That’s priceless stuff. The irony of having their own vitriol coming back to bite them in the ass is delicious.

July 31, 2011 @ 3:03 am | Comment

This case is showing that it’s a fine line between picking up a worthwhile political fight against extremists (and don’t get me wrong here – I’m referring to a “fight” compatible with civil society), and harmonizing a society.

Yes, it’s funny to see the self-appointed “prophets” struggling. But to draw a link between everyone quoted in Breivik’s manifesto and the alleged killer himself is wrong. Not all of those apparently quoted by Breivik advocated violent means.

If that difference becomes blurred – and I can see how Germany’s leading news magazine’s online edition and other papers are blurring it with gusto – individual responsibilities become blurred, too, and that will only move us further away from building a more civil society, where arguments count more than manipulation, anger, and fear.

In short: one doesn’t really need to be a rightwing nutcase to fuck things up.

July 31, 2011 @ 4:27 am | Comment

Wait, isn’t here where I’m supposed to argue that this doesn’t matter because people in China sometimes advocate violence which people act on? Or does the comparison thing only happen on threads about things that happen in China?

Anyway, I think the obvious question here is “who was the person in Norway who sent the email?”. I’m pretty sure Norway has more than one person who considered using violence against Muslims and those who advocate tolerance to other cultures, but the suspicion that it was Breivik himself needs to be addressed.

July 31, 2011 @ 2:24 pm | Comment

FOARP, good point. This China needs to get its own house in order before we worry about what happens in the US.

Also a good point about finding out who else is/was involved.

July 31, 2011 @ 5:38 pm | Comment

No FOARP, this would be the point at which serious critics (and thus friends of) America would point out that Geller and her ilk are only the tip of the iceberg, and America’s real impact on Muslims all around the world has been overwhelmingly negative in practice, and not just in theory.

August 1, 2011 @ 3:21 am | Comment

Geller et al have no “impact on Muslims all around the world”. What is disturbing is that they have any impact whatsoever on how Muslims are perceived in America.

August 1, 2011 @ 4:32 am | Comment

Geller is well known in the Muslim community, at least in the US, and has more than one law suit filed against her for slander.

August 1, 2011 @ 6:09 am | Comment

@S.K.

As much as this tastes like bitter ashes in my mouth, I’ve gotta lend some support to Merp’s comment. He said “America’s real impact on Muslims all around the world has been overwhelmingly negative in practice.”

His contention that Geller et al. are the tip of some monolithic iceberg is overly simplistic; Geller just hates Muslims, the U.S’s involvment in the Muslim world is complex and based primarily on power and control. Yet, surprisingly, there is some truth to his comment.

August 2, 2011 @ 10:20 am | Comment

To DB:
I don’t explicitly disagree with the part of what’shisface’s comment that you highlighted. Like you, I’m simply pointing out to him that Geller does not represent that “iceberg”, unless someone is part of that iceberg simply by virtue of being American. He seems to be conflating two separate things, which I think is also your objection based on your second paragraph.

August 2, 2011 @ 1:20 pm | Comment

@ Cookie Monster – Yeah, but since China also makes muslims angry, this means that the people in the US have nothing to worry about.

Wow. I wonder what other things this argument can be used for?

– “Train crashes in China are not a problem because they happen everywhere. Strongly oppose foreign imperialism!”

– “The Italian Mafia is not a problem because Japan has the Yakuza and no-one condemns them for it. Strongly oppose Japanese imperialism!”

– “Phone hacking in the UK is not a problem because North Korea regularly listens to its citizens phone calls, how come nobody condemn’s them? Strongly oppose North Korean imperialism!”

– “Humanity’s invasion of animal habitats are not a problem, because no-one condemns Goldilocks sleeping in the beds of the three bears. Strongly oppose Grimm Brothers imperialism!”

You see, easy.

August 2, 2011 @ 6:55 pm | Comment

I think you are attributing this crank Geller more profile than she has. I’ve been living in the heart of the Washington media/wonk/policy world for seven years and never heard her name mentioned by anyone, anywhere. Malkin, yes, a bit. Ann Coulter, yes, but her impact is fading.

