Chinese Court Coins New Term: ‘Temporary Rape'

A court in China coined a new legal term when punishing two policemen last month, saying they were guilty of the “temporary rape” of a high school graduate; they were given lenient sentences because of the pronouncement.

The two policemen took two high school graduates, who had just completed their college entrance exams, out to eat and drink on June 19. They all drank a lot, and one of the students, Ms. Chen became heavily drunk, as told in a China News Service article of Oct. 29. The policemen took her to a hotel under the pretext of “helping her to come to,” but then raped her while she was passed out.

The police later turned themselves in, and were put before a court. The Nanxun District Court of Huzhou County, Zhejiang Province, said in its verdict that the two police committed the crime of rape, but issued a light sentence of three years imprisonment, saying that they had “committed a temporary and on-the-spot crime, without premeditation,” according to Chinese state media. Read entire article

My opinion: This needs to be widely condemned, but who has the moral authority to speak these days? We murder the unborn and call it 'free choice'. How shameful!

Read about China's coercive family planning, forced abortion and infanticide

SNL on U.S. Debt to China

Outsourcing Unemployment - Economic Impact on China

GDP, cash for clunkers, dollar, debt, depression

"Of Course We're Not Going To Pay Back The Chinese"

The World Won't Buy Unlimited U.S. Debt

We're asking others to sacrifice for our 'stimulus.'

By PETER SCHIFF

Barack Obama has spoken often of sacrifice. And as recently as a week ago, he said that to stave off the deepening recession Americans should be prepared to face "trillion dollar deficits for years to come."

But apart from a stirring call for volunteerism in his inaugural address, the only specific sacrifices the president has outlined thus far include lower taxes, millions of federally funded jobs, expanded corporate bailouts, and direct stimulus checks to consumers. Could this be described as sacrificial?

What he might have said was that the nations funding the majority of America's public debt -- most notably the Chinese, Japanese and the Saudis -- need to be prepared to sacrifice. They have to fund America's annual trillion-dollar deficits for the foreseeable future. These creditor nations, who already own trillions of dollars of U.S. government debt, are the only entities capable of underwriting the spending that Mr. Obama envisions and that U.S. citizens demand.

These nations, in other words, must never use the money to buy other assets or fund domestic spending initiatives for their own people. When the old Treasury bills mature, they can do nothing with the money except buy new ones. To do otherwise would implode the market for U.S. Treasurys (sending U.S. interest rates much higher) and start a run on the dollar. (If foreign central banks become net sellers of Treasurys, the demand for dollars needed to buy them would plummet.)

In sum, our creditors must give up all hope of accessing the principal, and may be compensated only by the paltry 2%-3% yield our bonds currently deliver.

Read the entire piece

Pat Buchanan on AntiwarRadio

This is worth listening to.

U.S. congressman opposes House resolution on China

2008-08-04 06:22:22
WASHINGTON, Aug. 3 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Republican congressman Ron Paul of Texas described the recent resolution by the House of Representatives on China's human rights situation as "ill-conceived" and "hypocritical" and he urged the U.S. legislature to deal with human rights abuses in U.S. or those created abroad by U.S. foreign policies.

"I rise in opposition to this resolution, which is yet another meaningless but provocative condemnation of China. It is this kind of jingoism that has led to such a low opinion of the United States abroad," Paul, who had run for U.S. president as a Republican candidate earlier, said in a statement posted on the official website of the House.

"We are not debating a bill to close Guantanamo, where abuses have been documented. We are not debating a bill to withdraw from Iraq, where scores of innocents have been killed, injured, and abused due to our unprovoked attack on that country. We are not debating a bill to reverse the odious FISA bill passed recently which will result in extreme abuses of Americans by gutting the Fourth Amendment," he said in the statement made before the House voted to adopt the anti-China resolution on July 30.

