Our goal is not to copy Chinabounder in any shape or form. And if you want “nuggets of insight into life in China,” go to real blogs about china like Shenzhen Undercover or Ben’s Blog at http://www.benross.net/wordpress/.

Our goal is to talk about the things that no one else is talking about. As much as food recalls and environmental issues are very-China right now, so are sex, drugs and rock & roll.

September 2, 2007 @ 5:15 pm | Comment

Symptomatic of China’s rise: the foreigners here used to be the weird, fishbelly-pale types who were really into the place and the language. Now that China is in the middle of its glorious resurgence (I saw one article claiming that it was the greatest time in Chinese history since the Tang dynasty), there are more and more carpetbaggers and fratboys coming over. Ho-hum.

September 2, 2007 @ 5:18 pm | Comment

Yeah, I know and believe me, I admire you. What could be more “China right now” than this? You sure won me over!

I can see why you like Ben’s blog, with its focus on hair. (Actually, I enjoy it, too, at least in moderate doses.)

September 2, 2007 @ 5:20 pm | Comment

Thanks for saying it all with both economy and catchy turn of phrase, Brendan.

September 2, 2007 @ 5:24 pm | Comment

Wow, I can see the banner headlines in the newspapers now: “CHINESE WOMEN HAVE VAGINAS, OCCASIONALLY ENJOY SEX.” This is serious Christopher Columbus territory here.

Though the post on pubic hair did remind me of one of my favorite lines from ChouChou over on Sinocidal, though: “The only bald cunt that ever existed in Chinese history was Chiang Kai Shek.”

September 2, 2007 @ 5:32 pm | Comment

work hard, play hard.

And FYI, pussy hair was written by Drama.

September 2, 2007 @ 6:01 pm | Comment

Um…

…Richard?

I have finally been defeated. What appears on that blog is beyond even my preternatural powers to satirise.

It’s SO f—ing stupid that it’s not even worth making fun of. It’s a metastasised self-parody, yet unintentionally so.

“You’re pretty cool, Beavis. Huh-huh, huh.”

“Shut up, Butthead! Or I’ll bust your head!”

“You said, ‘bust’. Huh-huh, you’re pretty cool, Beavis.”

September 2, 2007 @ 6:17 pm | Comment

The jaw-droppingly self-parodic blogger wrote:

“Our goal is to talk about the things that no one else is talking about. As much as food recalls and environmental issues are very-China right now, so are sex, drugs and rock & roll.”

Well, if you follow that line of reasoning a fortiori, you’re leaving out OTHER “things that no one else is talking about” – in fact, some things they’re talking about even LESS than sex drugs etc. Like, maybe you could write some blog posts on “wiping your ass in China”, or on “how I picked my nose in China.” Yeah man, that would be REAL avante garde, “extreme shit”, man…

September 2, 2007 @ 6:30 pm | Comment

Are they trying to clean house to appear less authoritarian, or is it just another instance of some sadistic bureaucrat fucking with our heads?

nah, they’re just fucking with us.

September 2, 2007 @ 7:01 pm | Comment

They’re definitely fucking with us. This stuff has been accessible and inaccessible at random for quite a while.

I’m in Wuhan and I can’t get google images, wikipedia, feedburner, new york times, and a whole heap of Linux websites (I have no idea why). The whole ‘reason’ for censoring the net (porn) is alive and well at my end with hardly anything blocked! Yay!

September 2, 2007 @ 7:26 pm | Comment

A picture is worth a thousand words:

http://www.avforums.com/dvdreviews/images/BeavisAndButthead/BeavisS1R1_3.jpg

September 2, 2007 @ 8:09 pm | Comment

“Like, maybe you could write some blog posts on “wiping your ass in China”, or on “how I picked my nose in China.” Yeah man, that would be REAL avante garde, “extreme shit”, man…”

First off who said anything about trying to be avant garde? Secondly, sex sells. Talk all you want about politics or economics, but everyone can relate to sex (except Ivan).

Everyone sounds like a bunch of haters

September 2, 2007 @ 9:14 pm | Comment

Completely in agreement with Ivan’s analysis. I wouldn’t sit in a bar allowing myself to listen to such juvenile tripe (with that Joe College-boy American accent to boot), let alone actively seek out the site to read it. Sure sex sells, but what is what is the object here? And I was just reading about what Orwell would make of the Internet… Just hope they aren’t here teaching kids.

September 2, 2007 @ 9:45 pm | Comment

“Yah know like, that chick? She let me touch her thingies.”

“You’re pretty cool, Beavis.”

“Sex sells?” Well I guess there’s some truth in that, but the 10 yr old kind of puerile junk you’re selling isn’t sex; it’s more akin to preadolescent boys giggling as they point to pictures of naked women in “National Geographic.”

September 2, 2007 @ 11:44 pm | Comment

That’s us, Drama – all hate all the time. Look, you put up Porky’s-style posts about Chinese women’s pubic hair and you’re surprised that people are reacting? If you want to post crap like that on a public blog you’d better thicken your skin and prepare for a degree of well-deserved ridicule.

