Another dispatch from one of China’s ghost city developments, but this one with a twist: All the homes were theoretically designed for rich people, but I’m having a hard time figuring out why they would want them.
More than 100 uncompleted McMansions sit in Shenyang City some 400 miles northeast of Beijing.
They were “built by Greenland Group, one of the more than 50 housing developers that have defaulted on their debt in recent years.”
“Construction in 2010 but came to a halt a few years later.”
I know that China is a very different country indeed, but I can’t figure out why the developers thought that these McMasions, all made on the same floorplan and jowl by jowl next to each other on pretty small plots of land, would be appealing to the wealthy in the first place. They houses themselves are big and stylish enough in the 19th century French style they were aping, but the rich want land, space and differentiation, not to live between two houses exactly like their own on a small plot of land.
Yet another example of China’s inexplicable, wasteful policies…
Back in December, Texas Governor Greg Abbott warned about an “invasion” of Chinese nationals at the border.
Gov. Greg Abbott is highlighting recent numbers from U.S. Customs and Border Protection that show a record-breaking number of Chinese nationals encountered at the southwest border.
According to the latest numbers released, border patrol agents encountered 4,261 Chinese nationals in October—a massive increase from the 430 encounters in October 2022.
The increase in illegal aliens attempting to cross the southwest border has caused Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to take several measures to secure Texas’ southern border.
Abbott spoke to Fox News, explaining how the crisis at the southern border has become an “existential threat” to the United States.
It is extraordinarily dangerous because, first of all, as you point out, we have people from China coming here. We also have people on the known terrorist watch list who are coming across the border. And so there’s extraordinary dangers, calls to our country by Biden’s open border policies. And obviously, Biden is doing nothing about it. And that’s why Texas has to step up and apprehend as many of these people as possible to make sure that they’re not posing a threat to our country.
Abbott’s not the only one. On Joe Rogan’s podcast, Bret Weinstein talked about traveling to Panama to see illegal alien migration problem firsthand, and came away with some disturbing information.
“There is a migration of Chinese immigrants that looks different, feels different, and is being housed in a totally separate way in Darien for reasons that are not in any way obvious.”
“Now I don’t know exactly what to make of that. I have hypotheses there are no more than that. But the Chinese migration is not forthcoming about why it is migrating. It is composed mostly of young military-aged men. There are some women present, but it’s not 50/50 by far.”
“The international community has arranged separate encampments. The Chinese are in many cases traveling a separate way across the Darien Gap. They’re skipping some of the worst parts of it traveling by boat.”
“When asked where they’re from, where they’re going, why they’re going, they are uninterested in talking. There’s a hostility to it that I found shocking.”
“[If they] didn’t like the way things were in China, they feared their government, they thought that there was economic opportunity, they would be curious about Americans. These are soon to be their countrymen. They would tend to be interested in talking. And even if they, for some reason, because they had lived under a totalitarian regime, felt that they couldn’t talk, they wouldn’t be broadcasting hostility, they would be ambivalent or something.”
“That is not the impression that they leave when interacting with them, so I found that utterly alarming.”
“I wonder if the [larger migration] is a cloak for this other migration from China, which is nothing if not mysterious. Why are they letting it happen? Why do you think the government is allowing the border to be so porous, and why are they resisting when Texas tries to do something about it?”
“Before I went to to Panama, I thought there was a migration of people. Now I think there are two. One of them’s clearly a migration, and the other one could well be an invasion.”
“The belief amongst many who have been on the story of the migration for years now is that this is a ploy to create voters, Democratic voters, and I don’t think that’s impossible. I think that’s probably playing a role.”
He also brings up the possibility some of have floated to trade military service for citizenship as a way to lessen the army’s resistance to illegal orders. “If you wanted a force that was capable of acting on behalf of tyranny against Americans, then a force that doesn’t have a deep history with the rights of being an American, that doesn’t have a long-standing allegiance to people within the country, that force would be potentially more compliant.”
