On Campus Cabin

A Philosophy and Computer Science double major student of the University of Buffalo had been working on his on campus cabin because he could not afford paying both tuition and rent for school housing. In the mean time, he had been spending nights in stairwells and hammocks.

As his cabin 80% complete and the Fall semester starts, the university demanded the student to 'clear the site'. 21 years old Brain Borncamp complied.

Who Is She?

The bad and the Ugly: American Students Perform Consistently in Years

Secretary Duncan reported that American students have performed consistently in the past few years, but that is not necessarily a good news, given the reality of American students falling far far behind the norm of the world.

A new (as refreshing as last week) study by the National Center for Education found US students lack in math and science.

The ugly part of the story, however, is that while American students scores the same in 2003 and 2006, the rest of the world are making significant improvement.

"We've sort of lost our way," said Secretary Duncan.

Journalist Fired After Reporting Fatal Therapy

A reporter was forced to resign after reporting fatal therapy to treat Internet addiction.

Corporal punishments such as beating and electric shock were used along with brain surgery to treat adolescent who were found addictive to Internet surfing. The 'doctors' working at such facilities were not certified. Thousands were treated, and some were never walked out of the prison like facilities.

After the media coverage, such 'Internet Addiction' Rehab were banned, and treatments were denounced illegal.

Still, the messenger was shot. The reporter and deputy chief editor of South Country Morning Daily (Nanguo Zaobao) was forced to resign because of his story on a wrongful death of one of the victims of such illegal centers.


15 years old Deng Senshan of Nanning, Guangxi Province was sent to one of said 'centers' by his father, hoping to stop his non-stop Internet surfing life style. Days later, the father received his son's body with bloods and bruises, cold.

Although even the authority deems the message to be authentic and prompt, the messenger must die so that no more bad news would be delivered. Chinese people are living in a harmonic society under the ruling of the communists Party, you know?

Interesting Figures on H1B Employers

Since 2001, Goldman Sachs has filed 1022 H1B petitions in Mathematics, made them the No. 1 Visa Sponspor in Mathmatics. Same can be said for Microsoft in Psychology with 111 petitions.

Online Courses

Many reputable but otherwise resource constrained schools had been refraining themselves from offering online courses, until they were seen rushing to the idea amid the economic downturn. There are the ORT (Online Or Not) Test that each school should exercise before a decision is made on whether a particular course should be allowed going online:

• whether offering it online significantly facilitate students attending;
  
• whether online contents enriched or elevated the core of the course.
  

A course could go online if it passes one of the Ort Test. However, if it passes neither, the school should not just go ahead because of monetary concerns as that may very well backfire in a not so long run.

Other thoughts: when a professor teaches, more or less he brings in the knowledge and methodology he absorbed from his PhD adviser. Assuming only a limited number of schools (300 or so in the US) produce PhD, we can count on teaching efficiency of any PhD recipient. However, when the entire higher education is rushing to online offerings, few current professors have been trained or even had any level of experiences of online offerings. Many are retooling from whoever have been conducting online education. Unfortunately, the majority of the said 'whoever' are for-profit institutions and community colleges, or bottom level schools otherwise. Following models of such bottom level schools will certainly not help maintaining quality or reputation. Instead, an efficient and cost effective way of training is giving each faculty who are interested in offering online courses a chance to take one at a first-class school, such as Stanford or MIT. If that's not possible, inviting professors from those schools to give a talk may also help.

Army Reserve Deployed by Wealthy Developer to Evict Villagers

Uniformed reserve soldiers were deployed by wealthy developer in Zhejiang Province to evict villagers from their homes so that a market could be built upon the land. Police and Para-military participation and accusations of brutality in civil commercial disputes are not new in the totalitarian communist county, but using military forces has been rather rare, until recently.

Historically Chinese rulers have been wary on loyalty of military forces. In Ming Dynasty, a wealthy patriot was executed for donating money to a troop, because only the emperor is entitled to giving to the military. During the relief effort of the Sichuan Earthquake in 2007, Chinese premier Wen Jiabao lashed out before reporters for his frustration dealing with troops. Although he is the head of the government and namingly No. 3 in the Party rank, the troop only answers to Mr. Hu Jintao, the Party Core and Chairman of the CCP Central Military Committee (CMC).

