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How the Atheist Government of China Terrorizes Its Citizens
US Ambassador presses China on
forced-abortion opponent
Ambassador Gary Locke urges China to release blind lawyer-activist Chen Guangcheng.
Jocelyn Ford and Kathleen E. McLaughin November 6, 2011 08:06
TAISHAN, China – US Ambassador Gary Locke is quietly pressuring the Chinese government on a high-profile human-rights case, acknowledging he had lodged a complaint over the extralegal home detention of blind lawyer Chen Guangcheng.
“We are very concerned about his treatment and, for instance, the reports his daughter was not allowed to go to school. Although he’s been freed, he is still under severe restrictions on his movements,” Locke told GlobalPost in a private interview Friday. He said the Chinese government has not yet responded to the letter he sent in September.
Chen was released last year after more than four years in prison but remains under house arrest, without charge, and has reportedly suffered beatings in captivity.
Since Locke sent the letter, Chen’s 6-year-old daughter has been allowed to leave her home to attend school, under guard.
The ambassador, who arrived in Beijing in August, added his voice to the chorus calling for China to ease its extreme treatment of the self-taught lawyer, who is known for exposing forced abortions in his hometown in Shandong province.
Chen has become a galvanizing figure for those concerned with human rights and with the growing clampdown on free expression in China. Dozens of activists, journalists and diplomats have tried to visit Chen in recent months. They have been chased away, beaten and robbed by gangs of thugs who stand 24-hour guard around Dongshigu village.
Still, the visits and support continue, with many referring to it as “adventure tourism” in Shandong.
In recent weeks, thousands of users of Sina Weibo, China’s micro-blogging service, have changed their photo icons to pictures of themselves wearing sunglasses in solidarity with the blind lawyer, who wears dark glasses. This week, iconic artist and government critic Ai Weiwei posted a photo of himself in shades to support Chen. Earlier this year, Ai himself was arrested and disappeared for three months over what he says is a fraudulent tax bill.
Chen, who turns 40 in the next few days, is a self-taught lawyer who ran afoul of authorities in Linyi, in Eastern China’s Shandong province, for exposing forced abortions of local women targeted by local officials under China’s one-child policy. After multiple run-ins with the law over his human-rights work, he was sentenced to prison for “damaging property and organizing a mob to disturb traffic.”
Since his release in 2010 Chen has been unable to leave his village or even his home. Last year, he and his wife managed to smuggle out a video detailing their lives in their home prison. After the video aired worldwide, Chen was reportedly beaten repeatedly. – More here
As for Biblical prophecy, besides this being more evidence of the last days, it also seems to imply that Asian countries, or certain ones, will be ruled by monarchies sometime in the future. This will be more likely to happen if enough Chinese citizens become wealthy enough, wealthy enough to afford guns, including sniper rifles, or grenade launchers. Once they can do that, they can overthrow their oppressive government, and China can then split up into various kingdoms:
Trainee Workers at Issue in China
From the Wall Street Journal:
Recent strikes in China are highlighting a technique widely used by foreign companies to keep costs down: hiring large numbers of “trainee” workers who can be paid less than the legal minimum wage.
The practice, while legal, has been a source of complaint for at least some workers during recent strikes, and labor experts say foreign companies may have to refrain from overly relying on it.
For companies operating in China, “the whole labor-unrest saga should lead to a rethinking of labor relations,” said Andreas Lauffs, head of law firm Baker & McKenzie’s employment-law group in Hong Kong.
As China’s migrant workers become more aware of their legal rights, they are starting to question some employment practices, such as excessive overtime and the wide use of trainees on the factory floor.
For more on labor rights, see also an opinion piece in the Washington Post titled “China’s Workers Learn to Speak Up — But Carefully.”
Riot Erupts in Southwest China Town
Thousands rioted in Guizhou’s Qianxi County on Thursday, apparently incensed by an altercation with chengguan or “urban administration officials”. From Reuters:
The protest in Qianxi County, Guizhou province, was the latest of thousands of brief, local riots and demonstrations that happen in China every year, and like many recent outbreaks this one pitted residents against “urban administration” officials charged with enforcing law and order.
A “clash broke out between urban administration officials and the owner of an illegally parked vehicle, drawing in thousands of onlookers and sparking incidents of crowds smashing law enforcement vehicles and blocking roads,” the website of China National Radio (cds.cnr.cn) reported on Friday.
“Crowds turned over the vehicle of the urban administration staff and attacked police who came to quiet down the situation,” the official Xinhua news agency reported.
The rioters smashed ten vehicles and torched another five, said Xinhua, adding that 10 police officers and guards were injured. The police arrested 10 people suspected of attacking the vehicles.
Unrest also broke out last month in the nearby city of Anshun after chengguan allegedly killed a fruit seller and single father, Deng Qiguo. Soon after, a journalist was beaten by local police after travelling to Anshun to investigate the story.
