.
The Naked Sushi craze began in Japan and Hong Kong then spread to Los Angeles and New York but Communists are not so crazy about the idea. China has banned the practice, citing "moral quality and commercial activity with poor culture".
China's State Administration of Industry and Commerce issued a notice this weekend banning meals served on naked bodies, officially canceling the service offered by a restaurant in southwestern China that served sushi on unclothed female university students, a Beijing newspaper reported Sunday.
The Saturday pronouncement forbids the service because it "insults people's moral quality," according to the Beijing Times. Serving food on women's bodies also "spreads commercial activity with poor culture," the paper said, citing the administration's notice. Source - China Daily
Perhaps sushi restaurants could hire people who enjoy being nude, such as the naked airline fliers?
Who wouldn't want to have some salt water eel off that lady's ass?
Yum.
By LBG
Image - Naked Sushi
Image - MarkAmerica
Source - Star Tribune
DBKP.com - Bigger, Better!.
Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.
Jordan Robertson of the Associated Press wrote a great piece on future cyberwars and present modern day attacks:
SAN FRANCISCO — The Chinese government today disputed a report labeling it the world's most aggressive offender in probing for holes in other nations' Internet security and encouraging a looming global cyber showdown.Cyber Wars are predicted to happen in the future. This report is chilling, the cyberworld is under attack now.
The report, issued today by Santa Clara-based security software vendor McAfee Inc., said government-affiliated hackers in China are at the forefront of a brewing "cyber Cold War" still in its infancy. [1]
Based on McAfee research and input from security experts with NATO, the FBI and other intelligence outfits, the report said hackers in China are believed responsible for four out of five major cyber attacks on government targets in 2007.Attacks on critical national infrastructure rose in 2007. These included "financial markets, utilities and air traffic control machinery, and the attacks were believed to have been launched by governments or government-allied groups."
The biggest intrusions appear to have targeted a Pentagon computer network and government agencies in Germany, India, Australia and New Zealand. [1]
Governments and infrastructure are not the only targets.
The McAfee report also detailed the growing threat to Web surfers from increasingly sophisticated techniques to steal personal information online and install malicious code on victims' computers to herd them into networks of compromised machines that pump out spam or fire off attacks.[1]It was revealed that the September 9 strike by Israel on a "nuclear" site in Syria was the first major use of a "electronic" warfare strike.
Elements of the attack included some brute-force jamming, which is still an important element of attacking air defenses, U.S. analysts say. Also, Syrian air defenses are still centralized and dependent on dedicated HF and VHF communications, which made them vulnerable. The analysts don’t believe any part of Syria’s electrical grid was shut down. They do contend that network penetration involved both remote air-to-ground electronic attack and penetration through computer-to-computer links.
“There also were some higher-level, nontactical penetrations, either direct or as diversions and spoofs, of the Syrian command-and-control capability, done through network attack,” says an intelligence specialist.[2]
The Cold War is over, the Cyber Wars have just begun.
By LBG
Source - [1] Houston Chronicle
Source - 2 - The September 9th Attack On Syria
DBKP.com - Bigger, Better!.
Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page
We're never ones to discount warnings: Winston Churchill was our hero. However, the warnings of a coming U.S. war with China continue.
The warnings about war take, in the main, two forms: military and economic. Zachary Hubbard, a retired Army officer, wrote in August about the possibility of military war.
Hubbard now looks at an economic one presaging any military actions.The war on terror grabs headlines, but there are far greater threats to America than terrorism. Conditions are ripe for a shift in the balance of global power, perhaps in the next four to five years. When it occurs, America will no longer be the dominant economic force on the planet. As our economic power wanes, our political and military power will follow suit.
The Roman philosopher Seneca said, “If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.” His wisdom applies to America’s economic situation today.
Americans must choose a new economic destination and change course soon or we stand to lose much of our national power.
If we fail to act, the world could well end up with a four-way competition among the European Union, a China-dominated Asia, a global oil cartel dominated by Russia and a nuclear-armed Iran, and a U.S.-led North American Union.
Hubbard goes on to list the signs of distress in the United States' economy. He's not the only one to point these out; there's no end of stories alerting of a U.S. economic slide.
Indications of America’s waning economic power are numerous. A mortgage crisis caused by foolhardy subprime lending practices has thousands of Americans at risk of losing everything. Many financial institutions caught up in the scheme are also in trouble.
American consumer debt is at an all-time high and may cause the next major financial crisis.
The Baltimore Sun published an article on Oct. 10 titled, “Credit card debt is ready to blow.” According to the Sun, the financial industry is preparing for major defaults on the credit card debt held by Americans today, which exceeds $500 billion.
General Motors, once a global symbol of American industrial might, has suffered record losses recently and is facing financial disaster. Ford apparently has similar woes.
America’s manufacturing base is shrinking, as U.S. companies continue to ship manufacturing jobs overseas. Meanwhile, China is experiencing record economic growth funded largely by American consumers and U.S. government debt.
Failed energy policies could soon have Americans facing $5 per gallon gasoline. Looming energy shortages threaten manufacturing and other sectors. Every U.S. president since the Arab oil embargo of 1973-74 has failed to exhibit leadership in addressing America’s energy needs. Consequently, today we must buy oil from a rogue cartel dominated by Middle Eastern tyrants who hate us.
The U.S. dollar has tanked on foreign markets. Exchange rates are at an all-time low against the Euro and even the Canadian dollar. Iran has shifted its hard currency reserves to the Euro. China is threatening to do the same. Such a move by China, which holds more than $1 trillion in U.S. debt, would be devastating to the U.S. economy.
After listing some fixes, the writer declares the problems go deeper than just dollars and cents.Our problems are not purely economic. They reach to the very core of America’s national identity. Many politicians talk about repairing America’s reputation, but it’s not just our reputation that is broken.
The way we do business on Capitol Hill needs fixing. American voters must redefine the country economically by facing up to exploding personal and national debt, our disappearing manufacturing base and our dangerous foreign oil dependency. Only then may we hope to preserve our political and military might.
If party politicians continue to skirt these problems, America may suffer the same fate as the vanished democracies that preceded it.
Even the glory of Rome faded. Why should we expect our fate to be any different if we fail to tackle our problems?
Zachary Hubbard is a retired Army officer and freelance writer residing in Upper Yoder Township. He is a member of The Tribune-Democrat Reader Advisory Committee.
America’s reign as world’s economic king in peril
As we stated at the beginning, we're never one to discount warnings. It's hard to not join Hubbard in his concern. However, it would do well to keep in mind the inherent strengths and depth of the United States economy.
That doesn't mean that a close eye shouldn't be kept on various economic indicators. But the demise of big industries never much caused much worry in these quarters.
Capitalism is dynamic: today's ailing K-Mart, was yesterday's number one retailer K-Mart. Who knows where today's number one retailer Wal-Mart will be in 20 years. While warnings of demise should be kept in mind, warnings of capitalism's dynamic nature should also be heeded.
Two of the big employers in the late 1800s were buggy-whip makers and factories using human cigar rollers.
by Mondoreb
images: prisonplanet; slate]
Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.