April 10, 2009, hundreds of reserved forces of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) were deployed to evict villagers to make room for a market to be developed by a real estate developer Mr. Shen Jinmu. A short video clip of the scene showed villager was beaten by uniformed soldiers. At least one senior citizen was seriously injured with multiple broken bones. Billionaire Shen hired the troop through the local government of Tongxiang, Zhejiang.

There are no Black Lung Patients in China

There were no homosexuals in Iran, as said the visiting Irian President Mahmound Ahmadinejad on a Columbia University forum in 2007.

There are no black lung patients in China despite the all well known work environment issues, as decided by the Chinese Comnunist Party.

A deadly struggle between seven black lung workers and the Party ended up deadly, as described in a recent story carried by the Nanfang Daily.

In the village of Dawu in Wanzhou of Chongqing, seven villagers set out to work in a factory in Wenzhou, Zhejiang in 1997. They were fired by the factory in 2002 when they were too ill to work. Seven came back with black lungs. They battled the legal system in the past five years. The result: five are already dead, and two are still not recognized as black lung patients. The Party boss of Chongqing, Mr. Bo Xilai, proudly stated that there were no black lung patients in Chongqing.

Dead bodies:
Xiang Yin,
Maochen, Qin,
Bin Xiong,
Shaojing Xiong (Bin Xiong's cousin),
Lunhua Mou,

Waiting to be dead, but not classified as black lung:
Zibing Pu
Yu Yin (Xiang Yin's little brother)

Toyota's Broken Axles

Japanese companies have long been accused for intentionally manufacturing products with inferior quality for Chinese market. A bunch of broken axles of Toyota cars just added to the evidents pool.

March 17, 2009, Ms. Zhang Yan of Nantong, Jiangsu was driving on a highway at around 60mph when she felt something was wrong about the Camry which she purchased less than on year ago on May 22, 2008. The car then spun off the road, but in a miracle it didn't bump into anything when it finally stopped. The rear right wheel was found 800 feet away, and the rear axle broken. It was a flat highway, and there was no scratches on the body. Apparently, the axle broke on its own.

It was not until Toyota refused to fix the car, and Ms. Zhang had to do some homework on the records of this model in Chinese market had she learned of the horrific history of broken axles on new Toyota Camry cars in China.

Zhang Jianguo of Beijing had his Camry axle broken when he was driving on Jing-Shi highway near Zhuozhou on May 22, 2009. The Toyota Camry was purchased July 2008.

On March 29, 2009, Mr. Huang Xinyuan of Shenzhen, Guangdong lost control when his Camry had two broken axles. The car was purchased on July 2, 2008.

Camry is not the one Toyota car that have been entangled with broken axles.

On January 26, the New Year's Day in Chinese lunar calendar, Mr. Li Jianming of Guangzhou, Guangdong was driving his Toyota Ritz, when the car lost control because of a broken axle. Toyota refused to have a third party agency examine the car because, ridiculously, Toyota had its own examination. The case was in the court of Huangpu, Guangzhou since June 23, 2009.

Berkeley Defends Torture

Christopher Edley Jr., the Dean of the Berkeley School of Law defends John Yoo's employment by saying, 'a tenured professor can be dismissed only for "commission of a criminal act which has led to conviction in a court of law and which clearly demonstrated unfitness to continue as a member of the faculty."'.

Dean Edley's arguments are wrong.

John Yoo as a lawyer was the hired gun for the Bush administration in writing up the CYA memos for the DoJ in which he redefined the torture as used in war.

Had the US lost the war, Yoo would have been tried and executed as a war criminal. Yoo got away from the international court not because he was innocent, but because he put the United States as shield. Consequently the image of the United States was permanently ruined. Many people suffered, and some died. More will suffer and die as a result. John Yoo knowingly and consciously performed this as a cheap hired gun for then DoJ leaders, consciously at the cost of the Country. The act and the harm it caused mounted to the level of treason.

In addition, Yoo is not suitable for continuing teaching at any capacity. As Scott Horton of Columbia Law School wrote, '.. Lawyers who act on the public stage can have an enormous impact on their society and the world around them....can also be vessels of horrendous injustice and oppression. Indeed they can formant and advance a criminal design....a generation of Berkeley grads to think that writing up CYA memos for political friends is an honorable and proper thing -- or at least something you can get away with, suffering no negative repercussions?...do little credit to the students and faculty at Boalt Hall.