Strikes & Protests Surge in China
The Los Angeles Times’ Barbara Demick examines the continuing rise of “mass incidents” as a means to address specific grievances such as pollution and land seizures.
These demonstrators have a narrow agenda and concrete demands: Farmers want a stop to confiscations of their land or to get better compensation for lost property. Homeowners want to stop demolitions. People want cleaner air and water and safer food. Truckers and taxi drivers want relief from soaring fuel prices ….
The number of reported “mass incidents” rose from 8,700 in 1993 to more than 90,000 in 2006, according to the Chinese Police Academy. A professor at Tsinghua University, Sun Liping, has told Chinese reporters he believes the figure last year was up to 180,000 ….
In China, it is impossible to go to court to get a temporary restraining order if, for example, a factory is spewing harmful sustances into the water supply or somebody starts building on your land. Petitioning, an archaic practice dating to imperial times, requires the aggrieved to travel to Beijing and wait for months, if not years.
Rioting gets results. Quickly.
A new China Labour Bulletin report, meanwhile, focuses on the growing number of strikes and other labour protests, as young migrant workers become increasingly assertive in demanding wage increases. From Reuters:
Although migrant workers have often won pay rises in recent years, they feel poorly served by China’s official, Communist Party-run trade union, which has often sided with management in factory disputes, the China Labour Bulletin said in the report.
Instead, strikes and labor protests have spread through informal channels, with workers often using mobile phones and Internet message sites to coordinate, it added.
“They are giving each other in real time updates of their protests, and this has allowed workers’ rights groups, lawyers interested in workers’ rights, to offer advice, help them push their demands,” said Crothall, the Labour Bulletin spokesman, speaking of these digital tools.
The China Labour Bulletin report estimates that in 2009 China experienced about 30,000 collective labor protests, and adds there is “certainly no reason to suspect that the number of strikes is decreasing.”
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Skeptic ‘Dr.’ Michael Shermer Speaks On Coast to Coast A.M.
Post link: http://mikeshermer.tk
I listened to Michael Shermer as soon as he was on Coast to Coast AM tonight and almost immediately he made a mistake, saying, “Scientists are just naturally skeptical.” That’s false because scientists are human like everyone else and there are different types of science, some with very different degrees of credibility. Further, not all scientists have the same education and training (or “brainwashing”), so even if they are taught a scientific method like this one. To say that a scientist will naturally become skeptical or will become more logical, which is what skeptics and their panderers equate with being logical or more logical, is as deeply stupid as saying that U.S. senators, lawyers and police officers will become or become more so, good and logical because they take an oath to uphold the Constitution. On top of that, at least mainstream scientists are not made to swear an oath to uphold any scientific method, at least it’s not a common practice. On top of that, the scientific method does not say at the end to come to a truthful conclusion nor does it say how to draw a correct conclusion let alone how to analyze the results of the tests nor how to carry out good relevant tests! It simply says, “draw a conclusion”. And some might argue that “draw a conclusion” is an illogical step since a mere two or more tests will not always give you results to believe one thing or the other.
At about 11 P.M., George Noory asked him, “Do you take anything at faith?” and Shermer replied, “probably most of my emotional life” and implied that his emotional life only had to do with his relationships with those he loved or was hoping to have a loving relationship with, which is not logical, since an emotional life is your entire life. A person’s entire life comes with emotions and your interaction with other people or animals. And if Shermer says that he takes things on faith with those he loves or hopes to love, why would he be anymore logical with his other interpersonal reactions? If he’s biased when it comes to those he loves, his liberal and/or macro-evolution and/or Big Bang-believing friends, how can he be a logical person overall? If he can’t be logical when it comes to those he loves, how much more will he be illogical with those he has little to no concern for, and hates?
When George asked him if he believed in, or rather why he didn’t believe in out-of-body occurrences, Shermer said that he didn’t believe because (among a few other reasons), that he didn’t know what the method would be for transferring his memories. But why does he conclude that the memories of a person is in their brain? Further, why would not knowing how everything works mean it shouldn’t be believed, and that last argument is one which which Darwinists, Big Bang-believers and Global Warmers love and often use against Christians, as if Christians are the illogical ones.
Shermer also said that he didn’t believe there was enough evidence to know what the effects of (slight) global warming would be. So much for a scientific consensus that Global Warming is going to be a bad thing, even if that had been true, Shermer’s statement, because of his high standing among mainstream scientists and his popular Skeptics magazine, will heavily influence them to follow his lead. On top of that, the truth is not determined by majority vote, let alone a universal agreement. This is known in many places, including on Wikipedia, where especially the administrators there will admit that the truth is not determined by consensus, but deny this and contradict themselves with their actions by their one-on-one-bullying or ganging up on anyone who opposes their beliefs, and verbally contradicting themselves by saying or implying that only the “mainstream scientists / the majority of scientists should be believed or are the credible or most credible scientists.