Meanwhile, I see your site meter jumped from 9 yesterday to nearly 80 today so far. This is your 15 minutes – enjoy it while you can! Meanwhile, I wouldn’t recommend posting your address, phone number or last name in any of your posts. Maybe Chinabounder isn’t your mentor, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see people in your host country getting upset the same way they did with him.

Thanks for the priceless Chiang Kai Shek joke, Brendan.

September 2, 2007 @ 11:48 pm | Comment

We really appreciate your help for our 15 minutes, but I think our 2000+ hits on chinalyst already has that honor.

It’s great how some words about sex causes so much emotion. we love it. keep it coming.

September 3, 2007 @ 5:19 am | Comment

I didn’t say the traffic was from me – I think you’re getting more hits from a BBS. Enjoy it. I just marveled that foreigners would come here and put up posts with that kind of title. It’s your right to do it and more power to you. Personally It just brings back memories…

September 3, 2007 @ 9:09 am | Comment

being a fellow resident of Shenzhen like the oh so original “drama” and “turtle”, I’ve yet to decide if I want to buy these guys a drink, punch them in the face, or just point and laught at their idiocy….possibly all 3…

September 3, 2007 @ 11:42 am | Comment

b.cheng said, “I’ve yet to decide if I want to buy these guys a drink, punch them in the face, or just point and laught at their idiocy….possibly all 3…”

Better still, I’d prefer to ignore them. Thanks for the link. But no thanks I will not honour them with a visit. No traffic from me, I’m afraid.

I have a very good reason for boycotting Porky’s-style posts like this one: they give the CCP a perfect excuse to exercse tighter Internet control. Sex sells, but at what cost?

September 3, 2007 @ 1:11 pm | Comment

“It’s great how some words about sex causes so much emotion”

First of all it’s not “emotion” you’re causing; it’s contempt, which is not an emotion.

Second of all, you’re not really writing about “sex”.
What you write on that circle-jerk-blog has as much to do with “sex” as a three-year-old boy running around naked in front of his house with a newly discovered erection, shouting “pee-pee big! pee-pee big!” in front of all the neighbours.

September 3, 2007 @ 2:54 pm | Comment

And I agree with Fat Cat about just ignoring them after pointing out why they should be ignored.

Let’s change the subject of this thread to something more important, like, “How Ivan Plans to Escape When His Puppie Turns Into A Zombie”. (This has already happened a few times, usually after I mix the wrong proportions of vodka and cannabis).
After making this “Zombie Run” a few times I drew a map of my escape route, here:

http://mapsforus.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/zombieescape.jpg

September 3, 2007 @ 3:11 pm | Comment

Blogspot, Typepad, AND Wikipedia are working all at the same time? Wow- the holy trifecta of the censorship nanny. Alas, here in Kunming I’m getting only Typepad. Wikipedia stopped working a couple days ago and Blogspot has been blocked for months.

At least with Wikipedia wiped out I’ll save hours of productive time. There should be a term for the habit of going to Wikipedia to search one specific entry and finding oneself lost for an hour just clicking on links. Sounds like a good topic for the Word Court column in Atlantic magazine.

Seriously, though, does anyone have the slightest idea of how the firewalling works? The randomness of it all truly baffles me.

September 3, 2007 @ 4:51 pm | Comment

Oh, the Confessions site seems pretty tame- I doubt it’ll cause the uproar the Chinabounder one will. By the way, when will Vince and E and Ari start contributing? Or does the Entourage thing only go so far?

September 3, 2007 @ 4:57 pm | Comment

My vodka-addled dog chases pussy too:

http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/6/6f/180px-Billthecat.jpg

September 3, 2007 @ 8:04 pm | Comment

@Ivan: have you tried to make him reflect on himself, write a few pages of self-criticism and correct his thought – like what they used to do in the good old Mao’s days? It works a trick for my little golden monster.

P.S. no matter what happens, refrain from giving him any human food (and I mean HUMAN literally). It would be a big mistake. Be warned.

September 3, 2007 @ 8:16 pm | Comment

Its good to hear that more and more websites are being permitted by the Government. Whatever may be the reason behind it now there should not be any restrictions applied again to the same.

September 3, 2007 @ 11:37 pm | Comment

criteria: dont believe that the CCP actually cares about a moral society or peace or anything like that, if the site seems and embarassment or somehow makes them look bad, they will close it down, and dont believe that there is some kind of just system of precedence where if the CCP says something, it will follow it.

If this site is just making people stupider, the CCP wil quite encourage it, though, in this case, other countries will not approve so easily so it will be scared of losing face… Neve think the CCP is a legitimate government since whatever they do its to prop themsleves up and make sure they keep the lie alive.

September 4, 2007 @ 2:59 am | Comment

Three main reasons why sometimes you cannot access certain sites in China:

1) Faulty internet connection, DSL and other broadband access is not as wide-spread in China as in the West. Lots of places in China still use dial-up, and those connections are prone to frequent disconnects. And sometimes ISP’s have monthly data usage caps, so sometimes you may have reached the the limit, so just wait till next month

2) Busy traffic. Certain popular sites such as yahoo or google frequently experience down times due to their popularity. This happens more frequently in China due to the larger number of internet users in China and limited bandwidth. This situation should improve after 2008.

