Sunday Scan

Triple Crown

Jockey Kent Desormeaux summed up yesterday's Belmont Stakes pretty well, saying of Triple Crown contender Big Brown, "I had no horse." Big Brown finished a distant, distant last, and another year goes by without a Triple Crown winner.

I didn't even watch the race because I've soured on all forms of gambling, but it reminded me of 1977 and Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew, who I saw very up-close at the Kentucky Derby.

The not so incredible ex-wife was a photographer at the Louisville Courier Journal and I was her Derby photo assistant. She buried an auto-drive Nikon so the lens was at dirt level under the rail about 10 yards past the finish line. She focused it on the finish line, and handed me a cable remote.

"Push it when they reach the last pole before the finish and hold it down until the last horse is past you," she said. And that's what I did.

As the pack tore past me, I heard the jockeys yelling and the leather creaking and the whips slapping, I felt a hot rush of air, and was spattered with horse sweat. It was one of the most intense experiences of my life. After they blew past, I let the shutter button go and remembered to start breathing again.

In the process, I took an image of Seattle Slew crossing the finish line, all four feet in the air. It became somewhat famous; in fact, when a commemorative plate company selected one image of Seattle Slew for a series of plates on Triple Crown winners, they selected my Derby picture. Here it is:

I can't claim it as mine; it's credited to my ex-wife. But it's a heck of a lot better than the crummy one of the Belmont at the top of the post, isn't it?

Those Racist Clintons

"Sometimes your opponent just runs a good campaign," lamented Hillary's campaign chief Mark Penn in an NYT op/ed today.

I thought you paid geniuses like Penn millions of dollars, as Hillary did, so that your candidate would run a better campaign.

Penn raises many excuses for Hillary's failure, boiling it down mostly to money -- another responsibility of the campaign chief -- but the most interesting paragraph in the piece is this one:

The Clintons have spent their lives fighting as much as any leaders in their generation for greater equality across racial and gender lines. I believe nothing they said was ever intended to divide the country by race. Any suggestion to the contrary was perhaps the greatest injustice done to them in this campaign.

All in all, I have to agree with him, even though I can't stand it, and even with the famous Bill-ism about the only reason why Obama is running a fairy-tale campaign is because he's black, and the famously misinterpreted Hil-ism about Bobby Kennedy's assassination.

Back in February, I wrote a post titled In A PC Nation, How Will The GOP Run? that raised the issue of hyper-sensitivity on race issues:

Even if there were a line fine enough to appease the keepers of political correctness in the black, feminist and media communities, and there's not, the GOP will be charged with crossing it. There is no way the GOP can get to November without being called every "ist" in the book.

Still true, more true, today. As it turns out, even the Clintons couldn't pass this test in the face of the Obamaniacs who are found in high positions in the media and the DNC. The challenge for that old white guy with his blond cutie-pie of a wife has not gotten any easier.

China, The Nation That Keeps On Giving

Toys with lead paint, tainted dog food, and of course who can forget bird flu? China is such a generous nation! So giving! And since bird flu was such a hit last time around, it's now time for bird flu redux:

HONG KONG (WSJ) -- Hong Kong authorities slaughtered 2,700 birds and banned live poultry imports from mainland China for up to 21 days, after a routine inspection Saturday found chickens in one of the city's poultry markets infected with the dangerous H5N1 bird-flu virus.

While there's little immediate threat to humans from the infected birds, the discovery revives fears that the disease could still be a problem with poultry flocks in southern China -- although it isn't yet clear whether the infected birds came from local or mainland Chinese farms."

And what does the generous, giving People's Republic have to say about all this? Ever the humble gift-giver, they deferred:

An official with the General Administration of Quality, Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said the agency needed to consider questions about the matter before responding.

Can you say "chicken?"

Those Pesky Thermometers

Yesterday I wrote about NASA cooking the books on its US temperature data, a story Warmie cultists would no doubt reject as tales of denial by Warmie heretics. Well, if they had pipes and if they burned those little bowls of carbon-based plant material, I'd tell them to put this in their pipes and smoke it:

A perfect illustration is found when comparing the USHCN (U.S. Historical Climatology Network) temperature records from Central Park in New York City to those taken a mere 55 miles away at West Point. Readings in Central Park have been regularly measured since 1835 when the city's population had just surpassed 200,000. Today, surrounded by a metropolis of eight million people filled with some of the world's tallest buildings, a massive underground subway system, an extensive sewer system, power generation facilities, and millions of cars, buses, and taxis, the Central Park temperatures have been greatly altered by urbanization. And, as one might expect, the Central Park historical temperature plot illustrates an incredible warming increase of nearly 4øF.

The West Point readings have also been meticulously maintained since 1835, but the environment surrounding the thermometer shelter has experienced significantly less manmade interference then the one in Central Park. The West Point readings illustrate a significantly lower warming increase of only about 0.6øF over the same 170-year period. This is remarkable given that the year 1835 is considered to be the last gasp of the Little Ice Age -- a significant period of global cooling that stretched back several hundred years.

Cries of out of control global warming become more dubious when one looks at the hottest decade in modern history, the 1930s. The summer of 1930 marked the beginning of the longest drought of the 20th Century. From June 1 to August 3, Washington, D.C. experienced twenty-one days of high temperatures of at least 100ø. During that record-shattering heat wave, there were maximum temperatures set on nine different days that remain unbroken more than three-quarters-of-a-century later. (emphasis added; source)

How long can the global warming myth stand up to the temperature facts? It's an unanswerable question because global warming is the science of hysterics and hypnotism, and is therefore outside the realm of rational deduction.

hat-tip: Greenie Watch

Forever Reuters

No one can slip subjectivity into journalistic objectivity like Reuters. Here they are again, reporting on the meeting of G8 energy chiefs in Japan:

Japan, the United States, China, India and South Korea -- who together guzzle nearly half the world's oil -- said that they had agreed on the need for greater transparency in energy markets and more investment by consumers and producers both, while stopping short of calling on OPEC to pump more crude today. (source)

"Guzzle" is defined as "to drink especially liquor greedily, continually, or habitually." The U.S. and Japan should not be included with the guzzlers; we are more and more merely consumers. Greed simply isn't a part of our oil consumption; efficient output is. We consume ever more efficiently, investing billions in ways to make our automotive fleet, our homes and our industrial operations more efficient.

An objective Reuters (oxymoron) would have used the word consume. If it wants to look for oil-guzzling whipping boys, it should have stopped the list at China and Inda, which have put economic growth far ahead of environmental protection, and have put the acquisition of oil ahead of the efficient consumption of oil. In fact, both countries still subsidize the price of fuel to their populations, and refused reasoned calls to stop the practice in the name of greater fuel conservation.

Excitable Electrons

Confession time: I never understood this Mohamed ElBardei guy, and could no see the top UN nuke monitoring guy as a Nobel Prize winner than ... say ... Al Gore.

His mini-interview in Spiegel (the full interview publishes on Tuesday) gives me no further insights.

On Iran:

"The readiness on Iran's side to cooperate leaves a lot to be desired," he said. "We have pressing questions." Iran's leadership, he said, is sending "a message to the entire world: We can build a bomb in relatively short time."