No doubt to me, even if Christians became the majority of scientists, these Wickedpedians would simply claim that whether Christians can be scientists or not is debatable in order to throw the truth into doubt.
When George asked him if the universe and us were created by a roll of the dice, Shermer replied, “No, if it was just a roll of the device we certainly would not be here… evolution is not random… but random variations” do occur. So Shermer admits that it took organized, precise for the universe and the first living thing to have their existence and design. Shermer also said, “You disagree with Huxley at your own peril.” and that Huxley had said that you can’t know if God exists by using science. And why is that Shermer, did you use the scientific method to find that out?
Shermer said that he had once been an evangelical Christian, but not a Calvinist. It’s known by many millions, that evangelicals, which are usually associated with the crazy charismatics and often crazy Pentecostals, have a high rate of losing faith or reverting back to their old way of thinking and life, unlike Calvinists. So, it’s no surprise to me or them that Michael lost his faith.
When George asked him about prayer, he also said, “Why does he need anyone to remind of who needs help; he doesn’t.” The Bible also says that God knows what you want before you Jealousy is a human emotion. The problem with evil is an insurmountable one to unbelievers
Michael also said that it was ridiculous that any alien would give us a five year advance in technology because, “Any alien [that can get to Earth?] would be able to create [life] so how is that any different than what we know as God [and God doesn’t help anyone if he exists].” Says who Michael? You said you had no evidence that God didn’t or did exist, so how would you know if he’s helping anyone or not, and why if someone were much more advanced than us, would they not want to help us at all unless it were to give us a massive boost in technology or technologies? Using Michael’s logic, aliens and God should make all of us humans into Supermen even though Michael often claims in various ways that the majority of the world is stupid, weird, unscientific and destructive.
This is a stupid man, one of those typical stupid narcissists who claims everyone else is stupid, who because of their ignorance and hatred of God’ law, and impatience, fall for some narcissist giving them clever-sounding live-life-how-you-feel-like-not-God-justifications, “Do you really think God, a supreme being, would feel jealously?” from another narcissist. Yet they think they are wiser because they use big words and make clever analogies and metaphors, and/or in eloquent or confident-sounding ways (though very rarely original ways, and they often make a fuss over Christians not being original), and because they aren’t afraid of Hell or death. But what’s their feelings have to do with them being right? How does not being afraid of something make them right? How does confidence or doubting/skepticism make them right? How does feeling superior make them right? How does using “big words” or being eloquent make them right? Such behavior are all signs of a narcissist who has nothing to back up his claims, even running away from the truth, always AFRAID of having to live in fear.
Shermer, in denying that 9/11 was an “inside job” replied, “Clinton couldn’t even pull off a blow job in the white house… [without being found out, how is the government going to pull off a conspiracy] “for months on end without anyone noticing?” Shermer, conspiracies are pulled off all the time without anyone noticed for months on end, or do you not know the obvious. Apparently no amount of being Big Banged on your head with the Bernie Madehoff stories made any impression on your very aware self. Oh, I know, you were skeptical of that Bernie or anyone could get away with robbing people for years, let alone months. So according to Shermer, there are no secrets that can be held long for a month before the public knowing about them. So everyone knows every business, engineering, miltary, and scammer secret. We all know every single military device in existence, we all know every technology being researched and developed and which people in what city in what building. And what is your scientific evidence for these teachings Shermer? Oh wait, people only find out about conspiracies in a few weeks, not other types of secret collaborations, because, uh, cuz Shermer feels and said so! He’s God!
Shermer also said that God wouldn’t feel jealousy because, “jealousy is such a human emotion” Says who Shermer? Why if we were made in God’s image would it only be an emotion that humans would feel? So no alien even would feel jealousy, no animal? Why would jealousy only be something humans would feel? He also said that Greek god’s were portrayed as jealous, but how is that evidence that God wouldn’t feel jealousy of any kind for any reason? If humans are constantly attributing jealousy to divine beings, how is that evidence AGAINST divine beings feeling jealousy? How about, Michael, it being evidence FOR divine beings feeling jealousy if humans INSTINCTIVELY attribute divine beings to having feelings like us? And what Michael, would be those “not such human emotions” that God WOULD feel in your biased opinion? Did you perform some secret science experiment that told you what were “not such human emotions that God would feel” and decide to hide your magic results from us? And yet you write a book called, “Why People Believe Weird Things”? Arrogant, blind, hypocritical, bigoted. Truly the ones who speak “mumbo jumbo” are anti-Christians.
Shermer also said that a universe with a jealous God is no different than saying that “stuff just happens.” This is the same Dr. Michael Shermer who said just a few minutes earlier, said that the universe and everything in with a design [not created by humans or aliens], appeared by ordering, right after that mutations were “random”/”just happen”. Why and how would the creation of the universe and the first living things in it be created in a specific knowable way, yet not “natural selection”? And since when are mutations not predictable in any way, or random just because we can’t know every process involved in causing a mutation?
Yet another blind guide.
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