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September 2005 - Posts

Imagethief on Vacation in Singapore

Posted Friday, September 30, 2005 11:04 AM by will
I swear, does this guy ever do any work? Having spent last national day in Beijing, gazing at the patriotic splendors on display in Tiananmen Square, this year I am making like a shepherd and getting the flock out. It's funny; I used to bail out Singapore Read More...
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Contempt: The Logical End to Fifteen Minutes of Fame

Posted Thursday, September 29, 2005 9:10 AM by will
This was going around my wife's office today. It's official, Furong Jie Jie, China's fast-fading celebrity blogger and media whore, has finally been completely digested by the Chinese pop-culture apparatus. This Flash file, Mr. Furong Jie Jie, is the Read More...
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Ahyi Plays Hide the Fork

Posted Wednesday, September 28, 2005 9:14 PM by will
Our office is moving. This is an engineering and logistics feat on par with the construction of the pyramids, or building an aircraft carrier. Everything must be tagged, labeled, boxed, and certified. And, because this is China, chopped. The actual portage Read More...
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Is Democracy Relevant to China?

Posted Wednesday, September 28, 2005 7:19 AM by will
In response to a rather pious lecture from US Deputy Secretary of State, Robert Zoellick, Asia Times Online yesterday ran a very interesting editorial that raises the question of whether western-style liberal democracy is at all relevant in a society Read More...
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Bull Spunk the Secret to Better Diplomacy

Posted Wednesday, September 28, 2005 12:14 AM by will
If you're Singapore and Shandong province, that is. The full story, from AP: Singapore: Bull Semen Improved China Ties Tue Sep 27, 2005 SINGAPORE - Singapore said Tuesday that relations with the Chinese province of Shandong grew after it presented officials Read More...
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America Visit: Your Bar Code is Not in Order!

Posted Tuesday, September 27, 2005 12:58 AM by will
The National Security State shows no sign of abating, I was alarmed to see when I was back in the US. America remains hard to get into, and, touchingly, even harder to get out of. Perhaps there is a population shortage and the country is trying to discourage Read More...
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America Visit: Why American Air Carriers Deserve to Go Bankrupt

Posted Monday, September 26, 2005 8:43 PM by will
Because they suck. Let me elaborate. Over the past decade living in Asia, I had formulated a simple policy: never fly a US air carrier anywhere that an Asian carrier will take me. Over the years, this policy has served me well, as I used airlines such Read More...
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America Visit: Monster Park?

Posted Monday, September 26, 2005 5:59 AM by will
Now that I've got my warm fuzzies out of the way (see previous post), I can return to form by giving the country of my birth the bitch-slapping it so richly deserves. When I got back to San Francisco, I was dismayed to discover that the names of not one, Read More...
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Why I Like Going Back to the USA

Posted Monday, September 26, 2005 1:41 AM by will
This was my first trip home in nearly two years, and I had a really good time. The fact that I enjoyed myself so much surprised me a bit, but it shouldn't, really. I always have a good time when I go back to San Francisco and the surrounding area. This Read More...
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Explaining What My Brother Does for a Living

Posted Sunday, September 25, 2005 1:19 AM by will
This is the text of the toast I gave at my brother's rehearsal dinner, in California a week ago. By way of explanation, he and his new wife are documentary filmmakers. -W One of the things about living overseas, and only getting back to the United States Read More...
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The Journey and a Wallow in Americana

Posted Saturday, September 17, 2005 2:40 PM by will
In transit from Beijing to San Francisco, Imagethief was awake for thirty-two hours straight. In that span of time he: Took a taxi to Beijing Capital Airport. Elbowed his way through the melee at the new and spectacularly disorganized customs declaration Read More...
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Finally, Limitless Renewable Energy!

Posted Wednesday, September 14, 2005 8:31 PM by will
From Reuters via CNN: Inventor fuels car with dead cats Wednesday, September 14, 2005 BERLIN, Germany (Reuters) -- A German inventor has angered animal rights activists with his answer to fighting the soaring cost of fuel -- dead cats. Christian Koch, Read More...
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Imagethief on Vacation in USA

Posted Tuesday, September 13, 2005 6:29 AM by will
On Thursday morning (or Wednesday evening for those of you in the United States) Imagethief is heading back to the US for ten days to attend his brother's long overdue wedding in San Francisco. I'll be in frantic preparation between now and departure, Read More...
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Take Two Bat Turds and Call Me in the Morning

Posted Monday, September 12, 2005 9:31 PM by will
University of Hong Kong researchers have found a close cousin of the SARS virus, in bats. According to this article in tech publication The Register : The team has urged caution in handling the mammals: bat meat is regarded as a delicacy in parts of Asia, Read More...
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Red Alert! China To Color Code Flu Outbreaks

Posted Monday, September 12, 2005 6:57 AM by will
China has taken a lesson from George W. Bush's handbook on color-coding potential threats, and announced that it will intoduce a color code system for grading the seriousness of any emerging flu epidemic. From today's China Daily : Yang Weizhong, director Read More...
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What's Up With the Mountie in Back?

