It’s not that the people we talk to online aren’t real: almost all of them are. It’s that we do that talking sitting alone, asses in chairs staring at a screen, in a limbo with neither company nor solitude.

In observing China, Western media’s starting point must be China, and not the West. This so-called “the starting point for observing China must be China” has three deeper connotations: one, when they are observing China, concentrate on the internal factors arising from Chinese society, and don’t put the focus on external factors. Number two, the roots for historic change lies in internal factors. Number three, Chinese issues must be studied within the Chinese context. Even though the West has an increasing influence on the Chinese situation, and, in terms of the Internet, China is increasingly influenced by new technological developments, the internal history of China will be it’s own. It has been and always will be in the future.

I don’t mean to say that everyone who is not from China cannot get to know the real China. External observation often arrives at a clear view which internal analysis cannot achieve. Just as Hegel said, it is hard to really understand when you know the subject too well. Chinese poet Su Dongo (苏东坡) said: “I can’t tell the true shape of Lu Shan because I myself am on the mountain (不识庐山真面目， 只缘身在此山中)”. Whether you are a journalist or a scholar, you have to be able to reach a good sense of distance from the subject, so that you can “see the picture from outside the picture”. Also, insiders and outsiders need to constantly communicate with each other and encourage each other, becoming “external insiders” and “internal outsiders”.

The whole thing’s good, if only so you learn what “shanzhai” means.

The article is so short I’m reproducing all of it. From San Francisco International Airport censors Danwei, a Chinese news site:

Above is a screen shot from a Danwei reader who tried to access this website a few minutes ago using wireless Internet in a business class lounge in San Francisco International Airport.

Are we too communist? Or is there a problem with the odd four letter word that we occasionally publish?

Military deception – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Military deception is an attempt to amplify, or create an artificial fog of war or to mislead the enemy using psychological operations, information warfare and other methods. As a form of strategic use of information (disinformation), it overlaps with psychological warfare. To the degree that any enemy that falls for the deception will lose confidence when it is revealed, he may hesitate when confronted with the truth.

When referring to military deception in military doctrines of the Soviet Union and Russia, the Russian loanword maskirovka (literally: camouflage, concealment) is sometimes used.

Shreveport’s Civil War Defenses

It is a matter of record that so-called “Quaker guns,” false cannon made of fire-blackened tree trunks mounted on wagon wheels, were used at Fort Turnbull. Confederate General John B. Magruder, visiting the Shreveport defenses in an 1863 inspection, told the fort’s commander his defenses were “nothing but a bunch of humbug,” which gave Fort Turnbull the name it bears to this day.

It was brilliant humbug, nonetheless. Quaker cannon fooled McClellan on the Virginia Peninsula in 1862, and caused many an attacker to pause in the Western theater of the war as well.

And a famous example, FUSAG, the First United States Army Group:

First United States Army Group was a fictitious Army Group invented by the Allies in World War II prior to D-Day, as part of Operation Quicksilver, which was designed to deceive the Germans about where the invasion of France would take place. To attract Axis attention, George S. Patton was placed in command of the fabricated formation.

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Yes, this is another public service announcement by the Department of Satan’s Flying Snow Pigs.

The lyrics are a rightwing mess, but I have to agree with this:

So when they call you a racist cause you disagree
It just another of their dirty tricks to silence you and me.

I keep wondering if McCain asked Condi Rice to run with him.

Oh, a tiny bit more about the racial politics. I got the video from Michelle Malkin.

ETA: Yes, dear God, I am still a socialist! I just find the Republican-Democrat thing fascinating, especially when the Democrats claim the Republicans are racist. No, they’re classist, which means they hurt more blacks because of the way race plays into class, but that’s the effect, not the cause.

ETA 2: Or, as Jonathan Schwarz put it, US politics is all about the insane billionaires versus the sane ones.

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who I found via minor bun engine made Benny Lava! – I love the Russians on vintagephoto

I’ve been thinking about something I don’t know how to name, the pretense that a mob exists where there’s only an individual or a small group. Just the fear of mobbing can be devastating. For example, Megan Meier was the target of three people who pretended to be a cute boy who befriended her on Myspace, then dumped her. Here’s one of the final messages “he” sent to her, shortly before she killed herself:

“Everybody in O’Fallon knows how you are. You are a bad person and everybody hates you. Have a shitty rest of your life. The world would be a better place without you.”