The “beckoning cat” turns out to be Japanese, not Chinese, and is properly rendered as a ceramic sculpture, rather than shiny, gold plastic. It’s beckoning passersby to enter the establishment, although the gesture doesn’t really translate, since in the West, that’s how we wave hello and goodbye. They appear to date to the 1870s. →
Tag Archives: china
Links for November 10th
Nieman Reports: A Local Newspaper Endures a Stormy BacklashThis is the story of how the tiny Idaho Falls Post Register bravely uncovered a series of cases of pedophiles acting as leaders in area Boy Scout troops, as told by the managing editor of the paper. In the face of an angry public very much in …
Are we really the Saudi Arabia of coal?
I keep hearing the U.S. described as the “Saudi Arabia of coal.” This turns out to be half true. According to BP, China produced three billion tons of coal in 2009, or 46% of the world’s share. In second place was the U.S., with .97 billion tons, 16% of the world’s share. But in proven …
Links for July 9th
GAO: Replacing the $1 Note with a $1 Coin Would Provide a Financial Benefit to the GovernmentGetting rid of the $1 bill would save the government $184M/year. Not an enormous amount, on the scale of the budget, but there's no getting around that $184M is a very large amount of money indeed. Ten years ago, …
Links for May 5th
Wikipedia: Timeline of Web BrowsersA family tree for web browsers. There are a lot of browsers here I hadn't thought of for years. HotJava, ViolaWWW, and Cello, in particular. Voice of America: Historian Recounts Role of Chinese Americans Who Fought in US Civil WarIn 1861, there were only 200 Asians living in the Eastern U.S. …
Links for April 10th
Reuters: China tells U.S. to quit as human rights judgeOne of the perils of the U.S.'s decade-old habit of engaging in torture is that we can't pretend to be outraged when other countries do the same. We're a role model. Wikipedia: Trailer (film)The MPAA caps the length of trailers at 2:30, though studios are allowed …
We’re parroting China’s own POW torture techniques.
The U.S. military learned its torture techniques by imitating Chinese communist methods from the Korean War. And how did they learn about these methods? From a 1957 U.S. military study of how so many American POWs came to make false confessions. They even reused the original chart of techniques, changing only the title, “Communist Coercive …
Continue reading “We’re parroting China’s own POW torture techniques.”
Goode gets caught telling a tall China oil-drilling tale.
In order to fulfill his twice-annual quota of saying something totally nuts, Rep. Virgil Goode informed a WCHV radio host last week that China is drilling for oil off the coast of Cuba. I wish I knew what Goode was thinking when he says such foolish things. He’s doing no favors for himself, his district, …
Continue reading “Goode gets caught telling a tall China oil-drilling tale.”