Posted Monday, September 12, 2005 3:37 AM by will
Can anybody tell me what this Mountie sitting in the carriage behind Hu Jintao is thinking? Top five six guesses from me: Dude, that Mrs. Hu is a total hottie. I wonder if she's into red tunics... I can't believe that landed on President Hu's head! I Read More...
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Dengue Outbreak Means Sagging Fortunes for Singapore Bustlines

Posted Monday, September 12, 2005 12:33 AM by will
My adopted long-term home, Singapore, is having its worst outbreak of mosquito-borne dengue fever in recent memory according to an AFP article carried in Voice-of-the-State, China Daily . Don't underestimate what a big deal this is for Singapore, which Read More...
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The Forever War

Posted Sunday, September 11, 2005 5:53 AM by will
I am not going to add much here, except to suggest very strongly that you go and read author and UC Berkeley journalism professor Mark Danner's superb article " Taking Stock of the Forever War " in this week's New York Times Magazine . It's a dreadful Read More...
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CNN 11-09-05 reporting ccp doubleplusungood refs unevents

Posted Sunday, September 11, 2005 1:22 AM by will
CNN International has been running a 25th anniversary promotional spot for the last couple of weeks. It's a collection of video clips of defining moments from the past 25 years. In quick succession you get shots of the Berlin Wall falling, the Challenger Read More...
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Free PR Advice to Barb Bush from Imagethief

Posted Saturday, September 10, 2005 6:23 AM by will
I come a little late to this, so I'll be brief. Having read this comment ... "Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this, this is working very well for them," Read More...
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Chinese Phoneasaurus Flails Against Rise of VoIP

Posted Friday, September 09, 2005 11:37 PM by will
It's always awe-inspiring to watch a colossal dinosaur struggling against the inevitable consequences of evolution intelligent design. That's why I was interested to read reports from both Reuters and AFX that China Telecom is banning popular VoIP service Read More...
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Xinhua's $100,000 Stiffy

Posted Thursday, September 08, 2005 11:36 PM by will
But first, the dubious headline of the week, from New Zealand's National Business Review : Fake v!agra triggers joint China/US seizure I don't know about you, but this headline creates in my head a rather different image than I think the authors had in Read More...
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The Great Donkey Meat - Tiger Piss - Media Whore Axis

Posted Thursday, September 08, 2005 9:11 PM by will
Trust me, it all connects. Americans just don't understand the reality of Chinese food. Mu shu pork, general's chicken, all that Chinese restaurant crap you get in the US, has almost no relation to anything you can get in China. The defining highlights Read More...
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The Great Firewall of...America?

Posted Thursday, September 08, 2005 9:52 AM by will
This is from a couple of months ago, but I just discovered it, and it struck a nerve. Ziff Davis IT columnist David Coursey has suggested that a Chinese-style Internet firewall might be just the thing to prevent American net users from indulging in evil Read More...
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Do You, Uh, Yahoo? You're Busted! - Update 2

Posted Thursday, September 08, 2005 1:30 AM by will
Not, one would hope, if you're a Chinese dissident or journalist on the wrong side of the authorities. It seems that American technology companies can't stay out of trouble in China. The last two days has seen widespread coverage of Yahoo!'s alleged implication Read More...
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Musical Ringtones are the Devil's Playground

Posted Wednesday, September 07, 2005 10:32 PM by will
Measured by marketing and technology yardsticks, I'm old, and therefore unhip. My level of unhipness can be guaged by the fact that I use the word "unhip". Because of my age, and increasing curmudgeonhood, I react badly to things that are "newfangled". Read More...
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An Activist Crosses the Line, Goes Directly to Jail

Posted Wednesday, September 07, 2005 6:35 AM by will
So much for the Sun's scoop on the flowering of democracy in China. It seems you don't have to go too far to find the usual churlish suppression of dissent. According the Washington Post's Philip Pan (one of the best investigative reporters currently Read More...
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PR Perspective on the Katrina Disaster

Posted Wednesday, September 07, 2005 1:19 AM by will
The Holmes Report is a weekly PR industry newsletter. It covers who has won what new business, which movers and shakers are switching jobs, and other industry news. It also often contains an analysis piece on a broader, PR industry issue. This week, Paul Read More...
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The Same Pros Who Handled Katrina Will Handle Bird Flu