On Syria:

But the general director of the International Atomic Energy Agency also said he expected "absolute transparency" from Syria.

On stopping proliferation by military action:

"With unilateral military actions, countries are undermining international agreements, and we are at a historic turning point."

What's difference between Iran and Syria might explain why ElBardei expects complete transparency from Syria, but not Iran? The only thing that comes to my mind is that there's been military action against Syria's nukes but not Iran's.

Hyper-Hysteria

Fear is rising with a bullet on the list of global motivators. Plastic baby bottles, genetically engineered food, cell phones ... all feed the hysteria machine, ultimately producing stories like this:

South Korean politics are on the brink of meltdown after spiralling public hysteria over “mad cow” disease in American beef unleashed a weekend of mass protests and pitched battles between demonstrators and riot police.

Police vehicles were today attacked by angry mobs armed with sticks and police lines were reportedly charged after the 40,000-strong crowd of peaceful protesters thinned-out to leave a smaller group of activists.

With the violence threatening to continue for another week, and the calls for his resignation being screamed by students on the streets of Seoul, President Lee Myung Bak now faces a series of potentially crippling departures from his immediate circle of allies. (Times of London)

How many recent cases of BSE have there been in the US? One.

How many recent cases of BSE in the US were discovered before the cow was slaughtered for beef? One.

How many humans have been infected from BSE in US beef? None.

Frankly, being in that crowd of angry Koreans looks far more dangerous to one's health than eating U.S. beef.

Stone Has Her Chinese Dixie Chick Moment

It's probably not going to have much negative impact on her pretty much washed up career, but Sharon Stone is persona non grata in China:

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Sharon Stone's "karma" is having an instant effect on her movie-star status in China.

The 50-year-old actress suggested last week that the devastating May 12 earthquake in China could have been the result of bad karma over the government's treatment of Tibet. That prompted the founder of one of China's biggest cinema chains to say his company would not show her films in his theaters, according to a story in The Hollywood Reporter.

"I'm not happy about the way the Chinese are treating the Tibetans because I don't think anyone should be unkind to anyone else," Stone said Thursday during a Cannes Film Festival red-carpet interview with Hong Kong's Cable Entertainment News. "And then this earthquake and all this stuff happened, and then I thought, is that karma? When you're not nice that the bad things happen to you?"

Ng See-Yuen, founder of the UME Cineplex chain and the chairman of the Federation of Hong Kong Filmmakers, called Stone's comments "inappropriate," adding that actors should not bring personal politics to comments about a natural disaster that has left five million Chinese homeless, according to the Reporter.

UME has branches in Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Hangzhou and Guangzhou, China's biggest urban movie markets.

It's easy to ridicule the supercilious inanity of Stone's world view -- "I don't think anyone should be unkind to anyone else" -- but, hey, anyone who smacks down China, no matter how inanely, is OK with me.

But Sharon, do you think maybe you could add a bit of criticism to the Beijingoists for "being unkind" to China's long-suffering Christians? Don't they deserve the attention of your all a-glitter Hollywood self?

Terminally Backwards

Leftyblogger Attaturk at Firedoglake is hot and bothered this morning:

The Chinese are apparently taking a supervisory role in overseeing their investment.

U.S. military personnel at Guantanamo Bay allegedly softened up detainees at the request of Chinese intelligence officials who had come to the island facility to interrogate the men -- or they allowed the Chinese to dole out the treatment themselves, according to claims in a new government report.

Buried in a Department of Justice report released Tuesday are new allegations about a 2002 arrangement between the United States and China, which allowed Chinese intelligence to visit Guantanamo and interrogate Chinese Uighurs held there.

According to the report by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine, an FBI agent reported a detainee belonging to China's ethnic Uighur minority and a Uighur translator told him Uighur detainees were kept awake for long periods, deprived of food and forced to endure cold for hours on end, just prior to questioning by Chinese interrogators.

Susan Manning, a lawyer who represents several Uighurs still held at Guantanamo, said Tuesday the allegations are all too familiar.

U.S. personnel "are engaging in abusive tactics on behalf of the Chinese," she said Tuesday. When Uighur detainees refused to talk to Chinese interrogators in 2002, U.S. military personnel put them in solitary confinement as punishment, she said.

"Why are we doing China's dirty work?" Manning said. "Surely we're better than that."

Let's forget for the moment that lawyers for Guantanamo detainees are the worst of the hardcore left and are about as believable as Bill confronting a blue dress. And let's forget that the report is reporting on what it knows little about. Did we soften them up (i.e., keep them awake for a bit) or did we let the Chinese do it? Dunno. And let's forget that what these dolts call torture is just routine interrogation. Just watch an episode of Law and Order.

What rankles me about Attaturk and Manning is this: They are abuse biggots and terror deniers. They never wrote, I'm sure, about similar behavior by Chinese in their interrogations of Christians. Didn't matter to them.

And the Uighurs? They're de facto heroes to these folks, no questions asked. I've written human rights pieces on the Uighurs myself, but let's remember, they're an Islamic people from China's Western frontier.

Some of them are simply an abused minority, just wanting to practice their religion in peace, but prevented by the omnipresent Beijing Thumb all China is under. But some of them are Islamist jihadists intent on stoning adulteresses, beheading homosexuals and apostates, replacing China's rule of law (such as it is) with Sharia, and converting all of China by the sword. In other words, they are one and the same with al-Qaeda and those darlings of the Firedoglake set, Hamas and Hezbollah.

This is the global war on terror and I think it's safe to assume that anyone held in Guantanamo is a soldier on the wrong side of that war, not some hapless Muslim who just wants to pray towards Mecca five times a day. And because they are swine of that nature, it's not just fine but smart to have the Chinese drop by and find out what's up with them.

This is a case where the Uighurs should praise Allah because they're in Guantanamo. If they were captured in China, far from the watchful eyes of American military personnel, they no doubt would have suffered a far worse interrogation. This story could have been written from the "lucky detainees" angle except for one little niggle: That would go against all in the Left's warped worldview.

Do you doubt it? Just check out this comment on Attaturk's post:

Things are going well in bushdom. Now they can say that they are not the only ones that torture use enhanced interrogation techniques “see other people do it to so can it be all that bad”.

Will it ever end? No, not without impeachment so maybe we should impeach that f***ing pelosi madwoman as she is the classic enabler.

I swear that clinton2 is only still mucking about as a distraction from all the bull***t coming out of Washington. She is in the pay of the MIC and is doing their dirty work for them. Business as usual. [Profanity edited by C-SM]

Paranoid, hateful, distrusting. Your American Left has reported for duty in fine form today.

hat-tip: memeorandum

Sunday Scan

Who You Gonna Mourn To?

China, an atheist regime that forces "religion" into a state-run box and prosecutes practitioners of serious religion, has called for three days of mourning for the tens of thousands of victims of last week's devastating earthquake.

Who will the country mourn to? A vacuum? The spirit of Mao, who, decomposed as he is, does not offer much eternal hope?

The answer is in the heart of those that suffer, as this AP story reveals:

Dozens of students were buried in new graves dotting a green hillside overlooking the rubble, the small mounds of dirt failing to block the pungent smell of decay wafting from the ground. Most graves were unmarked, though several had wooden markers with names scribbled on them.

