It's raining everywhere, and not the good kind, under which one might twirl around a lamppost. In Liuzhou, Guangxi, rains have caused flooding and prompted local blogger Liuzhou Laowai to exclaim, "It’s a holiday. It has to rain!" Here are more pictures of afflicted Guangxi towns via Xinhua.
The above was posted to Sina Weibo recently and was, of course, deleted. If it doesn't seem like a picture that compares China's president to a chubby bear with a sweet tooth would be allowed to stand, it's because a picture that compares China's president to a chubby bear with a sweet tooth isn't allowed to stand, even if it's done in good fun (as the above obviously is). But as we've said before: censors don't like fun. (They prefer their jobs.)
In a Q-and-A with the Guardian, Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower who is now in Hong Kong, talked about his motivations, the “authoritarian mindset” of spies (such as himself), and why he does not expect to ever return to the US as a free man. He also said this about hacking, specifically the hypocrisy of... Read more »
Global Times is running a neat feature on its Facebook page (yes, Global Times has a Facebook page) in which it posts sample questions from China's National College Entrance Exam, i.e. gaokao. Its headline asks:
So you think you’re smarter than a Chinese high school student?
Oh hell no, no one thinks they're smarter than Chinese high school students. We're all reeling from years of alcohol abuse and our heads are no longer filled with facts.
But even if we were smarter, would we be able to answer labyrinthine questions such as...
Those wonderful viral marketers at Durex -- who were responsible for this ad that implied Barack Obama has a bigger penis than Mitt Romney -- sprinkled some photoshop magic to one particular photo of Xi Jinping and Peng Liyuan that's been making the rounds.
In the original -- somewhat lampooned because China's First Lady is using an iPhone -- Xi Jinping definitely does not have a condom in his breast pocket.
Over the last week a number of people have asked me about Internet trolls leaving defamatory comments on this website and others. Even though common sense tells me to ignore them, here are responses in the form of an FAQ:
Do you know who’s leaving these comments? Yes...
Authorities are searching for a suspect they believe caused a bus fire in Xiamen, Fujian province during evening rush hour on Friday, killing 47 people and injuring 34."Some witnesses said they heard explosions about ten minutes after the fire broke out," reports Xinhua.
Fifteen students who had just completed tests were on the bus, according to a press conference held earlier today.
A 22-year-old man jumped out of a moving bus on a Sichuan province freeway and died, reports Chengdu Business Daily via Global Times. Why did he jump?
"He asked me to park the bus because he needed to pee," said the bus driver, Liu Renzi, who was en route to Ziyang from Chengdu that day. "I asked him to wait because it's not safe to park on the freeway. I told him that there was a restroom at Shiqiao service zone, which would take about 10 minutes to reach."
