Story Behind 'Shao' Orphans Story

Journalist Pang Xiaoming resigned from Caixin last week. Having been released from his official reporter role, Pang was able to tell the story behind his signature work 'Shao Orphans' and the story of his own, in which he had to change his name several times, playing mouse and cat game with bureaucrats at the Central Propaganda Ministry.

Pang's haunted journey started at China Economic Times. His investigative report on substandard construction materials in building the high speed rail system made himself a prey of the always alarmed Central Propaganda Ministry. Pang changed his name to Shangguan Aoming to work at Southern Metropolitan In-Depth News.

His signature reporting on 'Shao Orphans' once again exposed himself to the Propaganda Ministry. The censor police was able to match the two names, and Caixin was ordered to fire Pang.

Caixin is known as the most daring mouth piece in mainland China, mostly thanks to a chief editor Hu Shuli. Pang was instead instructed by his boss to make up a new name. Pang used 'Huang Yimeng', a pun on 'but a dream'. Hu found it too pessimistic for her taste and changed it to 'Zheng Dao', a pun on 'right road'. With he new names, Pang was able to return to news reporting until he was caught on by the censor police again. Pang was reassigned to desk jobs.

In April, Hu felt time to test water and activated Pang. Four month later, Pang's report on Fushun flooding casualty number contradicted the official proved data. He was caught by the Central Propaganda Ministry for the last time.

As all media in China, Caixin is a subsidiary of Zhejiang Daily, the official publication of the Provincial Propaganda Department of Zhejiang CCP. All reporters in China are government officials.

Software Engineering and The Default Destination of Coding Outsourcing

There is no dispute that India and Indians intellectuals are main contributors for theories and best practices in software engineering for the last decades, in addition to the fact that they are the largest practicers in this fields. India is the main destination when US firms looking for off-shore coding resources. Indian also provided the largest software engineers population to the US. In the year of 2012, 49,000 Indians were granted H1B visa to work in Hi-tech US firms, mostly as software developers. In comparison, 7,000 Chinese received these type of visa. The largest Indian company in the US was a consulting company to help US firms find a proper match for coding service providers in India. And not surprisingly, the signature policy piece of the Obama Administration, the Obamacare website was actually coded in India.

Software Engineering has little to do with software development per ce. Rather, it's a specialization of system engineering into software development, to enable mass scale collaboration on a given project. Each participants can be trained with only minimum of technical skills, thus finish the job at a minimum cost.

The idea sounds promising and encouraging. However, many US companies found the quality of the code unacceptable. Quality control is achieved by modular testing through APIs (application programming interface). What's inside a module are often ignored, or swiped under the carpet for the sake of progress. The end result is often a project that works at the time of delivery, but totally not maintainable due to back code quality stemed from coders's poor technical skills.

Chinese Hate Chinese The Most

It's no secret that Chinese hates Chinese the most, at least that has been the case for as long as Chinese written language in existence, which is blood 8,000 years. The last Empress Dowager Cixi famously stated that she would rather provide for neighbor countries rather than Chinese people.

The Qinghua University in Beijing was set up with a refund of War Indemnity from the United States. Ever since its born, the school had been proud of being a pareration academy for western universities.

In a job ad for faculty positions in Immunology The Qinghua University posted with Nature Magazine, it states that Non-Chinese native candidates are particularly encouraged to apply. This is for positions in Immunology, a field Chinese can not, and must not master.

We invite applications from outstanding immunologists who aim to conduct systematic, innovative research. Non-Chinese native candidates are particularly encouraged to apply (English is an official language in scientific discussions). Candidates should have a demonstrable record of excellence in areas including but not limited to inflammasome, innate lymphocytes, immune memory, human and clinical immunology, microbiota and mucosal immunity, and animal disease models. Successful applicants will be offered very generous start-up packages plus internationally competitive salaries and housing benefits.

What puzzles readers of the magazine is why Nature endorses this kind of language which is discriminative inside out. Although Nature is a British magazine, it has offices in the US. Discrimination based on race and country of origin is textbook case illegal. In other words, Nature risks of being sanctioned by a court of law to label a premier Chinese university of Barbarianism. That makes Nature a racist, too.

Biden Encouraged Chinese Students Stay in the US

Chinese students who were standing in snake lines in the US Embassy in Beijing waiting for visa interview were surprised by an upbeat Biden and his inspiring impromptus speech, in which the Vice President of the United States urged Chinese students to stay in the US.

Obvious in a good spirit, Biden thanked the applicants for their effort for the US opportunities. He told students that he hope they would decided to stay once they arrived in the US. He also promised to arrange a reunion in Washington.

What's ironic is that for students seeking an F-1 student visa to study in the US university, the predominant condition and the No. 1 reason for visa rejection is that they must demonstrate they would not stay in the US. By law, if a student shows any sign of likelihood of not returning to China once his study completes, the visa officer must deny the visa application. It would be interesting if any of the students actually told the visa officer that he would follow Biden's advice.

In addition, the Beijing Embassy did not handle visa. All immigration visa applicants must apply in Guangzhou.

Wang Qinglei Fired

A star journalist was terminated by the China Central Television (CCTV). Wang qinglei revealed in his Weibo that he had been fired by the CCTV after he questioned the practice of the national TV to have an American Chinese political activist confess in front of the camera for his alleged crimes before a court trial.

Wang was briefly suspended in 2011 for raising inappropriate questions while reporting the bullet train accident in Wenzhou. In his ten years tenure at CCTV, Wang worked as a reporter with the Weekly News, News 1+1, and as the producer with the 24 Hours and lately Face to Face.

Charles Biqun 'Manzi' Xue was caught by police for inviting two prostitutes to his rental apartment in Beijing. While being detained by the police, a tearing and running noses Xue appeared on the Xinwen Lianbo, the one and only official national daily half hour news broadcasting, and confessed his adultery for 3 minutes. Appearance at the Xinwen Lianbo with air time of this length is usually reserved for major historic domestic event. Xue's wife was also publicly humiliated by exposing crime committed by her ex-mother-in-law. In addition, Xue confessed a scheme to use the Internet social networking sites to criticize the government and induce pain to Chinese people.

Berkeley educated Xue is a venture capitalist working with startups in China. An avid poster on Weibo, Xue saw opportunities to gain reputation from his potential clients among the newly emerging middle class by commenting on social issues. Xue had been cautious to steer clear from sensitive political topics, but obviously he misjudged the tolerance threshold of the Beijing authority.

In a long resignation letter, Wang revealed that there was no legal basis to charge Xue even after he was made confess on CCTV. Five days later, the National Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate jointly published an ordinance, in which it made an 'inaccurate' post on the Internet a criminal offense after being viewing 5,000 times or being forwarded 500 times.

The reaction on the Chinese online community is overwhelmingly supportive. However, there are also people who point out that Wang wouldn't be able to stay inside for ten years long and elevate to a new producer at the CCTV had he been as honest as he claimed in the letter.

Freedom No More

Today, we mourn the death of a historic phrase in Chinese language, freedom (自由). The phrase with its modern undertone of 'rights' was originally imported from Japanese in the nineteenth century when modern ideas were introduced to China. It was executed by the new Administration of Xi-Li in 2013 without going through a trial.

This can only be a surreal scene plagiarized from George Orwell's 'Animal Farm', a Déjà Vu that you simply can't make it up. In the 2013 '11th' edition of the New China/Xinhua Dictionary, the phrase 'freedom (自由)' is taken out.

The pictures show the difference between the Xinhua Dictionary 2010 '10th' edition and 2013 '11th' edition on the same page under the word 'self' (自).

The Xinhua Dictionary is the only national dictionary approved for official usage. It is the only official dictionary approved to be used in public school education. Between the first edition of 1953 and the ninth edition of 2004, 400 million copies of Xinhua Dictionary were published, which made it the most popular dictionary in mankind history.

The green highlighter marked the old, evidently obsolete by now, definition of 'freedom(自由)': a right to make personal decisions within the boundaries of law.

Beijing Recognizes Underground Jails

In a press conference today, the deputy director of the National Petition Bureau Mr. Li Gao was asked to comment on the underground jails scattered around the Bureau. Local governments set up these underground jails to detain appelees who come to Beijing to petition their mistreatment by local governments before they could be transferred back. By letters of current law, this is illegal.

Mr. Li Gao stated, these petitioners were detained when they conducted "illegal petition", therefore, they were not under protection of law.

Mr. Li's comment was puzzling in many ways. First of all, what conducts would make petitioning to the National Petition Bureau 'illegal'? Secondly, regardless of what these petitioners were doing in Beijing, how could local governments from other provinces jail them in Beijing without going through any judicial procedure? Also, what are the legal arguments for local government to set up secret jails in Beijing?

Billionaire and civil activist Mr. Wang Gongquan was arrested this summer. Mr. Wang visited the underground jails in a winter night earlier this year and demand releasing of the detainees. Mr. Wang was charged with disturbance order.