August 3, 2011 @ 9:32 pm | Comment

Slim, look up her involvement in the 911 mosque and you’ll see the kind of power she has. Also search for her interviews with John Bolton, former US ambassador to the UN. When he was in office he actually gave her exclusive interviews, picking her over the mainstream media. She has influence, no matter how much of a crackpot she is. As mentioned, she’s been profiled in the UK Guardian and the NY Times, so if you haven’t heard of her you may not be looking in the right places. She is frequently interviewed on TV news as well.

August 4, 2011 @ 12:56 am | Comment

Unrest in Britain has spread to more cities as citizens and students took to the streets demanding accountability in the wake of a recent death of a teenager by the British state police. British state TV BBC has labeled the recent protests “riots” and state security apparatus has vowed to crack down hard on what they claim to be “violent looters and hooligans”. Interviews with ordinary British citizens on the streets, however, reveal a different picture – most of the interviewees, who wished to remain anonymous fearing retaliation – tell reporters that these protests are genuine demands for government accountability and is, in a larger sense, a response to the perceived corruption and incompetence and authoritarian rule of the government.

Reports are surfacing that Facebook and Twitter are now being monitored by the British government in an attempt to quell protests. Last week BBC quoted London police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Steve Kavanagh as saying: “Social media and other methods have been used to organise these levels of greed and criminality.” He described some messages posted on social media sites as “really inflammatory, inaccurate” and said police would consider arresting people using Twitter in relation to incitement to violence. (from British state TV: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14442935)

In the wake of recent demonstrations across Libya and the UK, the Chinese foreign ministry has called for a peaceful resolution to the unrest, and expressed the Chinese govt’s solidarity with the British people.

August 9, 2011 @ 12:16 pm | Comment

@HX
“recent death of a teenager by the British state police”
Think the “teenager” was actually 29 http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/08/mark-duggan-profile-tottenham-shooting

Does show what can happen with too little transparency and unaccountability, a widening gap between rich and poor and increasing corruption in high places…..

August 9, 2011 @ 12:46 pm | Comment

To Red Star,
as Mike has shown you, the riot started out as a peaceful protest and vigil after the Tottenham shooting. The public gathering, though not specifically for that purpose, may have touched upon public displeasure at UK’s austerity measures, especially among the less wealthy who were disproportionately affected. As for some of the other catchphrases you came up with, I’m not so sure about those.

Not exactly sure what your point is. Are you suggesting that it wasn’t a riot, and just a peaceful gathering? That’s ridiculous, because while it may have started peacefully, it sure didn’t end that way. And it’s been going on for three nights straight. Do you have a problem with police monitoring FB and Twitter? These days, police would be remiss not to. Inciting violence on the internet would be no different than inciting violence while standing atop a soap box on a street corner. So I’m not sure what you’re trying to say.

Libya and the UK aren’t comparable. Gadhafi is not a democratically elected leader; the UK parliament and Cameron are. Gadhafi is sending out troops to kill rebels and protesters. London is deploying riot police. It should be noted that the Brits are trying to arrest rioters, rather than trying to kill them. Once again, not sure where you’re going with that.

August 9, 2011 @ 1:25 pm | Comment

Number of people killed in the Xinjiang riots: At least 197

Number of people killed so far in the rioting in English cities over the past few days: Zero (one if you include the man whose shooting sparked the riots)

Number of nights spent under curfew in Urumqi: two

Number of nights under curfew in London so far: Zero (although it has been proposed)

Length of comprehensive internet restrictions covering Xinjiang: one year

Length of comprehensive internet restrictions covering London: no such system is in place

Idiocy of person who would compare Xinjiang to London: extreme

August 9, 2011 @ 4:32 pm | Comment

Not to mention the individual rights of a person arrested which apply in Britain. If a – suspected or real – rioter is arrested in Tibet or Xinjiang, relatives may not even know his whereabouts. I wouldn’t want to be one of the police officers who will be under investigation in Britain for the death of Mark Duggan, and for very different reasons, I wouldn’t want to be one of the officers in Tibet or Xinjiang who would likely get away without a proper investigation.

August 9, 2011 @ 6:03 pm | Comment

British state TV BBC has labeled the recent protests “riots” and state security apparatus has vowed to crack down hard on what they claim to be “violent looters and hooligans”.

