January 12, 2007

Demographics Rule

In my opinion, something that will determine the political stance of China in the coming decades not only will be the path of its industrial revolution, and its sizable population, but the very pertinent fact of the huge and growing population disparity between men and women:

China will have 30 million more men of marriageable age than women by 2020, making it difficult for them to find wives, according to a national report.

The gender imbalance could lead to social instability, the report by the State Population and Family Planning Commission warned.

By way of example, think of the social instability in Moslem countries, where wealthy men often possess several wives, making the marriage market far more difficult for poorer men. Similarly, years ago I read an article discussing how the economics in Middle Eastern Arab countries - and particularly Gaza and the West Bank - was forcing higher and higher the age at which men married for the first time. In some cases creating very long engagements. In other cases, it heightened large age differentiations in couples, a man in his 40s marrying a girl in her late teens or early 20s.

Continue reading "Demographics Rule"

Alcibiades | 01/12/07 at 12:18 PM | 6 Comments | 0 TrackBacks | Categories: - Pacific Rim

October 11, 2006

Hollywood Director David Zucker: Another 9/11 Republican

As a self-proclaimed 9/11 Republican who started an online discussion group for people like myself called the 9/11 Neocons (as in new conservatives), I've been following the various additions to our ranks with great interest. And Hollywood has been the source of more than one 9/11 "convert." Actors Ron Silver and James Woods and comedian Dennis Miller come to mind.

It's no coincidence that Jews figure prominently among the ranks of Hollywood (and otherwise) former lefties, as the rising anti-Semitism on the left continues to alienate the non-suicidal among us.

Now it seems comedy director David Zucker (who directed one of my all-time favorite comedies, "Airplane") has joined the fold.

Continue reading "Hollywood Director David Zucker: Another 9/11 Republican"

Cinnamon | 10/11/06 at 01:20 PM | 0 Comments | 0 TrackBacks | Categories: - Pacific Rim

September 28, 2006

China: Harvest Season Lasts All Year Long

Last April, I first reported on the horrific practice of forced prisoner organ harvesting in China - a practice that allows China to hold the dominant market position in a horrific industry. Essentially, they can harvest whatever organs they require - after DNA analysis - from the prisoners they hold - including, of course, prisoners of conscience.

And now the BBC - in its breaks from reporting on the scourge that is Zion and the USA under Bush - has finally deigned to pursue the matter.

Continue reading "China: Harvest Season Lasts All Year Long"

Alcibiades | 09/28/06 at 10:08 AM | 0 Comments | 0 TrackBacks | Categories: - Pacific Rim

May 31, 2006

Another late Memorial Day post

[ UPDATE: Coincidentally, an article about US atrocities in the Korean War appeared today. ]

Occasional Kesher Talk pundit Ben:

As usual for me, a bit late; Memorial Day is already past. It takes time to put things together. For example, exactly twenty years ago, I was in Korea, and although I knew I was learning a lot, it would be years before I had an understanding of exactly what I had learned.

Korea in 1986 was an adolescent society, coming of age, rebelling against itself, finding its place in the world. It was looking forward to hosting the Olympics, Hodori the Tiger was everywhere, the Daewoo building was the tallest in Asia, Hyundai was an up and coming contender in the auto world but had yet to export to the United States, and occasionally clouds of tear gas would drift across university campuses.

Continue reading "Another late Memorial Day post"

Judith | 05/31/06 at 10:13 AM | 0 Comments | 0 TrackBacks | Categories: - Pacific Rim

April 27, 2006

Europe Now in Striking Distance of Iran

Will Europe keeping yawning about the Iranian threat now that they are in striking distance of the mad mullahs?

Iran procures missiles capable of hitting Europe

Iran has purchased ground-to-ground missiles from North Korea with a range of 2,500 kilometers, the head of the Israel Defense Forces Intelligence Branch, Major General Amos Yadlin, said Wednesday.

While Iran already possessed missiles capable of reaching Israel, the new weapons pose a threat for countries in Europe and parts of the Middle East that have now come into Iranian range.

Some of the missiles have already arrived in Iran, Yadlin said in a lecture in memory of Israel's sixth president Haim Herzog, who was also head of the IDF Intelligence Branch.

The missiles are known in the West as BM-25s, operate on liquid fuel and are single-stage. The BM-25 was originally manufactured in the Soviet Union, where the first generation, adapted for use by Soviet submarines and able to carry a nuclear warhead, was known as the SSN6. After the Russians retired the missiles from service, they sold them to the North Koreans, who developed them to carry a heavier payload.

With this purchase the Iranians have leap-frogged over their Shihab-4 missile with its range of 2,000 kilometers.