Zhou Bencen, 36, said he raced to the town's middle school after the earthquake, where relatives who arrived earlier had dug out the body of his 13-year-old daughter, Zhou Xiao, crushed on the first floor.

Zhou cradled his wife in his arms, holding her hand and stroking her back while she sobbed hysterically. "Oh God, oh God, why is life so bitter?"

Oh God, give them comfort. The state certainly can't.

Moral Relativism Alert!

Before straying too far from AP, let's turn our attention to a story filed by Terence Hunt earlier this morning about Prez Bush's address to assembled Arab leaders in Egypt. Hunt tells us:

Winding up a five-day trip to the region, Bush took a strikingly tougher tone with Arab nations than he did with Israel in a speech Thursday to the Knesset. Israel received effusive praise from the president while Arab nations heard a litany of U.S. criticisms mixed with some compliments.

Gosh. I wonder why the tone would be different.

One of the rules of thumb I teach my employees is that when your opposition is lying, distorting or just being ignorant, use their own words against them. That would apply with Hunt's story. Let's look at Hunt's reporting on what Bush said to the Arab leaders and see if there's a reason for the contrasting tones, shall we?

"Too often in the Middle East, politics has consisted of one leader in power and the opposition in jail," Bush said ...

Israeli Arabs have the right to vote and are represented in government. On the other side, there's Mubarik, Assad and a host of other power-barons who have jailed or suppressed their opposition, and not one functioning democracy save the nascent one in Iraq and the crumbling one in Lebanon. Point Bush.

"America is deeply concerned about the plight of political prisoners in this region, as well as democratic activists who are intimidated or repressed, newspapers and civil society organizations that are shut down and dissidents whose voices are stifled ..."

Israel's' "political prisoners" are people who have carried out or planned violent attacks with real weapons against Israel. In the rest of the region, jails are full of people whose only weapon is the pen or the tongue. Freedom of speech in Israel, repression in all the Arab lands leads to point Bush.

"I call on all nations in this region to release their prisoners of conscience, open up their political debate and trust their people to chart their future ..."

Israel has no prisoners of conscience, just prisoners of action. It has an open political debate, and it trusts its future to its people. Anyone want to speak from the Arab side? Anyone? Anyone?

Point, game and match Bush.

On The Wrong Foot

The EU asked Interpol to look into the state of Islamist terror in Europe. Interpol found that it's bad and getting worse ... and it blamed England.

Britain's controversial foreign and military policy has made UK the hub of Islamic terrorism across Europe, and turned the country into a fertile ground for jihadist recruiters, a report by the EU warned.

The EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report revealed that British foreign policy presented critical dangers for all Europe: "The conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq have a large impact on the security environment of the EU." (Source)

So the problem isn't the EU's policy of appeasing radical Islamists who promote race hatred under the protection of the EU's tolerance laws? And it's not Islam itself and its long history of violent jihad, sharpened in recent years by the phenomena of international migration, the Internet and Saudi-funded radical education?

The EU study may be worlds off in its finger-pointing, but it's probably right about this: It predicts more terror attacks in Europe from a "rejuvenated" al-Qaeda.

Where are we fighting al-Qaeda? Well, we and the Brits are fighting them in Afghanistan and Iraq. Where aren't we fighting them? Europe.

Big News From The Nanosphere

Advances in nanotechnology appear poised to dramatically increase the efficiency of thin film solar cells. As in from a theoretical cap of 31% efficiency all the way up to 45% efficiency.

Put on your techie hat and read about it here.

Anthropomorphic Hucksterism

More indications that the global warming debate is anything but over:

The Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (OISM) will announce [Monday] that more than 31,000 scientists have signed a petition rejecting claims of human-caused global warming. The purpose of OISM’s Petition Project is to demonstrate that the claim of “settled science” and an overwhelming “consensus” in favor of the hypothesis of human-caused global warming and consequent climate damage is wrong. No such consensus or settled science exists. As indicated by the petition text and signatory list, a very large number of American scientists reject this hypothesis. (source, via ICECAP)

The OISM list doesn't focus on climatologists, so the Warmies will discount the announcement. But all have university degrees in science and over 9,000 of them have PhD's so we can postulate that they know the difference between good and bad research methods, and the difference between evidence and proof.

Meanwhile, as we look at ten years of global cooling having no effect whatsoever on the prognostications and pontifications of our electeds, Richard Rahn writes in WashTimes that global warming constitutes the greatest intelligence failure of our era, concluding:

You may wonder — if the data from the last decade show the Earth is not getting warmer, and the climate models have been making incorrect predictions — why are so many in the political and media classes continuing to shout about the dangers of global warming and insisting the "science" is settled when the opposite is true. (You may recall that Copernicus and Galileo had certain problems going against the conventional wisdom of their time.)

The reason people like Al Gore and many others are in denial is explained by cognitive dissonance. This occurs when evidence increasingly contradicts a strongly held belief. Rather than accept the new evidence and change their minds, some people will become even more insistent on the "truth" of the discredited belief, and attack those who present the new evidence — again an "intelligence" failure.

Finally, many people directly benefit from government funding global warming programs and care more about their own pocketbooks than the plight of the world's poor who are paying more for food. This is not an "intelligence" but an "integrity" failure.

This One's A Stand-Alone


SF Readies For Big Gay Bucks

While the 60-plus percent of us in CA who voted that marriage in our state is between a man and a woman are unhappy with this week's CA supreme court decision overturning our will, tourism officials in San Francisco are decidedly ... uh, gayer.

San Francisco's tourist industry is betting that gay marriage will lead to a boon in same-sex wedding and honeymoon packages.

Nationally, gay tourism amounts to a $60 billion-a-year industry. Thanks to Thursday's ruling by the state Supreme Court striking down the ban on same-sex marriage, California stands to become a destination spot for gay and lesbian couples from around the world who want to get hitched.

And San Francisco is hoping for the biggest slice of the wedding cake.

No sooner did the court decision come down than the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau fired off a release to the gay press, inviting couples to get married in the city where "lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender history continues to be made." (source)

If the ruling stands, gays from any state will be able to wed in California, unlike Massachusetts, which only lets its own gays marry.

Cue up quickly, my friends. A constitutional amendment is likely to cut your fun short soon enough. Had gays gone the legislative route, they very well might have secured the right to marry in California, but as long as they rely on courts stripping the majority of the sanctity of their vote, the majority will stand together against gay marriage -- because they support the sanctity of a democratic, free vote, not necessarily because they support the sanctity of marriage.

Mother's Day Sunday Scan

Hi, Mom!

Inside the Beltway, my mom's going about her mother's day, no doubt anticipating a call from us later today. Despite our differences on politics and religion, which are enough to shatter any normal relationship, we are very close and I would not be who I am today without her -- and I mean that in the best way possible.

She took mothering seriously. She wasn't just raising kids (although she made sure there was a big dose of that in the program -- people who know my mom might have trouble visualizing her as a Cub Scout mom, for example), she was raising two grown-up men. She wanted to make sure that when my older brother and I grew up, we would have a solid foundation in the old liberal arts tradition.

So thanks! And thanks also for the deep friendship you've made with the mother of my children. Having the two moms in my life so close is one of my great joys!