Timothy Burke of Swarthmore College wrote, '.. Shouldn't this kind of approach to knowledge and scholarship disqualify someone for an academic post?'

Koreans are known for cruelty in war time. Civil protests in Korean constantly have items such as machetes, rocks and Molotov cocktails involved. Although Korean military hadn't won a battle in a long time, their army fought along the Japanese Imperial Army and the US army committed the most despicable war crimes against civilian in WWII as well as the Vietnam War.

Sino-US Internet Connection Crippled by Typhoon

Submerged cables between Shantou mainland and Tanshui Taiwan was cut by the Typhoon Morakot. The segment is part of the Asia-Pacific Cable Network 2 (APCN2) on or before August 12. The incident did not have big impact to the network traffics as there are alternative paths.

On or around August 17, one of the alternative paths was damaged near Busan of South Korea. At this time, a big proportion of mainland websites are inaccessible.

National Secret: Undocumented Babies Killed by Hospitals

Movie star Zhang Ziyi recently pled to entertainment reporters not to dig on her private life, because 'for your it's gossip, but for me it's my life'.

For everyone else what was revealed from a ten years old medical record is a taboo of national secret; but for Ms. Chen, it was her life forever without her own offspring. Her first baby boy, whom she was told born dead, was actually delivered alive but later killed by the hospital because she did not have proper document, the birth license. She had since unable to carry another baby.

In mainland China, one family is allowed to have one child. In addition, the couple must obtain a birth license before a child is born. It is an often troublesome procedure for many because each 'unit (the bottom level organization in charge of people's work, life, welfare etc.)' is only allocated a certain number of such licenses each year. If birth licenses run out before the end of year comes, then the options for married couples are either an abortion or carefully avoiding pregnancy. Sometimes it makes a laughable moment when co-workers have to coordinate their sex schedule so that they could fairly and wisely make use of the available birth licenses. Sometimes it became a sadden moment when some couples were told they would have to have an abortion, even when it's their first pregnancy.

Ms. Chen's pregnancy was not planned. She and her husband rushed the wedding when they found out Ms. Chen was pregnant. Before going to the hospital, they had envisioned the father could be arrested and they might have to pay a big fine. They were discussing selling the house to pay the fine. However, they didn't know and little was known to most people that the Health Ministry had a policy which dictated babies without the aforementioned 'birth license' would be secretly executed by the hospital. In China, fathers are not allowed in the delivery room, and mothers would be usually worn out to be alert of what's exactly happening. The baby would be quietly and decisively killed by the delivering doctors, and the mother would be told the child was born dead.

Ms. Chen has been a frequent visitor of fertility clinics in the past 10 years with no luck. About one month ago on July 31, 2009, when she was hospitalized for another fertility treatment at the No. 1 Ninghai Hospital, where the baby was killed tens years ago, a copy of the old medical record was accidentally given to her along with current records. That's when the national secret was leaked to Ms. Chen.


The time was 1999, and the hospital was the No. 1 Hospital of Ninghai (Address: 73 South Taoyuan Road, Ninghai, Zhejiang, 315600, PRC. Tel: +86 (574) 6557-8396. President: Fang Zhengming. Beds: 400) in Ningbo, a coastal city of Zhejiang Province. Three Obgyns were involved in the termination process. They are Drs. Jiang3, Wang and Jiang1. According to the medical record, Dr. Jiang3 carried out the execution 2 minutes after the baby was born alive.

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"Home for Dinner!" Your Mother Said So

"Liu Xuezhou, Home For Dinner!", your mother said so. Millions of Chinese netizens use their unique way to express their anger towards the director of the Henan Provincial Health Department, Liu Xuezhou. Actually, it was pointed out that the decision was made at a higher level by the deputy governor of Henan, Mr. Song Xuantao.

Chinese Internet Mob stormed the official website of the Henan Health Department, and left messages asking the director to go home for dinner after the department censured the No. 1 hospital of Zhengzhou University for helping a farm worker in diagnose of his occupational disease. The doctor who performed the surgery was suspended for one year and the president of the hospital was fired.