3) Pornographic website. Chinese laws forbid websites that contain pornographic pictures and videos from being operated.

September 4, 2007 @ 4:05 am | Comment

Crab Meat, that may be just abou the dumbest comment I have ever seen. Maybe whenever CNN does a story on Taiwan’s independence movement the TV blacks out for precisely the length of the news segment due to a bad power connection. Please tell us you’re joking? Please?

September 4, 2007 @ 9:18 am | Comment

Imitation Crab Meat, stop drinking the lead paint. It’s not good for you. As for Beavis and Butthead… made me feel quite ill, but live and let live.

September 4, 2007 @ 9:24 am | Comment

“Crab meat”,

You remind me of how he CCP propaganda department piss on people while telling them it’s raining. “This isn’t piss! It’s rain with Chinese characteristics.”

September 4, 2007 @ 10:51 am | Comment

What evidence do you have that China exercises Internet censorship? Yes, there are sites that may not be accessible from China. Usually they are due to technical reasons. Other times, the site may host content that is illegal under Chinese law, such as terrorism, pornography, etc. This is simply Internet regulation and is done in accordance with Chinese laws. In the United States and Europe, there is also such Internet regulation. For example, a forum devoted to Al Qaeda will not be accessible from the US. A pro-Nazi site will not be accessible from Germany. I think there needs to be more mutual understanding of the situation before jumping to hasty conclusions and prevent certain people with ulterior motives from politicizing this issue.

September 4, 2007 @ 11:25 am | Comment

Imitation Crabmeat, you get the prize for having the most thoroughly scrubbed cerebrum of any commenter here, ever; they have effectively exfoliated the last remaining cells of gray matter lingering in your skull, and I’m delighted to award you your new official handle: Smooth Brain.

What evidence do you have that China exercises Internet censorship?

What evidence do I have that the sun will rise tomorrow? I guess it’s just a coincidence that for years all blogspot sites were inaccessible. That all livejournal sites are inaccessible. That most BBC sites are inaccessible. That all Falun Gong sites are inaccessible. Blame it on your dial-up connection, or server overload, which miraculously occurs only on sites critical of the Party. “Hasty conclusions,” indeed.

What did they use to erase your critical thinking, Smooth Brain? Steel wool? A blowtorch? Whatever it was, they did a splendid job.

September 4, 2007 @ 12:00 pm | Comment

@crab,

What’s pornographic, terroristic, or technically problematic about BBC News? Or American political weblogs such as Eschaton, which rarely if ever discuss China? Or for that matter, my aunt’s G-rated updates about her children and her dog on her blogspot blog?

You are demonstrably, provably wrong.

September 4, 2007 @ 12:06 pm | Comment

What evidence do you have that China exercises Internet censorship?

ICB: ditto to what Richard said, what did they erase your brain with? Its not that China’s internet blocking is an educated guess, they admit that they block the internet freely and publicly and are not ashamed of this.

September 4, 2007 @ 12:09 pm | Comment

Again, I am asking for evidence, and yet I have received none. If Chinese internet censorship is true as you say, it should be fairly easy to produce evidence demonstrating this.

I think we are talking about two distinct things here. One is censorship, which is blocking certain sites due to editorial or political content and suppression of freedom of speech. The other is internet regulation, which is enforcing existing laws that govern the flow of information on the Internet. The first is an example of the suppression of freedom of speech, which is guaranteed under the Chinese constitution. The second is the legitimate enforcement of a country’s domestic laws, and is practiced everywhere by every government. I think you are either unclear about the difference between these two, or are deliberately trying to confound these two.

September 4, 2007 @ 12:18 pm | Comment

I’m speechless.

File that under whatever distinct thing you’d like.

September 4, 2007 @ 12:21 pm | Comment

Evidence:

http://news.bbc.co.uk is inaccessible in China and has been for at least the two years I’ve been here.

It is neither pornographic, nor terroristic, nor is there anything currently wrong with my Internet connection as evidenced by the fact that I am accessing this Website.

The site is censored. Not allowed. Call it regulation. Put a dress on it and call it Suzy.

Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt, dude.

September 4, 2007 @ 12:29 pm | Comment

Smooth Brain, you are a piece of work. Why not ask me for evidence that water is wet? (Which you would probably do if the CCP told you water is dry.)

September 4, 2007 @ 12:41 pm | Comment

Of course I am not in China currently and therefore cannot verify it, perhaps something to do with your ISP?

But I am certain that BBC, CNN, etc are very familiar to Chinese audiences. Many Chinese newscasts borrow footages and reports from these networks, and often have their journalists appear on many programs on CCTV. Chinese citizens have been open to news carried by BBC for over a decade.

September 4, 2007 @ 12:41 pm | Comment

Now you’re just having a laugh, but your ignorance is showing.