To my readers: Thanks for indulging me. In return, please feel free to pirate the tacky Mother's Day greeting image above.

Muslims Cop Killers?

My brother-in-law, a Special Forces vet and police officer, is on the board of a group that watches out for the widows and orphans of police officers who are killed in the line of duty. He forwarded me this alert:

Sergeant Stephen Liczbinski
Philadelphia Police Department
Pennsylvania

End of Watch: Saturday, May 3, 2008

Biographical Info
Age: 40
Tour of Duty: 12 years
Badge Number: 486

Incident Details
Cause of Death: Gunfire
Date of Incident: Saturday, May 3, 2008
Weapon Used: Rifle; AK-47
Suspect Info: Shot and killed

Sergeant Stephen Liczbinski was shot and killed while responding to a bank robbery call at approximately 11:30 am.

Two men dressed in female Muslim garb had robbed a Bank of America on Aramingo Avenue. Sergeant Liczbinski encountered the suspects on East Schiller Street and stopped their car. As he exited his patrol car, a suspect opened fire with an AK-47, striking Sergeant Liczbinski several times. Several citizens who witnessed the incident rushed to assist Sergeant Liczbinski, wrapping his wounds in an effort to stop the bleeding. Sergeant Liczbinski told them "Tell my wife I love her", before he fell into unconsciousness. Another officer and a citizen carried Sergeant Liczbinski into a patrol car and he was transported to a local hospital, where he died from his wounds.

The suspects continued to flee, but crashed their vehicle. One suspect fled and the second suspect stole another vehicle, but was shot and killed by responding K-9 officers. A second suspect was arrested the following day and an arrest warrant was issued for a third suspect.

Sergeant Liczbinski had served with the Philadelphia Police Department for 12 years. He is survived by his wife and three children.

There is no evidence the perps -- Howard Cain, 33, who was shot and killed by police, Levon Warner, 38, who was arrested, and Eric DeShawn Floyd, 33, who is subject to a massive manhunt -- are Muslims. The local news coverage is lauding a lot of praise on Liczbinski, but is drawing no conclusions about Islam and the crime.

At this point, there's really just one point to be made from the story: It is perfectly sensible and valid for us to put restrictions on Muslim dress in the US for security reasons. It's not racial profiling to poke, prod and scan every single Muslim man and woman in traditional clothing.

Time For A New Perfume?

I have no explanation whatsoever for this:

A woman required 20 stitches to her face after a pelican crashed into her in the sea off Florida, apparently diving for fish.

The bird, which died in Thursday's collision, ripped a gash in Debbie Shoemaker's face as she bathed near the city of St Petersburg.

The city fire chief said he had never heard of a diving pelican hit a person.

Pelicans grow to up to 30lb (13kg) and can dive from heights of 60 to 70 feet (18 to 21 metres).

Ms Shoemaker, 50, returned home on Friday, the Associated Press reports.

Being Harry

Harry Reid has said a lot of truly stupid things in his day, but this is toppers, what he said about Hillary Clinton's recent racial analysis of her prospects vs. Howdy Obama's, i.e., that she can be counted on for the scruffy but hard-working white vote while Obama can be assured of the snotty white vote and the lazy black vote.

Here's Harry:

“I am confident that she meant nothing."

Well done, Harry! I see why they made you Speaker, since you speak just so darn well.

Leaves Of The Other Guy's Grass

In the scheme of Global Things, this is perhaps the most troubling squib I've read lately:

This week, Saudi Arabia announced plans to invest in overseas fisheries, livestock and food production, and is reportedly trying to partner with Thai rice farms to lock in future supplies. Libya is in talks with Ukraine about growing wheat there, and as China tries to feed its expanding middle class, it's looking to buy up farmland in Africa and South America. Commodities analyst Richard Feltes, with MF Global, says for decades these countries relied on cheap and abundant world surpluses to meet their food needs. (source)

Let's follow the line on this one. No, not the line where everything turns out all right. What fun is that?

Instead let's follow the line where global food supplies run short and Chinese Army troops are needed to keep hungry locals away from the fields they bought with the interest they earned from US Treasuries. Then the People's Army escorts the crops past the really hungry people to the docks, where underfed stevedores stare at the Chinese with their Type 56 AK-47 knockoffs, thinking, "If I pocket a handful of this wheat, will they shoot me?"

Yeah, that line. Anyone selling their country's land to the Saudis or the Chinese should see that this is the endgame that's in play, the endgame that everyone's anticipating. Yet they sell.

One very, very strange and troubling world.

Sunday Scan

Reporting Grammar-Free

One of AP's crack political reporters, Liz Sidoti, wrote this lead today:

Barack Obama scolded Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton on Sunday for saying that the United States would "totally obliterate" Iran if it attacks Israel, and likened her to President Bush. Clinton stood by her comment.

Of course, Hillary said no such thing. Here's the Clinton quote:

"I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran. In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them."

She said, "would be able," not "would totally obliterate." Words are important and reporters -- especially reporters covering a national election -- are expected to get them right.

Done With Him

Last week, I lined up three options for Obama to consider in dealing with the Wright meltdown, from continuing what he was doing (doom!) up to a hard and complete severance. He's been following my third option, except for one thing I required for a believable clean break: "... and I assure the American people that anyone who holds beliefs like his will not be welcome in my administration."

In the same Russert/Meet the Press interview quoted above, Obama comes close:

MR. RUSSERT: You're done with him? If you're elected president, you won't seek his counsel?

SEN. OBAMA: Absolutely not.

But he follows that with babble:

Now, I think it's important to keep in mind, Tim, that I never sought his counsel when it came to politics.

Stop with the "buts" if you want to leave this behind, Obama! The statement shows you still don't get it. We never thought you were sitting down with Wright to talk health care policy options; we thought you might believe some or all of what he believed about America.

Obama will never recover all the votes he's lost because of Wright, and statements like that, following a very good statement, are part of the reason why.

The Latest Import From China?

China, which previously brought us avian flu fear, is at it again:

A province in eastern China recorded 622 new cases of the intestinal virus known as enterovirus 71 on Saturday alone, the official Xinhua news agency said on Sunday.

The figure brought to 5,151 the number of people infected by the virus in Anhui province, Xinhua quoted the provincial health administration as saying. Anhui's worst hit city was Fuyang with 362 cases.

EV71 can cause hand, foot, and mouth disease, which is characterised by fever, sores in the mouth and a rash with blisters -- a common illness among infants and children but which is usually not fatal, according to the U.S. National Centre for Infectious Diseases.

There is no vaccine or antiviral agent available to treat or prevent EV71. Enteroviruses spread mostly through contact with infected blisters or faeces and can cause high fever, paralysis and swelling of the brain. (source)

But remember, they've got a state-sponsored universal health care system in China, so you know we've got nothing to worry about!

Superdelegate Watch

Here's the latest update on Dem superdelegates, courtesy of Urgent Agenda:

Ray Nagin, the monumentally incompetent mayor of New Orleans, who botched almost everything during Hurricane Katrina, has been elected a superdelegate to the Democratic national convention. This proves America is a land of second chances, and Louisiana a land of second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth.

The "democratic" Democratic party puts unusual power in the hands of hacks and incompetents. Does America really need to have the likes of Ray Nagin having extraordinary power in selecting who might be our next prez?

