Longtime readers of this site know that I considered Obama's receipt of the medal an absolute joke. His record over the past year hasn't changed that impression.

But there is a way that Obama could use his moral authority as a Nobel laureate, if not as President, to do some good.

And that is to press China to free this year's winner, dissident Liu Xiaobo, who is serving an 11 year sentence in the laogai for the crime of advocating democracy for China.  This morning the Beijing police evicted Liu's wife, Liu Xia, from her apartment and dragged her off to prison for a "visit" with her husband.

If the West Germans and Richard F'in Nixon had sufficient leverage to  persuade the Soviets to deport Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn rather than re-imprison him, surely Barack Obama, whose moral authority is far greater than Nixon's, could exert some pressure on China for a man who's done far than Obama to deserve this honor.

Hat tip: Instapundit.

While China may have the world's second fastest growing economy, we're still not fans of Chinese building code enforcement.

For more on how a thirteen story apartment building turned into a one story disaster, click.

God only knows what happened to this man twenty years ago.  He is justly famous, but the Chinese government would prefer he remain anonymous.

China, in its never-ending quest to make totalitarianism absolute, efficient, and culturally creepy, has hit on a swell new idea: the SUV! In this case, "V" stands for "Violence" and also "Vivisection." Observe:

The country that executed more than four times as many convicts as the rest of the world combined last year is slowly phasing out public executions by firing squad in favor of lethal injections. Unlike the United States and Singapore, the only two other countries where death is administered by injection, China metes out capital punishment from specially equipped "death vans" that shuttle from town to town.

Makers of the death vans say the vehicles and injections are a civilized alternative to the firing squad, ending the life of the condemned more quickly, clinically and safely. The switch from gunshots to injections is a sign that China "promotes human rights now," says Kang Zhongwen, who designed the Jinguan Automobile death van in which "Devil" Zhang took his final ride.

They've got nice lines, and are easily mass-produced to meet the needs of the People:

They're efficient! They promote federalism!

Makers of death vans say they save money for poor localities that would otherwise have to pay to construct execution facilities in prisons or court buildings. The vans ensure that prisoners sentenced to death can be executed locally, closer to communities where they broke the law.

Their ergonomic design spells comfort!

"I'm most proud of the bed. It's very humane, like an ambulance," Kang says. He points to the power-driven metal stretcher that glides out at an incline. "It's too brutal to haul a person aboard," he says. "This makes it convenient for the criminal and the guards."

It's possible that, at least with respect to the condemned criminals, the translator has missed some nuances of the term "convenient."

They promote green policies like recycling!

China's critics contend that the transition from firing squads to injections in death vans facilitates an illegal trade in prisoners' organs.

Injections leave the whole body intact and require participation of doctors. Organs can "be extracted in a speedier and more effective way than if the prisoner is shot," says Mark Allison, East Asia researcher at Amnesty International in Hong Kong. "We have gathered strong evidence suggesting the involvement of (Chinese) police, courts and hospitals in the organ trade."

This is really a great marketing opportunity. Just as certain Americans were thrilled to purchase ersatz Hummers and pretend they were in the Marines, surely many Chinese would love to purchase scaled-back death vans and pretend that they are on their way to execute their mother-in-law as they drive her to the grocery. It's win-win!

Via.

I'll go with the little guy, thank you very much.

A United Nations agency is quietly drafting technical standards, proposed by the Chinese government, to define methods of tracing the original source of Internet communications and potentially curbing the ability of users to remain anonymous.

The U.S. National Security Agency is also participating in the "IP Traceback" drafting group, named Q6/17, which is meeting next week in Geneva to work on the traceback proposal. Members of Q6/17 have declined to release key documents, and meetings are closed to the public.

As the source points out, in the US this will be sold (assuming anyone even knows about it) as a means of going after terrorists, identity thieves, and Lori Drew-style internet sociopaths.  Internal UN documents, however, clearly indicate the real focus:

A political opponent to a government publishes articles putting the government in an unfavorable light. The government, having a law against any opposition, tries to identify the source of the negative articles but the articles having been published via a proxy server, is unable to do so protecting the anonymity of the author.

In China, an anonymous political critic is the same or worse than a terrorist, an identity thief, or a Lori Drew-style internet sociopath.  The end goal, for both China and the US, is intelligence and data mining for more or less unsavory purposes.  On general principles, I oppose both, and am ashamed that the government is cooperating in this.

What happens to the staff of a Chinese newspaper which accidentally selects an image of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre for use as a background photo accompanying an interview with a famous photographer?

Hint: it isn't pretty. I mean both the photo and the fate of the journalists in question.

In advance of the Beijing Olympics, China has banned musicians who advocate "feudalism and superstition" from visiting the country.

I guess that means no Viking Metal during the opening ceremonies.

How quickly some people forget:

Beijing police have been visiting bar owners in the popular Sanlitun area and asking them to sign pledges agreeing to not serve black people or Mongolians and ban activities including dancing.