The BBC is not State TV. And there are no protests (bar one a few days ago), it’s simple thuggery and theft. There is no political objective or complaint that the criminals have.

Nice try, HX, but you’re still unable drag the UK down to China’s level on suppression of political discontent.

August 9, 2011 @ 8:13 pm | Comment

I recall riots in Guangdong too
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/riot-06122011185215.html

Of course, one can read about the London riots (and Manchester, Salford, Birmingham, etc) in minutes detail from a range of media sources. As I recall, Chinese sources harmonised their coverage…

“Search terms related to the area where the incident broke out—such as “Xintang,” “Zengcheng,” and “Dadun”—were blocked as “sensitive terms” on China’s popular Sina microblogging site on Saturday.”

Facebook, Twitter, Google (uncensored and not banned in the UK) are all buzzing with news.

Maybe there’s still much China can teach li’l ol’ UK on maintaining a harmonious society….

August 10, 2011 @ 7:03 am | Comment

Maybe there’s still much China can teach li’l ol’ UK on maintaining a harmonious society

Yeah, hiding under the bed and pretending everything ok is sooo much better than facing up to what’s happening.

August 10, 2011 @ 7:10 am | Comment

Yeah, basically, this can be turned the other way round –

– Did the British government first attempt to deny that anything was happening?

– Has the government attempted to blame everything on terrorist groups backed by foreign governments?

The answers to both of these questions is “no”. Perhaps the fools who swallowed the whole “foreign plot” line hook, line and sinker for Tibet and Xinjiang (any evidence or convictions so far?) had better shut up until they have something substantial to back them up.

August 10, 2011 @ 7:23 am | Comment

had better shut up

No chance, Foarp. No matter if they live in China or overseas, the internet is the only place where ppl like HX can vent their ill feelings – in the real world, nobody would take them serious enough to care.

For what it’s worth, hoodies are comparatively respectable people in my view.

August 10, 2011 @ 1:37 pm | Comment

Massive Uprising Continues As British Government Begins Crackdown

Protests in London spread to more cities as students, government workers, businessmen, and people from all walks of life took the to the streets of major British cities and demanded accountability and transparency in the wake of recent brutal killing of a 29 year old man in Tottenham a week ago.

Today, London is in complete lockdown as state security forces, equipped with batons, tasers, and pistols, flooded the streets in prevent what the British government called “rioters and looters”. As of 9pm London time, our correspondents are prevented from leaving our hotels by the London Metropolitan police and warned not to “incite violence”. In every street corner are heavy paramilitary police presence, patrolling every block. We saw two bystanders arrested by the London police for loitering around the street block next to hour hotel, and a mother of three was beaten by the police as she tried to confront what she witnessed as brutality against demonstrators.

“They are beating them, dragging them!”. “They are fascists!”. One bystander tells reporters.

Observers say that this is the largest civil unrest in British society since the financial crisis and is emblematic of the crisis of the British political system after decades of stagnating economic growth, high employment, and autocratic rule. The spokesperson for 10 Downing Street blamed the demonstrators, calling them “scums”, “chavs”, and proclaimed the importance of “restoring social stability”. British Prime Minister David Cameron went on State TV BBC last night and vowed to “crack down hard” on the protesters.

“Clearly the British government’s current tactic is to deploy more force, more police monitoring, in an attempt to quell protests. We believe this is futile, as the forces of history and the voices of the people cannot be suppressed”, said John Rowlings, a a British dissent living in Beijing who participated in previous marches and organized civil rights movements against the British government.

Since yesterday, there’ve been reports of Twitter and Facebook being monitored by British state security, and as of this morning, both sites are still accessible, but certain contents no longer load. Later this afternoon, it was confirmed that both social networking sites are being monitored for “organizing violent gatherings”

“People for a Better Britannia”, a non-profit group founded by British activists and dissents, based in Shanghai, called today for the ouster of the British government and its monarch.

The Chinese People’s National Congress yesterday unanimously passed a resolution condemning the crackdown by the British government Today, on the streets of Beijing and Shanghai, Opium-shaped lapels were being distributed and worn by many as a show of support for the British people.

Yang Yan and Zhang Mingfang contributed to this report.