Dr. Cheng Zhe was suspended for one year because she wrote the diagnose. When interviewed by news media, she asked, if I wrote I didn't find anything after the surgery, or put something else on the diagnose (the Health Department mandated to write T.B. in place of black lung), that would have crossed the bottom line of a medical practitioner.

A doctor who prefers not to reveal his identity argued that doctors had a moral responsibility and ethics obligation to inform the patient the disease.

The provincial Health Department of Henan stated only officially designated agencies were allowed to make such diagnose.

News media revealed that 53 more workers were diagnosed with black lung in a routine physical examination in 2007, but they were never notified. Henan Health Department's move was trying to silence the workers.

A Shangdong based newspaper suggested the Henan Health Department should have opened up its check to let people see whether its blood is still red.

An anonymous lawyer commented that the university hospital did not intend to challenge the official designated occupational disease center, but only trying to find the cause of the disease of one of its patients. The patient is entitled to the information on his disease, and the doctor has no legal reason to withheld it.

Within one day of learning the punishment on the university hospital, 486 news media picked up the story and unanimously harshly criticized the Hanan government. On one web site, more than 30,000 readers commented on the news with angry cursing on Henan officials. A Shanghai based newspaper ran an editorial titled 'It Is an Honor to be Punished by Henan Officials'.

The most authoritative voice comes from the People's Daily, which published a commentary stating that what Henan government did in name of order would not help in upholding the dignity of order.

Hospital Sanctioned After Examining Farmer's Disease

The No. 1 Hospital Affiliated with Zhengzhou University was sanctioned by the Provincial Health Department of Henan Province after an ordeal in which national attention was drawn to the central province of 99 million people.

28 years old farm worker Zhang Haichao felt sick after worked in a small factory in Ural Hanan. Actually Zhang was not the first one in the factory to get sick. Several died and many had to quit job because they became too weak to work. Workers did not suspect it was job related because they went through health screening every year at the official 'Zhengzhou Occupational Disease Prevention and Treatment Center (CENTER)'. Every time the factory would tell them everything was normal.

All by a chance, Zhang read an article on the newspaper about black lung disease, and realised he was a victim. In the plant he worked processing stone materials, it was so dusty that he couldn't see his co-worker standing 4 feet away. Zhang again went to the official CENTER for a diagnose, but was turned away. The small factory told the CENTER the three years worker was never employed by the factory, so the CENTER refused to examine him. After months of wrestling with various level of authorities, the CENTER took an X-Ray of Zhang, but told him everything was okay. Local occupational CENTERs usually discourage workers from claiming occupational disease related benefit, because many are connected to the industries that caused these problems. Local officials also did not want to see diagnose of occupational disease for taxation considerations.

Zhang was desperate because he was so sick and he wouldn't be able to afford any treatment. He had seen co-workers painful death and he was so scared that the same would happen to him soon. He would rather die immediately than going through the last stage of black lung without at least some pain killers.

Desperate Zhang made a decision that would later place the country in shock and the Henan Health Department in embarrassment. Zhang asked the No. 1 Hospital Affiliated with Zhengzhou University to open his chest, and take a picture of his 'black' lung. The hospital did, and the story was picked up by numeral news media.

Before approaching through the extreme method, Zhang had obtained diagnose of black lung from several hospitals based on X-Rays. However, he still needs the CENTER to confirm the diagnose because the CENTER was the only official designated agency per the provincial Health Department. The CENTER refused to look into his files regardless.

The Health Ministry dispatched an expert group to Henan and announced Zhang was in stage III of black lung. With this diagnose, Zhang will be able to receive free treatment mandated by a national regulation. The head of the CENTER and the director of a city level Health Department were removed in a public outcry.

Humiliated Henan provincial government launched a counter attack. On August 10, 2009, the provincial Health Department Sanctioned the hospital for conducting occupational disease diagnose without proper authorization. The Henan provincial Health Department stated that only the officially designated CENTER could perform such examination and diagnose. The medical hospital was fined $1,000. The lead doctor was fired, and the president of the hospital was disciplined.