September 4, 2007 @ 12:45 pm | Comment

I have a suggestion. Take “Crab’s” reasoning at face value and apply the same standards to him as he says China does to the BBC: All you have to do is allow him to say SOME things here, and you can claim you are “carrying” his comments and making some readers “familiar with” his comments.

So, go ahead and censor delete everything Crab posts here EXCEPT anything that you think makes TPD look good, or anything just you happen to like, like if he talks about kittens and ice cream and Soong Zuyin or your preferred hot babe.

Then you can say you are “carrying” his comments.

September 4, 2007 @ 1:07 pm | Comment

The writers on this site call themselves “Turtle” and “Drama,” obviously named after two of the characters on the excellent (and funny) HBO show, Entourage. As an Entourage fan, I resent these guys using the names. Their blog just isn’t funny, or anything else for that matter either.

September 4, 2007 @ 3:22 pm | Comment

And the guys on Entourage rarely have sex, actually. Except Vince, and sometimes E.

September 4, 2007 @ 3:31 pm | Comment

I just figured it out – Crab Meathead is the old troll “Hello.” IP addresses are wonderful things.

CLB, totally agree with you – I only linked to them because I was amazed at their chutzpah. Their readership will drop back to where it belongs in a couple days. I.e., zero.

September 4, 2007 @ 3:41 pm | Comment

What, those meatheads are in Shenzhen? Just great.

Hello, “hello”.

It’s foo far up the thread, but MANY thanks for “rain with Chinese characteristics”. That one’s gonna stick with me a long time.

September 4, 2007 @ 6:20 pm | Comment

Sam, now just imagine a CCTV gala event with a new twist on this old song:

“I’m singing in the rain, just singing in the rain…”

And a further thought about “cat’s” phrase, “live and let live”: Well generally I agree with that principle, but the problem here is that these guys are NOT just “doing their own thing”. They’re doing their thing in public (regardless of whether they’re anonymous, it’s still a public matter.)
And what they’re doing might tend to have deleterious effects on the lives of other expats in China (of whom I am no longer one), by reinforcing the (to some extent justified) stereotype of Western males in China being ignorant uncultured boors and buffoons who exploit and degrade the local women.

This raises one of the strongest arguments against extreme libertarian defenses of pornography, the defense that pornography is just a “private” matter because no one is forced to look at it. But it’s not just private, because the degraded, coarsened society toward whose decay it contributes, is something others do NOT have the “choice” to avoid. Similarly here, what these guys are doing in public in China (“in public” meaning on the internet) has potential, and perhaps probable, effects on other expats in China, who don’t have the “choice” to avoid those effects.

“Live and let live?” Sure, as long as you keep your disgusting practices private. (As they said in Edwardian England, “just don’t frighten the horses”.) But just as – even in an open society like England – just as one would be crossing the line and violating the boundaries of others by describing one’s sexual practices in Hyde Park, these guys are doing the same on the internet’s equivalent of “Speakers’ Corner”. Even if we choose not to listen, we can’t avoid living in the more coarsened society which those practices create.

“Anything goes” sexually between consenting adults? Yep, I agree, that should be the rule and the law. But if you broadcast what you’re doing in public, then you’re violating the boundaries of others. Hell, even Senator Craig had the decency to keep his sexual practices confined to a private stall in the loo; I have no objection to that, but if he had blogged about it, that would be another matter.

So, now some might ask, “Ivan, are you in favour of some censorship?” Yes I am. So is the US Supreme Court, which has consistently said POLITICAL expression warrants the highest protection, while publishing matters whose only purpose is prurient interest warrants little or no protection. The First Amendment’s purpose is to protect political liberty, not to talk about “chasing pussy”. And Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin (two rather accomplished pussy-chasers!) would spin around in their graves if they thought their revolution and bill of rights would someday be hijacked as justifications to blog about pussy-hair.

September 4, 2007 @ 7:38 pm | Comment

@ Hello/Crab Meat, the sheer mental energy that you must put into maintaining this denial of the obvious is most likely taxing, tiring and ultimately frustrating, and may even result in you feeling alienated from your peers. I just hope you eventually realize there’s no need to feel ashamed or upset, tense or spiteful over the fact that Chinese authorities censor the internet; in fact it might help for you to consider the growing amount of evidence which proves that the internet in China is indeed rigorously censored and in that light, reconfigure your arguments.

Because you seem to have not put much time into familiarizing yourself with the counterargument to that which you claim, I’m only going to offer two examples to that cause:

1) The home finance open-source software which blogger Yetaai developed, available to be freely downloaded on a website he himself designed, was hosted on an overseas server which he was able to determine was blocked by a router located within China Telecom. That the website was inaccessible was notarized according to standard Chinese legal procedure.

2) Evidence of an example of Chinese state infringement upon freedom of speech was brought to light recently with the surfacing of a Chinese police document issued to e-mail provider Yahoo! requesting the login information and e-mail content for journalist Shi Tao.

@ TPD, I know we’re supposed to ignore trolls, my bad for breaking the rule, but I had this half-written before I saw that it was in fact the troll “Hello”.