Picture 1: London police beat a protester

Picture 2: Mother cries as son lay dying in her arms after being shot by security force

Picture: Heavy police presence on the streets of London

Related links:
Anatomy of a Crackdown – What is British Government’s end game?
Year of the Protests – A Survey of Massive popular uprisings, from Egypt to Britain
Power of Social Networks, and why the British Government fears them

August 12, 2011 @ 7:10 am | Comment

British dissents? Or do you mean dissidents? Can you name one?
Or is this just the news article from Tibet/Xinjiang with a few little alterations? 😉

As it is, there’s no shortage whatsoever about the English riots (don’t call them UK riots or Salmond will start to cry http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/10/england-riots-salmond-uk-headlines). There’s also no shortage of opinions too. Funny, the US seem shocked hardly any guns were involved….and the death toll was 1 dead (the instigator) by a gun and 3 dead by car.

Now, a minor riot in Khotan killed how many…? 18 (http://www.farwestchina.com/2011/07/what-really-happened-in-the-hotan-riots.html)? So that’s…ummmm, 6 times the number killed in all English riots.

Yep, we English, even when we riot and loot, we do it is a civilised manner….

August 12, 2011 @ 8:56 am | Comment

@Mike,

That is the difference between a riot and a terrorist attack. Unfortunately I haven’t seen any media in US/UK understand the obvious.

August 12, 2011 @ 11:45 am | Comment

@HX – Probably the most moronic thing I’ve ever seen you write. If you even bothered to read the news, or simply ask someone living in the area, you’d have seen that:

1)The rioting is over.

2) The rioters were overwhelmingly young men from poor areas.

3) The city is not, and has not been, in lock-down. No curfew has ever been passed in mainland Britain.

4) Reporters from all major news agencies have reported freely on events, and have not been prevented from going anywhere.

5) No military have been involved, no paramilitary forces (such as China’s PAP or France’s CRS) exist in the UK.

6) No limitations have been imposed on social networking.

In fact, nothing demonstrates so clearly the complete difference between the events in Tibet/Xinjiang in 2008/2009 and those in London in 2011 than your idiotic attempt at drawing comparisons.

August 12, 2011 @ 12:57 pm | Comment

LOL, did Red Star just quote from China Daily or some similarly esteemed rag? Good show, m’boy.

Say, Red Star, help me out here. Can you tell me how many rioters/protesters have been killed in the UK? Or maybe run over by tanks? That’d be great, cuz, y’know, if we’re going to compare stuff, then let’s not be shy about actually comparing stuff. You do want to make appropriate comparisons, rather than just silly ones, right?

August 12, 2011 @ 1:01 pm | Comment

HX either put it on MITBBS himself or grabbed it from there
http://www.mitbbs.com/article_t/WaterWorld/983697.html

http://www.unknownspace.org/article_t/Military/36252699.html

August 12, 2011 @ 2:46 pm | Comment

You are giving HX way too much attention, folks.

August 12, 2011 @ 8:20 pm | Comment

23 and the links in 28 represent violations of Poe’s Law.

August 13, 2011 @ 4:29 am | Comment

“It has been very difficult to control these flash riots which appear to be organised on social media,” the minister said. “We would have to be like the Chinese to stamp them all out.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/09/david-cameron-second-cobra-meeting

—

LOL.

August 13, 2011 @ 7:47 am | Comment

Ummm, that sounds like a derisive reference to the CCP to me.

August 13, 2011 @ 11:57 am | Comment

What one politician says and what the rules allow are two different questions:
http://foarp.blogspot.com/2011/08/david-cameron-isnt-going-to-censor.html.
Nobody denies that the CCP has its share of admirers among western politicians and academics – tons of “Confucius Institutes” are bearing witness.

(I’m partly offending against my own advice (#29), because I can see the need, folks. But I suggest to keep answers to crap mongerers as short as possible.)

August 13, 2011 @ 4:46 pm | Comment

Protests in UK spread to the US

Thought too soon to tell, demosntrators and protests against cuts in government services, growing deficit, declining income and general economic malaise have been steadily on the rise in the United States, in the wake of the massive popular protests taking place in the UK.

