近期来连日的大雪冻雨，瘫痪了半个中国的正常运作。虽然相关喉舌不断的试图向人们灌输“很饱，很温暖”的印象，但是从非官方途径看到的种种消息，却是截然相反的。

照道理来说，政府发出的消息一定是最令人信服的，但是自从去年夏天的530以及年末的华南虎事件后，我对官方的说辞采取了不听不信不传的态度。

断水，断电，涨价，骚乱，怀疑。。。这个国家到底是怎么了？？？

Workers rescued in May from a brick kiln in Linfen, in Shanxi Province, in northern China, in what has become an unfolding labor abuse scandal.
SHANGHAI, June 15 — Su Jinduo and Su Jinpeng, brother and sister, were traveling home by bus from a vacation visit to Qingdao during the Chinese New Year when they disappeared.
Cheated out of their money when they sought to buy a ticket for the final leg of the journey home, their father, Su Jianjun, said in an interview, they were taken in by a woman who provided them with warm shelter and a meal on a cold winter night. She also offered them a chance to earn enough money to pay their fare by helping her sell fruit.
The next thing they knew, however, they were being loaded onto a minibus with several other children and taken to a factory in the next province, where they were pressed into service making bricks. Several days later, the boy, 16, escaped along with another boy and managed to reach home. A few days later, Mr. Su was able to rescue his daughter, 18.
This story and many others like it have swept China in recent days in an unfolding labor scandal in central China that involves the kidnapping of hundreds of children, most in their teens but some as young as 8.
The children, and many adults, reportedly, have been forced to work under brutal conditions — scantily clothed, unpaid and often fed little more than water and steamed buns — in the brick kilns of Shanxi Province.
As the stories spread across China this week, played prominently in newspaper headlines and on the Internet, a manhunt was announced midweek for Heng Tinghan, the foreman of one of the kilns, where 31 enslaved workers were recently rescued.
Mr. Su said his children were brought to the factory around midnight of the day they vanished. Once there, they were told they would have to make bricks. “You will start working in the morning, so get some sleep, and don’t lose your bowls, or you will have to pay for them,” he said the children were told. “They also charged them 50 renminbi for a blanket.” That is equivalent to about $6.50.
Mr. Su managed to recover his children after only a matter of days at the kiln, but many other parents have been less fortunate, losing contact with children for months or years. As stories of forced labor at the brick kilns have spread, hundreds of parents have petitioned local authorities to help them find their children and crack down on the kilns.
In some cases, according to Chinese news media reports, parents have also come together to try to rescue their children, placing little stock in the local authorities, who are sometimes in collusion with the operators of the kilns. Other reports have said that local authorities, including labor inspectors, have taken children from freshly closed kilns and resold them to other factories.
The director of the legal department of the Shanxi Province Worker’s Union said it was hard to monitor the kilns because of their location in isolated areas.
“Those factories are located in very remote places and most them are illegal entities, without any legal registration, so it is very hard for people outside to know what is going on there,” said the union official, Zhang Xiaosuo. “We are now doing a province-wide investigation into them, both the legal and illegal ones, to look into labor issues there.”
Liu Cheng, a professor of labor law at Shanghai Normal University, had a different explanation. “My first reaction is that this seems like a typical example of a government-business alliance,” Mr. Liu said. “Forced labor and child labor in China are illegal, but some local governments don’t care too much.”
Zhang Xiaoying, 37, whose 15-year-old son disappeared in January, said she had visited over 100 brick factories during a handful of visits to Shanxi Province in search of him.
“You just could not believe what you saw,” Ms. Zhang said in a telephone interview on Thursday. “Some of the kids working at these places were at most 14 or 15 years old.”
The local police, she said, were unwilling to help. Outside one factory, she said, they even demanded bribes.