On a separate note, domestic techie tycoons lessoned Party leadership how to make use of Internet technology. Zhongguancun, September 30, a Robin Yanhong Li in a full white suits, founder and CEO of Baidu the Chinese search engine, briefed Xi Jinping the concept of Big Data and applications into social management, such as online surveillance of public events.

Rutgers Student Guilty on Child Porn

19 year old Rutgers University student Wang Hongyu was arrested in January 2012, and was charged with endangering welfare of a child and obstruction.

Police tracked the source of a child pornography image they downloaded. The IP belongs to a computer on campus at Rutgers University, later identified to be Wang's computer.

Police found numerous child porn pictures on Wang's computer.

Wang pled guilty last week. He is facing 3-5 years of jail time, to be sentenced in January.

New Jersey Police did a good job to catch a sex offender. However, based on the description of media coverage, the handling of the case left many unanswered questions. Wang's name sounds coming from a lower level family in China, and the fact that he lives with his parents in an apartment near campus suggests the family might not have afforded a good lawyer.

• Experts had demonstrated using IP to identify a computer was unreliable and often error-prone. However, it appeared that the IT Department of the Rutgers University did not provide an opportunity for Wang to review or squat the subpoena or police request for this information.
• When detective found Wang on campus, he agreed to ride with the detective to his parents' home to inspect the computer in question. Obviously, the detective did not have a search warrant, nor an arrest warrant. Wang did not have to go with the detective. Further, he did not have to reveal the whereabouts of the computer.

  In China, people are brainwashed to unconditionally cooperate with the authorities. Wang came to the US in a late age. It is highly possible that he believed he must help the police to criminalize himself, as the Chinese rule mandates.

• In the charging document, police said Wang had two strong magnets in both of his shoes, and attempted to use them to wipe out the hard drives in his computer after he led the detective to his parents's apartment.

  This accusation sounds very fishy to any IT professional working in the field. The Seagull consulted a magnetic disk drive expert, who confirmed that the scheme as described would not work.

If a Kennedy can walk away from murdering a 15 year old girl on an excuse of having bad lawyers, Wang might also have his day in a court with common sense.

Senseless Sports

Some sports are senseless, i.e. boxing or professional wrestling.

Professional wrestlers pretends to hurt each other with fake punches, kicks, elbows, chains and often fake chairs. They are often cheered by thousands in the arena at the same time millions who watch through satellite broadcasting. With full knowledge of a fake game, viewers bet on who may win out with real money and full hearted enthusiasm.

Boxers win a game by physically hurt another person, who sometimes is a player who have been training together for years or a family friend off stage. They would be cheered when they made a knockout, that is, to destabilize the opponent with one commanding strike. Many who were knocked-out would not wake to see the light of another day.

But both professional wrestling and boxing are so yesteryear. Today's youth were obviously addicted to new senseless sports: knockout and walkout.

It has been widely reported that young Americans had embraced a sports call knockout. An young man would suddenly release one calculated blow to a totally random bystander. The point was not robbery, or rape, but to knockout the person with only one strike. It requires high level personal combat skills, decisives, determination and self discipline. You can't alert the target, and it often calls multiple assistants to distract the target.

It is said this urban sports originated from St Louis, and had spread out to all metropolitan areas in the US. Many uploaded their highly professional and skillful execution of totally clueless bystanders to Internet video hosting services as brag rights. As explained in this YouTube video, old and young, male and female are playing the extremely popular game.

In the good ol' days, decorated criminals avoided victimizing weak targets, sometimes even at cost of their own safety; otherwise they could risk their reputation, something critically essential for surviving lawless jungles. However, today's youth community were too lazy, that they only adore the end result, that is the motionless body after a knockout, not how to reach it. Players of the game often chose weak targets, such as woman with children, and cheated their way with bullets instead of fists. Yet, they are still adored and cheered by their peers.

Yesterday, a 26 year old mailman Tyson Jerome Barnette was shot and killed on daily route when he was delivering mail in PG (Prince George's) County in Maryland. It has been extremely rare when a full uniformed mail carrier being gunned down on duty delivering mails on foot. This gamer was so lousy that he not only picked up a totally clueless mailman, but also he/she shot him five times.

A Washington Post article penned by Martin Weil, however, implied the fault fell on the mailman's ineffiency in delivering his shift. "It was thought that the carrier's unfamiliarity with the route might have been linked to the lateness of his deliveries," disregard that many comments promptly pointed out that other carriers had been complained about being targets by senseless sportsmen in the same area, and that they had to work at dark before and after sunlight times. There was no blame, zero, on the senseless and lousy gamer who had committed this horrific crime.

The knockout of mail carrier was not accidental. The day before yesterday, students in PG county created a national walkout day all by themselves. Students from all schools across the county participated the senseless sport called walkout at noon on Friday. It was not a protesting, nor 'starting' a dialog as often so used conveniently after such incidents. Students stated clearly, it's nothing but a game. In addition to dancing and celebrating, they also placed chairs on ceilings.

What else is coming that have we not foreseen since the liberals took stage in Washington D.C.? It seems that neither the President himself or his Secretary of Education is bothered by these new senseless sports at all.

People who have been fed up with these senseless sports demand a change. Yes, we can. The Election is only two years ahead.

Jiang Zemin, Li Peng Wanted by Spanish Court

Spain's National Court has issued arrest warrants for former Chinese President Jiang Zemin, Premier Li Peng, as well as three other officials for their role in alleged genocide in Tibet.

Former President Hu Jintao is also under the same investigation, but is not facing arrest at this time.

Spain National Court claims jurisdiction over severe human rights violations even outside its territories on the principle of universal jurisdiction.

Chilean dictator General Pinochet was indicted for human rights violations by Spanish magistrate Baltascar Garzon in 1998. Six days later, he was arrested in a hospital in London by British police acting on a request from Spain.

Pigeons in Hefei

In an western style wedding ceremony on Nov 11, 2013, the organizers released hundreds of pigeons near the south shore of Swan Lake in the city center of Hefei (source, more pics). In Chinese culture, pigeons are expected to bring good luck and blessings.

The birds immediately found themselves targets of local residents who happened to be at the scene. People of all ages rushed to the birds. Before pigeons could fly away, most were caught and cooked.

Hefei is the capital city of Anhui, hometown of former President Hu Jintao.

Anhui is the most dangerous province in China for birds. Local residents often use fine nets larger than roadside billboards or poisoning an entire lake to catch migrating birds.

May God Bless People in Anhui.

IIE: 235,000 Chinese students in the US in 2012-2013

From Open Doors 2013: Data Highlight:
• Total number of international students: 819,644, a 7% growth over the prior year;
• International students represent 3.7% of total U.S. higher ed students body; the corresponding numbers for uk(19%), Australia (27%)
• 235,597 Chinese student enrollments in 2012/13 academic year, a 21% increase over the prior year;
• Popular fields of study for Chinese students: Business (28.7%), Engineering (19.6%), Computer Science (11.2%), * 2012 data
• Top countries: China (29%), India (12%), South Korea (9%), represent 49% of the total international students population;
• Department of Commerce said international students contributed more than $24 billion to the U.S. economy in a year;
• Top hosting universities: USC (9,840), UIUC (9,804), Purdue (9,509), NYU (9,362), Columbia (8,797);
• Top sources of funding: personal (63.6%), US Colleges (20.7%), Foreign Government (7.1%)

Note: 2012 data for State of Maryland:
• Foreign students 13,969 (No. 16);
• Top hosting universities: UMCP (3,924), JHU (2,923), Montgomery College (1,787), UMBC (1,017), Towson (802)

Bloomberg Called China Nazi-era Germany

Bloomberg, the world lead financial news agency, blocked an article by its own reporters on Chinese billionaire Wang Jianlin to prevent 'jeopardising' its position in China.

Although internal editors and reporters stated that they had 'fully edited, fact checked and vetted by the lawyers,' editor-in-chief Mr. Matthew Winkler insisted to pull the story at the eleventh hour.

To justify his decision, Mr. Winkler compared the situation with Nazi-era Germany where some media undertook self censorship to remain in the country. According to Financial Time, a Bloomberg spokesman did not comment on the Nazi Germany reference.

NY Times broke out the story first, without naming Mr. Wang Jianlin.

Insiders said the article became sensitive when it turned out Mr. Wang's business was deeply entangled with members in the standing committee of the Chinese politburo. Wang is known for being the wealthiest person in China with his property valued at $14.2 billion.

Reporting on Dalian based Wang was once considered safe as his big sponsor Mr. Bo Xilai's aspiration to the top position in China ended abruptly two years ago. However, the Third Plenum of CCP which concluded yesterday indicated Bo's legend would carry on despite that Bo would remain behind the bars. Bloomberg must have smelled it coming a few days ahead with its extensive business networkings in China.