Posted Tuesday, September 06, 2005 8:48 PM by will
For an administration that made national security the centerpiece of almost everything it stood for, the utter failure to deal skilfully with Katrina was a major pantsing. (If you don't know what a "pantsing" is, you didn't go to an American junior high Read More...
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China Moving Toward Democracy, Posh & Becks in Spicy Pudding Row

Posted Tuesday, September 06, 2005 6:40 AM by will
From the UK tabloid Sun , it's official : China is moving toward democracy. Looks like we can all relax. This shocking pronouncement was made by Chinese premier Wen Jiabao during a summit meeting with Tony Blair, currently holding the rotating EU presidency. Read More...
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They Are Refugees

Posted Tuesday, September 06, 2005 12:58 AM by will
A commenter on another post of mine took the position that the people driven from their homes by hurricane Katrina are not refugees. Looking at several other blogs, I can see that the issue of how to refer to the victims of the storm has been taken up Read More...
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Technorati Profiling - No Need to Read

Posted Monday, September 05, 2005 11:02 PM by will
Technorati Profile Read More...
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Did Zhu Eat?

Posted Monday, September 05, 2005 9:00 PM by will
In the movie "Annie Hall", Woody Allen obsesses over whether a tennis opponent is anti-Semitic: "Did you hear what that guy we were playing against said to me?" "No, what." "I asked him if he ate yet and he said: `No. Jew? Did Jew eat? Jew?' How could Read More...
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Comment Problem is Solved

Posted Monday, September 05, 2005 8:43 PM by will
After much weeping and gnashing of teeth* the comment problem has now apparently been solved. Anonymous comments should be accepted with no problem. Look for the "post a comment" link between the body text of the post and any existing comments. Of course, Read More...
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New Blog Teething Problems Part 1: How Do I Post a Comment?

Posted Monday, September 05, 2005 10:59 AM by will
Updated: Unless you are me, the administrator, I actually have no idea. There appears to be a permission setting on the new blog software that requires you to be a registered user to comment. I've changed it in the master settings, and in the individual Read More...
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Rule Number One: Don't Look at Me

Posted Monday, September 05, 2005 2:14 AM by will
Everyone is awash in the misery of Katrina right now, so I thought I would write about something trivial to lighten the mood. Following on last week's combination of toilet humor and science-fiction references, I thought I would swing for two. Anyone Read More...
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My Little Troll is All Grown Up!

Posted Monday, September 05, 2005 6:53 AM by will
I'm so proud! "Really", the ex-troll on my blog (until he was banned), and currently a troll on several others, has started his own blog on Blogger.com. He's got a post up and everything. The site is http://uvgarden.blogspot.com*. The "UV" stands for Read More...
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You have destroyed 286 Japanese - Your Score is 10,000

Posted Friday, September 02, 2005 8:52 PM by will
The Chinese government has figured out a truly contemporary way to deliver anti-Japanese propaganda to the already frighteningly nationalist cohort of teenage Chinese men. It's commissioned a massively-multiplayer online game in which valiant, Chinese Read More...
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Shock Revelation: The Almighty Was Smiting New Orleans

Posted Friday, September 02, 2005 5:58 PM by will
And I don't use the word “Revelation” lightly. It turns out that Katrina was not actually a brutal, random natural disaster as we had all suspected, but was, in fact, the wrath of an angry God. This alarming fact has been delivered in a communique Read More...
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Q: When is the Middle Class Not the Middle Class?

Posted Friday, September 02, 2005 2:54 PM by will
A: When it's the Chinese middle class, which is, apparently, the upper class. I pose this rhetorical question because I stumbled onto an article on the website of China Radio International, which explains that the “middle-class” in China comprises Read More...
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Katrina Destroys My Myth of America

Posted Friday, September 02, 2005 10:37 AM by will
I don't know if you have been as amazed as I have by the stories coming out of New Orleans, Biloxi and the other areas in the path of Hurricane Katrina. Looking at the photos, and reading coverage of the looting, violence and widespread misery it's hard Read More...
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Singaporean Man Inspired to Lift Up the Toiletless Masses

Posted Thursday, September 01, 2005 3:05 PM by will
There are many important, penetrating posts to be written about the state of modern Singapore, the level of political discourse it tolerates, and where it is headed as a nation. You can find one here . Meanwhile, cowed into self-censorship, I will turn Read More...
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Will the Real Jiang Zemin Please Stand Up?

Posted Thursday, September 01, 2005 10:45 AM by will
I realize that lately the humor to serious-political-commentary ratio in this blog has been tipping more towards the humor side. I am not sure what this can be attributed to, except possibly the recent precipitous rise in my consumption of alcohol and Read More...
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