A new chapter in the ongoing controversy surrounding China's women's gymnastics team opened today, as search engine hacker stryde.hax found surviving copies of official registration documents issued by China's General Administration of Sport of China. The incriminating documents, expunged by censors from the official site and from Google's document cache, still appear in the document translation cache of Chinese search giant Baidu, here (1) and here (2), showing the age of one of China's gold medal winning gymnasts to be 14 instead of 16, the minimum age for competition presented on her government-issued passport. Now that official government documentation is available, how long will the IOC be able to keep a lid on this scandal?"
From:http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/20/1259253&from=rss
And:http://strydehax.blogspot.com/
Simply astounds me the length some people will go in order to prove their national superiority. It just reeks of the government censorship and coverups that China is so well known for. Please, keep your insecurities about your humiliations in the past to yourself. Stop misleading your citizens and resorting to petty tricks like this to gain any semblance of national pride that you already don't have.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Saturday, August 16, 2008
National pride
What is national pride about?
Contrary to popular belief, its not about topping the Olympics gold medal tally or winning your first medal in 48 years. Its not about mass-producing gold medallists by putting 8 year-olds through physical training that would make a commando cry. Its not about the euphoria that courses through your veins when you see your competitor touch the finish line first. That my friends, is an adrenaline rush. Nothing more, nothing less.
Indeed, national pride is a lot more than that. Its about being able to tell the world that you're proud of your country, because whatever its leaders do they seek the best for their citizens. That their actions are more than selfish attempts to stay in power by forcing the brightest minds down pre-determined paths that will invariably result in them joining the ruling party eventually. That they offer free speech and do not attempt to blatantly censor any words that remotely reflect what the majority of the population thinks. That they are not a laughing stock in the world because when unable to win any verbal battle, they sue their way to victory.
Yes, I think thats the definition of national pride. Unfortunately at the moment neither the country that is leading the medal tally at the olympics nor the country which has just won their very first medal in 48 years seems to have achieved it. And sadly I don't think I'll be able to see it in this lifetime.
Contrary to popular belief, its not about topping the Olympics gold medal tally or winning your first medal in 48 years. Its not about mass-producing gold medallists by putting 8 year-olds through physical training that would make a commando cry. Its not about the euphoria that courses through your veins when you see your competitor touch the finish line first. That my friends, is an adrenaline rush. Nothing more, nothing less.
Indeed, national pride is a lot more than that. Its about being able to tell the world that you're proud of your country, because whatever its leaders do they seek the best for their citizens. That their actions are more than selfish attempts to stay in power by forcing the brightest minds down pre-determined paths that will invariably result in them joining the ruling party eventually. That they offer free speech and do not attempt to blatantly censor any words that remotely reflect what the majority of the population thinks. That they are not a laughing stock in the world because when unable to win any verbal battle, they sue their way to victory.
Yes, I think thats the definition of national pride. Unfortunately at the moment neither the country that is leading the medal tally at the olympics nor the country which has just won their very first medal in 48 years seems to have achieved it. And sadly I don't think I'll be able to see it in this lifetime.
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