Sunshine Act, The Premier Had a Dream

Premier Wen Jiabao stated that he would want to see the enacting of a Sunshine Act when he chatted with Chinese Netizens. A Feb 19 article published in the People's Daily mentioned a Sunshine Act had been formally sitting in the legislature pipeline since 1994. However, communist officials opposed the measure. To be precise, 97% of government officials are against the act. This is the only official number we know on this subject.

Beijing University Dean A Rapist

Wang Xihan, Deputy Dean of Minglun College of Beijing University was caught attempting to rape an employee Ms. Wang in a hotel. The incident happened in Zhengzhou, Henan 11 pm on Feb 26, 2009. Beijing University has blocked the news, and had online forums and sites removed related postings.

Zhengzhou police released Dean Wang with no charge. The victim returned to home in Changchun, Jilin. Henan TV aired the raw footage they took at the scene.

Beijing University is a deputy-ministry level agent in the Chinese government hierarchy.

Value of The Poorer

History has demonstrated repeatedly, the poorer has higher value, through the mouth of their politicians.

Days after September 11, 2001, while the country was still in the shock mood, then Governor of Louisiana Murphy (Mike) Foster, Jr. announced that people of Louisiana would donate several multimillion dollar firetrucks to the New York City. Governor specifically made the point that people of the poorest state was the first to jump in the help when the richest city was in need.

The people of Louisiana just did it again. Governor Piyush "Bobby" Jindle announced that the state would not accept the federal stimulus funds, because people of Louisiana would be able to go through this by their own hard work. Of course, Governor Jindle would not chip in to help people of Louisiana to go through it. Jindle instructed LSU system to cut $101 million, or 15.7% of its state general fund budget. This is on top of $29 million already cut from the LSU system in January.

It is interesting that similar pattern could be observed not only in the flag of the free world US of A, but also in the last communism stronghold China. Officials from poorest provinces are always seen most politically correct to volunteer more national tax contribution.

Is it people of poorer areas are always of higher value standard?

First Chinese-American on a Cabinet Post

Gary Locke was nominated by President Obama the secretary of commerce. Locke was the first Chinese-American governor. The nomination is a major progress for Chinese in the US. Although they had been house slave Chinese Americans served varies presidents, Locke would probably be the first one who is not a house slave.

Locke is a good fit for the job because:

1) Locke grew up from a poor family, and he has been in touch to the real life majority people live in. When he was the governor of the Washington State, people often see him on the streets of Seattle, as well as in some value restaurants.

2) Being pro-trade is a virtue and strength to face off the current economic challenge.

3) Locke had publicly admitted of being discriminated because of his skin. It is a courage not seen from most of house slaves, a courage the nation needs most at this challenging time.

Newspaper Girl Had Been Abducted From Parents

An amateur photographer 'wabsatg' noticed a loved little girl who was selling newspapers on streets of Changsha, Hunan Province just past 1 pm on January 20, 2009. He took a group of pictures of this girl, as well as a little boy who appeared to be a 'friendly competitor' selling newspapers together. Both the boy and the girl were wearing dirty and filthy clothes, but looked playful.

The pictures were posted on a popular web forum 'Red Net', and trans-posted to several online forums. At one point, it triggered a discussion on what kind of education benefits our next generations better. Some people left comments that a little hardship was usually good for the children's future.


The reality turned out to be less rosy, or rather cruel. The little girl's real name is Xu Qian "Qianqian". The four and half years old girl's parents recognized her face from the pictures on Web. The girl was abducted from Shenzhen, Guangdong Province around 11 am on October 18, 2008. On the left was a family picture taken before her disappear. Hundreds or thousands of children are abducted in China everyday. Many are sold to miners or circus managers for slave labor. Many parents of one child family who lost their only child are questioning the meaning of (whatever left with) life.

The desperate parents have arrived Changsha to look for clues on where to find Qianqian. The family already spent 300K RMB Yuan on advertising after the child was abducted. They even offered a ransom of 100K RMB Yuan ($17K) to whoever is controlling the child if the girl could be safely returned. Although many Changsha residents recognized the little girl after reading newspaper of the story, the child was no longer seen on Changsha streets. Actually, the entire population of Changsha city is looking for the girl everywhere. According to tips left by readers, Qianqian was last seen on Feb 6 in Spring Department Store area. There were four little kids selling newspapers that day, and Qianqian was the smallest one. One reader wrote that he saw Qianqian. He told his wife about the little girl who was selling newspapers when he came back home that day and was blamed for not buying a piece of newspaper to help. Now he regrettd that he didn't alert the authority, but he really didn't know. A taxi driver wrote he noticed a male in his 30s was monitoring the kids closeby. Another reader commented that he saw the child in Chenzhou, another city in Hunan. It's common children trafficker would move young slaves around to avoid attention. However, because of all the national media attention, we are fearful of the child's safety.

If you see Qianqian, please call her father Xu Jiancheng at 134-1209-6461, or call a hotline set up by Changsha media at 220-5000.

Chinese College Students Can Do Math

A recent study published on Science showed the disturbing lagging of students' knowledge in science in the US.

What is more disturbing are the facts that the paper does not reveal. After the central government adopted a policy to stimulate internal consume, the annual enrollment of colleges was increased near 10 times, from less than 600,000 in 1990s to more than 6 millions overnight. Also, in Chinese education system, best universities are those mega-size national universities, and by and large, the quality of the university grows monotone with the number of students it has. In other words, all Chinese students who participated in the study are those who with so poor academic performance that they won't be able to attend a college 10 years ago.

Still these Chinese student were able to beat their US counterparts by a margin of 2:1 in science knowledge. Although the reasoning part showed comparable results, the overall capability of an individual is the product of knowledge and reasoning skills. Therefore, the final result still looks doom for US students.

What's even more disturbing is the shape of the distribution curve with grades of US students, which is almost a perfect shifted normal distribution. We would have expected a budge on the right hand side, which might reflect out liners of the public school systems and those who attend private schools. Alas, there are too few of them that no such budge could be detected.

In short, US won't be able to compete with China in the years to come.

Russian Navy Sank Chinese Cargo Ship

According to Russian media, a Chinese cargo ship was sunk by the Russian coast guard. New Star, the Chinese cargo ship left Russian port of Nakhodka before obtaining permission from the port authority. The Russian warship fired at least 500 rounds and sank the cargo ship into the sea.

The Chinese media held the story until a Sino-Russia oil accord was signed. China will providc $25 Billion loan in exchange of privileges of importing oil from Russia in the next 25 years.

Russian media alleged smuggling goods, but later clarified the cargo ship did not carry any smuggling goods. Russia stated the firing was legal and had been authored by higher authority. However, they would investigate the accusation that Russian warship did not make any effort to rescue drowning sailors during a period of 24 hours after the cargo ship issued a distress signal and started sinking.

Hong Kong based ship owner issued a statement, revealed that the Russian port would not release the ship without a kickback. Ship owners to Russia always faces the choices of bribing the port authority, or paying $10,000 port fee for each delayed day. Some chose fled Russian ports, but this is the first case when a cargo ship was sunk by Russian warships.

Seven Chinese sailors are assumed dead.