Top 25 LGBT-Friendly Schools

This list is compiled by Campus Pride and published by the Huffington Post.

• University of California, Riverside (Riverside, Calif.)
• University of California, Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz, Calif.)
• Carleton College (Northfield, Minn.)
• Case Western Reserve University (Cleveland)
• Connecticut College (New London, Conn.)
• University of Illinois at Chicago (Chicago)
• Ithaca College (Ithaca, N.Y.)
• Macalester College (Saint Paul, Minn.)
• University of Maryland, College Park
• University of Massachusetts, Amherst (Amherst, Mass.)
• University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (Ann Arbor, Mich.)
• University of Minnesota, Duluth (Duluth, Minn.)
• University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (Minneapolis)
• Oberlin College (Oberlin, Ohio)
• The Ohio State University (Columbus, Ohio)
• University of Oregon (Eugene, Ore.)
• University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia)
• Portland State University (Portland, Ore.)
• Princeton University (Princeton, N.J.)
• Rutgers University (Piscataway, N.J.)
• University of Southern California (Los Angeles)
• Southern Oregon University (Ashland, Ore.)
• Stanford University (Stanford, Calif.)
• University of Washington (Seattle)
• Washington State University (Pullman, Wash.)

Toyota's Sudden Acceleration Tested in Court

October 24, 2013, jury in Oklahoma City found Toyota Motor liable for a 2007 crash after a Toyota Camry suddenly accelerated. The jury also found Toyota acted with 'reckless disregard' for the rights of others, which triggered a second phase of the trail to determine punitive damages. Toyota was able to have reached a settlement for an unspecified amount on punitive damages beyond the court approved $3 million actual lost.

This case was significant because for the first time, a technical team was able to recreate the sudden acceleration symptom under a controlled environment that was recognized by a court. By ejecting a flip of a single digit number, which could be caused by many possible scenarios listed, the testing item entered a verifiable potential fatal status.

There are many things Toyota could have done to avoid the fatal crash:

1. Amateur architectural design. There are 67 functions with complexity over 50 - untestble, and 12 functions with complexity over 100 - unmaintainable. The key culprit function that controls the throttle and other sensors contains over 1300 lines of code and 146 degrees of complexity. Unbelievable, Toyota used more than 11,000 global variables, which should be entirely avoided.
2. Not following developing guidelines. As a safety critical system (SCF), there is an existing guidelines MISRA C, which is adopted by major automakers. Toyota claimed that they followed their own internal guidelines, which is 50% compatible with the industrial guidelines. However, the real overlapping is less than 10%. What's more, Toyota did not even follow it's own internal guidelines. The tech team found over 80,000 violations in Toyota's code. Toyota had proposed its own finding that every coding violation implied one major defect and ten minor defects.

   Recursion technique, a taboo in embedded programming, was used extensively.

3. Lack of protection to key variables, including the most critical variable: the TargetThrottleAngle global variable. Toyota used an uncertified operating system. In some cases, they did not use ECC code. In other cases, they used insufficient ECC code.
4. No stack protection. Toyota estimated their stack is used 41% max in the worst case, while the tech team found it could be as high as 94% without taking into consideration of the recursion issue. With recursion it would be unlimited, thus a real risk of accidentally overwriting key program values. Some models of Toyota has no monitor of stack overflow (to a key OS task allocation record area).
5. An overwhelming task X.
6. No watchdog program on tasks, and an insufficient watchdog on CPU overloading (using hardware interrupt to feed the dog).
7. A hardware protection system fails when task X fails.
8. Brake Echo Check must be triggered by an act on brake.
9. Brake Override System included in task X.
10. A 'litany' of other faults were found in the code, including buffer overflow, unsafe casting, and reac condition among others.

Bookout v. Toyota Motor Corp. CJ-2008-7969, Oklahoma County District Court

This post summarized discussions in a Chinese analysis which was in turn based on testimonies from Michael Barr.

Toyota's statement on Oct 25, 2013:

While we strongly disagree with the verdict, we are satisfied that the parties reached a mutually acceptable agreement to settle this case. We remain committed to providing our customers with safe and reliable vehicles, and we will continue to defend our products vigorously at trial in other legal venues.

The biggest problem? NASA, contracted by the NHTSA, did not find the problem in a previous government investigation.

Further reading at EDN, and do not miss the comments which are very informative.

Chinese Student Extradited to the US

Tim Tse was a student studying for a Master's degree at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee in January 2006, when he allegedly sexually assaulted a female student H.Y.T. from Taiwan.

Tse was arrested at a border crossing when he was traveling to mainland from Hong Kong in January 2013. The Chinese authority contacted the US when his name triggered an alarm on computer screen. Tse was sent back to Hong Kong from where he was extradited to the US. Although there was no extradition agreement between the US and China, there is such agreement between Hong Kong and the US.

According to the police, Tse, having his face covered with a ski mask, broke in the 26 years old victim's residence on S Riverwood Blvd where she was sleeping at the time and drugged her by placing a soaked rag soaked with a toxic chemical over her mouth. Tse then showered her and forced a pill down her throat. The woman was beat and raped. Tse also took photos of the naked victim.

The woman was not able to name a suspect, but Tse contacted the police one week later. Tse initially admitted to police that he was angry with the woman for a variety of reasons and wanted to take nude photos and posted them online to humiliate her. Tse then claimed he was not provided proper legal advice, and tried to suppress the confession.

Tse was arrested and charged with second degree sexual assault and burglary on Nov 14, 2006. He was assigned a public defender, being indigent; however, managed to post a bond of $100,000 in cash the same day. Tse's girlfriend posted the bond on Nov 16 with money wired by Tse's family. Tse boarded a United flight to Hong Kong at O'Hare in Chicago on Nov 19.

Wisconsin v. Tim Tse, 2006CF006108

This time, Tse's bond was set at $5 million. On Oct 22, 2013, Tse pled guilty on Burglary. The court dismissed Secual Assault charge.

Tse's next court appearance will be on Dec 6, 2013. Tse is represented by Dean A. Strang, who has extensive trial experience including in the SCOTUS.

A April 16, 2007 youtube video claimed Tim Tse was from Shanghai, China. Court record also showed Tse claimed he was a native Mandarin speaker. However, based on the way the name is spelled, the Seagull is positive that he must not be from the mainland. Hong Kong is possible, though. Charles Stone, the victim's friend and a lawyer, said Tse was a Chinese citizen. On the other hand, towards the end of the video, the news anchor said the at large Tse could be on an airplane to Hong Kong.

When Tse was apprehended and brought back to the US a few months ago, local TV station FOX6 proclaimed that regardless the result of the trial, Tse would be registered as a secual offender for the rest of his life. It did not go that way.

Update: Franklin Now has a detailed recount of the saga:

According to the 2006 criminal complaint and Franklin Police Department police reports:

The attack occurred in the woman's apartment in the 6900 block of South Riverwood Boulevard between Nov. 4 and 5, 2006. The victim, who was 26 at the time, told police she was sleeping in her bed when a man placed a rag containing some sort of chemical over her mouth, hit her and choked her several times. He pulled off her pajama bottoms and underwear and fondled her underneath her pajama top.

The woman told police that during this time she saw flashes, which led her to believe the man was taking pictures of her while she was partly nude.

The man then took her into the bathroom and placed her in the shower, where he tied her up, placed a towel over her face and attempted to force a pill down her throat. She spit the pill into the shower when she heard the man leave the room, and when he returned he dragged her by her shoulders and hair back into the bedroom, where he left her lying on the floor.

The victim stated that she was lightheaded and dizzy, and went in and out of consciousness several times during the attack.

After the man left her bedroom, the woman grabbed her cellphone and dialed 911. Officers found the woman lying on her bedroom floor, shaking uncontrollably, with a towel covering the bottom portion of her body. The Franklin Fire Department took her to the hospital for evaluation and treatment.

About a week after the incident, police received a call from the victim's boyfriend, who stated that Tse had just confessed to attacking the woman.

"I guess he was feeling some pangs of guilt after the attack," Spak said, "so he decided to tell the victim's boyfriend, who then called us."

When questioned by police, Tse, who was dating the victim's roommate at the time, told officers he was angry at the victim for a variety of reasons that he never explained and planned the attack out of revenge, according to the criminal complaint. He stated he wanted to take pictures of the victim without her clothes on and post them on the Internet to humiliate her.

Franklin detectives later searched Tse's home in the 1600 block of North Prospect Avenue in Milwaukee, where they seized all computers, hard drives, monitors, storage disks, CDs and DVDs, along with any cameras or chemicals. However, police never found any pictures or video of the victim, police reports state.

"He never actually posted the pictures on the Internet, or did anything else with them," Spak said. "To our knowledge he destroyed the camera, and all the photos along with it."

