Do you share our disdain for censorship? If so, it's not too late to check out last week's PEN International report on Chinese censorship, "Creativity and Constraint in Today's China." Launched on World Press Freedom Day as a culmination of five years of work, "the report is a frank assessment of the climate of freedom of expression in the world’s most populous state," featuring firsthand accounts and essays from 10 Chinese dissident writers.
As Barack Obama's failure to close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp continues to anger his liberal base, interested observers outside the US are beginning to take their potshots at the reeling POTUS. The Chinese news media, for instance, has decided to lightly prod the American president with a little humor -- not with its own humor, mind you, but with The Daily Show's.
Via Deadspin, "The Dalai Lama Is A Giant Bandwagoner":
Tenzin Gyatso is the 14th Dalai Lama, the latest in a long line of reincarnations of Avalokiteśvara, the bodhisattva embodiment of compassion. He's also an insufferable homer who loves free hats.
Kenneth Bae, a Korean American sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in North Korea for crimes against the state, will not be used as a bargaining chip, says the DPRK. “Some media of the U.S. said that the DPRK tried to use Bae’s case as a political bargaining chip. This is ridiculous and [a] wrong guess,” Korean Central News Agency reported, via Washington Post. But would the regime, you know, release him, just because, pretty please, if Dennis Rodman asked?
PR department for the win. Chimelong Water Park sent thousands of women in bikinis to do their bidding, and let's just say we're paying attention. In this video, girls form "2013" in the shape of a snake while getting sprayed down. Kids go on water rides. Everyone is happy. Sweet summer is here.
What happens when a bear races a monkey on a bicycle? First of all, stop. Why is a bear racing a monkey… Oh fuck it. Take over, Huffington Post: During the performance, two monkeys take the lead as onlookers laugh and cheer. The bear is hot on their heels, however, and a second-lap crash quickly turns... Read more »
Okay guys, shelve the jokes. Who among us has handled live explosives and knows the special feeling of a shrapnel-packed weapon ticking down to our doom? Adrenaline gushing through the veins of our throwing arm, would our toss be guaranteed a certain distance, the ideal trajectory, so that the projectile -- shrapnel-packed, explosive -- doesn't bounce back at our feet, as it does here, in this video, to the poor female recruit and her two companions?
Here is 3 minutes, 17 seconds of two men getting the shit kicked out of them. Right here, the epitome of the expression "beaten within an inch of one's life." It's brutal and vicious -- and then the concrete blocks come out.
The two men lying prone on the ground were apparently thieves, but quoting the top commenter on the Youku video -- "Even beatings have a limit, it's not worth beating them to death."
We're gonna go ahead and slap a viewer discretion advisory on this one. Screenshots for those who would rather not click play:
Via Austin Ramzy of Time, here’s Beijing Evening News’s photoshopped picture of a dog pissing on a car. The title of the article, as if it matters at all, is, “No harm to tires; still, don’t let it ‘go’ wherever it wants.” It’s about dogs peeing on tires. That picture, however, says so much more,... Read more »
