Hypocrite...

The #1 reason I don't like Obama is not wealth redistribution, even though my tax guy just said I have to pay $14k in federal taxes. My dislike has to do with hypocrisy. By now it's pretty evident that he's just another politician, willing to say anything during campaigns to get elected. Of course, this is true for most politicians but Obama's entire message was that he was different... Mr. Hope'n'Change. IOW, not only did he lie to us in 2008, his main selling point was that he would NOT lie to us. Frigging hypocrite.

Los Angeles Times

As President Obama prepares to kick off his reelection campaign, two former key White House aides are likely to launch an independent political group in support of his bid, a direct response to the pent-up demand among Democrats for a vehicle to challenge the Republican network of well-funded allies.

The independent expenditure effort is being contemplated by Bill Burton, the former deputy press secretary, and Sean Sweeney, who served as the senior aide to former Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. Both left the White House this year. The organization is still in the planning stages, according to people familiar with the discussions, but is already being viewed by top Democratic fundraisers as the most promising effort to counter the independent political organizations that helped secure GOP victories in the 2010 midterm election.

The formation of such a group would mark a dramatic reversal from 2008, when Obama criticized the role of outside interests in the election. His campaign effectively shut down most independent political campaigns by urging top donors not to finance such programs.

Dangerous Places...

I saw this on chinaSMACK. I don't go to China that much but I've seen the same behavior over and over again. For the most part, cars obey (barely) the traffic signals but pedestrians, bicycles, scooters, and motorcycles typically plow through the intersection with no regard to whether the light is red or green. Looking at the video, most of the accidents are caused by scooter riders running a red light. Sigh... no one seems to be wearing a helmet either. Crazy!

It's a lot worse in Chengdu than in Beijing. Outside the Jiaoda west gate, there is a pedestrian crossing. When the light turns green for pedestrians, most cars and buses will stop. However, none of the bicycles or scooters on the main road bothers to stop and I have avoid being run over each time I cross. WTF? A lot of people ride long distances to their destination so what is another 3-5 minutes on top of a 60 minute ride? I'm pretty sure they know what the traffic lights mean (red = stop; green = go; yellow = go faster) so do they just not care?

In Your Hands - Hillsong

In Your Hands - Hillsong

Verse 1:
I'm so secure
You're here with me
You stay the same
Your love remains
Here in my heart

Chorus:
So close I believe
You're holding me now
In Your hands I belong
You'll never let me go
So close I believe
You're holding me now
In Your hands I belong
You'll never let me go

Verse 2:
You gave Your life
In Your endless love
You set me free
And showed the way
Now I am found

Bridge:
All along You were beside me
Even when I couldn't tell
Through the years
You showed me more of You
More of You

CrossPointe Worship Service

Worship service on March 20, 2011

I recorded the audio with a Tascam DP-008 digital recorder. The video was shot with a old digital camera so I couldn't change the zoom or focus once I started recording. I used iMovie on my Mac to replace the audio from the original video with the better Tascam recording... then it took about six hours to export the final MP4.


Part 1


Part 2

Worship Leader/Keyboard: Uriah Liang
Vocals: Stacy Kim
Acoustic Guitar/Vocals: Chris Li
Bass: Elim Wu

CX Business Class

For international business trips (over 8 hours I think), our company travel policy allows us to fly business class. Since we're flying Cathay Pacific to Singapore, I wanted to extend my layover on the way back in Hong Kong for a few days so I can visit Beijing. I called travel and they arranged it for me but I had to pay the difference in air fares. In addition, since the company isn't paying for the entire ticket, I had to pay for it on my personal credit card first then get reimbursed for the original fare.

Well, they issued the ticket today and the total fare was ~$6200. My portion of the cost comes out to be $127. I did find some free tickets on Dragonair that I can pay for using my Asia Miles (30,000 miles) but I have to pay ~$75 in taxes. Including hotel, this side trip to Beijing is going to cost me ~$500. I guess it's worth it since I'll be in business class for the Transpacific portions of the flight. Unlike Leon, I don't usually travel in business class.

Strike One on 6th YouTube Account

After a little more than 500k video views, my sixth YouTube upload account got strike one today. Surprisingly, they flagged 12 old videos that I re-uploaded from a previously deleted account; nothing new was flagged.

Well, that means I have to start a new account once more. I think I'm going to set a limit at nine account. After that, I'll retire and let someone else continue the upload.

CCP's English 50 Cent Army

Sigh... it's depressing reading through WSJ's comment sections. Whenever there's an article about China, it immediately turns into a cesspool of CCP propaganda comments. For example, this article about China disrupting Google's services attracted more than the normal number of wacked-out comments.