“We finally got into that place, and I saw people hauling carts of bricks with great difficulty,” Ms. Zhang said. “Some of them were very small, and the ropes they pulled left tracks of blood on their shoulders and backs. Others were making bricks, standing by the machines.
“They had to move the bricks from the belt very quickly, because they were hot and heavy and they could easily get burned or hurt by the machines.”
By Friday, with the help of Mr. Su, Ms. Zhang finally located her son at a kiln near the one to which Mr. Su’s children had been taken.
Another father, Cai Tianliang, said he had set out to Shanxi Province in May from his native Henan Province in search of his missing 19-year-old son after a local television broadcast had shown a team of television reporters and Henan parents searching the Shanxi kilns for kidnapped children.
“I thought there was a great possibility that my son was also kidnapped, so I went there twice,” Mr. Cai said. “The usual thing is for an owner to have more than one factory, and to shift people without identification from one place to another.”
On his first trip, which he took with a group of parents, Mr. Cai said he found few clues. On a second visit to the area, he said, he was refused police permits to enter any of the brick factories but persisted anyway.
“We located a place called the Zhenjie Brick Factory in a town called Chengbei, and at first they would not allow us in,” he said, “but we kept negotiating. Finally, they let a few of us in, and they found my son inside.”
Like many other parents, Mr. Cai said he was dumbfounded by the boy’s condition when they were reunited.
“My son was totally dumb, not even knowing how to cry, or to scream or to call out ‘Father,’ ” he said. “I burst into tears and held him in my arms, but he had no reaction. He was in rags and had wounds all over his body. Within three months he had lost over 10 kilos,” about 22 pounds.