Yesterday, the San Fracisco municipal government shut down cell phone service in “sensitive” neighborhoods, in an effort to save off “anti-government protests”.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/08/12/MNEU1KMS8U.DTL

Meanwhile in Philadelphia, curfews were imposed by the government security agents in an effort to “quell violence” and fight “social networking mobs”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/8699795/Fifty-teens-arrested-in-Philadelphia-curfew-to-fight-social-network-mobs.html

Both Philadelphia and San Francisco have seen the largest rise in unemployment and cuts public education in the past 6 months, as popular anger against government corruption and incompetence in the face of the financial crises steadily rises across the continental United States.

“The US government is certainly on edge, trying to preempt these threats to their rule, no matter how small they may appear at first”, a famous Chinese blogger currently living in the US wrote on his blog “TexasBarbeque”.

August 13, 2011 @ 11:42 pm | Comment

Gosh, is the US starting to do a small percentage of the stuff that the Ccp does? That’s pretty disgraceful indeed. When it comes down to it, the more a government behaves like the Ccp, the more disgraceful it becomes.

August 14, 2011 @ 7:58 am | Comment

HK says Protests in UK spread to the US

Telegraph says ..bystanders have been attacked by marauding teens using social media networks to co-ordinate their meetings and movements

So HK considers assault to be a form of protest? Ok, so does that mean if I rob him or stick his head down a toilet and flush it repeatedly I’m not breaking the law and he won’t report me? Cool, where does he live?

August 14, 2011 @ 6:26 pm | Comment

To raj,

Sometimes I wonder if idiotic Ccp apologists like red star even read their own links. It’s like they see the banner, see someone in the US is clamping down on social media mobs, and figure that is enough to make their idiotic “point”.

They don’t realize that the clampdown is only on unaccompanied minors, in specific parts of Philadelphia, in response to the violence you described.

The links do more to highlight the lunacy of red star than as any indictment of US authorities. Then again, I really shouldn’t expect anything else from him.

August 15, 2011 @ 5:20 am | Comment

“The US government is certainly on edge, trying to preempt these threats to their rule, no matter how small they may appear at first”, a famous Chinese blogger currently living in the US wrote on his blog “TexasBarbeque”.

Hmmm, seems the Chinese are also in on the act 😉
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8697220/Riot-erupts-in-southwest-China-town-over-car-parking-dispute.html

August 15, 2011 @ 8:38 am | Comment

“”In fact, China has riots more serious than England’s every week,” said one Weibo comment.”

From the link above…..someone else will have to verify that. A Google search (dunno if you can do a Baidu search – probably harmonised) will show it’s in a lot of media sources. Seems to be attributed to Reuters..

August 15, 2011 @ 8:41 am | Comment

#38: This is your typical, lame reflexive response: “See, the West is just as bad!” I’m in the US and there’s no rioting to speak of anywhere. Some disaffected teens in Philadelphia and the San Fran. Bay area have participated in flash-mob violence, almost entirely disaffected youth under the age of 18, and it’s been quickly squelched. And of course, Hidden Harmonies cited these and the London riots as signalling “the broken steam valve of democracy.”

#39: I believe it’s very true. And in China, they’re very different kinds of protests. The most recent example, in Dalian, were mainly white collars, not disaffected youth, and this scares the shit out of the CCP.

Sorry for the lack of new posts, everyone. I’m just not in the mood.

August 16, 2011 @ 2:24 am | Comment

Richard, I can’t believe you go on hh. Custer from China geeks does so as well, I’m told. All hh provides is an opinion on china from the perspective of a bunch of disaffected Americans of Chinese descent. I can’t imagine that to be of much use to you ( or Custer) since you guys have more boots-on-the-ground experience than they can ever hope to have.

If hh feels that a couple of youth flash mobs signifies ” the broken steam valve of democracy”, then no doubt they would characterize the numerous riots in china as the ” the broken steam valves of Ccp authoritarianism”. But of course, with their unique brand of ” logic “, they won’t. Instead, they might call it “rioting with Chinese characteristics”, or ” rioting – the 21st century interpretation of Confucianism “.

August 16, 2011 @ 3:36 am | Comment

Custer does comment on HH, and they hate him. Intellectually he can crush them like a gnat and they don’t like that. I go there because they’ve been touted by the likes of Shaun Rein (on Twitter) and ESWN links to them frequently. So they do have a voice, and I always like to know what the other side is up to (that’s what this post was originally about, before it evolved into an open thread).