Again... how did it get this way? It's not enough that they f*ck up their own Internet; now the army of CCP trolls are rendering comment sections useless in a whole bunch of non-Chinese sites. Sometimes I'm embarrassed to let people know I'm Chinese...

Work... or K-pop?

Arg! I just found out today that I have to travel to Singapore for a business trip during the week of April 25th. I can probably still make the concert if we leave Singapore on Friday (4/29) since you arrive back on the West Coast on the "same" day; KMF9 is at the Hollywood Bowl on Saturday (4/30). However, I think I will be in big trouble if I make it all the way to Hong Kong (if I fly Cathay Pacific) without stopping to say hello in Beijing. I'll probably use the rest of my Asia Miles for a round-trip ticket from HKG to PEK that weekend.

Oh well, I won't get to see Sistar in concert after all... and Leon won't get a b-day present this year.

You just blew your chance, I'm sorry sorry mister (0:38)

Lemmings

Sigh... there's an article in the WSJ about a run on salt in China because people think eating iodized salt will protect them from radiation poisoning from the busted Japanese nuclear reactors. From what I read, there is no scientific/medical basis for this; potassium iodide pills is only useful when you're in a high radiation zone. The communist government is telling people not to run out and buy salt but no one is listening anyway.

The best line in the entire story:

Standing next to Ms. Liu was a crowd of others who were also looking to buy salt. “It’s always safe to do what the majority are doing,” said Michael Zeng, a 21-year-old college student in Beijing.

Arg! College student... does the Chinese education system teach any critical thinking skills at all?!

==========

I spoke to Sindy about the salt crisis and she thought it was silly too. She went to the market to get other stuff and they were all out of salt. Since Sindy works with doctors and hospitals, people have been asking her for iodine pills as well. Crazy.

It's getting better though. She said people now want to return their 500g bags of salt. Her mom went for a walk after dinner yesterday and came back with two bags of salt; a neighbor bought too much salt and is now giving them away. :)

KMF Twitter

I saw this tweet by Brian Joo:

Bad news, was hoping to go to the Hollywood bowl this year, but found out that I wasn't invited again this year... Age sucks... Haha

Brian used to be 1/2 of Fly To The Sky but sings solo now. I'm not sure how the invites are decided but there are a lot of old performers at KMF.

Obligatory Blond Bimbo Post

First thought: she's going to have a tough time working in China... because that's where all the jobs are for unskilled labor.

Lemme see... I'm Asian and I went to UCLA for undergrad, but I never studied in the library so I don't know about the cell phone usage comments. If the info is correct and she's a junior, then she was born when I graduated. Even back then, there were a lot of Asians, mostly male, since I was studying Electrical Engineering (the nerdiest of all engineering majors). My parents visited me a few times but they didn't bring food or cleaned my apartment.

Was I offended? Not really. The "ching chong" part is a bit grating. Was it funny? Again, not really, though some of the ugly stereotypes probably is from first-hand experience. I was watching a movie in Beijing and people answered their cell phone while the movie was playing.

My main takeaway is that she was too stupid to tell the difference between Chinese and Japanese people: pot-banging language = Chinese; tsunami = Japanese. Not sure whether she has seen photos/videos from Japan lately but I'd suggest Ms. Wallace avoid tsunami humor for awhile.


This is supposedly the girl in the video. Push up bra or plastic surgery?

50 Cent Tweets

Too bad I don't listen to his "music"... I can't throw his CDs in the trash.

CNET News

Wave will hit 8am them crazy white boys gonna try to go surfing.

Look this is very serious people I had to evacuate all my hoe's from LA, Hawaii and Japan. I had to do it. Lol.

Nah this is nuts but what can anyone do about it. Let's pray for anyone who has lost someone.

Some of my tweets are ignorant I do it for shock value. Hate it or love it. I'm cool either way 50cent.

I don't care how much money he has, he's still a retard. I saw pictures and videos of the quake/tsunami... there's enough shock value out there without his pathetic 2 cents.



==========

You can donate money to help with earthquake/tsunami relief here. JEMS is the Japanese Evangelical Missionary Society. I attended one of their churches (Epic Church) for about a year and helped them with their sound system. Help out... instead of tweeting tasteless jokes.

Sistar at KMF9

No Brown Eyed Girls yet but Sistar will be at KMF9 on April 30. I guess I'll need to find tickets. Other idol groups performing (so far) include 4Minute and U-Kiss.

Korean Music Festival 9

I'm going to see if I can get one of my Korean friends to go.