Mr. Cai said he tried to rescue a 16-year-old boy he found there, but was refused by the factory boss. “He said I could only take my own,” Mr. Cai said, “and must leave other people behind at the kiln.”

当下，房子不仅成了事儿，而且成了天大的事儿。无论是平民百姓，还是政府官员，都不可不关心房事。房事集聚了天下众多的资金，集聚了天下最会投机和最不会投机、短时间暴富和长期苦大仇深的人群，因而，时刻牵动着普通百姓和决策层的敏感神经。
然而，房事除了带给少数既得利益者的是快感之外，带来更多人群的则是索然无味的苦闷、担忧和痛苦。房事从来没有像今天这样影响乃是左右人们的生活，也从来没有像今天这样给众多人群心理上留下如此之深的阴影。不可否认的是，目前，房事正在走入一场困局……
住房摧毁了许多人的生活，他们最大的梦想是拥有自己的房子，等真正拥有房子之后才发现，自己穷得已经只剩下了房子。
4月26日，北京万通集团董事长冯仑说了一句很经典的话：“成为房奴那是活该啊。”他说，解决住房的方式有很多种，可以租房等，如果不理性消费，买不起房的去买房，最后日子难过，那是活该。
开发商这样说是典型的站着说话不腰疼，租房要有房可租，前提是政府提供足够的廉租房，如果政府不提供廉租房，消费者到市场上住房，必然导致租金的暴涨，将租房者逼入绝境，这种常识何以被漠视？
上世纪七十年代，埃及曾经出现了比我们目前还严重得多的住房危机，但是，埃及政府通过建卫星城经济型住宅、建青年公寓(租、售价格都比较低，以收回成本为原则)、低息贷款等措施，解决了这一问题。本着类似的思路，我国于1998年颁布的《国务院关于进一步深化城镇住房制度改革，加快住房建设的通知》，要求各级政府尽快建立起以经济适用房为主和租售并举的住房供应体系。然而，迄今为止，大部分地方走的却是只售不租的路线。房屋的供应结构就决定了，老百姓除了买房，并没有更好的选择。
地方政府不执行中央租售并举的政策，在事实上剥夺了老百姓租房的权利；开发商借助权力之手哄抬房价，又剥夺了相当一部分人购房的权利。可笑的是，讥讽公众一味买房不租房的往往是导致这一局面的地方政府和开发商们。房地产市场不仅颠覆了住房供应结构，也颠覆了人们正常的思维和道德观。强势者在剥夺了公众的权利之后，反过来居高临下地教育他们应该以怎样的观念去生活，这是怎样混乱不堪的一种逻辑？
一对儿青年夫妻为了买房，往往是两个家庭共同出资缴纳首付，从事业心正强的青年到白发苍苍的老者，次第沦为房奴。在养老等社会保障体系尚且建立的情况下，当无数家庭被操纵房地产市场的既得利益集团敲骨吸髓，这些操劳了一生的人被彻底绑架，谁为他们的未来着想呢？
一个国家、一个民族的创造力源于青年人的努力和奋斗，当这些青年人的目标定位于房产，当他们的理想被住房牢牢束缚，当他们为了住房身心力竭，他们的创造力又将被置于何方呢？因为住房，许多人不得不拼命地工作，甚至不敢往教育上去投资，他们背负着一个沉重的枷锁，难以分享生活的快乐，等到还完贷款一生中最好的时光也已经渡过，下一个接力棒由自己的子孙后代来背负，现状持续下去，他们同样难以摆脱因住房带来的沉重压力……
在地方政府与开发商获取巨额暴利的背后，是一个被绑架的民族，是一个民族被压抑和摧残的创造力。纵观当今世界，哪一个民族像我们这样，为了住房而劳作？
为了牟取更大的利益，一些地方政府和开发商通过媒体(前者用权左右媒体，后者用钱影响媒体)的宣传，不断扭曲人们的观念，告诉人们购买大房子、购买豪华房子生活将是多么有身份，将是多么有品位，将是多么幸福。一些沦为二奶甚至三奶的专家、学者、官员，分析住房投资的重要意义，鼓吹购买第二套、第三套住房。一些地方在城市规划中，甚至将家家有住房写入规划……这种住房观念的传播造成了极大的负面影响。住房几乎成了生活的全部。而在世界上一些国家，政府是不允许居民购买两套住房的。
鼓吹住房升级的宣传对于青年人的误导作用是显而易见的。好男儿志在四方的观念影响了中国一代有一代人，但这一观念止于住房。当今主流的观念不断告诉年轻一代，拥有住房，才是最重要的。因而，许多月光一族将目光投向父母——这个操劳一生的群体还没能喘口气，又被迫替后辈们背上枷锁。这注定了一个群体的悲壮。
