Shanghaiist quotes a number of twitter users who claim that the building is reported to be structurally unsound, and that it will either collapse or be torn down:

@fuzheado: Cripes … BBC says building will collapse.

@DavidFeng: Word has it that the building is close to explosion. Whole thing pretty much toast, all in all. — 00.09am

@iheartbeijing: policemen around scene were predicting collapse, undoubtedly they will have to implode building if it doesn’t happen on own — 00.10am

Please note that although it was originally reported in many blogs, newspapers that it was the CCTV building on fire, that is incorrect. Also, Richard asks if random fireworks should be allowed on Chinese new years.

Thank God for the Great Killer Earthquake that He sent to kill thousands of stiffhearted Chinese rebels against God. Our prayer is for many more earthquakes to kill many more thousands of impudent and ungrateful Chinese.

This is why American free speech sucks–it has to allow even vile hate speech such as the above. When 20,000 people die in a random act of nature, Americans everywhere should be sending aid, flying to China to help rebuild with their own hands, or raising support in the USA. Instead, we have handfuls of crackpots producing insane press releases in the name of American conservative Christianity. China, with its distaste for organized religion and hateful speech, would never allow an organization like the Westboro Baptist Church to prosper. To any Chinese that might read this, true Americans and Christians extend love and compassion to you.

For more constructive ways to assist China in its time of need, Shanghaiist has made a nice list of charities you can contribute to, such as the Red Cross.

The Hindu includes the following quote, “There are 1.3 billion people behind me,” Zilin said during the 40-second interview stage of the contest, referring to her country’s population. “If I win I want to become a link between the Olympic Games (in Beijing next year) and the Miss World Organisation.”

You can read her official blog at Sina.

The song, by the wildly successful rap artist and businessman Jay-Z, is on an album of songs accompanying/inspired by the Ridley Scott movie “American Gangster,” starring Denzel Washington and Russell Crow. But it wasn’t sex, drugs, violence or explicit language that shocked my conscience. It was the Euros. The Jay-Z video flashed large stacks of €500 Euros. When I start seeing rap stars flashing euros instead of U.S. dollars, I know our economy is in trouble.

So who is coming to the rescue? China, of course. Since they control about 1.4 trillion dollars of our currency, it’s important that they don’t liquidate it:

“Beijing is not about to shoot itself in the foot by carrying out a mass sell-off of greenbacks,” Stratfor, a private US intelligence firm, said in a bulletin to clients. Such a move would wipe out much of China’s foreign reserves “in less than the blink of an eye”, it said, adding that Beijing wanted “just to slow or stop its purchase of new batches” of the greenback.

I wonder how much of the yuan is owned by the United States. My feeling isn’t that much, so we definitely need China on our side or our economy will continue to plummet.

It literally says “去你马的,Bush” which literally means “Go to your mother’s [implied], Bush.” It’s equivalent to the english “motherfucker” literally, which in this context I find quite charming! How better to voice your opposition of the Western influence in China!

The current state of political affairs between the two contentious “Chinese governments” is an uneasy truce across the straits. The PRC and KMT both assert legitmate control over China, Taiwan, Mongolia, and Myanmar, and are expected to use no force against each other. However, if peaceful reunification fails, there will definitely be an international disaster.

This led to a 400 point loss on the Dow here in the United States. Yahoo Finance has an article which gets at the root cause:

A 9 percent slide in Chinese stocks, which came a day after investors sent Shanghai’s benchmark index to a record high close, set the tone for U.S. trading. The Dow began the day falling sharply, and the decline accelerated throughout the course of the session before stocks took a huge plunge in late afternoon as computer-driven sell programs kicked in, and also as a computer glitch caused a delay in the recording of a large number of trades.

You can see the glitch yourself as a 90,000,000 spike in trading volume around 1 PM on the Yahoo chart.  There are two funny things about this:

• Investor disbelief at record gains led to a crash
• Technical problems led to market inefficiencies

In a perfect market neither of these things would happen.  Interestingly, the effect was felt in markets around the world, which really points at China’s new role in the global space and the increase of globalization.  One thing America needs to learn is that it’s now a part of a bigger global community, not a single superpower by itself.  We’re going to see an event in Asia crash the world markets again, more strongly than this, and vice versa.  We’re all connected now!

“Starting 500 years ago, waves of Western European immigrants began arriving in North America without Visas or Green Cards, killing, infecting, and stealing from the native population.”

The model measures 900×700 meters, and models an area of 450×350 kilometers.  So, the big question is why would China build a 250,000:1 scale model of a mountainous border?

To quote the primary source:

As a measure against the use of new Internet technologies during hustings in Singapore, Channel NewsAsia reported from a Parliamentary hearing on Monday that “Podcasting is not allowed during elections.”

Not allowing any kind of expression is contrary to the ideals of Democracy. It’s also strange that a government is in touch enough with cutting edge web 2.0 technology like blogging and podcasting to ban it, rather than encourage and foster its growth a medium for political discussion.