Richard, what’s up with that series of pro-China posts below? Is your conscience slowly waking up? Has the CCP sent agents to pay you off? Or are you just trying to draw back more readers by being less anti-China?

February 1, 2006 @ 12:10 pm | Comment

Oh Good God. Alright, much as I abhor acknowledging China Hand’s existence, I’ll volunteer to clean up the shit he just wrote here:

1. None of Richard’s posts are categorically “pro-China” or “anti-China”. We’ve all been over this a thousand time, of how analysing a country’s problems is not hostility, and appreciating a country’s good qualities is not the same thing as mindless nationalism.

2. Richard has a conscience, a stronger one than most. That is, among other things, why he criticises his own country’s problems so passionately.

3. What’s this you say about CCP agents paying people off? DO tell more!

4. He doesn’t need to “draw back” readers. If you look at the site metre, his average number of number per day is over 1,900, and the total number of visits just this week is over 13,000. So, China-Hand, just which readers are you talking about him “drawing back?”

February 1, 2006 @ 12:50 pm | Comment

Thanks Ivan.

CH, the last thing I worry about is drawing readers. I write about whatever strikes me as newsworthy. The CCP hasn’t committed any barbarities today, or at least none that have been reported, but when they do, I’ll cover that, too.

February 1, 2006 @ 1:40 pm | Comment

I’ll agree with Ivan. Rich is every bit as critical of the US as he is with China.

CH, and my commie friends. Please evaluate people’s comments by their logical worth and reason, RATHER than the author’s skin color, nationality, or whatever your estimate of his or her intentions.

CH, you’re the best hope for this because Math is obviously mentally unstable, albeit interesting, and Xin is probably masturbating right now.

February 1, 2006 @ 1:50 pm | Comment

Skystreaker,

HAHAHAHAHAHA! (You literally made me spit all over my screen.)

February 1, 2006 @ 2:08 pm | Comment

…I mean, I can just imagine him chanting rythmically, which his fist goes up and down:

“lololololololololololoooOOOOOH…”

(Richard, I won’t feel slighted if you delete that. Just couldn’t resist.)

February 1, 2006 @ 2:14 pm | Comment

Ivan wrote:
“3. What’s this you say about CCP agents paying people off? DO tell more!”

As far as I know, there are some ex-chinese living in america and getting paid by CIA to do all anti-china things.

I wish I got paid by posting my loyalty comments here. No chance. 🙁

February 1, 2006 @ 4:53 pm | Comment

Two chinese girls just won a gold medal in australian tennis game.

After that, one of american reporter said “they have to do this to show their loyalty to CCP”

Sounds like chinese won the game for a different purpose.

I am just wondering what attitude he/she was having.

February 1, 2006 @ 4:58 pm | Comment

Xin, They’re great little tennis players and they look just as spirited as the photo on top of this thread.

February 1, 2006 @ 5:12 pm | Comment

Skystreaker,
I think masturbating means “you are actually unable to find real f**k so you can only expect have the same feeling at home.”

You can say during culture revolution, china is masturbating, not now. lol

I will focus on china instead of america for all my post. So, no one is masturbating! 🙂

Ivan,
Were you just describing how you do that? lol

February 1, 2006 @ 7:45 pm | Comment

On the Theather Politics of America and the Academic Politics of China

This post will invent two new terms. It’s ok, because this forum is for people with too much time on their hands anyway.

One term is “theater politics”. Theater politics views politics as a theater, and all politicians are actors on the theater. Some are good actors, others are bad ones.

The other term is “academic politics”. It treats politics as an academic discipline, and all policies are derived from scientific reasoning. This post will try to say that academic politics is advanced and theater politics is backward. And all human societies should strive for academic politics.

First, I believe that a politician of theater politics is usually very glib and a very good rhetorician, because he/she is raised in the culture of “theater”, and is trained to be a good actor. It’s very rare that a western politician does not know what to say in front of a camera, they always have very smooth and glib answers.

But Communist officials like in China or North Korea often get stuck on camera because of a lack of smooth words. And as a result, they try to avoid things like press conferences and debates. And many people make fun of them, saying they are “wooden”, “old”, “rigid”, etc. etc.