地方政府与开发商们，试图通过住房高于一切观念的灌输，为自己培养足够多的房奴，有了足够多的房奴，就有了足够丰富的财源。然而，这种做法却是一种近乎杀鸡取卵的疯狂，它在抑制了一个民族创造力的同时，也绑架了一个国家的经济和未来。
内需是拉动经济发展的最持久最稳定的力量，然而，我国内需屡拉不动。为什么？老百姓被掏空了。去年5月，《福布斯》发布的“全球2005税务负担指数”报告显示，在全球52个国家和地区中，中国内地是全球税负第二重的地方，仅居于法国之后，也是亚洲税负最重的地区。问题是，世界上许多税负重的国家，纳税人都享受到了相应的服务，我们得到了什么？教育、医疗、养老、住房等带来的压力，无不由老百姓自己承担。
企业税收负担过重，不利于企业再投资和扩大再生产，而公民税收负担过重，则会严重抑制消费的释放，不利于经济的可持续发展。也正因为这一点，西方国家从上世纪90年代开始，就不断实施减税计划，目的就在于休养生息。
而我们正好相反，除了沉重的税费，还有居高不下的教育费用、医疗费用。其中，住房更是犹如一个巨大的枷锁，既绑架了现实中的人，也绑架了人们的未来。人民银行曾作过一次“储蓄目的”的调查：居民储蓄的目的依次是攒教育费、养老、买房装修。此三项被媒体戏称为“新三座大山”。“新三座大山”上涨速度越快，人们对未来的担忧越沉重。尤其是在社会保障体系缺位或者不完善的情况下，人们会本能地将可能面对的风险放大。
对未来的不确定性预期，成为储蓄扩张的强大动力，导致我国经济发展过于依赖投资和出口，从长远来看，这种经济结构是非常脆弱的。安居乐业，自古都是为政者的目标，住房本身就应该是带有福利性的，至少，在市场化的同时，一部分带有福利性质的廉租房、经济适用房是不能缺位的。退一步说，即使住房完全市场化，政府也不应该从中获取巨额利润，沿着公众无助的哀嚎堆积财富和虚幻的政绩。
由于住房，原本温情的城市，正因为住房显出其冷酷的一面。在一座座高楼大厦建起来时，穷人被无情地赶出市中心，赶到交通不便的市郊，在事实上催生了“穷人区”和“富人区”的形成。为什么有车的富人非得住在拥挤而噪杂的市中心，却不愿意像外国人那样选择住在更宜居的郊外？住房观念的误导是一个重要因素，仇贫观念、财富炫耀观念大行其道也是重要因素。由于资本无所不能，由于财富可以呼风唤雨，穷人的利益被蔑视。在现实的中国，住在市中心的豪宅，代表着身份和财富。在这种标签下面，则是日渐对立的贫富群体，是可怕的社会隐患。

1931年9月18日，日本驻中国东北地区的关东军突然袭击沈阳，以武力侵占东北的事件。
19世纪末至20世纪前半叶，日本逐步确定了征服世界必先征服中国，征服中国必先征服“满蒙”的战略方针。1930年，世界资本主义经济危机波及日本，为了转移日益激化的国内阶级矛盾，日本加快了武力侵华的步伐，于1931年7月和8月在东北制造了“万宝山事件”和“中村事件”。9月18日，日本又制造“柳条湖事件”，发动了侵略中国东北的战争。
当晚10时许，日本关东军岛本大队川岛中队河本末守中尉率部下数人，在沈阳北大营南约800米的柳条湖附近，将南满铁路一段路轨炸毁。日军在此布置了一个假现场，摆了3具身穿中国士兵服的尸体，反诬是中国军队破坏铁路。日军独立守备队第二大队即向中国东北军驻地北大营发动进攻。次日晨4时许，日军独立守备队第五大队由铁岭到达北大营加入战斗。5时半，东北军第七旅退到沈阳东山嘴子，日军占领北大营。战斗中东北军伤亡300余人，日军伤亡24人。这就是震惊中外的九一八事变。
国民党政府对日本的侵略采取不抵抗政策。事变发生前，蒋介石于8月16日致电张学良：“无论日本军队此后如何在东北寻衅，我方应予不抵抗，力避冲突。”9月12日，他在河北石家庄召见张学良时说：“最近获得可靠情报，日军在东北马上要动手，我们的力量不足，不能打。我考虑到只有请国际联盟主持正义，和平解决。我这次和你会面，最主要的是要你严令东北全军，凡遇到日军进攻，一律不准抵抗。”事变发生后，国民党政府电告东北军：“日军此举不过寻常寻衅性质，为免除事件扩大起见，绝对抱不抵抗主义。”当时，日本关东军只有1万多人，而中国东北军驻在东北的有16.5万人。东北军部队多次接受不准抵抗的训令，在日军突然袭击面前，除小部分违反蒋介石的命令奋起抵抗外，其余均不战而退。
9月19日上午8时，日军几乎未受到抵抗便将沈阳全城占领。东北军撤向锦州。全国最大的沈阳兵工厂和制炮厂连同9.5万余支步枪，2500挺机关枪，650余门大炮，2300余门迫击炮，260余架飞机，以及大批弹药、器械、物资等，全部落入日军之手。据统计，仅9月18日一夜之间，沈阳损失即达18亿元之多。此后，东北各地的中国军队继续执行蒋介石的不抵抗主义，使日军得以迅速占领辽宁、吉林、黑龙江3省。
