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on Saturday, August 2nd, 2008 |
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No, this is not today’s picture of a Mount Shasta sunrise. I was just nostalgic for the good ole days is all.
Moving on. What do Beijing and Northern California have in common? Answer: Polluted air. While our bad air stems from wildfires, Beijing’s is the result of automobile and factory emissions mixed with construction dust.
The Chinese government is racing like hell to get Beijing’s air under control, though, or, at least all information concerning the data under control. Meanwhile, the IOC (International Olympic Committee) holds its neutral stance: The Olympics is a sports event, they say, and clean air is political. (cough cough)
But many are criticizing the IOC for such a lackadaisical approach to the health of athletes. Seven years ago when China won the bid to host the 2008 Olympics, the People’s Republic made at least two promises—clean air and full internet access to foreign journalists. Have they lived up to either?
Since the IOC is biting its wimpy tongue, the only accurate reorting of Beijing’s pollution levels hails from the
Brits. Naturally, China is not allowing any contrary info to penetrate its
Great Firewall, and this includes any BBC websites that mention poor Beijing’s poor air quality. Wonder of all wonders! In one fell swoop, China has reneged on two promises—clean air and free internet access!
How do they do it…those inscrutable Chinese officials? How do they block free internet access to their millions of online citizens, not to mention 23,000 foreign journalists? Answer: They treat their citizens like children.
Government filters work pretty much the same as home filters that stop children from accessing porn. And do these watchful parent-figures ground their naughty citizens for sneaking past filters? Yes, in a manner of speaking they do:
Two to four years in a state prison, where, if the bad boys and girls happen to die, their
bodies can be harvested for spare parts. Ugh, ugh ugh not a happy thought.
In his article
The Great Firewall of China, Stephen Hutcheon reports that
The Great Firewall of China - or
the Golden Shield Project is solely aimed at keeping criticism of the Chinese Government out of print. Not as difficult as you might imagine, though, since almost all internet traffic between China and the outside world squeezes through one of three points near Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Hutcheon goes on to say that content filtering technologies primarily rely on lists of banned sites identified by their unique internet protocol (IP) addresses. Plus Chinese offiicials are hip to the use of keywords. Can’t you just see all those millions of Websites biting the
delete dust at the border?
In the “Atlantic Monthly” (February 2008 issue), James Fallows, reported that the Chinese have also installed a device called a “tapper”, or “network sniffer”, which copies every single bit of data that comes in through these three gateways, shunting it through the surveillance computers for inspection. “If the data fails to pass muster, the censor’s computer interrupts the process of connecting the user’s computer to the website, resulting in what is known as a 404 error: “site not found”.
And it all happens in a split second, Folks.
With this in mind, I am offering the accurate pollution levels for the city of Beijing, as collected by James Reynolds of the BBC . I can just see our hero roaming Beijing with his trusty handheld device taking air samples. Carry on, James. We of the free world are watching.
And now for something completely different supplied courtesy of the “People’s Daily Online”. I would like to close with this opinion of our very own
Nancy Pelosi.
“ Once in a long while in History you get an anti Chinese Like Pelosi who have never experience spritual beings and culture. So, when she met the Delai Lama her feet got sweep off and she is drowned by an usual human beings in saffron robes. She went under her magical spell and is not in her usual sanity. A person of her standing suddenly became an illiterate and no history of what the Delai Lama came from. To her from heaven. So, to her just look down on her as a piece of shit garbage.”
To ameliorate the hate of that last image, I offer for your delight this beautiful dahlia that reminds me of a Chinese Chrysanthemum. Chris brought it home for me Friday in a bouquet. How would you like a SendOutCard of this blossom to arrive in your snail-mailbox? It can be arranged. I have contacts with The Great Printer in Salt Lake City.
Laura signing off.
p.s. with this internet post, I have probably sacrificed all visits to China. Now there’s a strange thought…
To ameliorate the hate of that last image, I offer for your delight this beautiful dahlia that reminds me of a Chinese Chrysanthemum. Chris brought it home for me Friday in a bouquet. How would you like a SendOutCard of this blossom to arrive in your snail-mailbox? It can be arranged. I have contacts with The Great Printer in Salt Lake City.