Tse admitted to entering the woman's home using her roommate's key, and using a chemical-soaked rag to render her unconscious. He also admitted to groping the victim because he wanted to scare her and "make her believe she was going to be sexually assaulted," and to taking pictures of her in various stages of undress, according to the complaint.

It goes on to state that Tse told police he stole several items before leaving the apartment because he believed it would be better for him if he made the incident look more like a burglary.

Chuck Allanson's Chinglish Handbook

A popular English learning guide on Chinese Internet community was attributed to Chuck Allanson, who claimed to be on faculty of Zhejiang University. The article was supposed to clarify some misuses or casual wordings that were frequently found in translating Chinese into English. However, some obvious misinformation were mixed in.

At the beginning, when explaining the motive of writing the article, Mr. Allanson said he found many Chinese didn't know the native way of referring dumpling was ravioli. I hope he can't be too serious on this, unless he just descended in a tardis traveling from civil war time America. Later he said the correct way for calling noodles were pasta, with a annotate of using noodles being childish.

Among the 20 some 'Chinglish' mistakes which were listed side-by-side with presumed correct way of saying them as natives, about half of them were false or misleading.

Chinese	Chinglish	English	Seagull Comments
欢迎你到...	welcome you to ...	welcome to ...
永远记住你	remember you forever	always remember you(nobody can live forever)	While you do hear 'always' more often, people do use forever. It's just stronger feeling, so that we often say we will love you forever.
祝你有个...	wish you have a ...	I wish you a ...	Mr. Allanson must have been listening too many Christmas songs, but I digressed. I hope you have a good day.
给你	give you	here you are	Among a thousand ways to convey the same message, 'here you are' actually is somehow a creepier one.;-)
很喜欢...	very like ...	like ... very much
黄头发	yellow hair	blond/blonde(there is no saying of “yellow hair” in Western Countries)
厕所	WC	men's room/women's room/restroom
真遗憾	it's a pity	that's too bad/it's a shame(it's a pity is an old way)
裤子	trousers	pants/slacks/jeans
修理	mend	fix/repair	How about mending your fences with fellow expat English teachers?
入口	way in	entrance
出口	way out	exit(way out means crazy in oral English)
勤奋	diligent	hardworking/studious/conscientious	Nothing wrong with saying 'diligent'
应该	should	must/shall	nothing wrong with 'should'
火锅	chafing dish	hot pot
大厦	mansion	center/plaza	This will be determined by the context
马马虎虎	so-so	average/fair/all right/not too bad/OK(so-so is seldom used by Western people)
好吃	delicious	good/nice/tasty/appetizing(“delicious” is used to much in China)	It's crazy to suggest a perfect word be given up because it is used in China
尽我最大努力	try my best	try/strive(“try” means “try my best”)	'Try my best' is good.
有名	famous	well-known/renowned/legendary/popular(“famous” is used too much in China)	These words have different meanings than 'famous'.
滑稽	humorous	funny/witty/amusing/entertaining	Again, the suggested words are of different meanings.
欺骗	to cheat	to trick/to play a joke on/to con/to deceive/to rip off	Is this a Chinglish lesson or a thesaurus exercise?
车门	the door of the car	the car's door	Car doesn't own doors, thus 'car door' would be enough. Or if you want to precise, use 'driver side door' or 'passenger side door'.
怎么拼?	how to spell?	how do you spell?
再见	bye-bye	bye/see you/see you later/later(“bye-bye” is a little bit childish)
玩	play	go to/do(“play” is used too much in China)
面条	noodles	pasta(“noodles” is a little bit childish)	The seagull is horrified by this one. The facial expression will be priceless when you find pasta in the plate, expecting noodles with an empty stomach.
据说	it is said	I heard/I read/I was told	Suggested sayings are of different meanings, and there is nothing wrong with 'It is said'.
等等	and so on	etc.	You 'speak' English like that?
直到现在	till now	recently/lately/thus far	Nothing wrong with 'till now'
农民	peasant	farmer	This can be a tough call, and Mr. Allanson must be very brave to pick them. However, he should not have.
宣传	propaganda	information	Propaganda is not information. In Chinese context, 宣传 really means propaganda. Until recently, the top ministry within CCP named themselves the Propaganda Department for official English name. They have since changed the English translation to Publicity.

The 'handbook' had gone viral through Weibo/WeChat among other mobile platforms. Some could be found on the Internet. It is even listed by the Baidu Collection. It is also re-imported to Canada and the US by Chinese who are learning English.

A little investigation suggested Mr. Allanson was an American, and that he knew how to write English, as demonstrated in his letter to PBS and his self description on promotional materials. The Seagull suspect the aforementioned article was not penned by Mr. Allanson himself. It is probably an excerpt of notes from classroom, with essential context left out, by one of his students--perhaps a student who really hates him.;-)

The Bad Guys

Chinese students do not have rights to protest government policies. However, they have every right to protest a bad cafeteria. As a compromise and interests exchange, Chinese students are usually permitted to show their anger on 'minor' issues, such as bad food in their school cafeterias.

Oct 27, A senior high school in Sanya of Hainan province launched a strike to protest food price at the school cafeteria.

Oct 24, students at Dongfang (Oriental) College in Hebei Province destroyed the school cafeteria.

Sept 13, students at No. 2 senior high school in Shangqiu of Henan Province destroyed the school cafeteria.

The outcome of these kind of conflict usually favors the students, which in a way encourages the frequent protests. The undertone is that except politics, everything is negotiable. Students were told that the reason for bad food were greedy catering companies, and that the Party would take care of their needs.

Oct 25, doctors and nurses in a hospital in Wenling of Zhejiang Province armed themselves with surgery masks protect from tear gas attack while they were holding a funeral service for a doctor who was killed at work by a patient. Medical personnels, like catering staff, are strategically deployed as the vent for people's resentment, and have been treated as such. Doctors and nurses were painted as the reason for high healthcare costs, the public enemy.

Starbucks' Trouble Might Have Been Planted One Year Ago

In the past few days, Starbucks have been under heavy bombardment from the propaganda branch CCTV. The official national television station blamed Starbucks for charging higher price in China. The TV program claimed that Starbucks charge a high price of $4.5 for a cup of Latte while the cost of coffee and milk was only $0.80.

Starbucks quickly responded that the material cost only contributed 18% of the price, and that there were other cost involved. In particular, Starbuck said, customers in China used to stay in the coffee shop longer than those in the west, thus increased expenses in store lease.

Customers in China reacted overwhelmingly in favor of Starbuck. The next day, many Starbucks stores find long line of customers waiting for a cup of coffee, partially in support of the coffee store, partially as a public defiance to the Propaganda mouthpiece.

Professor Wang Ye of University of Pittsburgh at Bradford suggested that Starbucks' trouble might had been planted when their CEO Howard Schultz visited China in April 2012. It was believed former Chinese President Jiang's influences were severely diminished at the once-a-decade power transition in March. Jiang's successor Hu Jintao announced that he would withdraw from decision-making entirely to pass the power to new President Xi Jinping. It was viewed as a public humiliation to Jiang's effort to stay in power even after he stepped down from the top position in China in 2003.

Jiang reacted with a news of his meeting with the visiting Schultz to reassure his base that he was still around. The Starbucks was accidentally caught in a crossfire between Jiang and Xi, who understandably would have wished that Jiang had gone away forever and for real.

As professor Wang pointed out, unfortunately, Starbucks stood on the wrong side.

In the meanwhile, Xi Jinping praised Wal-Mart and Coca-Cola for their contributions to Chinese economy.

English Learning Downgraded in China

The Beijing government just announced a plan to downgrade English learning for Chinese students. English test which used to be a 150 points component of the College Entrance Examination is downgraded to 100 points. Also, English testing is moved out of the National College Entrance Examination. Students can take English tests at local test centers multiple times a year and submit their highest test grade to be used as their English score for college entrance consideration.

Because the entire Chinese education system is fully geared towards the once a year National College Entrance Examination, this change essentially discourage students to spend as much time in English as before.

The move has legitimate rationale: most college graduates in China do not need English in their work. Studying English is a waste of time, which can be better used in learning other more useful skills.

Critics are concerned that the change may further hinder Chinese's capability to communicate with the outside world, which is blocked by the Great Firewall. The next generation Chinese will rely more on Chinese edition of knowledge and facts, which is often subject to surveillance, censorship and propaganda. It is considered more troublesome for kids from poor families, as those from well-off families will learn English no matter what.

Dinosaurs Birthday Dance

The common trait among the three words is that they are all banned by the Education Department of the New York City.

Modern mayors not only have a good idea about how much coca-cola is bad for your health: 12 ounces okay, 16 criminal (mayor of NYC banned selling large beverage city-wide); they also assure you that beef is better than chicken (mayors of Boston and Chicago ordered Chick-fil-A to be kicked out of city limit because of its owner's donation to religious family value groups).