Pre-Flu Manchu, all this would have seemed like paranoid conspiracy theories. But after the lockdowns, the Antifa riots, and the continued government insistence that the warm yellow substance they were distributing on our pants was rain, I have to admit the idea is a lot more plausible than I would have previously considered. And until the social justice warriors ran amok at Evergreen College, Weinstein considered himself a Democrat.
Someone is importing Chinese national illegal aliens into the United States, for some reason. The only question is who and why.
Bijlmer, built as a planned neighborhood near Amsterdam, was supposed to be the “prefect city” of the future, with high rise apartment complexes surrounded with green space to make the buildings more warm and inviting for residents.
You know, just like they did with American public housing projects at the same time.
Bijlmer worked out just as well.
“The goal was space, green, and light.”
The place was laid out in hexagon structure, so I guess it would make a great wargame map.
“We have all the benefits of a dense wealthy neighborhood but with the empty space of a rural one.” Or so they thought.
The buildings were 11 stories high, with storage space at ground level and communal areas.
Transportation? The pitch: “Innovative three-tiered transportation system! Dedicated roads for cyclists and pedestrians! Separate roads for personal cars buses and trucks! An elevated metro line” into Amsterdam proper.
The reality: “There you can find a stray junkie who is illegally occupying one of the apartments. A lot of middle class people do not want to live in the Bijlmer. Our apartments are empty, our construction has been delayed, our metro isn’t finished yet, so the Bijlmer is separated and alone.”
“The Bijlmer did not attract the amount of people that were expected. Many households were turned off by the large, alienating high-rises, so they left for recognizable suburbs instead.”
Oh, and the prices were too high as well.
“A place that was intended to attract middle class families just didn’t. It attracted poverty. Instead the Bijlmer’s design and negative stigma created a self-fulfilling cycle. The nature alleys and parking garages helped criminals get away with crime and made people feel unsafe.”
And then the Dutch government turned the place into an immigrant ghetto for people fleeing Suriname. Want to guess how that worked out?
“Overcrowding made it impossible to take a bath at rush hour.”
Two-thirds of the high rises were eventually demolished.
I wonder if the video of the projected city was actually from the era. I doubt it, because it really gives off a Backrooms vibe.
Government urban planners always think they can always do a better job than the free market, and they’re always wrong.
Some of the Chinese news/videos because they’re important. But this story I’m putting up because it’s so ridiculous.
There’s evidently a genre of China’s video of pretty women in rural China carrying massive logs.
I know you’ll be shocked, shocked to find out there aren’t really lots of attractive women in rural China wearing makeup and carrying heavy logs around. Naturally, the logs are hollow or made of balsa. Naturally, they’re scamming poor simps (including some in the west) out of sympathy money.
The one the girls struggling through the mud in her old fashioned revolutionary clothing is particularly risible.
I wonder what American internet fads are inexplicable to the Chinese. Maybe they’re completely baffled by Hammurabi memes or Rickrolls…
Here’s an interesting follow-up to that two Bradleys wreck one T-90M post and video a few weeks ago. In this video, Task & Purpose provides more detailed breakdown of the engagement.
“In the interview with the Ukrainian Bradley commander Siri, he indicated that the three Bradleys made the conscious decision to seek out the Russian tank. However, one of their vehicles had issues and was not able to effectively engage the tank.”
The first Bradley engages the T-90M from a 90° angle, then both vehicles retreat.
The T-90 fires and misses. “Aiming at a target close to you in a tank becomes more difficult because you have to traverse the turret faster, and objects will move across your line of sight faster due to its close proximity.”
One under-appreciated factor: Turret turning speed. “In the 30ton MSA2 Bradley, the turret can spin 360° in about 6 seconds, or 60° per second…The most often cited metric I see [for the T-90] is about 9 seconds to do a full 360°, or about 40° per second.”
“They’re just 50 meters apart. This fight was essentially a ticking time clock for the T-90, because they had a very limited amount of time before the Bradley would manage to knock out their optics and blind them.”