The World In The Hands Of Babies

There's a very interesting survey up on Stats that polls US climatologists and geophysicists on global warming. Among the findings, was this most interesting tidbit:

Overall, only 5% describe the study of global climate change as a “fully mature” science, but 51% describe it as “fairly mature,” while 40% see it as still an “emerging” science.

So let me see if I have this right. The Greenie movement, and all its calls for fundamental and costly transformations of our way of life and economy, is all based on a baby scicence that doesn't even know if what it's doing is right or not.

And the Goriac's famous rant about the debate being over? Well the practitioner sof this baby science have this to say:

However, over two out of three (69%) believe there is at least a 50-50 chance that the debate over the role of human activity in global warming will be settled in the next 10 to 20 years.

Two out of three say it's a 50/50 chance. Is that what we call a debate that's over?

Finally, Beijing's Torch Finds A Welcome

A nation finally rolled out a red carpet ... albeit, a thread-bear, ratty looking one ... for the Olympic torch today, giving the Beijingoists a welcome relief from demonstrations that marred the torch's progress around the globe.

What country?

Here's a hint: Celebretory crowds were waving artificial bunches of the national flower, kimjongilia.

As in Kim Jong-Il-ia.

Yes, NoKo's torch relay started off with a leg run by Pak Du-Ik, who symbolized North Korea's greatest international sports triumph: their 1966 World Cup soccer team, which advanced to the quarter-finals. As in, here's a nation that's gone 42 years since falling far short of winning.

Of course, there would have been protests in NoKo, too, if people were free to protest. China routinely sends North Koreans who flee Li'l Kim's cesspool nation back to NoKo, where they face imprisonment if they're lucky, death if they're not.

But if they'd protested the torch, they'd face imprisonment if they're lucky, death if their not. So, hey! Welcome China! Cool torch!

Torch Troubles In Japan

The Chinese Olympic torch ran into more trouble today as it passed through the Japanese city of Nagano.

BBC has a good video here. It's impressive to watch because it shows the level of security needed to protect the torch -- a phalanx of runners that look like it's out of 300 encircle the runner, with a row of policemen outside that, and motorcycle police scattered here and there.

Here's BBC's print report:

The Olympic torch has met with more protests and scuffles on the latest leg of its troubled relay in the Japanese city of Nagano.

With security tight along the route, two demonstrators tried to seize the torch and a third threw eggs at the flame. All were arrested.

But correspondents say the relay passed off without serious disruption.

The streets were lined with thousands of Chinese supporters, as well as dozens of protesters. ...

More than 3,000 police officers were brought in to guard the event after demonstrations had plagued the flame in some other cities on its route.

In a last-minute change, the Nagano leg of the relay began in a parking lot rather than a 1,400-year-old Buddhist temple.

The temple was withdrawn as the starting point after objections over China's crackdown in Tibet.

It's obvious from the video that most of the crowd was out for a good time to see an Olympic torch go by, and that the protesters were the minority. Still, it was another international embarrassment for the Beijingoists, and hurrah for that.

Sunday Scan

Happy Passover

Passover started with the Sabbath yesterday, so my best wishes to all my Jewish friends on this remarkable and holy holiday.

And my thanks to Ask.com for illustrating its home page this morning with the artwork above. And what about Google? Nothing of course. Why do they so fear religion? Ask has honored religion for as long as I've used it, and so far, the Secularists have not rebelled against it.

Neither has God's wrath poured down on Google, but I know that if the Googleites were living in Egypt back in the times of Passover, a plague would fall upon it.

Giving Greenies The Sack

Knee-jerk central -- that's the Bay Area, home of ill-thought out political actions and decisions made on the emotion of the moment, like last year's action by Oakland to ban plastic bags in retail stores with annual sales of $1 million or more.

Nexis sent me to a June 2007 SF Wrongicle article heralding the passage of the ban:

Under the measure sponsored by Councilwomen Nancy Nadel and Jean Quan, any retailer grossing more than $1 million a year would be banned from using the nonbiodegradable plastic bags. Nadel said that 10 percent of petroleum is used to create plastic so that reducing the use of bags will help the environment in multiple ways.

"Californians use 19 billion plastic disposable bags each year, and throw away 600 every second," Nadel said. "These bags are made from oil, so reducing their use will serve the mission of the 'Oil Independent Oakland by 2020' " task force established last year.

Them's some mighty fine knee-jerk stats. But now, as a judge temporarily suspends the order, we find that once again environmentalists are fueled more by emotion than fact. Here's the Oakland Trib:

A Superior Court judge issued a tentative ruling Thursday placing an injunction on Oakland's plastic-bag ban, saying the city should have more adequately studied the environmental impact of the ban before passing it into law.

Judge Frank Roesch's ruling came after a plastic-bag industry group called the Coalition to Support Plastic Bag Recycling sued Oakland last summer shortly after the City Council approved a ban on single-use plastic bags at retail stores doing more than $1 million a year in business. The judge heard arguments in the case in January.

The ban was billed as an environmentally friendly ordinance. But at the crux of the case was a question on whether the increased use of paper bags could harm the environment as well.

Paper bags take more energy to create and fill up more landfill space, the plastic-bag industry argued.

"The court ... finds that substantial evidence in the record supports at least a fair argument that single-use paper bags are more damaging than single-use plastic bags," Roesch wrote.

To go on with their ban, the Oakland City Council would now have to authorize a full-blown Environmental Impact Report to study the environmental effects of the ban -- at a cost of at last $100,000 in a down economy. It is quite possible the knee-jerkers will win, and $100,000 that could be used for something useful will be sacrificed on to the Greenie Gods.

A High Rate Of Cynicism

The always-interesting Stats delivered this a.m.:

The three-
component Maslach Burnout Inventory-
General Survey was implemented to examine burnout among newspaper journalists (N = 770). With a moderate rate of exhaustion, a high rate of cynicism and a moderate rate of professional efficacy, burnout among journalists demonstrate higher rates of burnout than previous work. Additionally, journalists expressing intentions to leave the profession (n = 173) demonstrated high rates of exhaustion and cynicism, and moderate rates of professional efficacy, making them “at-risk” for burnout. (Read more)

Sounds like me when I left journalism ... except that my "high rate of cynicism" was directed at how cynical my editors and colleagues were, not at the world in general.

What's illuminating here is that the burned-out journalists don't leave to become fig growers or car salesmen; they just keep reporting, delivering us news through a cynical, exhausted filter.

Sequestered Carbon News

Kudos to the Bush Admin for keeping Warmie hysteria in check during international talks that are a precursor to the next big UN global warming inititives.

There are plenty of nations there that want to set a goal of halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, including the EU nations, Japan and Canada (which most any way you slice it would benefit from global warming). But the US is only "seriously considering" the goal under Bush, and by refusing to endorse it, effectively is preventing the establishment of such a destructive goal.

Meanwhile, buried 12 paragraphs deep in the Reuters story was this:

France said that South Africa presented studies suggesting it would cost the world up to $200 billion a year to curb greenhouse gases and between $30 and $60 billion a year to adapt to effects such as droughts or rising seas.

No further discussion merited, apparently -- including no question about why France would bring up the South African study and still support a 50% greenhouse gas reduction target.

