This is what happens when you criticize America, and Reporters Without Borders's bit of ridiculousness

Via Global Voices

This is rich. Sima Nan, a vocal American critic in China (so, like every liberal American, I guess), got his head pinched between an escalator and wall last Friday. In America. Wait, I italicized the wrong thing. Got his head pinched between an escalator and wall. Global Voices has a translated piece from blogger Yu Xiaoping in which Yu writes, "I deeply sympathize with the injured person, and I don't think this is the time to be ridiculing him." REALLLLY? I can't think of a BETTER time. I'm not familiar with Sima Nan's work, but dude -- you got your head stuck on an escalator. The equivalent on the stupidity scale has to be blowing off a digit while mixing dry ice and Coke.

China is 6th worst country for press freedom, according to organization that knows nothing about China. Even for an organization that only gets news through a Western filter, this is beyond ridiculous -- and I say this as someone who fully realizes how bad the Chinese press is, seeing as I work inside the machine and also hate censorship. Russia, a country in which journalists are murdered for doing their jobs, is 32 places above China. Mexico, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq are ranked 149-150-151-152, which is bad, but hang on... Somalia is 164... Egyptians raped Lara Logan, but that country is 166... Cuba is 167... Sudan is 170... Vietnam is 172. And then, after Vietnam, is Bahrain. Then China. [Reporters Without Borders]

Wait, you mean Americans don't like menial labor? I'm not going to quote from this rather bland Forbes article, but the author's point basically is: Americans are too good for those crappy iPhone manufacturing jobs in Shenzhen. I think the most telling thing he says is, "I would rather my children designed iPhones than made them."

So to summarize:

PEOPLE WHO DO NOT WANT iPHONES MADE IN CHINA:

Liberals: The jobs are inhumane

Conservatives: These are jobs Americans should have

PEOPLE WHO WANT iPHONES MADE IN CHINA:

Liberals: I would rather my children designed iPhones than made them

Conservatives: See above

And meanwhile, factory workers clock in and clock out, eke out a living, do the best they can.

Al Jazeera's Melissa Chan goes to a CCP school, puts her lead at the very end of article: "For hundreds, if not thousands of years, China has always had the challenging business of governing a large population." [Al Jazeera]

I tried forcing myself to watch the CCTV Spring Festival Gala, I really did. But I haven't. Maybe I will next week. Maybe I won't. It depends how drunk I get. Have at it if you'd like.

Corollary: "Sleeping Sister" via China Smack.

Falun Gong apply to march in Chinese New Year parade in New York. Well, what could possibly happen? Maybe aliens. Yes, maybe aliens alone can spare us from this stupid, stupid shit. [Wall Street Journal, subscription required (don't bother subscribing; Alicia Factiva'ed it for me, and it's stupid shit)]

NON-CHINA READ OF THE DAY: Cats. The link is full of cat videos. HT: Alicia. [The Telegraph]