BMAC

Sorry for the continued Authoritarian-nations-suck rant but this quote is particularly jarring.

While 400,000 metric tons of U.S. food aid have already shipped, there is an urgent need for $20 million to get through the next autumn harvest, de Margerie said. ”We are running against the clock here,” he said.

We’re giving these bastards aid? Don’t get me wrong, I feel for the North Korean people, but we’re basically propping up the government that has continually thumbed it’s nose at America and our interests. Hell, let’s have Kim Jung Il sell some of his expansive wine collection or maybe part ways with a couple of his enormous fleet of Mercedes’, then lets talk about shipping him some food so he can feed his own goddamn people. I don’t want anyone to starve, but it just seems backwards-as-fuck to be having to help this regime.

This is absolutely fucking outrageous.  How any “modern” country can escape international condemnation for subjugating, isolating and misinforming it’s people like this on a day-to-day basis is beyond me, but to do this to international journalists during the Olympic games is just horrible.  It’s not only bad press for China, I think it’s an insult to anyone who trusted them.

I really don’t know how anyone thought giving China the games in the first place was a good idea.  You would think that the rampant, highly-toxic and most-likely-fatal pollution-smog (or “foggy haze” as the Chinese prefer to call it) would prevent anyone from thinking that putting all the world’s greatest athletes though rigorous, respiratory and cardiac-intensive competition in Beijing makes sense, but I think a bigger problem is the validation China gets from this.  

They are using this as their debut as a world power; a chance to show everyone worldwide that they can put on an elaborate, well-produced games just like everyone else.  ”Look, we can build a huge stadium and got our people to stop spitting and eating dogs for 2 weeks!  We’re just as powerful and influential as you guys!”

The difference, however, is that no other cities have ever had to go to the length that they have in Beijing to make it even tangentially acceptable to Western visitors and watchers.  You didn’t see them erecting walls around “unsightly” homes and businesses in Salt Lake or Sydney did you?  Did Greece have to clamp down on “dissidents” in the months leading up to the games? Is London drafting plans to shut down factories and pull cars off the road so that visitors won’t have to tolerate 2 weeks of pollution that it’s citizens have to tolerate their entire, shortened lives?  No, because they are modern, civilized countries that believe in the liberty and freedom of their citizens.  China is not, and I don’t think there has ever been a better example of the farce that China is than these games, and they haven’t even lit the goddamn torch.

China may have developed into a world economic power, but it is far from the guiding light of society and government that Western nations, or for that matter other nations in their region (South Korea, Japan, Taiwan) are, and it’s high time for the rest of the world to recognize that.

And just to double check that China’s “social filters” block this post: fuck Mao, free Tibet.

Last.fm just launched a redesign today.  I’ve been using the site for several years now and am a big fan. (username: barrald)

This overhaul really addresses a lot of the useability issues it had.  Last.fm had a ton of features spread out over dozens of different panels with very minor design differentiation, making it hard to even tell what you were looking at sometimes.  This fresh take really helps smooth some of that out, and makes it a lot more obvious what part of the site you are enjoying.

I also dig the new “roller painted” headbar at the top.  It’s a random, but somehow fitting, addition.