All singing, all dancing!

Should you be in Beijing soon you really must make an effort to see Das Kapital - The Musical. I shit you not.

Finally - China becomes a democracy!!

The Chinese authorities have belatedly decided to provide "free speech zones" during the Olympics and everyone knows that free speech zones are as good as free speech or they wouldn't be allowed in America, right?

Paging John Hagee

Dear Mullah Hagee,

With the death toll in the recent terrible earthquake in China now estimated to be approaching 50,000 souls I am hopeful that you can explain to me how much worse the tragedy would have been had there been plans for a gay pride event in Sichuan province.

Sincerely,

Yank in London (an apostate Christian)

"Free" trade is sometimes, but not always, a wondorous thing!

A factory in Guangdong in China has been found to have been manufacturing Free Tibet flags for export. I believe that they may have subsequently ceased and desisted!

Have arms, will travel

The Chinese ship An Yue Jiang which has tried, and failed, to deliver arms to Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwean government is heading back to China. The armaments are expected to be diverted to Tibet where they will be beaten into flag lapel pins to assist in the Great Patriotic Tibetan Re-education Campaign.

Will there be flag lapel pins?

The Chinese government is set to launch a two month long programme of "patriotic education" in Tibet to counter the salacious influences of the Dalai Lama and the western press. Unlike the rest of us, the Tibetan people are to be given the opportunity to learn the truth about the riots in Lhasa and elsewhere last month.

Of Arms and the Mugabe

Surely even the thuggish government of China is smart enough to understand that four days after a highly contested, and probably soon to be stolen, election in Zimbabwe is not the best time to send off a load of weapons to the Zimbabwean government. With a little luck the shipment made be prevented for reaching its destination by one of those evil trade unions. Just in time for May Day.

Blame China, I do!

The United States is officially off the hook. China, not the US, is now the planet's largest greenhouse gas emitter. So what are they going to do about it, eh?

Methinks he doth misspeak!

American National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley was on one of the Sunday morning shows in the US whee he repeatedly referred to the situation in NEPAL that is causing so many of the world's leaders, but not Captain Codpiece, to decided not to attend the opening ceremonies for the Beijing Olympics. I counted eight separate and distinct references so this was clearly not a slip of the tongue. So the question is were the continued references to the incorrect country:

A) Evidence of Mr. Hadley's complete and utter incompetence

B) A coded invitation from the US government to China that invading Nepal is OK

C) A message to the people of Nepal that even if fair elections if vote for the wrong people bad shit will happen

D) All of the above

Inside the Great Firewall of China...

...the Olympic torch is having a high old time.

Outside the Great Firewall? Not so great.

Now where did I put them damn triggers again?

It wasn't all that long ago that the US Air Force "accidentally" mislead a number of hydrogen bombs and "accidentally" flew them across the US. Now a military contractor has "accidentally" sent triggers for atomic bombs to Taiwan. China is not well pleased. It is understand that the US government will apologise for the mistake and explain that the triggers were meant to be "accidentally" sent to Iran where they would have provided justification for a unilateral attack by the US.

Damn cheese eating free trade haters!

The right wing President of France, Nicholas Sarkozy, has raised the prospect of a French boycott of the Olympic opening ceremonies over the violence and oppression by the Chinese government in Tibet. Don't they realise that there's business at stake here?

And there's some sort of something stirring up the tabloids re the most recent Mrs. Sarkozy as well. (Probably NSFW)

They should feel right at home

With no apparent sense of irony the US State Department is warning Americans planning on attending the Beijing Olympiad that they may be subject to surveillance. It is not entirely clear from the news release if the surveillance will be conducted by Chinese security or Blackwater under contract to the NSA.

Whatever happened to that Freedom Agenda thing-a-ma-bob?

Captain Codpiece remains silent over the anti-Freedom Agenda violence being carried out by the Chinese dictatorship in Tibet. How unfortunate for the Tibetans that they have little or no oil. And remember, when he goes to the Olympic games it is just as an ordinary sports fan (with two or three 747s full of security).

The whole world is (just) watching

It is good to see that the US government has leaped into the fray over the egregious human rights violations currently being committed by the Chinese government in Tibet. A deputy to an assistant to increasingly irrelevant US Secretary of State Conocoleezza Rice has said that the US often mentions Tibet when speaking to assistants to the deputies of Chinese Politburo members! Thomas Christensen clearly urged the Chinese to talk to some Tibetans but stopped well short of demanding that the Chinese authorities actually stop killing Tibetans.

Meanwhile in the UK the British government has taken stern action and is suggesting to its citizens that they ought not travel to the Himilayan ex-country. There goes my weekend break in Lhasa.

Don't blame China

It woz Mattel wot done it.