August 16, 2011 @ 4:27 am | Comment

All my friends in the UK didn’t say much about the rioting. “Bunch of kids” was the general consensus.I dunno – I know there is a malaise present in Britain (not just England) – that’s why I left and am now a New Zealander.
Spent a month in China recently visiting the in-laws. Went to Nantong, then did some trips to the ancestral places (Dongtai and one other town…forget the name). Nice – met the extended family and ate hugely 🙂 Wife was a bit disappointed, though. She recalls the places being a lot cleaner. They have been “developed” but the development wasn’t, in her eyes, as nice as the original (which, funnily enough, they had rebuilt a section of to show the “good old days” and to which tourists seem to flock to). The smog and hazy air wasn’t something she was overly enamoured with either – looking at old photos from the 80s, we could see that the sky in Nantong was blue in those days 🙂
Other thing wife noticed was that all her friends were not 100% happy. The single ones were – with their Facebook and Twitter accounts and trips abroad (no baggage, you see) – but the married ones were not happy.School pressure, food safety and prices, housing (even though I read it’s tickety boo from the pro-Chinese commentators, the actual people living there bitch like crazy about house prices). A few of my wife’s friends are thinking of emigrating…following the plane loads of Chinese who have (China and the CCP are always much better when you’re not living there, eh?).
China is, in fact, like the UK I left. Yeah, bloody rosy on paper…must be, the government tells us it is (I left years before we slipped into the Great Resession) 😉 But for people on the ground….
What was it that TV bloke said?

“If nobody can be safe, do we still want this speed?… Can the roads we travel on in our cities not collapse? Can we travel in safe trains? And if and when a major accident does happen, can we not be in a hurry to bury the trains?

“China, please slow down. If you’re too fast, you may leave the souls of your people behind,”

Yeah, China’s going great guns – just….well, seems if you scratch the surface, people arent’ happy. The shit is being papered over and ignored, just like it had been for decades in England. I dare say it won’t be long before the Brits can wrap up those Chinese “I told you so” messages and send them back…

I also see another Tibetan monk doesnt appreciate all that the CCP has done for them…. http://blogs.voanews.com/breaking-news/2011/08/15/tibetan-monk-self-immolates-in-china-protest/

August 16, 2011 @ 6:07 am | Comment

To Richard,
Through intermediaries, I’ve read examples of Custer ( and Kai pan) taking those guys to school intellectually and in logic, and it is definitely amusing.

I saw an interview with Juan Williams on Jon Stewart a few weeks back, where he extolled about the virtues of listening to the ” other side”, even if you find them disagreeable. I guess you are putting that principle into practice. Must admit I have not yet attained that state if mind, although Williams made a compelling argument.

August 16, 2011 @ 6:51 am | Comment

The mechanisms on HH are that predictable that I don’t need to read there any more. Have to agree with Cheung’s earlier comment – even taking part in a discussion there amounts to an unnecessary lot of attention. Besides, no matter how much they may be “taken to school”, don’t expect them to even notice that. Anyway – chacun à son gout.

August 16, 2011 @ 2:25 pm | Comment

Hey JR, “to each his own” is a favourite phrase of mine. I guess yours is the French version.

August 16, 2011 @ 2:35 pm | Comment

I read HH, but I don’t comment there unless there’s something disprovable using Chinese government statistics – any other sources are rejected, and opinions (even the written opinions of government officials) are ignored as unrepresentative in all cases that conflict with their own. In fact even Chinese government statistics themselve become (gasp) potentially inaccurate and unreliable in the view of the HH-ites when they support an alternate interpretation of the facts to their own.

I came to this after two main experiences:

1) The PRC 60th anniversary celebrations in 2009, where Dewang criticised the “western media” as biased for describing the PLA soldiers as “goose-stepping” during the parade. This despite the fact that a) the soldiers clearly were goose-stepping, b) there is no other meaningful way of describing what they were doing in English, and c) even Xinhua described their march in these terms. None of these arguments were accepted.