80% of Earthquake Donations Ended Up in Government Accounts

A study by Qinghua University revealed that 80% of earthquake donations after last year's Sichuan Earthquake ended up in government accounts. A historic 76.7 Billion RMB Yuan was raised after the 5/12/2008 earthquake. Many of the donors are themselves in need, but still gave whatever they had in hand to the victims of the disaster that took away thousands of lives.

A team led by Guosheng Deng of the Public Management College of Qinghua University conducted a study on the donation. They found 80% of the donation made by individuals and companies ended up in government accounts in the form of extra tax revenues. Although only 58% of the donations were directly made to government accounts, those made to various charities were in the end taken away by the government.

The study was publicized on the 'Exhibition of Charity Projects and Community Organization 5.12 Activity Forum' held on August 12, 2009 in Beijing.

Guosheng Deng is an associate professor and director of the NGO Institute of the Qinghua University. He received a J.D. from the People's (Renmin) University.

Gangs on Beijing Street

Mobs armed with machete were on street of Beijing. More than 30 uniformed men demolished shops along a busy street in Chaoyang District of Beijing in daytime on July 28, 2009. While the residents were still in shock to see a riot in the capital city, 10 more cars were demolished on the same street the next day. The incident happened in Chuiyangliu, Shuanjing, heart of downtown Beijing.

The Beijing TV (BTV) reported that the police had arrested 24 people involved in the case. The TV program was not specific on the details of the case.

Lawyers Must Follow the Party

Aiying Wu, the Minister of Justice request lawyers to follow the Party. She gave the talk at a provincial head of justice department meeting on August 6, 2009.

Minister Wu stated, lawyers must firmly obey leadership of the Party, and follow the correct political direction. She emphasized the importance of establishing Party organizations in all law firms.

By this time, among 140,000 law firms in mainland China, 3895 has build-in Party organization; 8075 firms share combined 2692 Party organizations. Appointees or liaisons have been appointed to each of the rest 2741 firms. Every law firm in China is under the direct and firm control of the Party.

Lawyer Xiaoyuan Liu questioned the legality of Wu's talk in his blog. Liu argued Liu's talk was contradictive to the Lawyer Code of the PRC.

Wu, born in 1951 and taking office in 2005, is the second women Justice Minister in China.

Heaven on the Earth

There was an old, old saying: There is the heaven on the sky; there are Suzhou and Hangzhou on the ground. Hangzhou is known for its scenic lake and harmonic living as the best place to live on the earth, NOT.

Less than a month after the infamous qishima (seventy kilometers per hour) tragedy, another girl was killed by a speeding car on a pedestrian crossing. 'Qishima' immediately became a household Chinese vocabulary because the police cited the driver's words as the actual speed. The case drew national attention because apparent police corruption. Based on online tickets tracking, the driver should have been revoked his driver's license years ago but police accepted money and took care of the rest. After the accident, the Hangzhou police used the driver's words as the actual speed without a survey of the scene. Thousands of people demonstrated in many cities near and far. The driver was sentenced to three years in prison.

While the Hangzhou government was publicly humiliated. The police had to apologize for using Qishima. As a remedy after the tragedy, the Hanghzou government set up 10 'LOVING HEART' pedestrian crossing at most busiest intersections in downtown. These special pedxings are twice broader than ordinary crossings and painted with giant heart shapes over colorful stripes.

Seventeen years old Fangfang Ma was hit by a Prosche Cayenne on one of these 'loving heart' in front of the local TV station in front of hundreds of people.

After the accident, the passenger, a woman, and the driver, a drunk man, switched their seats in front of hundreds of witnesses. Although angry witnesses informed the police, Hangzhou police took only a blood sample from the woman.

Thousands of witnesses threatened to burn the police cars. Only then police took the blood sample from the man. However, the police told the crowd they would submit the sample to a hospital the next morning and that the alcohol test would take days to get a reading.

The driver's name is Zhigang Wei. Zhigang Wei is the son of Minxuan Wei, a Party member and prominent businessman. The woman claimed to be his girlfriend. Witnesses said she was a prostitute of the Jinbihui Nightclub. The license plate of the Porsche is Zhe-A-892E9.

As commentators said, Hangzhou is indeed the place closest to the Heaven. Rich people live in the heaven, and poor people are sent to the heaven.