China 1: It's Not Just Tibet

China is becoming the global leader in thuggery, not just suppressing freedom in Tibet, but lending its hand to ruthless, blood-soak dictators across the globe.

Here's the latest unsurprising update, from The (UK) Independent:

Chinese troops have been seen on the streets of Zimbabwe's third largest city, Mutare, according to local witnesses. They were seen patrolling with Zimbabwean soldiers before and during Tuesday's ill-fated general strike called by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

Earlier, 10 Chinese soldiers armed with pistols checked in at the city's Holiday Inn along with 70 Zimbabwean troops.

One eyewitness, who asked not to be named, said: "We've never seen Chinese soldiers in full regalia on our streets before. The entire delegation took 80 rooms from the hotel, 10 for the Chinese and 70 for Zimbabwean soldiers."

So the next time you're all sympatico with some left-wing acquaintance because your positions over China and Tibet align, raise this one: "Have you spoken out against China's involvement in Zimbabwe and Venezuela?" And watch the blank stare.

China 2: Fixing The Weather

One of the biggest challenges facing the Beijing Olympics -- besides cerain human rights issues -- is the weather. Why? Well, here's Beijing weather in a nutshell:

Winter is marked by howling Siberian winds; summer, by sweltering monsoon heat. In lieu of showers, springtime is best known for seasonal dust storms that sweep down from Central Asia. Fall is parched and gusty too, but the dust settles down.

Overlay on all this industrial pollution the likes of which we haven't seen since the English midlands at the peak of the industrial revolution, then factor in the 50% chance of rain expected for the opening ceremonies, and you get the picture.

China is responding by stepping up its long-term, large-scale (52,998 employees) programs of industrial weather alteration. It's a troubling, wild, 5-clicker of a story at Plenty that makes a good Sunday read.

China 3: Wei, Way Out

Blogger secret revealed: I sometimes right about stuff I don't understand at all. Like the work of Chinese artist Li Wei (should we give him a little leeway?), which is described at Hemmy.net as as:

Chinese artist Li Wei from Beijing started off his performance series ‘Mirroring’ and later on took off attention with his ‘Falls’ series which shows the artist with his head and chest embedded into the ground. His work is a mixture of performance art and photography that creates illusions of a sometimes dangerous reality. Li Wei states that these images are not computer montages and works with the help of props such as mirror, metal wires, scaffolding and acrobatics.

Got that? Not a computer montage, just some props, mirrors, wires and acrobatics. Then how do you explain this:



More images here.

I Guess It's Not The "Commie News Network" Anymore

Pro-Beijing (i.e., pro-totalitarian) Chinese by the thousands demonstrated in front of CNN's LA office today -- but it seems they were more angry about disparaging remarks about the quality of Chinese products than about coverage of the repression of Tibet:

Up to five thousand people gathered Saturday in front of the Hollywood offices of CNN to protest disparaging remarks about China made by one of the channel's commentators, police said.

The demonstration came as pro-China protests were held across the world against what they see as disinformation of the Western media over China's recent crackdown in Tibet, which has proved a public relations disaster ahead of August's Beijing Olympics. ...

The Beijing government took CNN to task this week after outspoken commentator Jack Cafferty slammed China for exporting unsafe products, which he called "junk with lead paint," as well as Beijing's massive purchases of US securities.

"I think they're basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they've been for the last 50 years," Cafferty said of China in an April 9 broadcast.

The Chinese foreign ministry on Thursday rejected a CNN explanation that his comments -- which caused a huge outcry in China -- were aimed at the government, and not the Chinese people. (AFP)

[Idiocy disclaimer: Cafferty is a raving idiot and I get very, very nervous when I'm on the same side as him. I like the sign above: "Cafferty, do you eat with that mouth?"]

Missing, by the way, is any coverage of the event on the CNN home page or its national news page. Cover-up News Network?

The Chinese are not making any friends or influencing any people with these demonstrations -- in fact, they stink of the same sort of arrogance of Muslim thugs who tried to tell us we couldn't print cartoons despite our freedoms.

They are free to demonstrate against our government and do -- despite the fact that protests are brutally shut down in their own country. We are free to be ticked off at them if they don't like it if they ship us crap or crush the dream of freedom among their people.

Photo: LA Times

About Those Bald Soldiers With Robes

Updated Below

Twice recently, I've published this photo, which I picked up from a fascinating Big Lizards post, Forget It. It's Chinatown... Big Lizards Breaking Bombshell News!

As you can see, it shows Chinese soldiers with shaved heads holding Tibetan uniforms. BL and I both drew the same conclusion: China could well be staging phony acts of violence by fake Tibetan monks in order to create a justification for their attacks on the Buddhist religion there.

I received an email today from a Chinese person using the name "liuyuguangkui" that disputes the photo. He/she (sorry, I have no idea which) says:

your photo of Chinese soldiers with shaved heads carrying Buddhist robes is took in 2001 for play the movie of "The Touch" which is performed by Michelle Yeoh and Ben Chaplin directed by J.D.Zeik and so on,and there is a lot of evidence for this:

1.Chinese soldiers act Tibetans and They take photo and let the other one know prove that they are so fool...-_-

A quick check with IMDB revealed the film does exist, J.D. Zeik was one of the screenwriters (Peter Pau directed) and some of it was set in Tibet. IMDB does not provide any still photos from the movie, however, and I couldn't find any elsewhere, so I can't verify whether the soldiers-as-monks photo was from the movie or not. If you want to dig into this, buy a copy of the film here and let me know.

liuyuguangkui says not that the photo's from the movie, but that the date of the movie (2002) disproves any relevance to what's going on in Tibet today. He/she includes this photo ...

... and says:

this photo is new uniform in our country now. The uniform is made by Wool-like fabric, and every uniform have a flag in the arm and breast, but in the first photo the solider is wear old uniform which is made by other material, and no flag. The uniform is changed in 2006.

Well, there you have liuyuguangkui's explanation. Thoughts? Evidence to the contrary?

Not that any of this diminishes the crime China has perpetrated on Tibet for decades, including its most recent attacks.

In America, if the locals rioted we'd send in the cops to get things organized, then we'd set up commissions and spend endlessly (and foolishly) to try to fix the problem. In China, they send in the Army, crush the opposition, distribute wanted posters over the internet, prosecute and persecute any they can find, and ratchet up the iron-fisted control so the totalitarians can accomplish their goal of "one China," with all thinking alike, acting alike and, if possible, genetically alike.

Update:

Dafydd at Big Lizards provides this supplemental info that might just put liuyuguangkui's efforts in the trash bin:

There is a Red Chinese shill who goes by various names, one of which is "Charles Liu," who goes from blog to blog trying to refute this photo (and others). I only note the similarity of the name of your correspondent with Charlie Liu -- though of course, Liu is not a totally uncommon name. Liu commented on Big Lizards, raising similar points, though the identity of the movie is different. Chinese apologists have "identified" about four different movies this photo "actually" came from:

++++++++++

Sachi, in addition to the ICT press release, the "fake monk" photo has been identified as from the movie set "Red River Valley" by Chinese bloggers:

http://www.loogoo.com/commodity/1886.html

Netters have also identified the protster who attacked the paralympian as Lobsang Gandan of Salt Lake City - secretary of Utah Tibetan Association.