September 4, 2007 @ 8:03 pm | Comment

PS, I want to distinguish my above comment from any suggestion that openness about sexual orientation should be banned. Sexual orientation is a totally different issue. If, for example, two lesbians make it known in public that they consider themselves to be “life partners” (or in a civil union, or marriage), I see no harm done to the public, and in fact perhaps a bit of GOOD done for the public – promoting stable families and all that. In my estimation, far more harm has been done to the public interest and to “traditional values”, and especially to children, by a 50 percent divorce rate among straights, than by lifelong partnerships among gays. Similarly, to me, a public acknowledgement of being gay is – or ought to be – morally and politically neutral, as neutral as my declaring that I find Grace Jones (the bizarre Afro-Jamaican beauty) to be more beautiful than Zhang Ziyi (hideous, to me anyway.)

But if two lesbians started blogging about their escapades (real or fantasised) in “chasing pussy”, I’d say that’s another matter. And so is what these two guys,
“Beavis and Butthead in China” (public fantasists), are doing. What 90 percent of gays do in private is immeasurably more dignified, more decent and more respectful of the private rights of others, than what those two putative “straight” boys are doing on their blog (and, me suspects, on their monitor….masturbatory college-boy sperm making their monitors all sticky, EWWWW!)

September 4, 2007 @ 9:01 pm | Comment

Feng, thanks for providing irrefutable evidence; it’s just a pity that Crab was yanking everyone’s chain.

Ivan, once more, you’ve gotten me to think about something n a different way, even if I don’t necessarily agree with you on it.

So should pornography be banned, and how do we measure what is and isn’t pornographic? (And apologies in advance if that sends the thread in a whole new direction.)

September 4, 2007 @ 9:03 pm | Comment

“Their blog just isn’t funny, or anything else for that matter either”

I agree entirely they deserve DOS attacks or even IP attacks at there home base or even an official bann from the Chinese goverment to get the frigg out.

English is the most dumbfounded language to learn on the face of the earth for anybody.

If this guy is making a living in China being a English teacher may he be smithed for the useless subject he teaches.

Also duh everything has been explored in China and other places as well. It is just about your main intrest in China or any other country that you have intrest in.

Like right now China is where all the action is. If you wanted to live in one of the last real countries on the face of this planet with a little zing then head to China.

The video has no respect at all and should be burnt into little tiny pieces that is the size of there westerner brains.

They should just go back to Amerika or whatever
dorky judome they came from and continue to be wraped in there countries flag.

September 4, 2007 @ 9:12 pm | Comment

Richard, first of all, as I’ve said above, this thread OUGHT to go in a whole new direction.

So, you asked,

“So should pornography be banned, and how do we measure what is and isn’t pornographic?”

I prefer to err on the side of more civil liberty rather than less, so I would prefer to avoid strict legal definitions of pornography; although, we already have some very strict laws against child pornography, as we should.

Some judgment is always called for, in ALL legal interpretations and applications, on a case by case basis. This is unavoidable. Consider: as
the US Supreme Court says “fighting words” are NOT protected by the Constitution – for example, if someone says to me in a bar in Manhattan, “Ivan, all Catholics deserve to die!” – well, no US Court would call that “protected speech”. But if someone said, “Ivan, I think Catholics suck”, that would be protected. There are no absolute “measurements” to define this rule once and for all time; some judgement is always required.

The only alternative to delegating SOME scope of personal, responsible judgment to the courts in interpreting the laws, is anarchy. There is no way around this, and no simple solution.

September 4, 2007 @ 9:24 pm | Comment

So it sounds like you’re saying the system we have in the US at the moment is the best we can hope for. If so, I tend to agree. Not perfect, but what is? It’s all just a series of compromises…

Elijah, I think most of would tend to agree with your assesment.

And now, I’m afraid I have to disappear for about 15 -20 hours, apologies.

September 4, 2007 @ 10:01 pm | Comment

I don’t know why some of you are still obsessed about an issue that is already pretty clear to me. I’ll just say it again, and this will be my last word on this issue. US and China basically have identical legislative objectives and principles with regard to Internet regulation. Internet is a macrocosm of our society. There are many things in society that are prohibited by laws: such as theft, robbery, murder, slander, hate speech, littering, etc. Similarly, there exists a parallel set of laws governing the Internet, and this is the case in China, as is the case in the United States, in Japan, in France, in Germany, etc, etc.

September 5, 2007 @ 3:27 am | Comment

Crab Meathead is just baiting us. Don’t waste your time with him. You could crank his head right up at a blue sky and he would swear it was pink if the CCP told him to.

There is a point where debate is useless. I envoke my 4 point plan for dealing with people who have TRULY dangerous ideas, ideology and points of view (as opposed to self-serving morally bankrupt classification of “dangerous” that he CCP uses to label anyone who disagrees with it). Groups like Nazis, the Chinese Communist Party and so on. Here they are again if you haven’t seen them before:

1. ignore them. (what we should do here)

2. expose them for what they are (already been done here).