I myself actually prefer the style of the latter ones. It is an indication that they are members of “academic politics” and therefore are not trained in the art of “linguistic smoothness”. If they are also trained in it, they will be just as glib. For a rhetorician, it’s very easy to construct a convincing answer to any question, is it not?

In fact, in theater politics, all politicians have things like speeches and debates. I always throw trash at those things. How can you get honest and true information from a speech or debate? How is a speech’s script any more honest or informative than a movie’s script? A speech is an entertainment just like a movie, if you take it seriously and hope to base your decisions on speeches, you are crazy.

Imagine what will happen if that “theater” is applied to other areas, like say in medicine. What happens if a doctor promises his patient, in very dramatic words, that he has a cure for his disease, even if he knows that disease is uncurable. Then suddenly, every doctor is confident in curing everything, just like every candidate in an election is confident he’ll make things better. What a fake world that would be!

You’ve never seen a candidate say “I have no solution for this, and I will not be as good as the incumbent in solving that problem”. Why does no candidate ever say things like that? Do you really believe they really have solutions? I myself of course do not.

In fact, if there’s a candidate who comes up and says “I may not have a solution for this problem, and the current president is doing a very good job in this area and I’ll continue his policies. and I don’t know if I’ll be a good president, so you don’t have to vote for me if you don’t want to.” If someone says those things in an election, I’ll surely surely vote for him.

China’s politics is an “academic politics”, that is, it does not emphasize making scripted speeches or photo-ops or ads. It focuses on the actual details of policy-making, and treat it as a science. You don’t see scientists come out and make speeches promising they’ll discover new theories, do you?

In conclusion, there’s no need for China to abandon its advanced “academic politics” and follow the rather backward “theater poltics” of America, Canada or Europe.

February 1, 2006 @ 7:54 pm | Comment

On the Theather Politics of America and the Academic Politics of China

Just looking at your comment, I find flaws.

Academic communities are based on discourse of vital issues. There is no such thing in China. The last one I knew of was the 100 flowers campaign and the democracy wall that is now essentially defunct.

February 1, 2006 @ 8:01 pm | Comment

Math wrote:
“But Communist officials like in China or North Korea”

Please do understand, we are different from N Korea. I am not concerned anything about N Korea and their horrible soceity.

February 1, 2006 @ 8:02 pm | Comment

“But Communist officials like in China or in North Korea often get stuck on camera because of a lack of smooth words.”

AH! I get it! If you’re incapable of any kind of spontaneous, articulate statement, it means you’re a political genius! By that reasoning, GW Bush is the smartest f—-ing leader in all of world history.

February 1, 2006 @ 8:34 pm | Comment

Enough. Enough. The sane ones among us have to do something about this:

Math, will you PLEASE just get laid?
How much to prostitutes cost out where you are? If we all take up a collection and pay for a prostitute for you, so that you can lose your virginity, will you PLEASE finally just go out and have sex, and then come back to us after you can say something coherent?

February 1, 2006 @ 8:47 pm | Comment

>>CH, and my commie friends. Please evaluate people’s comments by their logical worth and reason, RATHER than the author’s skin color, nationality, or whatever your estimate of his or her intentions.

You are truly asking the impossible.

February 1, 2006 @ 9:42 pm | Comment

Guys,
check this out.

http://web.wenxuecity.com/BBSView.php?SubID=currentevent&MsgID=126019

very amusing.

February 1, 2006 @ 10:58 pm | Comment

Math is engaging in Orwellian doublethink. Communists regularly seize and abuse certain words as part of their mind control efforts. “Correct thinking” has nothing to do with right or wrong, it’s just agreeing with whatever the party says. “Liberation” doesn’t mean the restoration of freedom in the communist lexicon, it means conquest by totolitarian dictators. Communists are exceptionally good at “liberating” people from a free press, the right to choose their leaders and the ability to stay out of jail for stating your mind.

In his post, Math is twisting the definition of politics into the service of the brutal totolitarian any thinking man or woman despises. The real definition of politics is the process by which people interact and negotiate to get what they want and acheive mutually benificial goals. All politics is “theatrical,” by Math’s definition, in it’s emphasis on persuasion. Politics that lacks this emphasis on persuasion and debate is inherently undemocratic. Math’s “Academic Politics” lacks derides the give and take process of public debate, and critisizm is just another term for totolitarian dictatorship.