Iran worked for years on the development of the Shihab-3, which has a range of 1,300 kilometers, and conducted numerous tests. They also developed a cone with improved ability to enter the atmosphere, which meant it was more accurate.

And let's not forget Iran's announcement earlier this week that it planned on sharing nuclear know-how with Sudan.

UPDATE: Won't help much against an nuclear armed missile, but here's more information on the Trophy Active Protection System, the new weapon that Israel has developed to disable RPGs, soon to be mounted on US fighting vehicles if testing continues to go well.

Continue reading "Europe Now in Striking Distance of Iran"

Alcibiades | 04/27/06 at 09:49 AM | 0 Comments | 0 TrackBacks | Categories: - Pacific Rim

April 20, 2006

China in the News

The MSM is finally beginning to cover news of the coerced organ harvesting from Falun Gong political prisoners in China.

Top British transplant surgeons have accused China of harvesting the organs of thousands of executed prisoners a year to sell for transplants.
In a statement released on Wednesday, the British Transplantation Society condemned the practice as unacceptable and a breach of human rights.

The move comes less than a week after Chinese officials publicly denied the practice...

Professor Stephen Wigmore, who chairs the society's ethics committee, told the BBC that the speed of matching donors and patients, sometimes as little as a week, implied prisoners were being selected before execution.

Chinese officials deny the allegations.

Just last week a Chinese health official said publicly that organs from executed prisoners were sometimes used, but only with prior permission and in a very few cases...

The emergence of transplant tourism has made the sale of health organs even more lucrative.

Patients increasingly come from Western countries, including the UK, as well as Japan and South Korea...

Secrecy surrounding executions in China has always made it difficult to gather facts.

The SeattlePI covers news of a small protest against Hu and the treatment of the Falun Gong in Washington, as Hu visited Bill Gates, a rally with about 200 people

Today, as Hu visited the White House, he was interrrupted by a journalist heckler who writes for Epoch Times, a Falun Gong paper, protesting the human rights abuses of Falun Gong prisoners in China.

The protester interrupted the ceremony by shouting to Bush to stop the Chinese president from "persecuting the Falun Gong."

Michelle Malkin has the video

Continue reading "China in the News"

Alcibiades | 04/20/06 at 09:57 PM | 1 Comments | 1 TrackBacks | Categories: - Pacific Rim

April 19, 2006

Spyblogging: The CIA Gets It

Add another tool to the eyes-in-the-sky and trenchcoat brigade: The Central Intelligence Agency is digging up the espionage dirt by reading blogs.

Langley must be proud of this effort because it made officials available to talk to the Washington Times about its Open Source Center (OSC), started in November. Consider this:

A Defense Department official said Chinese military bloggers have become a valuable source of intelligence on Beijing's secret military buildup. For example, China built its first Yuan-class attack submarine at an underground factory that was unknown to U.S. intelligence until a photo of the submarine appeared on the Internet in 2004.

The CIA adds its own technology tools to the mix, sifting blogs for key data and checking its reliability.

Imagine the great stuff the CIA must find on TimesSelect.

Van | 04/19/06 at 08:22 PM | 0 Comments | 0 TrackBacks | Categories: - Pacific Rim

March 28, 2006

Even Chinese Intelligence Heard the WMD had been Moved to Syria

According to Iraqi Intelligence Document: ISGZ-2004-028179, from the Iraqi Files now publicly released.

Even the Chinese received intelligence that the WMD went to Syria, and this by January 10, 2003.

B. He mentioned that a meeting in Beijing in the beginning of this month was held between the Prime minister of China and the German Chancellor Schroeder in the occasion of the opening project for the fast train and the latter was asked about the information that was obtained by the Chinese intelligence and it says that Iraq has moved his mass of destruction weapon to Syria and the German Chancellor told him that the German intelligence did not indicate this. And after two days the US state secretary went to Damascus to check on this with the Syrian government that in turn denied this news...

I wonder if the Chinese also knew the Russians delivered them?

[Hat Tip: Barcepundit]

Alcibiades | 03/28/06 at 04:14 PM | 2 Comments | 2 TrackBacks | Categories: - Pacific Rim

January 29, 2006

The slippery slope?

[UPDATE: Google is formally objecting to EU attempts to regulate the internet.]

[UPDATE: Jon Henke gets it.]

The People's Cube folks are having fun with Google's deal with the PRC: Google's great leap forward.

So is Michelle Malkin, who has collected some suggestions for Google logos which commemorate Google's China policy, here and here.

Huge link roundup on the Google controversy by Rebecca McKinnon. A smaller one from Glenn.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin defends the deal:

Continue reading "The slippery slope?"