2) A long argument in which the HH crew maintained that Liu Xiaobo had been convicted of spying for/colluding with foreign powers. This despite the fact that a) he was not charged under any of the Chinese laws directed towards these specific crimes (spying, inciting subversion in collusion with foreigners), and b) that the acts of which he was convicted were ‘inciting subversion’ by publishing articles on the internet. Quite simply, the entire HH crew insisted, in total lack of any evidence, that Liu was a foreign agent and had been convicted as such – no argument would dent their moronic certainty of this ‘fact’.

August 16, 2011 @ 10:38 pm | Comment

To foarp:
Given the proclivities of the hh crew while they were at fm, I would not expect them to allow factual information to get in the way of their opinions. They have elevated selective reading, selective logic, and the selective use of facts, to an art form. Besides, they have long been practitioners of the edict of first coming up with their conclusions, then selecting only those facts which purportedly support them, while disregarding all else. It seems little has changed. That should surprise no one.

August 16, 2011 @ 11:43 pm | Comment

Math died yesterday evening at the New York Presbyterian Hospital. He has been undergoing successful treatment for esophocal cancer in the last 2 months, and finally lost his battle. His family and friends were at his bed side when he passed away. The People’s Daily overseas bureau and Chiense consulate in New York has sent notes of condolences. He was a great online writer, and never eased his work even in his most painful illness period. Even during his last moments he refused to stop writing. We will all miss him dearly.

His writing will be continued by me.

August 17, 2011 @ 11:39 am | Comment

If Math is really dead, I give you my condolences. Bizarre as he was, I always found him amusing and a good writer. May I ask, who are you, and what was your relationship with Math? And now that Math is dead, could you please tell us more about him, what he did, what he was like? This is a sincere request — I would really like to know. Thanks, and once again, I am sorry for your loss of a friend.

August 17, 2011 @ 1:12 pm | Comment

@The Clock

You’re funny, man.

August 17, 2011 @ 1:29 pm | Comment

Sorry about the death of the man and condolences his family, but do China and the world a favor and do not continue his writing. China’s image deserves (somewhat) better than what the 50-centers, fenqing, Hidden Hamonizers, pug_sters, Red Stars and all those of that ilk are publishing in its name. Instead, seek truth from FACTS.

August 17, 2011 @ 9:19 pm | Comment

to his family

August 17, 2011 @ 9:31 pm | Comment

With just a little sleuthing Math could easily be identified. Anyone up to the challenge?

August 18, 2011 @ 6:33 am | Comment

@Canrun – Well, normally I would be up for a bit of detective work – it’s not to different to some of the things I do with companies in my job. In this case, however, we’re talking about a dead man. Have some respect for Christ’s sake.

August 18, 2011 @ 6:39 am | Comment

FOARP
I came to this after two main experiences:

In China it’s “goose-stepping”, anywhere else it’d be “marching”, no matter how solid the semantics are. Surprisingly, usage and tone matters.

Likewise for the second, what he was charged with is irrelevant. Not that I agree with their theories (or know enough to care).

August 19, 2011 @ 3:57 am | Comment

“In this case, however, we’re talking about a dead man. Have some respect for Christ’s sake.”

You say that with quite a bit of certainty. Also, it’s not like Math ever had any respect for Richard or his site.

August 19, 2011 @ 4:53 am | Comment

Well, he did make it his home among all the China blogs. What an honor.

August 19, 2011 @ 5:03 am | Comment

“In China it’s “goose-stepping”, anywhere else it’d be “marching””

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goose_step

A goose step is a goose step is a goose step, no matter how you try and rename it. Has been since the 18th century.

Math dead, eh? Sad, will miss his misinformed and factually incorrect rambling…

August 19, 2011 @ 6:35 am | Comment

To 56:

Actually, goose-stepping is one form of “marching”. It’s just a more descriptive term for the type of marching. If another army in another country did a goose-step march, that could also be described as goose-stepping. If the hh crew chose to ascribe some extra connotation to it, well, we know the hh crew will do what the hh crew does.

“what he was charged with is irrelevant”
—pardon? Guilty as charged is one thing. Now Liu is guilty of what he wasn’t charged with? I guess the hh crew just elevated themselves to being prosecutor, judge, and jury…in china….all the while living in the us of a. Man, they are quite something.

August 19, 2011 @ 7:30 am | Comment

@SKC – The best of it is that at least one of the HH crew works for Uncle Sam.

August 30, 2011 @ 3:33 am | Comment