九一八事变是日本帝国主义长期以来推行对华侵略扩张政策的必然结果，也是它企图把中国变为其独占的殖民地而采取的严重步骤。此后，中日民族矛盾逐步上升到主要地位，使中国国内的阶级关系发生重大变动。在中国共产党的号召下，中国人民掀起了抗日救亡运动。

本来打算这个月工资到手后买一个IPOD Mini或者NANO的
现在转方向了，着重考虑Creative ZEN系列，或者做工比较出色的国产品牌。
在被指违反劳动法体罚员工，员工超时加班以后，富士康没有从内部着手以求解决问题，反而状告两位报道的记者，并索价3000万的赔偿，实在是令人作呕。一边享受着国家的种种优厚政策，大把大把地赚取这人民币和美金，另一方面，却比万恶的资本主义更残忍十万倍地剥削着劳动者。这就是所谓和谐的，劳动人民当家作主的社会主义社会？
鉴于富士康深圳工厂承接了苹果公司风靡全球的音乐播放器iPod的制造订单，Alex决定将IPOD从Purchase List中cross掉，另外保证决不向周围的亲友同事推荐IPOD产品。
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现在就行动起来，Say [b][color=Red]NO[/color][/b] to IPOD！

微软中国Hotmail服务上周五刚刚重新恢复，在此之前，持续2周的间歇性网络问题导致用户难以登陆Hotmail帐户。
该问题刚好在微软首席执行官Steve Ballmer访问中国前几日解决。
Hotmail过去两周内存在的登陆问题导致大量中国Hotmail用户无法进入其邮件帐户，“这真的很让人恼火。”一名中国Hotmail用户表示。
当Hotmail罢工，这名中国Hotmail用户开始尝试Google的Gmail邮件服务，虽然她对Hotmail周五恢复正常的消息感到欣慰，但是却明确表示，她不会废弃已经开始使用的Gmail帐户。“我会同时使用这两种邮件服务。”
微软指责问题出在中国网络运营商的“非明确技术难题”，但是用户则普通猜测Hotmail有可能受到官方审查和干涉。
除了给大量Hotmail用户带来不便，此次微软中国Hotmail事件也给Google Gmail进入中国创造了机会，上周，Google刚刚发布了中文版Google Talk。
难怪这两天MSN老是登不上去，我怒！！
:@

经上海市市政府批准，从明天开始，申城将正式启动出租汽车运价油价联动机制。调价后，出租汽车运价总体将上涨6.7％。管理部门透露，为了保持出租汽车运价相对稳定，联动机制启动后，原则上一年为一个周期，调整一次价格。
　　
　　从明天开始，市区的出租车起步价由目前的三公里10元调整为11元；超过三公里后，每公里运价由现在的2元调整为2元1角。新的计价器每满1元跳一次,因此总价中并不会有”角”出现。此外，夜间与等待时间计费方式不变。上海市区出租车价格调整：调整前调整后起步价10元/3公里11元/3公里（前3公里）超起租里程2元/公里2.10元/公里（3公里之后）郊区出租汽车的运价也同步调整，起步价由现行3公里8元调整为9元；超3公里后，每公里由2元调整为2.10元。
　　上海市郊区出租车价格调整：调整前调整后起步价8元/3公里9元/3公里（前3公里）超起租里程2元/公里2.10元/公里（3公里之后）经测算，这次运价上涨幅度为6.7%；按乘客平均每车次6.3公里计算，每次要多支出1.4元。从明天开始，上海的4万3千多辆出租汽车将分批改装计价器。由于调整数量较多,这项工作要到本月底前才能全部完成。在此期间，上海出租汽车运价将会出现新、老两种价格并存的情况。

We hear a lot of guff about China – lumbering giant, colossal market, a billion consumers, next hyperpower, etc. And we see huge western technology companies – Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Cisco – willing to abase themselves in any way necessary to ensure pole position in the race to reach those billion consumers.