The list of inappropriate words was assembled by the Education Department to be banned from textbooks and exams, because they might stir controversy among students. Other words include Halloween, poverty, divorce, disease, etc. Also a detailed guideline spelled out 50 topics that should be avoided, for example: ".. shouldn't include items that are potentially disrespectful to authority or authority figures or give human characteristics to animals or inanimate objects.

A spokesperson Robert Pondiscio stated that the intent is to avoid giving offense or disadvantage by privileging prior knowledge.

Across the Continent in the great state of California, schoolers gained rights to decide what gender they want to be on the day in school, when using restroom, etc., regardless what gender they put in the registration forms. Previous rules allow students to choose their gender, but require them to pre-register with the school. The new rules eliminated the inconvenience to update school records.

Cartoonist Taken Away by Police

Girlfriend warmheard1984 of famous cartoonist Spicy Pepper aka Wang Liming posted on Weibo that the visual artist had been taken away from home by police 11 o'clock pm. The charge on the warrant was 'inciting public disturbance'.

The cartoon on the left was created by BWRLG32.

Although Spicy Pepper's drawings are often inspired by social events, he is considered a moderate, restraint, reluctant and hesitate criticizer of government and policies. Readers often find more helplessness than criticism and more cynicism than anger in his otherwise humorous cartoons. Those who enjoy his drawings are mostly wealthy middle class who prefer a smooth and progressive evolution rather than any violent revolution which may trigger social instabilities. It would be real troublesome for the society if government push people who had sitting in the middle to the other side.

Spicy Pepper is arguably one of best known cartoonists in China today. Many western media's outlets in China have been closely observing the developing of this saga. Yuan Li, chief editor of Wall Street Journal's Chinese edition, also retweeted, and asked for legal input from her readers.

Having witnessed the unprecedented nationwide mass crackdown of online speech in the past few weeks, Spicy Pepper published this drawing on Oct 13. Two days later, he became the newest victim himself.

A few hour later, a Chinese e-business pioneer Laorong went missing after a last post of hearing someone knocking his door at 1:57am. Laorong, aka Wang Juntao, is a busy businessman, but sometimes makes comments on quasi-sensitive issues online.

Rumors had it that both arrests were linked to public mocking of the propaganda article 'Lee's Ten Crimes'.

Update: Laorong resurfaced, but would not elaborate his whereabout in the hours when he was missing.

Update: the next morning, Wuyuesanren aka Yao Bo, Spicy Pepper's friend, went to the police station to turn himself in because he believed he must have committed the same crime. Wuyuesanren was briefly detained then released. People who care about their reputation are feeling ashamed when they were not arrested by police for something, especially after their close friends had been rounded in. Wuyuesanren forecasted and broadcasted his self-submission in high profile style on social networking sites.

Professor He Weifang, researcher Yu Jianrong, writer Li Chengpeng, commentator Zhao Chu, real estate mogul Pan Shiyi all called for release of Spicy Pepper.

Searching of 'Spicy Pepper' is blocked by Sina, "because of law and policies".

Update: evening the same day, about 21 hours after Spicy Pepper was taken away, he was released.

1:2,000,000

After a magazine under the CCP's Central Propaganda Ministry (CPM) published an editorial in which Dr. Kai-Fu Lee, a renowned scientist, entrepreneur and angel investor was accused of committing ten horrendous crimes (Lee's Ten Crimes), the CPM had given a green light for mass attack.

A screen shot, via Ranxiangmm, circulated in Chinese blogsphere read: All websites and networks should aggressively forward or post the Lee's Ten Crimes article in the form of user-generated-contents (forums, comments). In the mean time, strictly moderate posts attacking the author of the article.

At RMB 769 billion ($130 billion), China's expenses on interior oppression, aka maintaining stability or Weiwen in Chinese, surpasses national defense according to national budget published in March. This ratio made China the first major power to spend more to defend against its people than to defend against outside threats. An Oct 3 article published by official media New Capital revealed that there were over 2 million Chinese working as online speech monitors and inspectors. The figure also shadows the 2 million strong active duty military personnels in the People's Liberation Army (PLA).

Armed with his PhD in Computer Science from CMU, and senior executive experiences at Apple, Microsoft and Google, Lee had been fighting smartly, utilizing Big Data tools such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and data mining to amass a fans (avid followers) base of over 51 million on Sina Weibo.

It will be difficult to foretell the outcome of a battle in which one free soul leads a community of 51 million to fend off aggression of an army of 2 million. It may be even more difficult to assess the long lasting impact regardless who is the winner on the battlefield.

Ten Crimes Committed by Kai-Fu Lee

Taiwan born and US educated Kai-Fu Lee made himself top in the list of targets for China's propaganda machines, after he started tweeting about free speech and civil rights issues in China. As it always happens, when they can't deny what you said, they tried to bury you with lies.

Lee survived the first wave of attack from Dr. Fang Shimin 'Fang Zhouzi' who accused him of cheating on resume. Dr. Fang, a Michigan trained biology postdoc who married an official Xinhua News senior reporter, claimed Lee wrongfully bolstered his academic title at Carnegie Mellon University from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor. The second wave of attack came from a internationally renowned biologist Rao Yi, who took the Dean of Life Sciences Institute at Beijing University. Rao boldly claimed Lee did not even receive an offer for Assistant Professor at CMU.

Extremely nuances as they might look, they are prelude of a classical smear campaign which had been mastered by Big Brothers to silence a criticizer of the regime. Otherwise it would be perplexing to read Dr. Fang and Dr. Rao's blindly evilization of Lee. Dr. Fang had repeatedly stated himself, that AP in the US should not be translated to AP in Chinese, because the two systems were very different. He even claimed that any AP in a Research I university qualifies as academician in Chinese system. In Dr. Rao's case, with his background, training and experience in the US academia, it will be totally crazy to accuse someone having cheating on academic title without a single thread of proof, especially when Lee was such a big shot in the CS, whose contribution in Natural Language Processing, a branch of Artificial Intelligence has lasting impact till today. Lee left CMU to become a senior executive in Microsoft and later Google.

Dr. Fang and Dr. Rao's participation of this smear campaign is a reflection of the infiltration of Party in the Chinese academic world.

The drama ended when Lee posted his diploma, offer letter, and the President of CMU wrote a letter to clarify Lee's position was indeed associate professor level.

Lee was recently diagnosed with Cancer, and the Party's propaganda team smelled blood. This time, they accused Lee of pretending cancer patient to advertize for pharmaceutical companies among other horrific crimes in an all-out bombardment.

The official Party Organization (Dang Jian, aka Building Up CCP) published a 9,000 word editorial, accused Kai-Fu Lee of ten crimes:

1. Sexuall harassment to minors both in the US and in China;
   Seagull Comment: Someone should tip the D.A. in the US instead of lashing out on an official Communist Party publication in China.
2. Using backdoors and trojan horses to steal Chinese users's financial information as former Google executive;
   Seagull Comment: Google watch out, you are the next
3. Giving inspirational talks to youth while being a loser in life;
   Seagull Comment: Who would claim himself a winner, if Lee were deemed a loser?
4. Fabricating history to glorify murders and advocate killing;
   Seagull Comment: What else is this guy capable of?
5. Running a business, in reference to Lee's angel investing firm, like a charity;
   Seagull Comment: Is this really a crime?
6. Cultivating hatreds among the youth towards government;
   Seagull Comment: Looks like this piece of editorial had achieved more
7. Spying for the US government;
   Seagull Comment: Hang him, after you finished creating the evidence
8. Launching ideological war against Chinese government;
   Seagull Comment: A modern day Don Quixote? Way to go!
9. Slandering official government agencies such as the Central China TV (CCTV) and Xinhua News Agency;
   Seagull Comment: Bravo!
10. Faking cancer to sell drugs.
    Seagull Comment: A gifted plot, precious!

When Lee announced his lymphoma diagnosis in September, he was already named by the official Xinhua News Agency as a public enemy number one in the height of cracking down of online speech. Chinese-American venture capitalist and Berkeley graduate Charles Xue 'Manzi' was arrested on spreading anti-government rumors online. A gray hair Xue in tears and running nose was brought to appear on the CCTV to tell people how he had cheated on payment to prostitutes and how he had married to a woman, who was ex-wife of a son of a corrupted official. China observers had thought that God was helping Lee with a death sentence to deflect the inevitable incoming train of propaganda, so that he could be left alone, and die with a good name. It's evident that even God cannot help Lee, facing off with a Party who does not believe in God, morale, ethics, value, or anything that matters.

Flooding of Yuyao, How the Chinese Government Created Enemies In a Natural Disaster

Yuyao is a county-level city in Ningbo Prefecture, Zhejiang Province. Due to Typhoon Fitwo, much (over 70% of downtown) of Yuyao had been underwater.