3. imprison them ( response to the zealot’s attempt to destroy civil society)

4. kill them (people have the right to use deadly force against those defend themselves against zealots who would kill them or take what is theirs)

September 5, 2007 @ 8:46 am | Comment

“Groups like Nazis, the Chinese Communist Party”

You’re forgetting neocon loons and pro-direct election morons, they should be launched into the sun. Or I wonder how many kilowatt hours you could get throwing them into a furnace?

September 5, 2007 @ 9:02 am | Comment

5. Give them a variation of the “Clockwork Orange” treatment, forcing them to watch CCTV nonstop for 48 hour shifts. That would make the isolation cell at Devil’s Island look like Disneyland.

September 5, 2007 @ 10:50 am | Comment

that’s a waste of time and resources.

September 5, 2007 @ 10:56 am | Comment

Ferins said, “You’re forgetting neocon loons and pro-direct election morons, they should be launched into the sun.”

I am wondering why a self-proclaimed “pan-blue Taiwanese” would have a grudge against those who are claiming their right to “direct election” under the Basic Law. Once again, Ferins is showing his true colours.

6. Offer them to Armin Meiwes. Together they can fully satisfy their “appetite” for online sexual fantasies.

September 5, 2007 @ 1:09 pm | Comment

5.a, as a variation of the Clockwork Orange treatment, blindfold them and force them to listen to Kenny G for 48 hour shifts.

As an intensified punishment, replace Kenny G with any typical Mainland Chinese “Christmas” song blaring over and over again in the malls and restaurants, a Communist Princess making her recording “debut” singing some government authorised Christmas lyrics like:

“May your Santa
Go down very happy,
It can be very convenient!
Happy is everywhere
Christmas is bonze
Santa make heaven,
Go down, Santa!
Go down on me!”

September 5, 2007 @ 2:16 pm | Comment

claiming their right to “direct election”

There’s no such thing as a god-given right to elect leaders. Dumb people and assholes shouldn’t be allowed to vote, like minors, the mentally retarded, and houseplants.

But who likes common sense anyway?

September 5, 2007 @ 2:40 pm | Comment

Why hasn’t anyone linked crab meat to this study:

http://www.opennetinitiative.net/studies/china/

It is pretty clear that internet censorship in the PRC is very real and applies to more than just pornographic websites.

However, this is a pretty typical situation, honestly. I’ve had to gently inform a number of Chinese friends that the reason that they can’t access Blogspot is more than just a bad internet connection.

September 5, 2007 @ 2:45 pm | Comment

Here’s Santa’s message to those two Beavis-And-Butthead-in-China-bloggers:

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/56321

September 5, 2007 @ 3:11 pm | Comment

I really like the way Ferins tries to circumnavigate a Freudian slip every time he is caught blowing his cover. Now he is pretending that he doesn’t understand anything about direct election under the Basic Law.

Unfortunately he is so dumb that he blew it again as he’s trying to cover his tail. Here is the evidence. Ferins said, “There’s no such thing as a god-given right to elect leaders …”. Did I say that “direct election” has anything to do with “electing leaders”? What is that “alternative Taiwanese perspective” that Ferins is trying to present?

Check mate again, Imposter Ferins.

September 5, 2007 @ 6:49 pm | Comment

Fat Cat,

Isn’t YOUR (IQ of over 170, sophisticated cosmopolitan Western scholar of Chinese descent) – ah, isn’t YOUR “checkmating” ferins equivalent to something like me shooting a cockroach with my well-oiled antique Luger (German Army pistol circa 1944) ?

September 5, 2007 @ 8:30 pm | Comment

Interesting read. Thanks for the story..

September 5, 2007 @ 10:57 pm | Comment

OK, thread exhausted. How about the next comical China boondoggle:
“Corrupt Chinese official plagiarizes apology speech”
http://tinyurl.com/2y6cxp

If you made this shit up nobody would believe you.

September 5, 2007 @ 11:34 pm | Comment

“Did I say that “direct election” has anything to do with “electing leaders”?”

I never questioned the legality of direct elections. More straw man. Rather, the concept is irrational and idealistic.

Arguing the Basic Law as infallible is like accepting the status quo in China resulting from non-adherence or arbitrary changes to the Constitution.

But if you’re going to derail threads in an attempt to discredit me even a single time, try to fling less poo and perhaps argue better than a third grader.

Back on topic:

1) Kilz the dictattor and al the problums wil be fix’d! HURRAH

September 6, 2007 @ 8:14 am | Comment

IQ of over 170

I’m guessing this is ratio IQ, and not Stanford-Binet, Raven’s Progressive Matrices or WAIS.

September 6, 2007 @ 8:15 am | Comment

Richard, I know you have a generous policy toward trolls and disruptors and CCP shills, and you don’t ban them unless they really go overboard earning that distinction.

However, you do have one very solid rule which you’ve always enforced: You don’t allow people to
use multiple identities or to impersonate others.

Now, isn’t that what ferins is doing, in effect? He’s a CCP shill impersonating a Taiwanese. How long are you going to put up with this?