Only last week, Google’s chief executive, Eric Schmidt, made another embarrassing speech ‘explaining’ his company’s capitulation to the demands of the Chinese government to filter search results. ‘I think it’s arrogant for us to walk into a country where we are just beginning operations and tell that country how to run itself,’ he told reporters in Beijing.
He was there to promote Google’s new (self-censored) Chinese search engine and to meet senior government officials. He also announced the opening of the statutory research and development centre in the Chinese capital’s hi-tech district and revealed the brand name for the censored search engine – ‘Gu Ge’, which roughly translates as ‘a harvesting song’.
In a poorly reported aside, Schmidt attempted to draw an analogy between Google’s decision on China and the fact that it has to conform to, say, Germany’s ban on Nazi propaganda sites. It took John Paczkowski of the San Jose Mercury News to spot the breathtaking double-think implicit in this attempt to put ‘a narrow ban on indefensible hate-mongering on a par with censoring access to vast swathes of [the] web dealing with freedom’.
The one phrase you hear very little of whenever China’s economic potential is discussed is ‘intellectual property’. This is because China is world champion in every branch of piracy known to man. I don’t think there’s a CD, DVD, computer game or software package that is not illicitly available for a dollar or two in virtually every town in China.
That’s why the top executives of Western technology companies are – to a man or woman – agreed upon one thing: that while they are more than happy to have their products manufactured by Chinese labour in Chinese factories, they will never, ever entrust their intellectual property to any Chinese organisation.
The reasoning is simple: even if the Chinese wished to respect intellectual property (a big ‘if’), they simply could not do it. This is because IP requires a culture of laws and adherence to them, plus an infrastructure of courts, legal services and all the other paraphernalia of litigation and enforcement. Neither the culture nor the legal infrastructure exists in China, and it will take decades to build. Even if China’s rulers wanted to transform their territory into a society which respected intellectual property, they simply could not do it on any realistic timescale.
And this, of course, now impales them on the horns of a dilemma, because they desire to play in the grown-up world of high technology. They have, for example, joined Wipo, the World Trade Organisation’s IP wing, which requires them to take seriously the protection of intellectual property.
So this week the Chinese State Copyright Bureau decreed that China’s PC manufacturers will henceforth be barred from shipping ‘naked’ PCs – computers without a pre-installed operating system. The reason is that these cheap PCs are then invariably fitted out with bootleg copies of Windows, thereby depriving Microsoft of substantial licensing revenues.
This edict is probably window-dressing ahead of the Chinese president’s forthcoming visit to the US, where people get very steamed up over piracy. If you really want to see what things are like on the ground in China, consider what happened last week in the mobile communications arena.
For the past seven years, Canadian firm Research In Motion (RIM) has been planning to launch a version of its BlackBerry mobile email service in China. It filed its first application to do business there in 1999 and has since registered at least nine trademarks for the device and accompanying service.
And now, just a few weeks before the BlackBerry service launches, guess what happens? China Unicom, the state-controlled wireless network, has launched a rival service called – you got it – RedBerry.
According to Paczkowski, RedBerry is virtually identical to RIM’s service, but a lot cheaper. It is, after all, a state-owned enterprise, immune from the tiresome obsessions of shareholders and the stock market. So a standard e-mail account at RedBerry will cost less than a dollar a month, plus a few cents for each email sent.
RIM has not revealed its rates for Chinese service yet, but it will certainly have to be higher if the company is to make a return on all the investment it has put into penetrating the market. Just for illustration, a typical BlackBerry account in Hong Kong costs up to HK$64 (￡4.70) a month.
The RedBerry is yet another blatant case of ‘brand piracy’ and is par for the course in China. So by all means get your stuff made there – but keep your IP at home.