Natural disaster like this is often seen as God-sent for western politicians, as this set a great stage with free and unlimited camera time for them to demonstrate how much they care about their constituents in need. Mayor Giuliani, Governor Christie and President Obama all had their political lives saved or elevated from major disasters. However, in Chinese politics, where it is mysteriously held that even a natural disaster could be the fault of top officials, the No. 1 priority of any level of government officials was to bury any negative news as much as they could.

So it was not surprising that there had been little media coverage for this flood, even though Yuyao was one of most prosperous cities in one of most prosperous provinces, and that it was within an hour's drive from most major cities in eastern China, including Ningbo, Hangzhou and Shanghai.

Three days after the beginning of the flood, and while over 50% of its downtown still submerged in water, the local government broke the silence and denounced that water had receded, and that nobody had died despite floating bodies nearby.

Angry residents asked the official reporters of Ningbo TV to turn their camera away from the only dry place in town, and tell the outside world the need for disaster relief assistances. The journalists were offended, and cursed the residents of being mentally sick in failing to recognize that they were on official propaganda mission. A brawl ensued.

For the first time since the flood began, many local resident saw police SWAT team on the street. Not to help with the flood, but to beat people with batons. More people rushed to argue with the police, and even larger group of people joined the battle.

A recent crackdown of online rumor spreading might have caused the initial delay in rescue and relief efforts. The government recently announced through a joint memorandum of judicial interpretation by the Supreme Court and the Supreme Procuratorate that any misinformation would be prosecuted with criminal code. The legal recognition of 'misinformation' had been exemplified by a series of cases in the past few weeks. For example, when 5 cars were involved in an accident, if someone posted online that 4 cars were involved, then it would have broken the law. A Henan women was arrested because she posted these language (a literal translation: "I heard there was a crime took place in the neighboring village last night, was it true?") A middle school student in Gansu Province was arrested when he questioned why didn't local police act to track down the criminal of a homicide case. In a sharp contrast to the busy online mobilization and coordination of rescue and relief after previous disasters, such as the Sichuan earthquake and the bulletin train accident, almost nobody talked about the unprecedented flooding in Chinese online media for days.

A hundred and four years ago on October 4, 1909, a famous minister Zhang Zhidong passed away. Zhang was deemed that last capable minister in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). In his last days Zhang had a conversation with the Prince Regent Zaifeng. Knowing it would be his last opportunity to pass his concerns to the rulers, Zhang tried to point the Prince people's resentment to the Court. Zhang cautioned Zaifeng that he should listen to what people were complaining. The Prince stopped him, and assured him that nothing should be worried about because 'we had soldiers'. Later Zhang recounted the exchange in utter disgust, and labeled the 'we have soldiers' phrase as a sign predicting collapse of government. Zhang died in three months, and one year later, Qing collapsed in a sudden when a few soldiers in Wuchang rebelled.

Their Sorrow Shadowed by their Glory: Chinese Graduate Students in the US

A recent article looked into 16,000 PhD graduate students in 161 US chemistry departments, and showed that Chinese students outperformed their peers and were as well as awardees of the NSF doctoral fellowship program, in terms of scientific contributions (Patrick Gaule, Chinese Graduate Students and US Scientific Productivity, The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 95, No. 2, Pages 698-701, May 2013). The study for the first time confirmed with scientific methods what people in the field had long known.

On the other hand, without green card on a short visa (shorter than most international students), and surrounded in sometimes unfriendly working environment with uncertain in their future life, the sorrow of Chinese graduate students had long been overlooked.

They have to battle with discrimination from those privileged and resentment from the bottom, and often take the least paid job, in additional to battling with a often conflicting culture. Systematic repression is abundant, too. In some labs, a Chinese student will be paired up with an American student, with the Chinese student works the work, and the US student press the button when it is necessary due to regulations put into place to prevent foreigners using certain lab equipments. In other occasion, Chinese are the only nationals who are forbidden from working in certain field. Many had quietly complained unable to graduate while being exploited as academic slavery, other were threatened of retaliation the moment they found a job offer.

With the rise of China economy, it should not be a surprise to see more Chinese graduate students returning to China, at the same time while less top level students coming the US, if the trend continues.

Two Chinese Scientists Arrested on IP Theft Charges

Indianapolis based Eli Lilly and Company sent two of its former employees behind bars and a third one, being referred to as 'individual number one', under further investigation.

Cao Guoqing and Li Shuyu were arrested last week in Indianapolis, possibly visiting families during the week long Chinese holidays, on charges of theft and conspiracy to commit theft. Both are currently working for a Chinese Jiangsu Hengrui Medicine based in China.

In a statement, Lilly said the trade secrets allegedly stolen all involve early-state research, with no significantly impact. The stolen information is valued $55 million by Lilly.

Lilly had been having problems to produce market worthy research.

It is very difficult to assess the value of an 'early state research', especially in medicine development.

Hengrui had been aggressively,sometimes appearing boldly, recruiting talents from overseas. The current deputy general manager Zhang Lianshan also joined Henghui after left Lilly in 2009. Another senior executive Zheng Yuqun who departed Henghui recently was also a former Lilly employee.

This is not the first time the two companies went to court. Lilly lost an earlier patent claim against Hengrui in 2000.

Insiders see Lilly's most recent move a retaliation on crackdown of business bribery charges brought up by Chinese authorities. Lilly was found to spent $5 million a year to bride Chinese doctors to subscribe its drugs rather than its competitors.

Intern Lost in Claim of Workplace Sexual Harassment Case Against Phoenix TV

A federal judge threw out a case filed by a former intern at the Phoenix Satellite Television's US Office against the bureau chief Mr. Liu Zhengzhu. The intern had accused Liu of making suggestive sexual comments luring her to his hotel room, where he kiss her and groped her.

The judge decided that unpaid interns and volunteers was not protected from sexual harassment under federal laws because they were not considered employees.

In one secretly recorded video, Liu could be heard speaking to a woman, 'You look pretty good, let me hug you...', while the woman was moving towards the door, Liu was heard saying, 'Don't move, don't move, I like you so much...no one will come in.. let me have a look, let me fuck you.' The music for Phoenix's morning broadcast can be heard playing in the background.

Other interns told stories Liu broke in their apartment to rape them, and groped them in the office, kisses on job interviews, etc.

Hong Kong based Phoenix TV is known to be backed by the Chinese government. Ruper Murdoch also owns 12 percent of it.

Phoenix TV released a statement, claiming that the lawsuit is full of inaccuracies and false statements.

Wang Lequan Rumored in Trouble

Sina Weibo had circulated intel that Wang Lequan, a former member of the CCP Politburo had been under investigation for corruption. Once confirmed, this will be the first Politburo level senior official brought down by the Xi-Li administration. It has been a custom and tradition for a new leadership to sacrifice a politburo level senior official to various causes as part of the once a decade power transition. Jiang Zemin took out Chen Xitong. Hu Jintao took out Chen Liangyu. The public had been speculating on which one would be picked this time.

Wang Lequan was the top Party chief in Xinjiang, before named the deputy chief of the Party's politics and law committee.

The Effort Points

Elementary schoolers in some states across the US found a new components on their score sheet: the effort points. It works this way: the correct answer of a question no longer worth a full grade. Instead, for a 100 points question, you earn 50 points for correctly answering it, and the next 50 points are assigned based on how hard you tried. If you failed to demonstrate that you were struggling, you would get nothing.

For example, if a student turn in his sheet 20 minutes into a 40 minutes test, even if he correctly answered all questions, he will only earn 50 points because he did not make 'efforts'. On the other hand, another student who only answered 5% of the questions, but stayed to the end will receive 50 points of effort points plus 2.5 points, thus a higher grade of 52.5 points. In the end the student who knows 5% of the answers go to a better college than the one who solved 100% of the test.

The 'Effort Points' is yet another attempt to make sure every child educated to equal stupidity, if their parents can not afford private school education.

In addition to wide range policies, some schools and teachers are becoming creative to accomplish their mission of ultimate equal stupidity. One teacher discovered that the reason her student did not score well was because they did not do homework, which is a component in the whole evaluation. Her decision was to stop assigning homework, so no student in her class will lose points on homework. This method was praised as a successful model and encouraged by policy makers and education leaders to other teachers.

The Chronicle of Higher Education published an article, Employers and Public Favor Graduates Who Can Communicate, Survey Finds. It's such a relieve to realize the problem started from the society, when even employers care less about productivity.

And we will win the global competition with countries such as China, India, Korea and Japan, where students are assessed on their scientific and engineering capabilities. Yeah right, as long as we communicate it in the right way, people will believe in it.

UIUC Chinese Student Killed Girlfriend

A 25 year old female Chinese student was killed at her off campus apartment 1343 North Lincoln Avenue. The suspect forced his way into the apartment and restrained her roommate. The roommate was able to free herself after the murder left and alerted police.