==========

I checked their Facebook page and there are more artists coming: Baek Ji-Young, G.NA, K.Will, and Jay Park, aka Jaebeom of 2PM. Between him and U-Kiss, there will be a lot of screaming teenage girls.

Chinese Are Worth More

Dang it. I just decided this morning to stop posting about China... but then I read this.

BBC News

The Chinese embassy in New Zealand has requested that extra compensation be paid to parents of Chinese students lost in the Christchurch earthquake.

An embassy official, Cheng Lee, said China's one-child policy made those lost lives more valuable.

...

Both the Chinese ambassador Xu Jianguo and embassy officials were reported by Radio New Zealand to have asked for higher compensation payments because the one-child policy made China unique.

"You can expect how lonely, how desperate they are, not only losing loved ones, but losing almost entirely their source of economic assistance after retirement," embassy official Cheng Lee said.

Higher payments would be "a demonstration of the importance the New Zealand government attaches to the Chinese international" students, he added.

Well, whose fault is it that they "chose" to only have one child and have all their eggs in one basket? Wait... it was the Chinese communist government. New Zealand didn't force Chinese couples to only have one child but rather the CCP with political threats and forced abortions/sterilization. Why should other governments value the Chinese people more when the CCP doesn't care about its own people?

Huge 8.9 Earthquake in Japan

Wow.

That's almost as big as the Indonesian earthquake in 2005 that caused huge tsunamis in the Indian Ocean and 10x the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. A tsunami already hit Japan and another wave is headed east towards Hawaii and the west coast of North America.



==========

Arg. Just read news that Japan declared a nuclear emergency too as a nuclear plant lost power to its cooling system.

It's Too Cold in Tibet for Foreigners

Wow, the Chinese government does care about foreigners (just not reporters). I wonder if they shut down Harbin and all of Heilongjiang too.

People's Daily Online

Official: Tibet temporarily restricts foreign tourists over safety concerns

The temporary measures on restricting foreign tourists to Tibet were mainly due to the current cold winter weather, limited accommodation capacity and safety concerns, a high-ranking official said on Monday.

The plateau region is still in deep freeze in March and lots of religious activities will be held. Local authorities do not hope there is something wrong with foreign tourists, said Zhang Qingli, Party chief of Tibet, while attending the annual parliament session in Beijing.

In addition, many people are going to Tibet now to prepare for a grand ceremony conmmemorating the 60th anniversary of the peaceful liberation of Tibet, which brings great pressure to the limited number of hotels in the region, Zhang said.

How do the PR people live with themselves? The propaganda is so lame and transparent that any educated person knows it's total BS.

More Vista Fun

A co-worker showed me Team Fortress 2 on his PC so I decided to buy it. I've played Team Fortress Classic a lot in the past. I did have worries about my slow integrated Intel 965 Graphics chipset in my Sony Viao but decided to try anyway. After installing, I got a lot of error messages, and the video system would crash. I looked around the web and Intel's website claims that Half-Life 2 (graphics engine) can run on the GM965 and I should updated my drivers.

Well, since the Sony uses a custom driver, Intel's automatic update program won't let me do anything. Of course, Sony's website only has the old drivers from 2007. I had to download the ZIP version of Intel's drivers and force Windows Vista to update the video drivers. Right now the computer is updating, and the screen is flashing like crazy. I have a bad feeling...

OK, it's done and I'm rebooting. If it doesn't work, I guess I can always boot in safe mode and restore the old Sony custom drivers. I hate Windows... why can't this stuff just work?

==========

Woohoo, it worked. That was rather unexpected. The frame rate is pretty slow though... which just means I'll get my butt kicked playing online.

Alternate Reality

Really, what color is the sky in CCP-land?

Xinhua

BEIJING, March 2 (Xinhua) -- China should be cautious about "Internet mercenaries", a group of people posting comments online to manipulate public opinion, Zhao Qizheng, spokesman for the annual session of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), said here Wednesday.

The influence of public opinion via the Internet is getting stronger as more and more people use the channel to exchange views and participate in political issues, Zhao said, noting that China had 457 million Internet users by the end of last year.

"We feel that Internet culture and environment is getting more complicated and there has emerged a group of people called 'Internet mercenaries'", he said.

Some of them, backed by institutions for certain purposes, disguise them as ordinary netizens and post comments in order to affect and divert public opinion, or even disturb government policy-making, he said.

It needs attention and alert from the government, and China lacks legislation in this regard, Zhao said.

This is a total farce. The Chinese communist government has hundreds of thousands of people doing exactly this; they pretend to be ordinary citizens but are repeating CCP propaganda talking points.


CCP Spokesperson