Judith | 01/29/06 at 01:26 PM | 1 Comments | 0 TrackBacks | Categories: - Pacific Rim

WMD still, in all likelihood, in Syria

The likelihood grows that Iraq's chemical weapons ended up in Syria:

The man who served as the no. 2 official in Saddam Hussein's air force says Iraq moved weapons of mass destruction into Syria before the war by loading the weapons into civilian aircraft in which the passenger seats were removed...

Mr. Sada, 65, told the Sun that the pilots of the two airliners that transported the weapons of mass destruction to Syria from Iraq approached him in the middle of 2004, after Saddam was captured by American troops.

"I know them very well. They are very good friends of mine. We trust each other. We are friends as pilots," Mr. Sada said of the two pilots. He declined to disclose their names, saying they are concerned for their safety. But he said they are now employed by other airlines outside Iraq.

The pilots told Mr. Sada that two Iraqi Airways Boeings were converted to cargo planes by removing the seats, Mr. Sada said. Then Special Republican Guard brigades loaded materials onto the planes, he said, including "yellow barrels with skull and crossbones on each barrel." The pilots said there was also a ground convoy of trucks.

The flights - 56 in total, Mr. Sada said - attracted little notice because they were thought to be civilian flights providing relief from Iraq to Syria, which had suffered a flood after a dam collapse in June of 2002.

"Saddam realized, this time, the Americans are coming," Mr. Sada said. "They handed over the weapons of mass destruction to the Syrians."

Mr. Sada said that the Iraqi official responsible for transferring the weapons was a cousin of Saddam Hussein named Ali Hussein al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali." The Syrian official responsible for receiving them was a cousin of Bashar Assad who is known variously as General Abu Ali, Abu Himma, or Zulhimawe.

Continue reading "WMD still, in all likelihood, in Syria"

Alcibiades | 01/29/06 at 12:57 PM | 0 Comments | 1 TrackBacks | Categories: - Pacific Rim

December 26, 2005

Tsunami anniversary: only one year

Today is the anniversary of the horrible tsunami disaster of southeast Asia.

We had a huge link roundup last year. And a followup.

Whizbang says it's the only blog which posted tsunami videos last year, which still has all of them up or is still online.

A month ago the NYTimes Magazine had a huge writeup on the rebuilding and remaining devastation, but I can't get to it online right now. But here's a slideshow and an audio-visual presentation.
A recent Q & A with the Council on Foreign Relations.

Judith | 12/26/05 at 08:19 AM | 1 Comments | 0 TrackBacks | Categories: - Pacific Rim

September 25, 2005

Concentration Camp Survivor Finally Wins Medal of Honor For His Bravery In The Korean War

I'm a few days late with pointing out this article, since the award ceremony occurred on Friday, 9/23. But the bravery of Corporal Tibor Rubin while a prisoner of war is the story of a beautiful soul.

Continue reading "Concentration Camp Survivor Finally Wins Medal of Honor For His Bravery In The Korean War"

Alcibiades | 09/25/05 at 01:38 PM | 0 Comments | 0 TrackBacks | Categories: - Pacific Rim

September 23, 2005

To Be Or Not To Be...A Hobbit

Speaking of Viggo, that's an excellent segway point into this new story about the little *Hobbits* discovered last year on an island in Indonesia, that were then touted as a new human species, Homo floresiensis, that had developed its own evolutionary track.

But now researchers are casting doubt on whether this explanation is scientifically true.

Continue reading "To Be Or Not To Be...A Hobbit"

Alcibiades | 09/23/05 at 12:11 PM | 0 Comments | 0 TrackBacks | Categories: - Pacific Rim

July 27, 2005

Eloquence

Our allies have been carrying a lot of water for us.

First John Howard lays it out for a snarky reporter.

. . . on the issue of the policies of my government and indeed the policies of the British and American governments on Iraq, that the first point of reference is that once a country allows its foreign policy to be determined by terrorism, it's given the game away, to use the vernacular. And no Australian government that I lead will ever have policies determined by terrorism or terrorist threats, and no self-respecting government of any political stripe in Australia would allow that to happen.

Can I remind you that the murder of 88 Australians in Bali took place before the operation in Iraq.

And I remind you that the 11th of September occurred before the operation in Iraq.

Can I also remind you that the very first occasion that bin Laden specifically referred to Australia was in the context of Australia's involvement in liberating the people of East Timor. Are people by implication suggesting we shouldn't have done that?

Video here.

Now Tony Blair does the same.

Continue reading "Eloquence"

Judith | 07/27/05 at 12:04 PM | 0 Comments | 0 TrackBacks | Categories: - Pacific Rim

January 17, 2005

In honor of MLK Day: Speaking truth to power

What I wrote last year on Martin Luther King Day.

The DoD spanks Seymour Hersh. (via Roger Simon commenter)

From another Simon commenter: some evidence of resistance to the North Korean regime.

Continue reading "In honor of MLK Day: Speaking truth to power"

Judith | 01/17/05 at 02:31 PM | 0 Comments | 0 TrackBacks | Categories: - Pacific Rim

January 11, 2005

More ageing irrelevant cool stuff: anthropology

Still cleaning out my "cool stuff" bookmarks, so some of this is old news. (Apologies if you saw it already or if I got the link from you and don't remember.) Subway systems of the world, presented on the same . . . more »

Judith | 01/11/05 at 11:37 PM | 0 Comments | 0 TrackBacks | Categories: - Pacific Rim

January 07, 2005

A side-effect of outsourcing

I get into these arguments about outsourcing and I keep saying that in the long run there can be no harm in other nations reducing their level of poverty, even if it temporarily hurts a few segments of our population. . . . more »

Judith | 01/07/05 at 04:21 PM | 1 Comments | 0 TrackBacks | Categories: - Pacific Rim

December 31, 2004

Tsunami continued

I've been adding links to the tsunami entry, especially items that may not have received wide coverage. When confronted with a savage destruction of human life - natural or manmade - Jews tend to reach for the imagery and rituals . . . more »

Judith | 12/31/04 at 01:04 AM | 0 Comments | 1 TrackBacks | Categories: - Pacific Rim

December 28, 2004

Tsunami

All the big bloggers are linking to tsunami news and aid links; you know where to go for those, and I'm sure you have been. Me too. Here is Tsunami Blog Central. At the risk of seeming ghoulish, let me . . . more »

Judith | 12/28/04 at 07:18 PM | 0 Comments | 0 TrackBacks | Categories: - Pacific Rim

November 02, 2004

Greetings from the Antipodes!

GOOOOOOOOD Morning America!!!!!!!!!!!! Today you get to decide if you want to be like Spain or Australia. Try not to fuck it up please, it's not a trick question.Murray, every time a pollster says this election will be a squeaker, . . . more »

Judith | 11/02/04 at 04:05 AM | 1 Comments | 0 TrackBacks | Categories: - Pacific Rim

October 09, 2004

Coalition News

We just dodged a bullet. The Australians get it, thank God.A key ally in the Global War on Terror, Australia, has just returned John Howard to power in an election that the press predicted to be close, but which in . . . more »

Judith | 10/09/04 at 06:35 PM | 0 Comments | 0 TrackBacks | Categories: - Pacific Rim

August 27, 2004

Jews in odd places: China

A once-thriving Jewish culture in Shanghai's Tilanqiao area is to be revived on the site of its former heyday. Almost 30,000 Jewish refugees settled in the area, around the northern Bund, during World War II, and set up schools, libraries, . . . more »

William | 08/27/04 at 10:45 AM | 2 Comments | 0 TrackBacks | Categories: - Pacific Rim

June 30, 2004

Jews in odd places: China

And now in Israel. Well, Jewish converts that is: "For the first time, a descendant of the once-vibrant Jewish community of Kaifeng, China, has undergone conversion in Israel and formally returned to Judaism. This past Sunday, Jin Wen-Jing, an 18-year-old . . . more »

William | 06/30/04 at 01:22 PM | 0 Comments | 0 TrackBacks | Categories: - Pacific Rim

June 24, 2004

A tale of two nations

Compare and contrast: Spain. South Korea. . . . more »

Judith | 06/24/04 at 07:47 PM | 0 Comments | 0 TrackBacks | Categories: - Pacific Rim

June 04, 2004

Speaking truth to power again

Many posts in the blogosphere this week about the 60th anniversary of D-Day. A few about the anniversary today of the Battle of Midway. Oxblog reminds us of another anniversary, the 15th year since a man stood in front of . . . more »

Judith | 06/04/04 at 04:42 PM | 0 Comments | 0 TrackBacks | Categories: - Pacific Rim

May 31, 2004

Memorial Day

Victor Davis Hanson on Memorial Day: . . . more »

Judith | 05/31/04 at 02:48 PM | 0 Comments | 0 TrackBacks | Categories: - Pacific Rim

February 21, 2004

Travelling bloggers

Check in regularly with Matthew Stinson and Tacitus, both of whom are travelling abroad right now and blogging their experiences. Matthew is in China and Tacitus is in Israel and Jordan. . . . more »

Judith | 02/21/04 at 07:50 PM | 0 Comments | 0 TrackBacks | Categories: - Pacific Rim