Bar owners said that police have been clamping down on black people and Mongolians, who are sometimes implicated in drug dealing and prostitution, as part of an Olympic clean-up campaign that they and locals fear will make for a secure but sterile Games.

Boycott the Olympics. Boycott all of the sponsors and underwriters. Ship by Federal Express instead of UPS. Buy Pepsi instead of Coke. If you eat fast food, whoppers are better than any hamburger at McDonalds, so it cancels out for the fries. There's a full list of major sponsors here.

Boycott the mass murdering fascist communist genocidal Olympic games!

Set to the tune of "There is Power in a Union," by Joe Hill:

While westerners and our media focus on the plight of Tibet, Fa Lun Gong, and occasionally on isolated activists who've gone to prison for refusing to shut up about the injustice of Chinese government, a cadre of lawyers, associations of advice givers, small businessmen and landowners associations are slowly doing more to create a real rule of law and respect for individual rights in China than any fringe group or the government itself.  Their novel strategy?  Take the government at its word about rights, and sue or embarrass officials and wrongdoers into doing the right thing through petitions.  Pretty novel in a country that only passed nine laws from 1966 to 1976, anyway.

This article on the topic, by UCLA professor Ching Kwan Lee, is well worth reading for anyone interested in  modern Chinese culture or human rights issues.

Via Norm Geras.

Bizarre news straight out of a wuxia movie from Shanghai, China, where a "28 year-old man with the surname Yang" set fire to a police station and killed five officers, wounding five more. Yang was was armed only with a knife.

Apparently Yang carried a grudge against the police after being arrested as a bicycle thief.  Unlike Britain but like the United States, Chinese police officers are typically issued firearms.

It was not clear how the attacker managed to stab so many police officers and why he was not detained after setting a fire outside the building.

Obviously Yang was trained by a master.

Heard this morning on NPR: in preparation for hordes of hungry but unadventurous tourists arriving for the Olympics, the Chinese government has issued guidelines suggesting that hotels and restaurants rename hundreds of local dishes with traditional idiomatic names.

The appetizer "Husband and wife's lung slice" is taking on the more appetizing "Beef and ox tripe in chili sauce."

"Chicken without sexual life" has been transformed into "Steamed pullet."

That's unfortunate. That sort of thing is what makes traveling fun.

And during my trip to China it was usually when the hotel or restaurant attempted an Anglicized name that you wound up with something unexpected. For instance, French toast.

Lowering the Bar has a story on rules for Olympic conduct recently posted on the Chinese government's official Olympics site.

Among the things to not do are:

* Fail to register with police on arrival
* Fail to carry relevant documents
* Be "intent on subversion"
* Protest without permission
* Have a sexually transmitted disease
* Engage in prostitution
* Go to areas not open to foreigners
* Be mentally ill
* Wave "insulting banners"
* Attack refugees or players
* Smoke in Olympic venues
* Light fireworks in Olympic venues
* Sleep outdoors
* "Harm China's national security"
* Damage "social order"

I think I've violated three of four of those and I haven't even bought a ticket yet. And seriously. What is the point of a sporting event if you can't wave insulting banners? Next you'll tell me I can't wear a rainbow wig or go shirtless. (No, wait, it's my wife telling me that.)

Above the Bar also notes that the Beijing Olympics and Paralympics Cheerleading Squad is seeking suggestions for a name and slogan, and provides an email address for submissions. Check it out. Bear in mind the limitations:

Requirements: The name and slogan should be "catchy," "moving," and have "Chinese characteristics." (The latter was not defined.) Also, presumably, the name and slogan should not be insulting, harm China's national security or damage its social order, and you should not submit suggestions if you are mentally ill.

You're not the boss of me.

The United States government is warning travelers to the Olympic games in Beijing that the Chinese government will seize and interfere with laptops and cellphones.

National security agencies are warning businesses and federal officials that laptops and e-mail devices taken to the Beijing Olympics are likely to be penetrated by Chinese agents aiming to steal secrets or plant bugs to infiltrate U.S. computer networks.

Chinese government and industry use electronic espionage to "easily access official and personal computers," says one recent report by the Overseas Security Advisory Council, a federally chartered panel comprising security experts from corporations and the State, Commerce and Treasury departments.

Yet, old fart that I am, I can remember back when seizure of and interference with laptops and cellular phones from overseas travelers was considered a job for Americans.

Will the outsourcing never end?

Via Knoxville Talks through Instapundit, who gets the irony but doesn't care, because this is … different.

Via Disgrasian, fascinating and heartbreaking photos of brides and grooms at a popular wedding spot in Pengzhou before, during, and after the Sichuan quake.

China has decided to go ahead with one of the last legs of the Olympic Torch Relay in June. It will be in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. I can't imagine anything could possibly go wrong there.

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