Just Google or Baidu his name. Here he is, getting arrested in London for violent protest that is illegal by western standards:

http://img8.zol.com.cn/bbs/upload/681/680180_600.jpg

+++++++++++++

He sent his comment from this IP address: 75.172.69.190; out of curiosity, does your correspondent come from the same address? [I don't know; it came by email, not as a comment to my blog, so no IP address was recorded.]

I here append a lengthy e-mail I sent to John Hinderaker five days ago, wherein I discussed the state of knowledge...

+++++++++++++

Dear John;

The argument is raging, but so far, nobody has really shown anything except that the soldiers are wearing summer uniforms, though March and April are still officially winter in Tibet. Mostly likely, the photo was taken earlier... but we still don't know what they were doing. (China is constantly finding reasons to crack down on Tibet, and they have been especially active since they were awarded the 2008 Olympics in 2001; it's entirely possible that if the "movie" explanation is false, that if it's a real false-flag operation, that it occurred during an earlier crackdown.)

The detractors claim that the soldiers are only there to appear in a movie, though they keep changing the name of the movie; they claim that the photo appeared in 2003 on the back cover of a Tibetan human-rights magazine (the 2003 annual report of the India-based Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy), but nobody can produce either the magazine or a scan of its back cover. I plan to try to track it down today.

[***Update 4/19/08 for Laer; I contacted TCHRD, asking for the 2003 annual report. They told me they were out of it... but they could get me the 2002 and 2004 reports. I find this a bit suspicious, though there is of course a possible innocent explanation: Lots of other people having the same idea as I. But if so, then why hasn't a single person posted the result, whichever way it went? There is of course a less benign explanation: Somebody didn't want anybody to be able to
check on the claim that the picture appeared earlier -- so that somebody obtained the entire remaining stock and either destroyed it or is sitting on it. I do know that that publication is completely unobtainable here in the United States. Yeesh! ***]

But the picture is largely a sideshow. The pro-Chinese sources focus on the photo of the soldiers because that is the only piece of evidence they have even a prayer of explaining.

They have no plausible explanation for the photos of the guy who attacked the wheelchair-bound fencer marching in with a group of obviously pro-Chinese spectators. The best they can offer is that the pro-Chinese spectators and the supposedly militant anti-Chinese, pro-Tibetan protesters fought vicious street battles and beat each other, assailing each other worse than Armenians and Turks around massacre day; that the Chinese Communists have slaughtered upwards of 200 Tibetans in the past month or so (nobody disputes this); yet even so, *they're really all good buddies*! (I am not exaggerating; that is literally the only explanation offered.)

This is a shuck; it doesn't pass the reality check. Here in Glendale, you cannot even order Turkish coffee... you have to order "Armenian coffee;" I cannot imagine that Tibet supporters and Red China supporters are less antipathetic than Turks and Armenians here in America. Heck, I doubt that even fans of rival European soccer teams would be so chummy as the pro-Chinese commenters claim the Chinese and Tibetan protesters are.

So they ignore the photos of the attacker; and they have completely ignored the Gordon Thomas article (here), in which Thomas claims that GCHQ, Government Communications Headquarters -- the British equivalent of our NSA, controlling all British SigInt (here) -- believes that the ChiComs orchestrated the early rioting in Tibet, then used that as an excuse to crack down (the article appeared in G2 Bulletin, which is associated with WorldNetDaily.com; it's subscription only... but it was reprinted by the Epoch Times, an anti-Chinese internet site on a par with the Drudge Report). Now, Thomas is probably no more reliable than elite-media reporters, but he appears no less reliable, either. The most one commenter (here) has been able to level against Thomas is that he is published in the same magazine that publishes people like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Pat Buchanan, and Bob Novak; that he once gave a speech to an organization that some consider racist; and that other articles of his are conservative and often critical of the Chinese Communists. Also that GCHQ officially refuses to either confirm or deny the Thomas claim -- but they will say that Thomas did not get his evidence via official contact with the public-affairs office of GCHQ.

Well, duh. The official position of GCHQ is that they *never* either confirm or deny any intelligence claims... just like our own NSA. Why would Thomas bother talking to the PAO? He's not going to get any information.

If he spoke to anyone at all (we have only his word that he did), it would have been to some contact he had on his own. Bear in mind, Thomas's best selling book was Gideon's Spies, which he wrote in consultation with Mossad; the word is that when they found out how much he already knew through his own Mossad contacts, they decided it would be better to work with him, so they could prevent him from revealing the most damaging stuff. I believe Thomas's father in law was a high-ranking member of MI-5. So I find it entirely plausible that he would have better intel contacts that a random blogger trying to "debunk" his article by talking to the PAO at GCHQ.

Finally, how extraordinary is Thomas's claim anyway? He claims that Red China orchestrated riots so that it could crack down on one of its provinces -- which has been trying to separate from China for decades, which they have repeatedly cracked down on before, and which we today
see them claiming is a violent separatist province like Chechnya in Russia... while most observers say that the Tibetans are known more for pacifism than violence.

If extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, then mundane claims require only mundane evidence. I believe that until somebody has a better refutation than that Gordon Thomas is a conservative who publishes in a magazine linked to WorldNetDaily.com, the article stands as evidence of the underlying accusation found in the photo. And much better evidence than the photo itself, by the way... evidence that nobody has made any serious effort to refute.

The pro-Chinese commenters -- some of whom on Big Lizards have hotly defended the 1950 Communist occupation of Tibet as having been good for the primitive Tibetans -- focus on the photo because *that's the only piece they have any hope of questioning*; but really, that photo of the soldiers is the least important piece of this puzzle.

++++++++++++

So that's what I know so far, Laer; I don't see how to proceed from here. I'm satisfied with the article from G2 Bulletin, until and unless someone comes up with some contrary evidence; and that gets us to the same place that the photo only hinted at.

--

Dafydd ab Hugh
http://biglizards.net/blog

NO PUSSYFOOTING

China Helping Mugabe Crush Opposition

Because I've been writing a lot about China's repression of Tibet lately, I've been getting a fair amount of hate comments from yellow journalists China supporters. I wonder if they support this:

A Chinese ship anchored outside Durban port in South Africa earlier this week with a consignment of arms for Zimbabwe, where a bloody crackdown on the opposition is in full swing.

An investigative magazine, Noseweek, raised the alert Wednesday, saying the An Yue Yiang was waiting for permission to offload 70 tonnes of weapons for transport by road to Zimbabwe.

The shipment comprised millions of rounds of ammunition for AK-47 assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, grenade launchers, and mortar bombs and tubes, Noseweek editor Martin Welz, who saw the shipping manifest, said.

Customs officials confirmed that the ship was carrying arms. The ship's captain confirmed to SAPA news agency he had cargo for Zimbabwe.

According to Welz, the shipment was paid for in January, two months before Zimbabwe's disputed elections.

But the timing of the delivery, coming amid mounting reports of 'revenge' attacks by Zanu-PF supporters on supporters of the rival Movement for Democratic Change, has raised fears the weapons, even if part of a routine order, could be used against civilians. (source)

Mugabe should be leaving office, having lost an election fair and square before his party made the results indecisive, unfair and unsquare. Instead, he is clinging to his job, despite having utterly ruined one of Africa's finest countries through his greed and corruption.