Call things what they are. Truly good ideas don’t have to hide behind twisted vocabulary.

February 2, 2006 @ 12:32 am | Comment

Iron Buddha,
An excellent, well-argued and cleanly logical post. Also one that is no doubt completely wasted on the person it is meant for.
If anyone is ever able to get the CCP apologists to directly address the issues brought before them instead of hiding behind code-speak and/or changing the subject (i.e. Xin’s diatribe about bodily fluids) I would be very surprised.

February 2, 2006 @ 6:25 am | Comment

Well said Budda, Yixi.

February 2, 2006 @ 7:50 am | Comment

wonder how many commies still think a la Carl Marx that profit = exploitation.

February 2, 2006 @ 8:03 am | Comment

Iron Buddha,

Of course, you know what the omnibus, prefabricated response to your comment will be – chattered out in metallica tones like a mechanical parrot:

“You don’t understand China”

Because, you see, China is a MAGICAL place, where 2 plus 2 equals whatever the National Bureau of Statistics wants it to….

February 2, 2006 @ 8:43 am | Comment

You know, sometimes I feel like I could argue the CCP position better than some of the commies I’ve encountered.

February 2, 2006 @ 9:49 am | Comment

Stolen from Simon’s World:

The New Risk From China: Deflation
Could China, the driver of global inflation in commodities such as crude oil and iron ore, be looking at domestic deflation in 2006?

Deflation effectively took Japan out of the global economy for more than a decade, slowing global growth and increasing global economic volatility. Serious deflation in China has the potential to be a lot more dangerous. At its least damaging, it would flood the world’s markets with even cheaper Chinese goods. At the worst it could stall the Chinese economy, a major driver of global growth, and even send the country into one of its periods of instability.

http://tinyurl.com/cdejd

February 2, 2006 @ 1:16 pm | Comment

You’re making a fundamental mistake in believing that Math means anything he says. You can’t argue with someone who doesn’t believe in their own arguments.

February 2, 2006 @ 4:31 pm | Comment

Anybody wanna take bets on how long it will be before France surrenders?

Foreign journalists, diplomats and aid workers began leaving Gaza as gunmen there threatened to kidnap citizens of France, Norway, Denmark and Germany unless those governments apologize for the cartoon.

Gunmen in the West Bank city of Nablus entered four hotels to search for foreigners to abduct and warned their owners not to host guests from several European countries. Gunmen said they were also searching apartments in Nablus for Europeans.

February 2, 2006 @ 7:32 pm | Comment

It’s a freakin cartoon man. These guys should freakin calm down.

February 2, 2006 @ 9:25 pm | Comment

CARTOON?

Oh, YEAH!

Any cartoonists here, are invited to email me. I am a cartoonist, among other professions. I have two postgraduate degrees in silly things like Law. But I am MOST proud of my being a published cartoonist!

Any of our readers who know what I mean when I refer to the “Yellow Kid”, or to Nemo, or if you know what a “wash” is, or if you love the Schmoo, or if you love Hoff (who was a mentor for many cartoonists of my generation)… email me, if you really know what I’m talking about.

Email me if you know the Yellow Kid.
And if you know how how a cigar is the same thing as a pen, how and why is a cigar like a pen? All Capp knew! 🙂 (Al Capp, Father of the SCHMOO, who gave and gave…. )

🙂 🙂 :-),. from Ivan the hidden cartoonist of TPD…… 🙂

Cartoons, cartoons – the indigenous American art form Roger Rabbit is the ideal icon of all that is best in America. Cartoons, cartoons and humor, will save the world……. 🙂

Roger Rabbit: “PllbbbbsslEEASE, don’t you want to LAUGH?……”
….the American deam at its best….
……:-) 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

February 2, 2006 @ 9:59 pm | Comment

Dear TPD,

I am PASShttjhionatly OFFTHEENDED by that last remark from Ivan!

How DARE you, you sffttffffUPDID Americans and you pfffffaaatTHETICAL Chinese, how DARE you try to tell any of usthhh, that LAUGHING might be the way for all of you thhhhssssTUPID Humans to get together?

