Oh, grow up already.

China’s government said it won’t send any representatives to tomorrow’s funeral of Pope John Paul II and said Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian’s planned trip to the Vatican is a separatist move.

“Under current circumstances, China won’t send representatives to the Vatican,: Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said today at a regular press briefing in Beijing.

The Chinese government has expressed its “strong dissatisfaction”to the Vatican and to Italy for issuing Chen’s visa, Qin said.

Qin said the country’s relations with the Vatican won’t improve until the Holy See switches diplomatic recognition to the mainland, urging concrete measures to be taken instead of creating “new obstacles.”

So they want the Vatican to recognize the PRC and not Taiwan. And what will induce the Vatican to make such a decision? What is there that will endear the the Mainland to them? I don’t know, but it certainly won’t be stories like this. (Read the third paragraph and wince. Bastards.)

Could be. The unnamed source claims they expect some 20,000 demonstrators, though I don’t know how well that will go down with the authorities.

Angry Chinese Blogger is certainly outspoken and I don’t always agree with him. But he does a great job shedding light on the supression of freedom and I encourage you to vote for him here.

Beijingers are being told to stay indoors as yellow smog enshrouds the city.

People in Beijing were warned to stay indoors as the Chinese capital was shrouded in yellow smog with pollution reaching dangerous levels.

“Under these polluted conditions, we propose that the majority of citizens reduce their time outdoors and avoid breathing this seriously polluted air,” the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau said in a warning posted on its website.

Beijing’s air quality has been at the lowest level for the past two days with the air “seriously polluted,” the bureau said.

Experts said the capital was experiencing a heat inversion, where warmer air in the atmosphere was keeping the colder ground air in place, making it difficult for the pollution to disperse, the bureau said.

Meanwhile warmer spring temperatures in the city also meant that work at construction sites has increased, further kicking up dust that is mixing with the ever-increasing auto pollution.

And I want to go back?? (Yeah, I really do.)

If the topic interests you, this is an absolutely must-read article. I am quite amazed at how good it is, considering the source.

Hard to believe.

Florida’s legislature has approved a bill that would give residents the right to open fire against anyone they perceive as a threat in public, instead of having to try to avoid a conflict as under prevailing law.

Outraged opponents say the law will encourage Floridians to open fire first and ask questions later, fostering a sort of statewide Wild West shootout mentality. Supporters argue that criminals will think twice if they believe they are likely to be promptly shot when they assault someone.

Republican Governor Jeb Bush, who has said he plans to sign the bill, says it is “a good, commonsense, anti-crime issue.”

Current state law allows residents to “shoot to kill if their property, such as their home or car, is invaded by an unknown assailant.”

But it also states that if a resident is confronted or threatened in a public place, he or she must first try to avoid the confrontation or flee before taking any violent step in self defense against an assailant.

The bill, supported by the influential National Rifle Association, was approved by both houses of the Republican-run legislature on Tuesday.

“Minutemen” in Arizona and freedom to blast away in public places in Florida…. I’m scared to ask what’s next.

This is certainly something of a shocker, coming from ueber-Catholic Andrew Sullivan.

Last night on Hardball, I said what I think needs to be said. Under John Paul II (and his predecessors), the Roman Catholic church presided over the rape and molestation of thousands of children and teenagers. Under John Paul II, the church at first did all it could to protect its own and to impugn and threaten the victims of this abuse. Rome never acknowledged, let alone take responsibility for, the scale of the moral betrayal. I was staggered to see Cardinal Bernard Law holding press conferences in Rome this week, and appearing on television next to the man who announced the Pope’s death. But that was the central reaction of the late Pope to this scandal: he sided with the perpetrators, because they were integral to his maintenance of power. When you hear about this Pope’s compassion, his concern for the victims of society, his love of children, it’s important to recall that when it came to walking the walk in his own life and with his own responsibility, he walked away. He all but ignored his church’s violation of the most basic morality – that you don’t use the prestige of the church to rape innocent children. Here was a man who lectured American married couples that they could not take the pill, who told committed gay couples that they were part of an “ideology of evil,” but acquiesced and covered up the rape of minors. When truth met power, John Paul II chose truth. When truth met his power, John Paul II defended his own prerogatives at the expense of the innocent. Many have forgotten. That’s not an option for the victims of this clerical criminality.

I’m not endorsing this viewpoint, necessarily. I always held the Pope in high regard, though I disagreed strongly with his rigid conservatism. But it is definitely food for thought.

It’s called Rogue State and it sounds fantastic.

Becker presents a well-fed, unprepossessing Kim Jong Il running North Korea with a cult of personality unmatched in contemporary history, reducing his population to starving anonymous actors in a bizarre personal psychodrama, where “even the mere idea of internal opposition to Kim’s rule is regarded as preposterous.” Images of this grim state of affairs—which goes well beyond the Orwellian into the Kafkaesque—have been smuggled out over the past few years; how they came to be is described with rare concision by Becker: the Kim dynasty’s poisonous and potent blend of Stalinist doctrine and Korean absolutism found its catalysts, he argues, in the varying ambitions of Japan, China and the U.S. While stopping short of calling for immediate regime change, Becker minces no words in warning that we may now have no way out of a monstrous situation.

It’s on my list.

Tian of Hanzi Smatter fame has been meeting with me once a week after work to help with my “Chinese” (in quotes because what I’m speaking is hardly Chinese yet) and we’re hoping to get more people involved. If you’re in the area and want to improve your Putonghua speaking and reading skills, please send me an e-mail. Tian is a great teacher, and these “classes” are a lot of fun.

These books sound terribly radical to me, and we have to congratulate our Thought Police leaders for protecting us from evil propaganda.

Two books on Sino-Japanese history and modern political relations have been pulled from shelves in China for undisclosed reasons, after selling about 50,000 copies apiece.
“Ambiguity’s Neighborhood” and “Iron and Plough,” both by author Yu Jie, disappeared from major bookstores in late December after four months of normal circulation, Yu said this week.

In the runup to the annual National People’s Congress plenary session that began March 5, independent booksellers were also told to stop selling it, Yu’s Beijing distributor said Wednesday.

Yu, 32, argues in “Ambiguity’s Neighborhood” that Chinese should learn more about modern Japan before saying they “hate” the people — common parlance for today’s younger generation influenced by anti-Japan media reports and school texts that discuss Japan’s 1931-1945 conquest of China.

“The two countries are so close, so this hate, this lack of understanding, doesn’t help at all,” Yu said, citing “arrogance” for the lack of more understanding. “Chinese people should understand the situation before they criticize it.”

If that’s not dangerous, evil, harmony-destroying propaganda, what is? As long as books like this are available to the Chinese masses, none of us is safe. Thank God they’ve been banned.

Via ACB.