Celebrity Drug Case Renewed Discussion on Law and Ethics

Wenjun Man is a farmer turned singer, a celebrity with fame and a large fan base in Beijing. Man along with his wife Li Li were arrested for holding a drug part at his house. Man was detained for 15 days for taking ecstasy himself, while his wife was sentenced one year jail time for supplying ketamine to Man and his friends.

Li Li denied drug charges in the court, but was only rebut by a testimony of Man, her own husband.

Legal experts questioned whether Man had to testify against his wife. Throughout history of China, by law a person does not have to provide damaging information on his family members. For example, legal archives dated 2000 years ago (in Han Dynasty) says a son does not have to turn in his father under any circumstances; while a father does not have to turn in his son, except his son committed high crime such as murder. The principle has been adopted in every law passed in Chinese history, including as close as the criminal code of the Republic of China (now exile in Taiwan after loosing the mainland in civil war in 1949) published in 1937. However, after the communists taking over the power, such exemptions were crossed out of the law. One has to turn in his family member on anything suspicious. During the Great Cultural Revolution, wives are forced to turn in their husbands, students are encouraged to torture their teachers. The family architecture is totally crushed so that people are only loyal to one body, the Party.

The consequence is however, people no longer trust anyone but themselves. In a long run, this may not be good even to the Party because already people are questioning their loyalty to the Party.

Korea Honors War Criminals

Korea celebrated 45 anniversaries of its participation of the Vietnam War by erected a status for war criminals at its national memorial cemetery at Dongjak-dong in Seoul. Korean troops has been known for its cruel way of treating civilians through human history. It is estimated by Korean media that approximately 5,000 Vietnamese civilians had been massacred by Korean soldiers between 1963 to 1973.

What does this have anything to do with Chinese? The 'Korean Division' was the first to start, and the most cruel Japanese troops who massacred 400,000 Nanjing residents in 1937 during WWII. At the time, Korea was a colony of Japan.

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More Chinese Students Assaulted in Australia

More Chinese were assaulted in Australia. Four Chinese students were assaulted near the Gold Coast in Queensland Australia. Inspired by Victorian Supreme Court Justice David Harper's rent ruling that the maximum jail time for white killing Chinese was 10 years, Asian hunters are mobilized on Australian streets to act out their holy duty.

Asian students are ripen target for white Australian. Besides Chinese, Indian are also attacked in mass scale. Unlike their quiet Chinese counterparts, Indian leaders are vocal to condemn the barbarian violence in disgust. On June 9, 2009, Indian Prime Minister said he was appalled by the senseless violence and crime, some of which are racist in nature. Indian students launched mass protest in Melbourne (5/31/2009) and Sydney (6/7-10/2009), as well as in front of the Australian Embassy in New Delhi.


Bollywood's largest labor union declared that its members would boycott Australia until it stopped encouraging on white residents to assault on Indian student. Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan turned on an Honorable doctorate from the Queensland University of Technology.

The Chinese Ambassador to Australia Mr. Zhang Junsai, however, refused to make comment on the handling of racial hate crimes by the Australian authorities. "If a Chinese citizen loves China, he should have stayed within the boundary of China, rather than coming to the Australia," Mr. Zhang said. He added, "If a Chinese consciously chose not to stay in his motherland in China, then he is not a loyal Chinese, and should be punished."

Australian is such an amazing species. With a 92% white population, one in five claimed to be a victim of racist abuse, according to an 11-year study into racism in Australia by a collaboration of Australian universities. Go figure.

OMG, Dog Ate My Homework

It is yet another moment in American Higher Education when one has to face the reality. This time, however, it is the professors who are pulling their hairs and struggling to find a rope.

A small time Wake Forest University assistant professor published a paper with historic value, in which she found private colleges who had adopted merit-based financial aid found their academic outcome elevated moderately while, as 'concerned by the author', minority enrollment slid.

A reader at the Inside Higher Ed (IHE) quickly pointed out the flaws in the phony research. First of all, an institution wide SAT increase of 22 or 35 is actually 'huge' for any college, especially those top tier colleges who have little room for improvement already. Secondly, a 2 percent decline of enrollment over 10 years is not only statistically insignificant but also hardly not affected by other possible factors.

While the US higher education is lagging behind even more comparing to its international pars on daily basis, some phony researchers are finding an overall significant improvement in academic a major 'concern'. Yeeha!