What's in the News

Has anyone seen this happening?

In China, Women Graduates Spurn Cap and Gown for Wedding Dresses

White Tulle Gowns Are the Fashion in Photo Shoots to Commemorate Degrees; 'Makes Things Feel More Meaningful'

BEIJING—On an overcast June day, 20 women in white gowns stood in a row on a grassy field. They had spent the morning fussing with one another's hair and makeup, and now, for the big moment, smiled into the camera.

But this was a graduation celebration, not a wedding.

Here in China, college women are spurning caps and gowns and choosing to commemorate their graduations in white tulle, instead.

"Who doesn't like wedding dresses?" said Liu Xiangping, who was among those posing for graduation shots that day, along with nearly two dozen fellow classmates clad in white. (Their four male classmates wore suits.)

It isn't happening just at Xi'an Polytechnic University in central China, where Ms. Liu graduated this year with a degree in international economics and trade. Across China, graduation season looks a lot like wedding season, with young women flocking to stores to rent wedding gowns....


Photo Essay: In China, Wedding Gowns Aren’t Just For Weddings

Breaking Through China’s Great Firewall

Can the US and EU use the WTO to halt Beijing’s blocks on Google, the New York Times and other sites?

BEIJING – Beijing’s leaders haltingly opened connections to the Internet toward the close of the last century. Since then, though, they have been constantly fortifying the Great Firewall that encircles China and censors information flowing into the long-isolated country.

This Chinese wall now blocks more than 18,000 websites operated across the planet, and is patrolled by tens of thousands of cyber-sentries, according to scholars in the United States and Europe who closely track Beijing’s Internet security structures.

But these experts also say many of China’s digital barricades violate World Trade Organization rules, and believe that the U.S. and the EU should challenge Beijing before the WTO’s dispute resolution council....

I have always had my suspicions that the wall has not always been just about the big C. But also as a means to allowed connected guys to start their own "unique" Chinese internet business. Much easier to do when you have already got the original and already established foreign competitors out of the way. I wonder how many of these main Chinese sites could have prospered if the locals had 100% world access.

Civilians in Abandoned McDonald’s Seize Control of Wandering Space Satellite

Their mission control console is a refurbished flat screen and some parts found on eBay. Yes, this is really happening.

For the first time in history, an independent crew is taking control of a NASA satellite and running a crowdfunded mission. They’re doing it all from a makeshift mission control center in an abandoned McDonald’s in Mountain View, California, using old radio parts from eBay and a salvaged flat screen TV.

“If I could come up with another absurd detail, I would,” Keith Cowing, the project’s team lead, told Betabeat.

The ISEE-3 is a disco-era satellite that used to measure space weather like solar wind and radiation, but went out of commission decades ago. Now, a small team led by Mr. Cowing has taken control of the satellite with NASA’s silent blessing...


Sci-fi, here we come.

Civilians in Abandoned McDonald’s Seize Control of Wandering Space Satellite

See... the truth IS stranger than fiction! Nobody could make up stuff like this. 

Checking out the #Ferguson hashtag on twitter is a good way to feel horrified, if anyone's interested.

A good set of articles about the situation.

The Nation is Watching Fergurson

A reminder as we deal with race relations in China what it can still be like in a 'more enlightened' and experienced culture.

This would suggest that local police are pretty damn efficient.comments?
http://www.lostlaowai.com/news/australian-expat-dongguan-tied-apartment-robbed/

How we'd cover Ferguson if it happened in another country

FERGUSON — Chinese and Russian officials are warning of a potential humanitarian crisis in the restive American province of Missouri, where ancient communal tensions have boiled over into full-blown violence.

"We must use all means at our disposal to end the violence and restore calm to the region," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in comments to an emergency United Nations Security Council session on the America crisis.

The crisis began a week ago in Ferguson, a remote Missouri village that has been a hotbed of sectarian tension. State security forces shot and killed an unarmed man, which regional analysts say has angered the local population by surfacing deep-seated sectarian grievances. Regime security forces cracked down brutally on largely peaceful protests, worsening the crisis.

"we can and should support moderate forces who can bring stability to America"

America has been roiled by political instability and protests in recent years, which analysts warn can create fertile ground for extremists.

Missouri, far-removed from the glistening capital city of Washington, is ostensibly ruled by a charismatic but troubled official named Jay Nixon, who has appeared unable to successfully intervene and has resisted efforts at mediation from central government officials. Complicating matters, President Obama is himself a member of the minority sect protesting in Ferguson, which is ruled overwhelmingly by members of America's majority "white people" sect.

Analysts who study the opaque American political system, in which all provinces are granted semi-autonomous self-rule, warned that Nixon may seize the opportunity to move against weakened municipal rulers in Ferguson. Missouri's provincial legislature, a traditional "shura council," is dominated by the opposition faction. Though fears of a military coup remain low, it is still unknown how Nixon's allies within the capital will respond should the crisis continue.

Now, international leaders say they fear the crisis could spread.

"The only lasting solution is reconciliation among American communities and stronger Missouri security forces," Chinese President Xi Jinping said in a speech from his vacation home in Hainan. "However, we can and should support moderate forces who can bring stability to America. So we will continue to pursue a broader strategy that empowers Americans to confront this crisis."

Xi's comments were widely taken as an indication that China would begin arming moderate factions in Missouri, in the hopes of overpowering rogue regime forces and preventing extremism from taking root. An unknown number of Kurdish peshmerga military "advisers" have traveled to the region to help provide security. Gun sales have been spiking in the US since the crisis began.