And what does China -- the country my commenters would have us believe is the victim of the Tibetans instead of the other way around -- do at this critical juncture? Do they support the people? Of course not!

They support the man who is poised to brutally repress his own people, like an acorn that hasn't fallen far from the China tree.

China Attacks The Blogosphere!

The relentless Chinese PR machine rolls on! Now they're attacking blogs like mine, posting hideously translated comments in support of totalitarian repression and opposed to human rights.

Here's one that just posted:

unfair to Chinese people

China will be stronger and stronger thats envied by others, so they insult
it to express their losed moods. All of Chinese people should integrate into one
country with more freedom and wealth. we believe we can do it.

Yeah, and I believe you're headed for a massive humanitarian meltdown because the Chinese approach of integrating into one country is a forced march, not a mixing pot.

I can't help myself; I see these comment-writers in a nasty Chinese prison, forced to work 16 hours a day hunting down anti-Chinese posts in the blogosphere, then using a lousy translating program to put up responses, as armed guards loom threateningly over them.

Here's another fine example:

"Beijing, your slogans thrill but your actions kill.''

Let me offer up an alternative:

"Read History about your own country ! The [sic] Read History about
Tibet!"

I've read the history of my own country -- one not written as a propaganda tool of Chinese Communists, thank you -- and I've studied Tibet under the older brother of the Dalai Lama, and I've studied the techniques of Communism from Stalin to Pol Pot to Hu, so don't mess with me, you running dog lacky of the Red Monster!

Chinese PR Machine Rolls On

It's hard to imagine anyone more likely to spark a protest demonstration than the Dalai Lama, who is one of the most revered people on the planet ... until now:

SEATTLE (AP) - In a showing of pro-Chinese support, hundreds of demonstrators protested outside a college arena Monday as the Dalai Lama spoke to students on solving problems through dialogue.

Thousands of people have flocked to Seattle to hear the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader speak since he arrived Thursday for a five-day conference on compassion, but the city's Chinese community had remained largely silent until Monday.

It's interesting the reporter wrote "the city's Chinese community," as if it were both monolithic and monolithically pro-Beijing, which is, of course, a ludicrous assumption because the immigrant Chinese community, like the immigrant Cuban community, is made up primarily of people who fled totalitarianism back home.

Demonstrators held signs alleging media bias and protesting the violence from rioting by Tibetan monks.

The focus of the Chinese PR attack on monks as opposed to mainstream Tibetans enraged over the Chinese government's destruction of their religion, culture and traditions is just part of the China PR scheme. They must attack the monks in order to connect the uprising to the Dalai Lama -- but who other than AP is buying that? Just a few Chinese in Seattle:

Some echoed Beijing's stand that the Dalai Lama is behind the recent uprising against five decades of Chinese rule. Signs called the Dalai Lama a liar and a "CIA-funded militant." Many people waved large Chinese flags.

AP is still hasn't gotten to "duh"' at this point, even though "CIA-funded militant" is not the sort of language citizens routinely come up with. Rather, it's the sort of language the Chinese government cooks up -- slightly more refined than yesteryear's "running dogs of capitalism," but still of the same school.

Oh, and the helpful Chinese propagandists even came up with a slogan for the big day:

"Dalai, your smiles charm, your actions harm."

Let me offer up an alternative:

"Beijing, your slogans thrill but your actions kill.''

Quote Of The Day: Who Said That?! Edition

"People cannot help but ask: the European Parliament always brags about human rights and freedom, so why does it turn a deaf ear to the serious human rights abuse of attacks on and killings of innocent people in Tibet?"

That seems like a normal enough quote, given China's long-time suppression of human rights in Tibet and its recent crushing of opposition demonstrations there. But normal it's not.

That's because it's from China's People's Daily newspaper, part of a recent lashing out at the "Dalai clique" that apparently is duping naive Westerners into getting this entire story 180 degrees misunderstood. It's poor, poor Beijing we should be worrying about!

And a big push this is. Here's what greets us front and center on the English-language edition of the People's Daily today:

• Documentary "The past of Tibet"
• Tibet regional chairman: Situation in Tibet returns to normal
• Tell you a true Tibet - Ownership of Tibet
• TYC, Common Enemy to All Human
• Eminent monks, masters condemn violence, pray for Olympics
• Tibetan Youth Congress = a terror group
• Commentary: Yet another show of lies by Dalai Lama
• Perspective on a Tibet with freedom, harmony and prosperity
• "A slap in face" to Paris itself

The journalistic phrase for that is "full court press."

The aggressive push is generating news bits on many fronts, including the bold claim by Beijing that what it referred to as "modified automatic weapons" were found hidden in a Buddhist temple in southwest China, near the Tibetan border.

Reuters reports the item straight-up:

Chinese forces found firearms hidden throughout a Tibetan temple in an ethnic Tibetan area of southwestern China which has been the scene of anti-Chinese riots in recent weeks, state television said.

Police, responding to what they said was a tip-off from the public, found 30 firearms in the monastery in Aba prefecture of Sichuan province last month, state television said in a report, a transcript of which was posted on its Web site (http://www.cctv.com).

If this item were about us in Iraq, it would have been reported much more skeptically, something like, "After raiding a holy mosque in a quiet Baghdad neighborhood, U.S. troops said they found what they described as firearms in the building. But local residents disputed the claim."

No local residents disputed this claim apparently -- probably because they feared they would be tortured until they, too, provided "a tip-off from the public" to the Chinese forces.

We break now for this little reminder to help you process this story:

Yes, it's Chinese soldiers with shaved heads carrying Buddhist monk robes -- evidence that the Chinese are manipulating events in Tibet. Sort of like planting weapons in a temple (not that I have any hard evidence that they did).

Also in the People's Daily offensive according to the Reuters piece:

• Charges that Western media trumped up coverage of Olympic torch relay demonstrations, making them appear more violent than they actually were. (I'm sure there were miles of violence-free torch-running somewhere, but who's going to cover that when you've got Paris and London to cover?)
  
  
• China's ambassador to Ireland stomped out of a speech when Tibet was brought up.
  
  
• Releasing news that five people had been arrested on a domestic flight after "acting strangely." If we read the Reuters report long enough, we find that that strange action was speaking a language no one could understand.
  
  
• And in Beijing, our good friend and ally Pervez Musharraf assured students the torch would be safe in Pakistan and added helpfully, "Tibet is an inalienable part of China."

China is letting the world know it will not stand down on Tibet and it will remember those who embarrassed it during its glorious Olympic moments. It is trying to bully the world as effectively as it has bullied minorities unfortunate enough to live within its borders.

They've got a lot of economic power behind them, but the Tibetans have a lot of emotional power behind them, and I don't think this will die down between now and August. The Chinese will continue to be troubled with outbursts of anti-Chinese sentiment up to and throughout the games.

In the end, nothing will change. They'll slap a happy face on the games, and when everyone goes home, it will return to business as usual in China and Tibet. If we are to take any lesson away from Tiananmin Square, it is that. If you need a reminder of what China will do to protect itself, watch this powerful, awful clip: