“Freedom of expression is something that is absolute. It’s a human right. Athletes have it.”
- I.O.C. President Jacques Rogge

Who will stand up for Tibet this summer? Who will inspire the entire world with their courage and character? Who will show us all that freedom of expression, religion and assembly truly matter?

If you are competing at the Beijing Summer Games, it could be you.

You have probably seen Tibetans and many world citizens protesting the Chinese government’s use of the Olympic Games to whitewash its image and legitimize its claims on Tibet. Yet as an athlete who has spent a lifetime preparing for these Games, you may be concerned that they have seen so much protest.

Please be assured: Tibetans and their supporters are not suggesting a boycott, as we respect the athletes’ sacrifice and determination. Instead, we are pressing the Chinese government and the International Olympic Committee to uphold the true Olympic values and ideals, so that the Beijing Olympics can become a catalyst for positive change for Tibet.

You are not the first Olympic athlete to hold the power of change in your hands. Others before you have championed social justice and human rights, emerging as world heroes. In 1936, Jesse Owens defied Hitler, and set a tidal wave of change in motion.

Now, the chance for change has come again. The 6 million people of Tibet pass their torch to you. Will you carry it for them in Beijing?

What can you do? Check out these ideas:

Raise the Tibetan Flag
After your event has ended (and hopefully you have triumphed!) why not take your victory lap waving your home country’s flag together with the Tibetan flag? You can also incorporate the colours and images of the Tibetan flag into your headband, socks, warm-ups or boxing gloves!

Wear or Present a Khata
A khata is a traditional ceremonial silk scarf used in Tibet as a way of bestowing honor and respect on someone. It can be presented at any festive occasion such as a wedding, birth, graduation, or athletic competition. It symbolises goodwill, auspiciousness and compassion. Ask the Tibet Support Group near you to present one to you before you leave to Beijing, purchase one to present one to a teammate, or have a family member present one to you after your event.

Shave Your Head
As a way of showing solidarity with the thousands of Tibetan monks and nuns who have been killed or jailed leading nonviolent protests in their homeland, consider shaving your head as a symbolic gesture. When giving interviews, discuss the lack of religious freedom in Tibet and demand that the Chinese Government reveals the whereabouts of monks and nuns who took part in the recent uprising in Tibet.

Wear Team Tibet Gear
Because Tibetans are not allowed to field their own team at the Olympics, Team Tibet is now a movement of people everywhere who are determined to give Tibetans a voice in Beijing. By wearing a “Free Tibet” T-shirt or Team Tibet gear, you can symbolically stand in for Tibetans who don’t have the opportunity to be there themselves.

Wear a Rangzen Bracelet
‘Rangzen’ is the Tibetan word for ‘Independence,’ and these bracelets were originally woven by nuns serving prison sentences for political “crimes” such as participating in freedom marches or publicly calling for the return of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Tibet. The bracelets are now worn by Tibetans around the world as a show of support for their country’s freedom.

Dedicate Your Medal
If you are one of the elite few who wins a medal, consider dedicating your medal to Tibet. Whether on the medal podium, speaking to the press or speaking out on your website, let the world know that you value freedom and human rights by dedicating your hard work and effort to those who are engaged in the greatest struggle of all: that of life or death. Lend your voice to those who have had theirs silenced.

In the Press, Before You Go
After you arrive in China, there will be severe limitations on what you will be allowed to say or do. Take advantage of the freedom of expression you enjoy in your home country by speaking out about Tibet before you depart for Beijing. AthleteWanted.org can help coordinate interviews, press conferences, op/ed pieces and feature stories.

On the Net
Do you have a website or a blog? This is the best way to reach people and share your personal thoughts on issues such as human rights, freedom of the press, social justice and athlete activism. AthleteWanted.org can help drive traffic to your site, get more sites and search engines linking to you, and help get your blog syndicated on other prominent websites. If you don’t have a website or blog, let them know. They’ll even help you get one!

At the Games
Talk to the press while you are in Beijing. There will be thousands of foreign press correspondents in China, and many of them will be looking for original angles to cover the events and the athletes. The IOC has stated that athletes should feel free to discuss any and all issues when giving interviews, and you should take advantage of this opportunity to speak out on Chinese soil. This is a freedom that Tibetan and Chinese people simply don’t have.

After Your Event
If you plan to remain in Beijing after your events are completed, this is a great time to take action for Tibet. Whether you speak openly about the issue with journalists and fellow athletes, or decide to do something bold such as join a protest, don’t let this historic opportunity to fight for the rights of Tibetan and Chinese people slip by.

Back Home
Understandably, your number one concern at the Games is competing and winning. Some athletes support Tibet, but don’t want to lose focus on the task at hand: bringing home a medal. For Tibetans, the Olympics is an opportunity to shine a spot light on the occupation of their homeland, but Tibet will need continued media coverage and support after the Games have wrapped up. It’s never too late to get involved or speak out!

Let your voice be the voice of Freedom!

“Amnesty International is an orgainziation with a persistent prejudice against China. It frequently issues irresponsible reports to attack China. Its words does not have the public trust.”

- Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Jiang Yu

In a desperate effort to gain ratings, my tiny little mind proposes a new series of picture-posts. Submissions are welcome, submersions less so. The series will run once a month, until either the end the the year, or until I get bored with it, whichever is first. The theme is the title of this post.

Laydeez anna Gennilmenz! I present for your view pleasure…

A Pair of Great Tits!

Are you Chinese? Just take this quick test to find out:

1. You look at a chicken, an animal that is 97.2% succulent meat, and all you can see are a few spine fragments and some claws. Mmmmm… Delicious!
+1 point

2. Read the following:
“I was a terrorist who helped overthrow the legally elected government of my country. I then murdered or exiled my closest comrades and those who had helped me get to the top. I hold the title of Greatest Butcher in Human History, having killed more than 120 million people, more people than Hitler and Stalin combined - most of them citizens of my own country. I ordered the invasion of many neighboring countries, annexed three of them, and ordered their populations massacred. I declared war on the United Nations, and tried to get nuclear weapons from the Russians because I actually wanted a nuclear war with the West. Who am I?“
You have no idea who I am: +1 point
You know who I am, and think I’m great for kicking out the foreigners: +3 points
You can’t read: +1 point

3. How many of the following statements do you agree with?
* Cold beer gives you stomach cancer.
* Four legs good, two legs b er, The East is Red!
* Pregnant women shouldn’t watch TV, to avoid damaging their baby’s eyes.
* China has always been a peaceful nation.
+1 point per ‘yes’ answer

4. You know that China invented the following:
* the compass
* gunpowder
* the wheelbarrow
* concrete
* the Olympic Games
* mountains
* oxygen
* grass
+1 point per ‘yes’ answer

5. You can count to ten using the fingers of just one hand.
+1 point

6. How many of the following statements do you agree with?
* “[my hometown] is very developing fast and beautiful”
* “Chinese food is best delicious food in world”
* “One world, one dream”
* “Western media is not honest”
+1 point per ‘yes’ answer

7. Read the following passage:
Opium: an addictive drug grown by Chinese farmers, harvested and processed by Chinese workers, sold by Chinese Government officials to Chinese drug users, and exported by Chinese traders.
You read this, and immediately blame the British for the Opium Wars: +2 points

8. If it moves, you eat it. If it doesn’t move, you kick it until it moves.
+1 point

9. When asked to describe any animal or plant in the world, you start by saying how delicious it is. Then you run out of things to say.
+1 point

10. Geography Section. How many of the following are true?
* Africa is a country.
* Meiguo is the name of a country.
* China is the biggest country in the world.
* Himalaya is a biggest mountain in world.
* ‘Western’ is a country.
+1 point per ‘yes’ answer

How did you score?

0 points: Nope, you must be one of those no-good laowai we’ve been hearing about. HELLOOOO! Mind if I stare?

1-5 points: You’re not Chinese, but your mother and I are a little concerned. You could be a student.

6-10 point: No doubt you are a foreigner, but you probably think hutongs are cool places to live. Twat.

11-20 points: Borderline insanity at best, why not just shoot yourself now and send your family the bill for the bullet?

21+ You are Chinese. If you get to this part and you are still able to count higher without using your superfluous fingers and toes, congratulations. No doubt you will make a fine addition to the Fenqing Army. Why not go and eat a chicken claw and then beat your wife / husband to celebrate your cultural superiority?

I am passing this on to you because it definitely worked for me and we all could use more calm in our lives.

By following the simple advice I heard on a TV show, I have finally found inner peace. A pastor proclaimed the way to achieve inner peace is to finish all the things you have started.

So I looked around my house to see things I’d started and hadn’t finished and, before leaving the house this morning, I finished off a bottle of Merlot, a bottle of shhhardonay, a bodle of Baileys, a butle of vocka, a pockage of Prunglies, tha mainder of bot Prozic and Valum scriptins, the res of the Chesescke an a box a
chocolets. Yu haf no idr who gud I fel.

Peas sen dis orn to dem yu fee AR in ned ov inr piss.

Our friends at that very-honest-and-diligent Party mouthpiece, ChinaDaily, had a brainfreeze today. Amongst the many wonderfully entertaining propaganda items on the front page, was this:

Sarkozy not wanted at Olympics, survey says

Chinese people do not want French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s to attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, according to the results of a survey published on Wednesday.

Wu Yikang, chairman of the Shanghai Institute of European Studies, said Sarkozy’s inconsistency regarding China is not up to the standard of a thoughtful and responsible statesman.

“Sarkozy’s gesture of setting conditions for his attendance at the Beijing Olympics is an unfriendly move toward China. It shows his immaturity and carelessness as a politician,” Wu said in an interview with the Beijing-based Global Times. “The Chinese government will certainly not yield to his move,” Wu said.

“Some people are acting as if China is begging them to attend the Games,” Wu said.

That’s good, seeing as how the French President had already said he was thinking of not coming. I guess that makes him a safe target.

And this, too:

Chinese tourists say ‘no’ to France

The past few weeks has seen a sharp decline in the number of Chinese people traveling to France, the French Ambassador to China said on Monday.

“The number of visas issued to Chinese tourists has fallen by about two-thirds recently,” Herve Ladsous said at a press briefing.

“But I have spoken with Chinese tourism officials who told me the Chinese government has not issued any notices discouraging tourists from going to France, and I believe them,” Ladsous said.

Well, I have spoken to several travel agents, who all said that they had been instructed by the Chinese Communist Party not to accept bookings for tourist travel to France.

And of course, this one was entertaining:

Exporters face problem of defaulted payments

Chinese exporters, currently plagued by paper-thin profits, are threatened by another emerging problem of defaulted payments from foreign clients, economists said on Wednesday.

Poor dears. Those dishonest Laowai are at it again, apparently.

But this image topped the lot. It shows “members of China’s armed police demonstrating a rapid deployment during an anti-terrorist drill held in Jinan, capital of east China’s Shandong Province July 2, 2008, roughly one month ahead of the Beijing Olympics.”

Using Segway Personal Transporters. “Rapid” doesn’t even begin to say it.

Hahahahahahhahah! Go get ‘em Sheriff!

June’s award goes to Barry, for thinking that China isn’t such a bad place compared with the terrible places he has actually been. Places like Kuala Lumpur, Phuket, and Hong Kong - all of which were terrible places, apparently. He hasn’t actually ever been to China, but he knows it must be a nice place.

Which is fine, except when you’re thinking that on my time and on my lunch bill.

Fuck Barry.

Barry, Wet Pussy Award winner, June ‘08.

Part 3 of a 3 part story.
*** Part 1 *** Part 2 ***

In 1949 the first Wang XianSheng rolled off the production lines at Beijing’s No.3 Light Industrial Plant. It proved a huge success, with tens of millions being built for Communist China over the next 60 years.

Wang 2.0, released last week, is the new high performance workerbot from CCP Systems. In this review, we are going to look at the various components and compare it with existing models to see if we can answer the question: is this workerbot really the best on the market today?

Wang 2.0 on our test bench - is this the shape of things to come?

First Look - Thin Skin?
As you can see, Wang 2.0 bears a superficial resemblence to the workerbots it is intended to replace. In fact, all the Wang, Gao, Zhang, Li, Liu and Chen workerbots are the product of Harmonious Assimilation Networks (HAN) design studios, and Wang 2.0 is no exception. The difference lies not only under the skin, but includes the skin itself - the skin of the Wang 2.0 is considerably thinner than on any previous model. Some experts consider that this will leave the bot vulnerable to the many skin diseases prevalent in the environments in which it will operate, and indeed this is a valid point, but to understand the real benefits of this thin skin, one must look to the reaction co-processor, a new microcircuit known as the Organism Fabricated for Fighting, Efficient Nullification and Socialist Exploration module (OFFENSE). The new Wang 2.0 is actually capable of claiming offense on behalf of “All The Chinese People”, in a staggering 5,000 different ways! CCP Systems claim that Wang 2.0 is the most easily offended workerbot ever produced, and if the numbers are true, we certainly are impressed.

CPU and Head Systems

The above images show the ‘brain’ of the bot, the CPU, massively increased in size from previous models, and the new Positronic Robotic Organiser Programmed for Accurate Gratification, Adept Nullification and Dangerous Attitudes (PROPAGANDA) chip. You can see the many tendrils that snake throughout the control systems of Wang 2.0 - this is the first time such a complex command node processor has been used in a workerbot.

New hyper-threading technology, invented 5,000 years ago in Xi’an (and recently stolen by Intel), means that Wang 2.0 is the first Chinese workerbot with a true multi-tasking capability, able to eat, excrete, whine, and sleep simultaneously. CCP Systems claim that Wang 2.0 can also walk whilst chewing gum, but our tests showed otherwise. It appears that there is still some way to go before foreign models can be effectively replaced in many roles.

Dual Channel DDR-2 memory by GOLDFISH.

Bionics
A changing, fast-paced world has meant that older, low (and in many cases, no-) productivity models are no longer capable of meeting China’s needs for a modern workforce. Wang 2.0 is designed to be a powerhouse of a production worker. CCP Systems claim Wang 2.0 is the best workerbot in the world - let’s see how it measured up in our benchmarking tests:

Although Wang 2.0 is clearly far superior to the earlier Wang XianSheng series, it still poses no real threat to the current market leaders, although it could easily find its way into the low-cost African market.

The main bionics chassis is built by Lifeform Assemblies for Zealous Yelling (LAZY), and are a direct spin-off from China’s space program astrobot (Synthetic Technician Optimized for Logical Exploration and Nullification, or STOLEN). CCP Systems have not released efficiency rating figures yet, but our tests show that Wang 2.0 is less efficient than its predecessor, Wang XianSheng. Whereas the XianSheng-series could operate on just 7mg of rice and a chicken claw a day, Wang 2.0 requires no less than an entire bowl of congee just to kickstart its primary systems every day. That said, once it gets started, Wang 2.0 is no slouch - speeds of up to 3km/h were recorded during our benchmarking tests. Straight-line distances of nearly a meter were also recorded.

Other Applications
Wang 2.0 is clearly intended to form the basis of a new range of workerbots, with potential military, social, governmental, and espionage applications, and a recently released photograph shows Wang 2.0 adapted for use as a high-altitude construction worker:

Conclusion
Wang 2.0 is truly a very high-end bot that will bring an impressive performance boost if you are a serious manufacturer in the Chinese marketplace.

In factory environments with work quality settings configured at “high”, Wang 2.0 was between 62% and 70% faster than Wang XianSheng and between 62% and 68% faster than Gao XianSheng. In the same factory with work quality settings configured at “low”, Wang 2.0 was between 67% and 126% faster than Wang XianSheng – here however Liu2000 and Harmonious Li achieved the same performance level, with the only significant difference seen at lunchtime, where this workerbot from CCP Systems was 34% faster than any other model.

We are now even more curious to see the performance of Wang 2.0 ‘AYI’, as it will reach the market costing “only” USD$400. We hope to get one very soon. Stay tuned!