Analysts warn the violence could spread toward oil-producing regions such as Oklahoma or even disrupt the flow of American beer supplies, some of the largest in the world, and could provide a fertile breeding ground for extremists. Though al-Qaeda is not known to have yet established a foothold in Missouri, its leaders have previously hinted at assets there....


Awkward lol

This would suggest that local police are pretty damn efficient.comments?
http://www.lostlaowai.com/news/australian-expat-dongguan-tied-apartment-robbed/

The guy appears to be some kind of wanted business man/engineer / rich guy. I wonder if they would be so eager to help an English teacher. Plenty stories around of how the police have not done just done little but the foreigner has been blamed, especially if the other is a rich guy.

Chinese newspaper calls for sanctions against Clive Palmer's businesses and bar him from the country

BEIJING Clive Palmer’s live television tirade could prove the last straw for worsening Australia-China relations, a Chinese state-owned newspaper has claimed, in an editorial that also calls for the country to impose sanctions against the Palmer United Party leader's businesses, and bar him from entering the country.

“China must let those prancing provocateurs know how much of a price they pay when they deliberately rile us,” The Global Times said, in an editorial published in both its Chinese and English editions on Wednesday.

“China cannot let him off, or show petty kindness just because the Australian government has condemned him. China must be aware that Palmer's rampant rascality serves as a symbol that Australian society has an unfriendly attitude toward China.”...


I don't know much about Australian politics at the moment (except that Tony Abbot is a miserable bastard and "we stopped the boats" is the shittiest asylum policy in the world). I'm guessing too that Clive Palmer is not ultimately in Australia's best interest. (We seem to have barely concealed White Australians doing White Australia things for a White Australia future every few political cycles, and we need a new word - it'd be better if redneck, yokel, and Australian didn't end up being synonymous.) Howevaire... I'm reminded yet again that when nations speak, they oh so often are not describing as they claim to be the outside world, but instead are describing their own shadows. So often, their rhetoric is bizarrely unfocused on the target, and so often drawn instead from some realm of "this is not us, truly we are not these rascals we speak of". they talk about their own worst selves.

What Palmer actually said was neither provocative nor rascally. It was a direct and disdainful maligning of the race, or whoever he thought he was referring to when he said "the Chinese". He says he was talking about the governing body of that country. You can witness his actual on-screen rant in the link above.


Anyway, he's a fat old racist fuck with more power and money than is suitable, but how about if he was calling a rascal a rascal. He said "the Chinese" are mongrels because they shoot their own people. China, by the way, presently regards itself as too big and too indispensible to the global economy to have anymore to show "petty kindness" to the rest of the world, so I'm guessing we'll be seeing more of this soft-not-soft power in the future.

Chinese newspaper calls for sanctions against Clive Palmer's businesses and bar him from the country

BEIJING Clive Palmer’s live television tirade could prove the last straw for worsening Australia-China relations, a Chinese state-owned newspaper has claimed, in an editorial that also calls for the country to impose sanctions against the Palmer United Party leader's businesses, and bar him from entering the country.

“China must let those prancing provocateurs know how much of a price they pay when they deliberately rile us,” The Global Times said, in an editorial published in both its Chinese and English editions on Wednesday.

“China cannot let him off, or show petty kindness just because the Australian government has condemned him. China must be aware that Palmer's rampant rascality serves as a symbol that Australian society has an unfriendly attitude toward China.”...


I don't know much about Australian politics at the moment (except that Tony Abbot is a miserable bastard and "we stopped the boats" is the shittiest asylum policy in the world). I'm guessing too that Clive Palmer is not ultimately in Australia's best interest. (We seem to have barely concealed White Australians doing White Australia things for a White Australia future every few political cycles, and we need a new word - it'd be better if redneck, yokel, and Australian didn't end up being synonymous.) Howevaire... I'm reminded yet again that when nations speak, they oh so often are not describing as they claim to be the outside world, but instead are describing their own shadows. So often, their rhetoric is bizarrely unfocused on the target, and so often drawn instead from some realm of "this is not us, truly we are not these rascals we speak of". they talk about their own worst selves.

What Palmer actually said was neither provocative nor rascally. It was a direct and disdainful maligning of the race, or whoever he thought he was referring to when he said "the Chinese". He says he was talking about the governing body of that country. You can witness his actual on-screen rant in the link above.


Anyway, he's a fat old racist fuck with more power and money than is suitable, but how about if he was calling a rascal a rascal. He said "the Chinese" are mongrels because they shoot their own people. China, by the way, presently regards itself as too big and too indispensible to the global economy to have anymore to show "petty kindness" to the rest of the world, so I'm guessing we'll be seeing more of this soft-not-soft power in the future.

I'm not sure, it seemed pretty explicit that he was talking about Chinese business and government rather than the race

Chinese government do shoot their own people as a policy and do let Chinese businesses cheat non Chinese businesses whenever they can.

I think it's one of those times where he's got a specific bone to pick (something about getting screwed in business) and he wants to explain why his bone has generalisable elements. That is, it's not just that he's losing a bitter legal case with very large sums of money at stake. He wants to say that included inside the specific losing case are elements that helped everything go wrong and would help anything go wrong. So, it's not just CITIC's business approach, it's something built in to relationships between us and them. CITIC aren't the mongrels, "the Chinese" are. The style of speech with the relatively incautious generalization is perilous close to racism.

If he toned it down to "the current Chinese system of management and infrastructure that allows, even encourages corruption and very nearly mandates the exclusion of foreigners so that we can't do business as we best understand it and must always be on our guard because, hell, they shoot each other over there and really can't be relied on...." or something similar, then we might get a good story out of the deal and learn a few things. In which case it might not be racism so much as governance.

I'll admit to liking the blunt talk.