Okay, I'm not saying it's brilliant analysis or anything, but I like how they can generally be relied upon to support anyone who stands up to authority anywhere. See also under: Yang Jia.
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And hey, how many semi-mythological Chinese leaders can you name off the bat?

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Quote:

BERKELEY, Calif. – The Berkeley City Council will consider a resolution that would declare the Army private suspected of leaking classified information to WikiLeaks a hero and call for his release. The council plans a vote Tuesday on the resolution in support of Pfc. Bradley Manning, who is being held in a military brig in Virginia. A city commission already has approved it. Bob Meola, who authored the resolution, tells the San Francisco Chronicle that Manning is a patriot who deserves a medal. Federal officials have criticized the leaks, saying they could endanger lives. Leaders of the famously left-leaning city have weighed in on controversial national issues before, including votes to advise that a Marine recruitment office wasn't welcome downtown and to force local compliance with United Nations human rights treaties.

Berkeley may honor Army private accused of leaks - Yahoo! News

I'd also just like to say what a bunch of utter, utter cunts they've got writing for The Register. I love the site, as anyone who's seen me posting hundreds of articles from there knows, but really, I cannot stress this enough: inferiority complex nursing cunts of the first water.

The moment anything gets remotely successful they immediately start posting bitchy little articles congratuating themselves for seeing past the hype, all written in an insufferable "I-think-you'll-find..." sort of tone. For example, I hate lots of things about Apple, but their coverage of the phenomenon makes me want to track Jobs down and give him a big, wet kiss. He created an awesome fucking gazillion dollar company and you're a tech-writer. Get over it.

We've actually been able to see the process happening with wikileaks. BITD when it was a tiny website publishing discrepancies in the North Rimjob Borough Council's tea fund it was their darling, now it's suddenly world famous, "What you poor, dear, gullible souls fail to realise is that this is all a huge conspiracy by Julian Assange and the Bilderberg Group to dupe idiots like you into handing over your credit card details..."

Fags.

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Originally Posted by Zichao

And hey, how many semi-mythological Chinese leaders can you name off the bat?

Ha! Good one!

Hmmmm... Qin or Chin or whatever was his exact name - from whose name China comes from...

I know there were 4 kingdoms at some point or other (500BC?) but, yeah, no idea about the names of the leaders. Li & Wu vaguely ring a bell... Then that concubine who killed her own son in order to blame the Empress, get her executed and take her place. But no idea on the name either. Can't even remember the Boxer's rebellion Empress. Damn.

OK. I was being snobish and you proved me wrong. Apologies to the Chinese netizens.

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Haha, Qin'll do it - you win.

I think it's also a cultural thing - Chinasmack tends to emphasise the Chinese-ness of the original comments which makes them sound wierd to us. In Chinese it's okay to use ancient/mythological historical comparisons - like comparing Yang Jia to Wu Song. I guess it's because we're way more cynical about our own history and less reverent and Confucian about it.

It's the same with the "strongly request" thing - it's a Chinese internet set phrase (like 'approved' or 'ftw' or whatever), but it sounds wierd translated. I suppose it's something we'll see more of. Most stories that appear in the Western press about China have internet sourced content and people tend to transate stuff directly even when it sounds stupid - Brother Sharp, Most Beautiful Police Flower etc. I think in some places it's useful - when netizens talk about the ZF or the "gov-ern-ment" for instance, that's an idea that needs conveying in the English version ("netizens" too, is a pretty Chinese concept). But also a lot of the time it's just the authors/translators being cute.

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