A student who claimed to live next to the room said he/she did not hear sound of gunshot.

It is reported that the suspect came from Shijiazhuang of Hebei Province. Ci graduated from Beijing Communication University and Oregon State University before being accepted into UIUC in 2008.

The suspect is 29 year old Ci Yongfei, a PhD student in Mathematics, specialized in topology and geometry in 3-minifolds. According to the suspect's homepage at UIUC, he is visiting ICERM at Brown University for the Fall semester of 2013. His PhD advisor Nathan Dunfield was on sabbatical leave for the academic year 2013-2014. Ci is Dunfield's only Chinese student, and the only male Chinese student in the Math Department. Ci is in his 6th year into PhD study, but had not published a single paper. It is disappointing, as an accepted paper is crucial for a timely graduation and competition on the already saturated job market; however, it is not uncommon for a doctoral student in Math.

Ci's cell phone was located at Value Place 1212 W. Anthony Drive in Champaign shortly after. Seeing police cars pulling in the parking lot of the motel, Ci called 911 to arrange his surrender. Ci was arrested without incident.

The Sina Weibo reported this incident in great detail at the early stage, much faster than Chinese platform frequent by oversea Chinese students. Despite the censorship and the Great FireWall, the gravity of information exchanges had leaned to the mainland based social networking sites, a sign of China's emerging 'soft power'.

It has been confirmed that the death was caused by stabbing.

A poem posted by the suspect, an avid poster on MITBBS:

falling 2013-02-06 21:02:29 那天傍晚时分，忽然下雪了 很大很大 不久 窗外就变成了一片白茫茫的世界 待雪稍微减弱 我说，在家里闷了一天了，出去散散步吧 你说，好 于是套上羽绒服，相拥出了门 街上半个人影都看不到 只有我和你 在没脚深的雪里蹒跚 发出嘎吱嘎吱的响声 除此之外再无其他声音 雪白，安静 就像童话里的世界 走出一段距离 同时回头看 四条脚印，歪歪扭扭 从远处一直延伸到脚下 你忽然使劲拽我的胳膊，仰头看着我，说 我好想让雪一直下 不停地下 咱俩一直这样走下去 永远不回头 好不好 我说，好阿 可是你忘了咱们家炉子上还炖着一锅牛肉呢

A post attributed to the suspect, on relationship with his girlfriend

发信人: falling (旋转坠落), 信区: Dreamer 标 题: 终于跟mm表白了，mm却生气了 发信站: BBS 未名空间站 (Wed Feb 27 20:42:16 2013, 美东) 哥说，做哥的女朋友吧，哥之前的女友都很好看，你打破了哥这个标准 mm忽然晴转阴，二话没说转身走了 到今天没理我

Ci grew up in a noname city, went to a noname college in Beijing, followed by another noname college in the US, before starting his PhD study at UIUC. Yet he is attacking the most challenging subject among all science topics. Mathematics was not the popular major for Chinese students when Ci went to college, and Beijing Communication University was far from top-tier among thousands of Chinese colleges. Topology and Algebraic Geometry, extremely difficult themselves, became household names for Chinese students thanks to two great Chinese mathematicians (Shiing-Shen Chern and Shing-Tung Yau) who had made great contribution in these fields. Did Ci choose the subject he is working on by choice? Or was it one option of making a living? If the latter, then it could be a path too oppressive to navigated. In other words, when an overachiever taking great pressure in a foreign jungle, people close-by should watch out and prepare for a potential snap.

The Champaign County Coroner identified the woman as Mengchen Huang. Grew up in Nanjing, Huang graduated from China Central Academy of Fine Arts with a B.A. in Art History in 2010, and had been pursuing a Master's Degree in Arts & Humanities at UICU. Huang had 145 friends on Facebook. Ci had 19 friends. They were not friends of each other on Facebook as the homicide took place. Ci's status is listed as single.

Update: Huang was stabbed at least 3 times at throat, and her throat was slit. Huang's roommate was Xue Yang. Ci's bond was set at $10 million.

Yang, not knowing Ci's name, had heard about Ci from Huang, and said Huang had been afraid of this ex-boyfriend in Brown.

The UIUC Throat-slitting Case is yet another horrific crime committed by an oversea Chinese student onto another oversea Chinese student.

Update: Oct 22, 2013, Champaign County Courthouse. Ci pleaded not guilty on all charges of home invasion, aggravated kidnapping and first-degree murder. Ci requested a jury trial. His attorney will be public defender George Vargas. Born in Costa Rica, the former Army captain obtained his law degree from Michigan State University and started his legal career in 2005.

Chinese Student Arrested After Forked Female Chinese Student on Nose

Deng Chenxi, 22 year old, was arrested by Austin Police Department late night Wednesday. Deng stabbed a Chinese student in the Engineering Science Building with a 'fork'. The fork was struck onto the female student's nose. The student was initially treated by an EMT on the scene, then transferred to St. David's Medical Center. According to University of Texas, Deng was not a student at UT.

A witness Priscilla Chang said she saw a girl was bleeding and Deng being restrained on the ground by a group of students, "I saw the guy being pinned down by a few other guys, and he was going nuts... He was yelling some crazy stuff, but I couldn't really tell what it was - he seemed incoherent. He was fighting the guys trying to hold him down."

Information posted on MITBBS indicated that Deng was from Xinjiang and graduated from Beijing University. Deng's parents had been looking for Deng for days. He went to UT to visit a friend You Li last weekend, but did not return on time.

LinkedIn in shows Li You graduated from Beijing University with a Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering in 2012. Li was enrolled in a Master Degree in Integrated Circuits and Systems in 2012 at UT. She interned at Freescale Semiconductor.

January 21, 2009, Virginia Tech, Chinese student Zhu Haiyang decapitated a female Chinese student Yang Xin at Au Bon Pain cafe with a kitchen knife in front of dozens of horrified patrons of the on campus cafe.

Update: Daily Texan has confirmed that the name of the female student is You Li.

Update: Police has confirmed the incident took place when a romantic relationship went sour. According to police, Chen followed all the way from China to track down his ex-girlfriend in a classroom after having audited multiple UT classes. The duo started an argument. According to police affidavit, Deng claimed that he forked the female student after being punched in face.

You's roommate Hongjiang Li said she was with You in a class on Wednesday night. She described how You had been trying to stay away from Chen, after Chen entered the classroom before class started. After class, You left to the hallway, and Chen followed.

Haier Washing Machines May Pose Life Threatening Risks

After yesterday's tragic accident when two girls were killed in a Haier washing machine, many nervous parents went back home and did experiments on their own washing machines.

The killer washing machine is Haier little genies XQB60-728A. According to specification, it is fully automatic. Features include automatic power off 5 minutes after completion of washing cycles. Also beeping alarm after washing cycles completed. Maximum washing load is 6kg.

The results were unexpected. If the drying key was accidentally pressed, although the washer will not start with the lid open, after the girls get in and close the lid, it will start high speed turning cycle to drain.

Although it is designed to pause and adding water to re-balance in case of imbalanced load is detected, the mechanism may not kick in with the tube full (with two kids squeezed in).

Police examined the washer that had killed the two girls with reporters Monday afternoon. Family members told them that the washer was purchased in 2009, and had shown frequent problems, including starting without any user interaction. With the machine plugged in and before any key was pressed, police closed the lid for three times. In first two times, the machine started all by itself after about one minute delay when no key was ever touched. The third time it did not start (as it was supposed to). Police also used 30kg rice to test the load, and observed the machine had no difficulty to start turning.

Haier Group issued a carefully worded statement in which it claimed that the washer should not start in the condition as described in the news, and that engineers had been dispatched to assist police investigation.

Although it is still hard to comprehend, but with these preliminary report, it is evident that Haier washers may have serious, and in this case lethal, defects.

Update: Xinhua News (reporter Hu Chenhuan): police had ruled out possibilities of wrongdoings based on preliminary investigation.

Update:

Oct 15, 2013. Police concluded no wrongdoings caused the deaths:
1. The parents had no previous brush with the law; and they were seen as caring parents;
2. No trace of a third person;
3. Two toddlers with similar body build were able to get in and close the lib from within;
4. Forensic experts ruled out poison, virus or sudden death;

Two Toddlers Died in Haier Washer Accident

Two sisters of four year old and two year old died in a washer accident on September 21 in Qiaoshe Township, Xinjian County, Nanchang of Jiangxi Province.

When reporter came to visit, they saw a small chair placed in front of the washer. It was believed that the two sisters climbed in the washer using the chair, and closed the lid. They managed to start the washer and were killed. At the time, the father was watching TV in bedroom, and the mother was cooking in the kitchen. The washer was on the balcony. The washer had already been cleaned, but blood stain could still be seen on inner tube.

A witness who helped transported the kids to a local hospital portrayed a horrific scene, "the washer was filled with blood".