As for ME, I am a DUCK! And my nationality ittth DUCKdome!

Ducks! DUCthhhsspps, are the centre of the UNIVERthhhss!

Not China. Not America. DUCKS!
DUCKS are the next rulers offf the WORLD!

And I thsspppppppppITT on all of you, who do not see, that we DUCKS will rule the world. Becauthe, we DUCKS have the highest rise of GDP in the world! “GROSS DUCK PRODUCT!”

WOO HOO! WOO HOO! WOO HOO!

Sincerely yours,
Daffy Duck

February 2, 2006 @ 10:10 pm | Comment

Dear TPD,

Please listen carefully to what my Son, Daffy Duck, said in his last comment. He made more sense than any Human has made in the last 2,000 years, ever since my son Jesus was laughed at by everyone.

Sincerely yours,
God

PS, please be nice to each other. That’s all I ever asked of you.
G.

February 2, 2006 @ 10:17 pm | Comment

Ivan, have you been taking the same thing that Math or Xin is on? 🙂

February 2, 2006 @ 10:55 pm | Comment

Don’t forget the “suFFering succkatish”

February 2, 2006 @ 10:56 pm | Comment

Skystreaker,

Now you have reminded me of,
“HR Puffinstuff…”

February 3, 2006 @ 1:04 am | Comment

Strange what an effect some little cartoons can have. More strange even is that those radicals squating in EU-offices in Gaza and burning Danish flags only confirm some of the things the cartoons were aiming at.
Interesting how it all began:
http://tinyurl.com/8xw2t

February 3, 2006 @ 3:57 am | Comment

There is something I don’t get in the entire story. When Salman Rushdie produced some sentences in a book that was not even considered among his best, he was placed under a fatwa by the Iranian ayatollahs and had to go into hiding for a decade. Now, according to the article posted by Shulan there is some Pakistan obscure group offering a let’s say symbolic reward of 7000 EUR. to do something unclear, but there IS an economic boycott of Danish, Norvegian, French … products spreading through the Middle East. Is that nowadays the way to show you are offended in your religious beliefs (then the times sure they are a’ changin), or could there be something we are missing in the total picture ? To keep the link with our beloved China: could there be a “black hand” orchestrating some things ? I don’t know whom to point the finger to, but I have some uncomfortable feeling that we are not being told the entire story.

February 3, 2006 @ 5:12 am | Comment

Well, the Hizbollah-leader Hassan Nasrallah said in an Iranian radio broadcast that if there would have been someone ready to kill Rushdie those cartoons never would have been posted. And furthermore he said that he is sure that there will be millions of Moslems willing to sacrifice there lives to defend the honor of the prophet Mohammed.

February 3, 2006 @ 5:38 am | Comment

“but there IS an economic boycott of Danish, Norvegian, French … products spreading through the Middle East.”

Do they eat a lot of havarti cheese, pickled herring and truffles in that part of the world?

February 3, 2006 @ 6:25 am | Comment

In this day and age, it is truely sad that thousands of people get so pissed off because of some childish drawings. Yeah, I know it’s the prophet and everything, but come on. Don’t they have anything better to do?

February 3, 2006 @ 8:13 am | Comment

I would disagree. I believe that while Muslims don’t have legitimate reasons to dislike these cartoons, their imams do… because they challenge the legitimacy of their authority (that Mohammed is as peace-loving and perfect as befits a Divine Prophet.) Consequently, they would naturally incite their followers by activitating the ethnophobic propaganda instilled into them in order to inoculate them from the truth–that Mohammed was not really all that peaceful (he conquered Arabia in 4 months and all of the Middle East in 5 years.)

However, I don’t have any moral outrage at this, because I never tie morality into politics and government. Makes my life so much happier.

February 3, 2006 @ 12:37 pm | Comment

Legos too. I think that Legos come from Denmark. I don’t know what else they export. Blonde people who ride bicycles mostly.

February 3, 2006 @ 3:46 pm | Comment

Mohammed was nothing more than a pirate.