“The T90 only had enough time to get off three cannon shots. The T90 has a stabilized turret and autoloader that can fire on the move with up to eight rounds per minute. The T-90 backed away from the road intersection while blindly firing through buildings.
“The Ukrainian Bradley does the same thing here, with its 25mm chain gun firing dozens of rounds while flooring it along the road away from the tank.”
The encounter took place in the town of Stepove, which is about 12km NW of Avdiivka, where some 40,000 Russian troops have been trying to take the pocket for months.
“Forbes reports that Ukraine’s knocking out 13 Russian vehicles here for every one that they lose.” But Ukraine may still have to fall back here.
“Most of the buildings are completely destroyed, but the rubble is going to be a major advantage for the Bradley’s to fire and then duck and weave behind for cover.”
“The next thing that happens is the T-90M fires off a smoke canister, which is a textbook act to conceal its position and disrupt the thermal sites in the Bradley. There different perspectives on what exactly happened when the smoke was set off. It appears like maybe one of the T-90’s explosive reactive armor pieces might have blown at about the same time, causing that large explosion that we see here. It could have also been from a misfire from the smoke grenade.” I’ve also heard the theory that the Bradley’s 25mm fire may have already damaged the smoke dispenser at this point, triggering the explosive misfire.
The physical damage to the T-90s turret may appear minimal to us, but to a Russia tank crew, it would like being inside a large bell being hit by a hammer. “The Russian tank crew would have been extremely disoriented by the blasts, even if the chances of that smaller caliber round penetrating was very unlikely. It’s easy to forget the human factor in these fights.”
The Bradley’s “M242 25mm bushmaster chain gun fires roughly 200 rounds per minute at the highest cyclical setting.”
“Inside the turret are two ready boxes which feed the linked ammo into the receiver. This gives you the ability to fire two different types of ammo on the fly. That includes the M919 APDST, or armor-piercing discarding sabo tracer depleted uranium round, and the M792 high explosive incendiary tracer rounds.” There’s a switch to change between the two.
“The Bradley’s anti-armor 25mm cannon round can penetrate between 30mm to 100mm of steel, depending on the angle at which the round strikes the target.”
“However, the Russian T90 reportedly has 400 to 900mm” of armor. Unmentioned here is that the T-90M (like the US, UK and Germany) uses composite armor rather than just steel.
So how did the Bradleys disable the T-90? Theory #1 is they destroyed both the commander and gunner’s optics. “If you’re able to hit them, then the crew is completely blinded and essentially combat ineffective.” Ukrainian commander Siri said he learned the tactic from War Thunder. (Are American tanks taking sufficient precautions to keep this from happening to them? To be fair, the chance of enemies getting a 25mm auto-canon this close to an Abrams seems…remote.)
Theory #2: Turret ring connection destroyed (much more likely electronics than hydraulics) sent the turret into auto-rotation as seen at the end of the video.
Why wasn’t the TOW missile not used? Maybe it wasn’t working, or maybe it was just too close for the TOW to arm properly.
The Bradley crew might have run out of APDST and switched to high explosive.
Russian tanks have slower reverse speeds than American armored vehicles.
There are some 78 Russian attacks a day in this sector. “Ukraine counterattacks with Bradleys, raking the tree lines with 25mm cannon fire. Bradley’s also transports small assault teams that clear out Russian stragglers from time to time. Once Stepove and the tree lines by the railroad are clear, or mostly clear, of Russian troops, Ukraine pulls back to their functional defensive positions and waits for the next Russian attack.”
There’s lots more interesting technical and doctrinal details I’ve cut for the sake of brevity.
The Fat Electrician has a tribute video for USS Texas (which is still undergoing refurbishment).
“Today we’re talking about the most gangsta battleship of all time: The USS Texas, predating both World Wars, being built in 1914.”