After the incident, the two sisters were buried on the same day. The parents moved back to their old house in the country with their third child, a one year old son.

The local government expressed condolence to the tragedy. A spokesperson Mr. Hu indicated that they would provide financial assistant to the family. The uncommonly generous gesture casted a hint of a possible entanglement with the family planning enforcement. Among 19 provincial level government who released their fines for family planning violations in 2012, Jiangxi top the list with $700 million in the past year. There was rumors that the parents might get away the two girls to avoid heavy fine for the baby boy (their third child).

Lives of two young girls is too heavy to be overlooked. This accident has too many unanswered questions which deserves a full-scale and thorough investigation.

The picture shows a Haier fully-automatic top-loading washer, which was usually designed to stop working in case of overload or imbalanced load. The washing cycle was slow and should not stop the toddlers from getting out or in the least making some noise to alert their parents who were both in the same small apartment. Even if somehow the girls were stuck and drowned, the gentle movement in washing cycle should not cause bleeding. The drying cycle should not start with the lid open, and should not start with the combined weight of two kids.

Washer/dryer related death is extremely rare. According to a computer product safety commission report, between 2005 and 2009, only two children under the age of five lost their lives in laundry room accidents, in comparison to 350 death in the bathtub during the same time frame.

Also by looking at the picture, it still seems impossible for the two year old to get in. Could the four year old raise the two year old and feed her to the tube while standing on the small chair? It took a sequence of 7 keys to start the dryer mode. Can a toddler accomplish that without making any mistake?

Police needs to get involved to decide whether it was a homicide or an accident.

Haier Group (SEHK: 1169, SSE: 600690) is a multinational consumer electronics and home appliances company headquartered in Qingdao of Shandong Province, China.

Tufts University Refused to Fire Researcher Who Conducted Illegal Experiments using Chinese Children

Tufts University completed an investigation on its researchers conducting illegal experiments using children in rural China. Today, the University confirmed the accusations. However, despite calls to fire the leading researcher, Tufts University refused to take action.

Tufts University admitted its researcher took advantage of school children in remote rural countryside China between age 6 and 8, by not telling them that they had been feed a genetically modified produce. Instead, they were told it was a central government sponsored free school lunch program.

The experiment also violated Chinese agricultural import control as well as a direct ban of genetically modified produce regulation issued by both provincial and state level agencies at the time. The Tufts University also fabricated ethics approval of a Chinese research institute in Zhejiang.

Tufts University's own investigation revealed the experiment violated internal rules as well as federal regulations. Still, the Tufts University decided to keep the researcher at the university.

Identity Revealed of Chinese Who Made Arrests in LA

A Chinese who made arrests in L.A. along uniformed city police in an anti-Chinese government protest in Los Angeles was revealed to be Mr. Chester Chong (Zhuang Peiyuan). Mr. Chong was born in Hong Kong, and immigrated to California in 1982. The incident caught attentions because Mr. Chong was seen bearing an insignia unique to police in People's Republic of China.

When confronted by witnesses on the insignia, Zhuang immediately covered his insignia and fled from the scene according to witnesses. Monterey Park city police at the scene did not comment nor respond to media inquiry.

Epoch Times discovered this person had led a 76 members police delegation to visit their Chinese counterparts in Guangdong Province.

Zhuang is an incumbent provincial Senator representing Xinjiang in the 11th Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (the upper house of the provincial legislature).

In Chinese media, Zhuang was described a captain retired from the USAF, and the current chief commander of the LAPD. The Seagull found neither claim to be true. Zhuang also holds an Honorary Doctorate in Business Administration from Armstrong University in California. The Armstrong University in California was not accredited by any accrediting agency recognized by the Secretary of Education; hence, a diploma mill.

Person Bearing Chinese Police Insignia Seen Making Arrests in LA

Police of the Monterey Park City in Los Angeles, California made several arrests during a flag ceremony celebrating the October 1st National Day of China. A group of protesters said they had applied and been granted protest outside the premier.

Witness said, an Asian looking man in black suits was pointing and picking people to be arrested by uniformed police officers. The man identified himself as a police officer. In at least one occasion, the man was seen taking out a pair of handcuffs and handed it to a uniformed police officer. The uniformed police officer then used that handcuffs to arrest a protester.

Witnesses noticed the man was wearing a belt which bears a insignia of Chinese police. The man covered his belt buckle, and fled from the scene when he saw people were taking pictures of his belt.

Protectors said they demand an apology from the police for interfering a peaceful protest which had been approved. Also, they want answers why local police was using handcuffs of the man in black suits to make arrests in the US.

According to California Penal Code Section 538d, any person other than one who by law is given the authority of a peace officer, who willfully ... inducing the belief that he or she is a peace officer, is guilty of a misdemeanor. There is no doubt the man in black suits already committed a crime. What is puzzling is the role of local police in enabling and facilitating this crime. How thoroughly has the local law enforcement force been infiltrated by the Chinese government?

Voice of America contacted the Monterey Park City police, but was not provided with a reply.

Timid & Lonely

Multi-billionaire Wang Gongquan was taken into custody by Beijing police from his home in Beijing. The charge was unorderly gathering in public. The police also took a computer, two photo frames and several 'citizen' pins.

Real estate mogul Pan Shiyi was speechless when interviewed by media, stuttering, "I, I..IIII,.."

Pan later said through Weibo that his wife Zhang Xin told him to shutup. He also cited an observation made by Chairman Mao that Chinese capitalists were born weak and coward, in a self reference.

Wang Gongquan is a heavyweight even among the rich and privileged Chinese businessmen. Growing up from grassroot, Wang raised to prove his talents in business as a top aide to Mou Qizhong, a modern day legend in Chinese capitalism. While Wang was believed to be personally loyal to Mou, when Mou got into serious trouble with a few senior government officials in 1996, Wang did not dare to chip in Mou's legal expenses. "It is too sensitive", Wang told Mou's wife.

In the 2000s, Wang shined as a creator in the Chinese capitalism world. Wang hand-trained hundreds of top entrepreneurs, and is a major investor in many household names such as Qihu360, Hanting, Minsheng Banking Corp, Xueda Education, AsiaInfo, SouthBeauty, etc. Many launched successfully launched IPO in NYSE or NASDAQ.

At the highest of his success, Wang withdrew from the business world, and converted himself to a 'citizen awareness' advocate. Wang was invited as a visiting scholar at the Eastern Asia Institute at the Columbia University in 2011, studied citizen society and democracy.

Equal education opportunity was the priority on Wang's citizen agenda. With Wang's influence, they gathering a petition with 150,000 signatures and petitioned to the People's Congress and Department of Education for 28 times. Under the pressure, the Department of Education issued school enrollment guidelines for children of migrant workers.

In addition to the Beijing police, local governments in China set up hundreds of 'private' jails in Beijing to detain those who travel to Beijing to petition their cases to the central government. By law, these underground jails are illegal, but Beijing police had been kept a blind eye because central government did not want to take these cases (by law all ministries must take petitions). In the middle of a cold night, Wang Gongquan visited one of these private jail operated with other petitioners. Some media started reporting, and local governments were forced to cut back on setting up these illegal jails in Beijing.

However, Wang strongly opposes any radical reform. He warned the public, revolution could be violent and damaging when everyone got hurt badly. He said he was performing duty of a citizen with constructive criticism at a time of change.

Ever since Xi&Li took over the supreme reign one year ago, the writing has been on the wall. Founder and Chairman of Alibaba and Taobao Ma Yun 'Jack' publically praised the Tian'anmen Square Massacre on June 4, 1989, when the CCP government used tanks and machine guns to slaughter college students demanding democracy and government transparency. This summer, founder of Lenovo Liu Chuanzhi scolded members of a top business salon Zhenghe Island to steer away from politics. A member businesswoman Wang Ying quit in protest. Wang was among few who publicly supported Wang's high profile withdrawn. Wang Ying recalled a conversation with Wang Gongquan, when he said, "I knew I could probably reach nowhere. But in the least I can face my children and told them I had tried."

Wang gave up his personal fortune when he eloped with another woman. Being a poem himself, he wrote a 'Song of Elopement' which was forwarded millions of times. Forty-two days later, he returned to his wife. He was not hiding his confusion when reporters asked for the reason of his return, 'I do not regret, but how could I be happy when a woman (his wife) was crying?'.

After the incident, Wang spent an entire year traveling with his family touring the world. However, he no longer wrote romantic poets.

Last week at his daughter's wedding in the US, he told the newlywed, "Maintain your consciousness, Love your homeland".

Two years ago, Wang encouraged his audiences, "we are competing in time with ruling tyranny, but just as well as with mobs who believe in nothing but violent revolution."

Today, this ever timid and lonely businessman, venture capitalist, idealist, poet, social activist Wang is spending time in a jail room because of his extremely mild advocate for citizenship awareness. Will he regret what he did?