September 6, 2007 @ 9:56 am | Comment

Ill just cut and paste a part from the end of the study cited above by Dana, but you know the likes of cmeat will insist that 1. the CCP is great glorious and correct and is doing the best job by blocking all those “terrorists” and 2. that the university’s of Toronto, Cambridge and HArvard are conspiring against poor China. Ayayay!

The OpenNet Initiative is a collaborative partnership between three leading academic institutions: the Citizen Lab at the Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto; the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School; and the Advanced Network Research Group at the Cambridge Security Programme (Centre for International Studies) at the University of Cambridge. As with all OpenNet Initiative work, these reports represent a large team effort. The work of principal investigators Jonathan L. Zittrain and John G. Palfrey, Jr. on this research report was made possible by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Research and Writing Grants Program of the Program on Global Security and Sustainability. ONI thanks Che Dong, Alana Maurushat, Rebecca Vaughn, Nongji Zhang, and several anonymous volunteers for contributing key research to this study.

Of course I realize better than anyone that cmeat is a paid agent, it’s so obvious, ever heard of the United Front works department, well, its working on YOU. But what I was going to say is that although he is such a scoundrel, hes still a person, and like Richard said, his brain has been scrubbed clean, so I just don’t think ignoring him is very nice.

September 6, 2007 @ 11:02 am | Comment

meat,

The Communist Party’s evolving principles have largely contradicted one another. From the idea of a global integration transcending the nation-state to today’s extreme nationalism, from eliminating all private ownership and all exploitative classes to today’s notion of promoting capitalists to join the party, yesterday’s principles have become reversed in today’s politics, with further change expected tomorrow. No matter how often the CCP changes its principles, the goal remains clear: ————-gaining and maintaining power, and sustaining absolute control of the society.—————

In the history of the CCP, there have been more than a dozen movements that are “life and death” struggles. In reality, all of these struggles have coincided with the transfer of power following changes of basic Party principles.

Every change in principles has come from an inevitable crisis faced by the CCP, threatening its legitimacy and survival. Whether it be collaborating with the Kuomintang Party, a pro-US foreign policy, economic reform and market expansion, or promoting nationalism—each of these decisions occurred at a moment of crisis, and all had to do with gaining or solidifying power. Every cycle of a group suffering persecution followed by reversal of that persecution has been connected with changes in the basic principles of the CCP.

-Nine Commentaries

The CCP alters the constitution when it wants, when it wants to gain some logevity by doing so. So cmeat, when you say that the CCP screwing with what information people are allowed to be aware of is based on some kind of law -wake up, the “law” in China follows the selfish desires of the party, so don’t act like you have the same kind of justice system based on morality that the West has, under the Western system of justice based on morality, the CCP would be totally nailed.

September 6, 2007 @ 11:23 am | Comment

Now, isn’t that what ferins is doing, in effect? He’s a CCP shill impersonating a Taiwanese. How long are you going to put up with this?

Yes, I’m sure the CCP hires a troll for every blog. So who’s paranoid and irrational again? It would be you guys 😉 richard should be able to check where I’m posting from, anyway.

September 6, 2007 @ 1:41 pm | Comment

Every change in principles has come from an inevitable crisis faced by the CCP, threatening its legitimacy and survival. Whether it be collaborating with the Kuomintang Party, a pro-US foreign policy, economic reform and market expansion, or promoting nationalism—each of these decisions occurred at a moment of crisis, and all had to do with gaining or solidifying power. Every cycle of a group suffering persecution followed by reversal of that persecution has been connected with changes in the basic principles of the CCP.

Yes, but they’ve also been gradually forced to make more and more concessions to the citizens. Some of them realize that reforms are necessary or they will be axed. Cooperation with the KMT, economic reform, market expansion and promoting nationalism are all good things. Because these steps make them less and less like Mao era officials. I don’t share the worry you have, I guess, because it seems like the CCP is pretty much killing itself off slowly.

Of course I realize better than anyone that cmeat is a paid agent

oh yes, they’re all paid agents sent by “the regime” and pekingduck.org is the last hope for humanity and China!! you can’t win this one mr. snow, and not even the great master of falun gong can save you. /cackle

September 6, 2007 @ 1:52 pm | Comment

“Yes, I’m sure the CCP hires a troll for every blog”

Maybe not, but in the China blogosphere, this blog is number one. If any China-related blog were certain to attract attention from the CCP monitors, it would be this one.

Unless you expect us to believe the CCP are fierce defenders of civil liberty who would never do such a thing as monitoring blogs or, um, arresting bloggers who piss them off…. If Richard were a PRC national instead of American, this blog would have led to his imprisonment and probable torture long ago. Well, they don’t do that to Westerners blogging in English – but they sure as hell don’t turn a blind eye either.

September 6, 2007 @ 3:07 pm | Comment

Maybe not, but in the China blogosphere, this blog is number one.

Is it really?

September 6, 2007 @ 8:25 pm | Comment

I’m sure Crab Meat and his ilk (I’m sure Ivan can suggest other personae) can wax lyrically about the 1936 Soviet Constitution drafted by Stalin. It provided far more freedom than anything any country in the West ever dreamed up.