February 3, 2006 @ 8:46 pm | Comment

This whole cartoon episode is laughable. However, if al Jezeera ran a cartoon of Jesus molesting children (i.e., muslim -> terrorist:: catholic->pederast — that was an analogy on my SAT), I’m sure Pat Robertson and his drones would have a conniption and start calling for [ass][ass]inations (again). Obviously, the response in the muslim world has been more extreme and widespread than it would be in the Christian world. I don’t doubt that. But these fundamentalists on both sides will be the death of us all.

February 3, 2006 @ 10:26 pm | Comment

Looks to me more like a clash between political systems at different stages of development. To a typical European country, freedom of speech trumps almost everything. but to people living in many Arab countries, it is hard to undestand how a strong gov’t can have so little control (or responsibility) over what its citizens say (or draw, in this case).

Not much different from the objections to that film “Geisha”, is it?

Beat the drums, fan the heat, fan the hate.

February 4, 2006 @ 1:01 am | Comment

Its a fucking cartoon man, and wasn’t even expressed by a head of state. Get past the 18th century already.

BTW, what are the details on the commie/Geisha row? Who started the hate on this one?

February 4, 2006 @ 1:51 am | Comment

I think a few of you are being a little too smug about the putative superiority and tolerance of OUR splendid Western civilisation vis-a-vis the Muslim hordes.

There was an interesting discussion of this in today’s Guardian where one commentator, Gary Younge, pointed out that our culture is not necessarily more tolerant:

‘In January 2002 the New Statesman published a front page displaying a shimmering golden Star of David impaling a union flag, with the words “A kosher conspiracy?” The cover was widely and rightly condemned as anti-semitic. It’s not difficult to see why. It played into vile stereotypes of money-grabbing Jewish cabals out to undermine the country they live in. Some put it down to a lapse of editorial judgment. But many saw it not as an aberration but part of a trend – one more broadside in an attack on Jews from the liberal left.

A group calling itself Action Against Anti-Semitism marched into the Statesman’s offices, demanding a printed apology. One eventually followed. The then editor, Peter Wilby, later confessed that he had not appreciated “the historic sensitivities” of Britain’s Jews. I do not remember talk of a clash of civilisations in which Jewish values were inconsistent with the western traditions of freedom of speech or democracy. Nor do I recall editors across Europe rushing to reprint the cover in solidarity.”

… Freedom of the press has never been sacrosanct in the west. Last year Ireland banned the film Boy Eats Girl because of graphic suicide scenes; Madonna’s book Sex was unbanned there only in 2004. American schoolboards routinely ban the works of Alice Walker, JK Rowling and JD Salinger. Such measures should be opposed, but not in a manner that condemns all Catholics or Protestants for being inherently intolerant or incapable of understanding satire.

Even as this debate rages, David Irving sits in jail in Austria charged with Holocaust denial for a speech he made 17 years ago; the Muslim cleric Abu Hamza is on trial in London for inciting racial hatred; and a retrial has been ordered for the BNP {British extrem rightwing] leader, Nick Griffin, on the same charges….

As a result [Muslims] are vilified twice: once through the cartoon, and again for exercising their democratic right to protest. The inflammatory response to their protest reminds me of the quote from Steve Biko, the South African black nationalist: “Not only are whites kicking us; they are telling us how to react to being kicked.’

February 4, 2006 @ 5:26 am | Comment

@sojourner
You are making some good points here. Freedom of expression has it’s limits also in the West. Calls for recial hatred are one Most of the cartoons in this danish newspaper weren’t very funny (allthoug one I think was very much) and espacially the one with mohammed wearing a bomb insted of a turban is controversial.
The key question for me are not so much these particular cartoons but the question if it is allowed in general to draw mohammed. If the answer is no, then there goes freedom of expression. Welcome back to the middle ages.

February 4, 2006 @ 6:31 am | Comment

The irony here is that just last week the right-wing noise machine, egged on by Michelle Malkin (of course), went ballistic over a cartoon of a wounded soldier, which, they shrieked (wrongly), showed disrespect of “our boys.” (The cartoon was underscoring the plight of our wounded soldiers and the government’s failure to protect and support them.) Malkin now takes the hypocritical stand that in the case of the Muslim cartoons, it was “just a cartoon.” Go figure.