"Instead of addressing these and scores of other pressing issues over which we do have authority, we prefer to spend our time criticizing a foreign government over which we have no authority and foreign domestic problems about which we have very little accurate information," the congressman added.

Paul described it as "ironic" that the resolution calls on the Chinese government to begin negotiations, without preconditions, directly with the Dalai Lama or his representatives.

"For years U.S. policy has been that no meeting or negotiation could take place with Iran until certain preconditions are met by Iran. Among these is a demand that Iran cease uranium enrichment, which Iran has the right to do under the terms of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. It is little wonder why some claim that resolutions like this are hypocritical," he said.

"Instead of lecturing China, where I have no doubt there are problems as there are everywhere, I would suggest that we turn our attention to the very real threats in the United States where our civil liberties and human rights are being eroded on a steady basis," Paul said.

"The Bible cautions against pointing out the speck in a neighbor's eye while ignoring the log in one's own. I suggest we contemplate this sound advice before bringing up such ill-conceived resolutions in the future," he said.

In response to the U.S. Congress' adoption of the resolution on China's human rights situation, a spokesman for the Beijing Olympic Games said last Thursday that the resolution was an attempt to politicize the Games.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao also rejected the resolution as an abominable conduct by a handful of anti-China lawmakers.

"Such a deed itself is blasphemy to the Olympic spirit, and is against the common wishes of people all around the world, including people of the United States," Liu said.

U.S. President George W. Bush had announced that he would travel to Beijing next week to attend the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.

China Blocks YouTube Over Tibet Videos

BEIJING (AP) - Internet users in China were blocked from seeing YouTube.com on Sunday after dozens of videos about protests in Tibet appeared on the popular U.S. video Web site.

The blocking added to the communist government's efforts to control what the public saw and heard about protests that erupted Friday in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, against Chinese rule.

Access to YouTube.com, usually readily available in China, was blocked after videos appeared on the site Saturday showing foreign news reports about the Lhasa demonstrations, montages of photos and scenes from Tibet-related protests abroad.

There were no protest scenes posted on China-based video Web sites such as 56.com, youku.com and tudou.com.

The Chinese government has not commented on its move to prevent access to YouTube. Internet users trying to call up the Web site were presented with a blank screen.

Chinese leaders encourage Internet use for education and business but use online filters to block access to material considered subversive or pornographic.

Foreign Web sites run by news organizations and human rights groups are regularly blocked if they carry sensitive information. Operators of China-based online bulletin boards are required to monitor their content and enforce censorship.

China has at least 210 million Internet users, according to the government, and is expected to overtake the United States soon to have the biggest population of Web surfers.

Beijing tightened controls on online video with rules that took effect Jan. 30 and limited video-sharing to state-owned companies.

Regulators backtracked a week later, apparently worried they might disrupt a growing industry, and said private companies that were already operating legally could continue. They said any new competitors will be bound by the more stringent restrictions.

My opinion: I see the day coming (if it isn't already here) when our gov't will resort to this and other types of censorship. When it happens (if we learn of it) they will justify it with talk of security and protecting us. "The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience." - Albert Camus
In a related news item: Dalai Lama Calls for Tibet Probe.

China - Faith on fire

In a recent article featured in the Asian Times online, Oswald Spengler writes :

'Ten thousand Chinese become Christians each day, according to a stunning report by the National Catholic Reporter’s veteran correspondent John Allen, and 200 million Chinese may comprise the world’s largest concentration of Christians by mid-century, and the largest missionary force in history.’

He continues:
‘I suspect that even the most enthusiastic accounts err on the downside, and that Christianity will have become a Sino-centric religion two generations from now. China may be for the 21st century what Europe was during the 8th-11th centuries, and America has been during the past 200 years: the natural ground for mass evangelization. If this occurs, the world will change beyond our capacity to recognize it. Islam might defeat the western Europeans, simply by replacing their diminishing numbers with immigrants, but it will crumble beneath the challenge from the East.’

Read the article