September 6, 2007 @ 9:40 pm | Comment

ferins,

the CCP is slowly killing itself, but how to you think that will transpire? And, isn’t it good to talk about it since as it goes down it drags others into it’s “regimey” web of bad air, bad food, evil torture, censorship, incidious propaganda, threatenning… That’s my concern, it’s that as it goes down, for some reason people less observant than you, see it going up, and those people kiss their butts (people like cmeat)

I don’t think those propaganda mentioned above make the CCP less maoish, its just a different face on the same game. Before it was brainwashed drone style Maoism, now its the same replaced by nationalism (CCP style) by the way Chinas drones are not nationalists, they are CCP brainwashed under the mask of nationalism, they really dont think much about the real nation of China…

Anyway, Im in a rush so I didnt take the time I should to say what I wanted to say, but… Ill post this for now and hope I can say something more clear later…

September 6, 2007 @ 10:12 pm | Comment

“Crab Meat and his ilk (I’m sure Ivan can suggest other personae)”

How about housefly maggots?

September 6, 2007 @ 10:50 pm | Comment

the CCP is slowly killing itself, but how to you think that will transpire?

If reformers within the CCP start picking off warhawks and ultraconservatives it’ll give them more room to act on their “promises”. Though I’m skeptical, that makes them just about as good as any other lying, two-faced garbage politician rather than genocidal plutocrats. So, it’s a move in the right direction. We’ll watch and see, and meanwhile I do what I can to help Chinese people cope.

its just a different face on the same game.

I notice that Red Guards aren’t butchering people and there aren’t any more “Great Leaps” into economic stupidity. So regardless of what you say, yes, it’s still better than Mao. That’s REALLY not saying much, but it’s still true.

September 7, 2007 @ 6:17 am | Comment

I notice that Red Guards aren’t butchering people and there aren’t any more “Great Leaps” into economic stupidity. So regardless of what you say, yes, it’s still better than Mao. That’s REALLY not saying much, but it’s still true.

you notice? What is noticed in Chinais largely not what is, so you “noticing” that red guards arent butchering people doesn’t count for much. One can passively notice in China that Chinese people all think the same thing “the party is necessary” but thats just crap, its not true and I dont think i need to tell you this.

They arent named red guards now, but they pulled the same violent brutal act on the people of tiananmen, 1989, they do it to people who speak free, they do it to Falun Gong people, they do it to Christians, Tibetans etc… They want to be accepted by the world now so they arent as flamboyant as in Mao time, but like I said, same game different appearance. The point was and is to terrorize the people into ultimate spritual submission, total brainwashing, or brutal punishment. Their tactic now is changed to putting on a face and commiting the atrocities secretly and forcing people to hush up about it. Its just that they want to be accepted by the world now, so they changed the appearance.

As for economic stupidity, how about total and rapid destruction of the natural habitat? Making everything poison? I would consider that even stupider than that stupid stuff Mao cooked up. And that is saying ALOT!

September 8, 2007 @ 5:46 am | Comment

“As for economic stupidity, how about total and rapid destruction of the natural habitat? Making everything poison? I would consider that even stupider than that stupid stuff Mao cooked up. And that is saying ALOT!”

None of us are experts in environmental science or environmental engineering. Stop making assertions without factual backing. Your use of the term “stupid stuff” in describing Mao’s policies indicates your low scholastic level…..

Censorship in China is a relatively low key issue compared to many of the other more important issues. Chiefly, the rearmament of Japan, relations with the US, trade with the US, Iran, North Korea, various infrastructure improvement projects, and of course the Olympics. Many people characterize Chinese laws as draconian and sing the cries of “freedom” for the plight of the Chinese people. Here’s some insight: the Chinese people don’t care about you. Many people refer to China in the premise that a minority are somehow capable of enslaving and brainwashing a 1 billion strong majority. Think about that. For the people who believe Chinese nationalism (and in particular, nationalism against Japan) is a product of CCP brainwashing, then it would behoove you to review WWII history and East Asian history in general. I’m sure the CCP censors BBC News, Wikipedia, and “Candy’s XXX House”. My message to you: There are much worse issues on this planet…….

I don’t know enough about Falun Gong to characterize them as a cult or not. I will say this: Every country has different laws, many of which are based on the country’s past philosophical views. Citing John Locke, Nietzche, Hobbes, or anything regarding Basic Law or Basic Rights only applies to the context in which those philosophies were propounded. First, they are philosophers. Second, a civilization is not more “backwards” than another civilization simply because freedom of religion is not honored. Context is important.

For anybody to say that the Chinese people have been brainwashed by the CCP is to hold the people themselves in a condescending view. If you make a claim, then the burden of proof is on you. Show me, with numbers, that the Chinese people are brainwashed by the CCP.

Claiming somebody is a puppet of the CCP simply because they present views different from yours reflects poorly on your credibility. This only attacks the person, and not their argument.

September 9, 2007 @ 12:54 pm | Comment