February 4, 2006 @ 9:33 am | Comment

I have only seen the turban-bomb cartoon. Apparently it was part of a series? What was the point that the newspaper was trying to make with this cartoon? It doesn’t seem as though there is any political message or editorial content to the cartoon. Insult is not political commentary.

February 4, 2006 @ 9:38 am | Comment

Check the earlier link above. The cartoons were, ironically, for a children’s book.

February 4, 2006 @ 9:43 am | Comment

http://tinyurl.com/bblws

A certain country seems to be generally well-regarded around the world, contrary to the attitude of some of its neighbours…….

February 5, 2006 @ 3:46 am | Comment

Looks like he’s just seen a laowai!

February 5, 2006 @ 5:07 am | Comment

this is great:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,,1697368,00.html

February 5, 2006 @ 5:40 pm | Comment

Regarding this cartoon incident, I can only quote the words of Gorky, “Let the storm rage louder!!”

Tonight, I’m an Arab.

February 5, 2006 @ 7:37 pm | Comment

Ah, right, China Hand. Tonight you’re an Arab. But I think what you MEAN is, “tonight I’m a Muslim” – because a hell of a lot of Arabs are Christians. (You didn’t know that, did you.)

So you’re a Muslim tonight, China Hand. Good. Now what are you going to do on behalf of the Uighurs who aren’t allowed to practice their own religion freely?

February 5, 2006 @ 8:05 pm | Comment

Ivan, you are right, I should say I am a Muslim tonight. And from the perspective of Muslims, I would of course help the Uighurs in their fight for independence for a “Dong Tu” state.

February 5, 2006 @ 8:40 pm | Comment

China Hand,

If you’re a Muslim then you must pray for the abolition of the Communist Party, who are sworn enemies of all religion.

February 5, 2006 @ 10:37 pm | Comment

Also, China Hand:

Calling yourself a “Muslim” is something which REAL Muslims do NOT TAKE LIGHTLY!

That is to say, that in Islam, once you call yourself a Muslim, you are not allowed to stop being one. The penalty for leaving the Islamic religion is death.

So, congratulations, China Hand. You are now a Muslim for life, under pain of death if you ever change your mind.

Now go and do the good Muslim thing, and start fighting against the Communist Party dictatorship.

February 5, 2006 @ 10:43 pm | Comment

Ivan why do you always bait other people on this site? Don’t you have a life? All you do is to lower the tone of discussion, bringing it down to the sewer level with all your nastiness and petty insults and stuff.

February 5, 2006 @ 10:52 pm | Comment

Roland,

Think before you comment. Go down to the Brokeback Mountain thread and see how I replied to China Hand’s question.

And then scroll a bit lower to my guest post on Pre-emption, and tell me how the way I wrote it “lowers the tone.” It was posted at Richard’s request and with his approval, by the way.

And as far as my above criticisms of China Hand calling himself a “Muslim” – ah, THAT kind of comment is what lowers the tone. Calling yourself a Muslim just for show, is ridiculous AND it’s offensive to Muslims.

I don’t suffer fools gladly. Deal with it. And meanwhile, go and read what I’ve posted below.

February 5, 2006 @ 11:38 pm | Comment

Ivan, nobody is asking you to suffer fools lightly but often you do use cheap language to insult others, and your methods is often to belittle people with sexual references like you did a few open threads ago and claiming to be a muslim just for show is ridiculous but so is claiming to be an aritocratic lawyer or Russian English decent.

February 5, 2006 @ 11:54 pm | Comment

Roland,

You’re a shill for someone who is hostile to Richard. I just did some research, googled your name alongside the other guy, and I found you bashing Richard’s site just like that other creep did.

I will refrain from mentioning the website here (the one where I found you bashing Richard) because Richard has asked us all never to mention that man’s name. But everyone here will know who I mean.

And I notified Richard about this, and it will be up to him if he wants to share the info.

“Roland”, you’re a fake and you’re playing games. You tipped me off when you mentioned ACB and someone else in the thread below.

February 6, 2006 @ 12:07 am | Comment

Ivan, just to prove my point, here is a passage i plucked from one of the open threads below that you wrote addressed to China-Hand:

“And your grammar sucks too, China-Hand – your English is ridiculous – so, that’s one more reason why you should just go away and shoot yourself. Or at least stop polluting this blog with all of your bullshit. If you “can’t take it”, then why don’t you just fuck off and dance around in front of a mirror with your Little Red Book?”

I could easily pluck many more comments like this from you but you get my drift I think. comments like this are nasty and childish and not necessary and as i say above they lower the tone of this site into the levels of the sewer.

February 6, 2006 @ 12:08 am | Comment

Ivan I have never bashed Richard’s site. Show me where! You’re a liar and I find that very disturbing. Prove it to me. Where hasve i ever bashed richard’s site, and how?

February 6, 2006 @ 12:10 am | Comment

This whole cartoon thing is so ridiculous it makes me want to throw up. Muslims! You can make all their governments authoritarian, erect societies with little or no economic growth, curtail learning, expression, art, literature, travel…..and they have nothing to say….but if you draw an unfunny cartoon of Mohammed, they threaten you with violence on a global scale. This whole thing is just the usual manipulation by the usual “black hands” who want to keep Muslims in chains of ignorance and authoritarianism by diverting their anger onto foreigners.

Michael

February 6, 2006 @ 2:39 am | Comment

Spot on Michael Turton. couldn’t agree with you more!

February 6, 2006 @ 2:47 am | Comment

Maybe the kid is Korean.

February 6, 2006 @ 6:15 am | Comment

Roland,

You will not bait me into telling you where the site is, where I found you bashing Richard.

I have sent it to him. He knows. That is all that matters.

And Richard, of all people, will be the first one to defend me against what you have said about me here, roland.

February 6, 2006 @ 7:25 am | Comment

http://tinyurl.com/bblws

A certain country seems to be generally well-regarded around the world, contrary to the attitude of some of its neighbours…….

Thanks, Raj, that was quite interesting, I strongly recommend a look!

After living in China a while, it was especially refreshing to read about that “certain nation’s” popularity all over the globe. Should be a HUGE surprise to many Chinese …

February 6, 2006 @ 7:32 am | Comment

Ivan:

As a Chinese-Ameircan, Xin can mastubrate in both Mandarin and English. I am also told that he can do it with both capatalist and socialist overtones.

Sound painful, doesn’t it.

February 6, 2006 @ 9:49 am | Comment

Help me out on what Chinese citizens can do with their savings. I read about “capital controls” and occasionally note bloggers claim that Chinese small investors are keen to get higher rates of interest overseas. Since the U.S. Federal Reserve published a study that rates could be as much as 1.5% higher without foreign buying, I am trying to investigate a change in foreign buying’s effect on my investments.

Tell me where I’m wrong in this chain:

Chinese family saves at a high rate relative to U.S. Since Chinese domestic stock market has done poorly and they are concerned about having money for health care after the decline of the public health system, they want to put it somewhere safe, if low-yielding. They put it in a local Chinese bank.

The bank can lend it or invest it. Since they are concerned about loan quality and ability to repay at the State-Owned Enterprises, they invest it in bonds. China has no functioning corporate bond market, so they put it in government bonds.

The Chinese central bank receives the money and invests it per its investment policy. Of late, that has included strategic natural resource purchases (like in Nigeria, if I recall correctly), but is predominantly in U.S. bonds, mostly Treasuries.

February 6, 2006 @ 11:01 am | Comment

To continue your chain of thinking: the Chinese government invests the bonds in U.S. treasuries and home mortgages, keeping long-term interest rates low and encouraging people to continue borrowing against their assets.

And the hypothetical impact: One day, American consumers or the the PBOC gets scared and decide to stop the borrowing or the lending. The system collapses as Chinese banks frantically try to call in their home mortgages to Fannie Mae, which then forecloses houses across the country to do so, which then transfers the houses to Chinese banks. The US Congress gets in an uproar over “commie banks taking over American homes” and… somebody should continue this train of thought for me, I’m too tired.

February 6, 2006 @ 3:28 pm | Comment

China and America are caught up in one of those possibly unhealthy but mutually dependent relationships. A dance that’s very difficult to stop. I really believe that China needs the US and the US needs China, and if the bilateral relationship becomes too hostile, it will be very bad news for both countries.

February 7, 2006 @ 12:11 am | Comment