“It’s commonly referred to as the last dreadnought. But it’s not technically a dreadnought, belonging to the New York-class of battleswhips, which were commonly referred to as super-dreadnoughts.” It was a class of two, with only the New York and the Texas. There was a pre-dreadnought USS Texas laid down in 1889 and scrapped in 1911.
“They had the largest guns ever put on a boat up to that time. That would be the Mark 1, capable of launching two 14 inch shells that weighed nearly 1,600 pounds apiece. The USS Texas had five of them, two in the front and three in the back. It was like a freedom sedan.”
They also had ballistic calculators and analogue computers, making them the most accurate naval guns in the world at the time. Plus a whole bunch of smaller guns.
“It was the first ship in history to incorporate anti-aircraft guns.”
“As well as having a 12″ thick hull, an entire freedom foot of Pittsburgh steel. The only thing millimeters is going to do to that is scratch the paint.”
It was the first ship to have a compliment of Marines onboard. “They let the water grunts drive the biggest gun ever made.”
The USS Texas saw “almost no combat” in World War I. Via Wikipedia: “Texas’s service with the Grand Fleet consisted entirely of convoy missions and occasional forays to reinforce the British squadron on blockade duty in the North Sea whenever German heavy units threatened.”
“But it’s actions in World War II made it a naval legend.” Lots of newer, more powerful ships than the Texas, but the Texas was the only battleship to engage the enemy in all five theaters.
“D-Day, June 6, 1944. The Texas would take it’s position 12,000 yards off the coast of Normandy.” It fired 235 rounds at German fortifications in just under 54 minutes. “That is four hundred and eight thousand pounds of ammunition.”
“The Texan was shooting the enemy with about three spicy Volvos a minute.”
“I’m trying to tell you the Grim Yeeter over here bitchslapped the enemy’s coastline with an entire car dealership in the amount of time it takes you to watch a TV show.”
Continued bombarding until running out of ammo June 11, at which point it went back for resupply. By the time it was back, allied troops had driven the enemy so far inland its guns couldn’t reach. So it moved in to 3,000 yards, the closest it could get without beaching the ship.
“It’s at that point the Texas said ‘Hold my beer’ and flooded all the blister tanks on the starboard side, tilting the entire boat, changing the angle of the guns, allowing them to reach further inland.”
“They gangster leaned a 32 thousand ton warship so they could continue to engage the enemy. This might be the most grunterrific moment in world history.”
“It’s not technically a war crime. Geneva didn’t even necessarily know that shit was a fucking option.”
The Texas would go on to fight at Okinawa and Iwo Jima.
The U.S. Department of Justice investigated firearm violence from 1993 through 2011. The report found, “In 2007–2011, about 1 percent of nonfatal violent crime victims used a firearm in self-defense.” Anti-gun zealots attempt to use this statistic to discredit the use of a gun as a viable means of self-defense, and by extension, to discredit gun ownership in general.
But look deeper into the numbers. During that five-year period, the Department of Justice confirmed a total of 338,700 defensive gun uses in both violent attacks and property crimes where a victim was involved. That equals an average of 67,740 defensive gun uses every year. In other words, according to the Justice Department’s own statistics, 67,740 people a year don’t become victims because they own a gun. (I suspect that if more states allowed concealed carry to be widespread, the number of instances of defensive gun uses would be even higher.)
Is it significant that at least 67,740 individuals use a gun in self-defense each year? Well, in 2016, 37,461 people died in motor vehicle accidents in the United States; in 2015, the number was 35,092 people. Mark Rosekind, administrator of the National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration (NHTSA), called those road fatalities “an immediate crisis.” If the NHTSA administrator considers it a crisis that approximately 37,000 people are dying annually from car accidents, then saving nearly twice that many people each year through the use of firearms is simply stunning.
In reality, the Department of Justice findings about defensive gun uses are very conservative. A 2013 study ordered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and conducted by the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council found that:
Defensive use of guns by crime victims is a common occurrence… Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million…in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008… On the other hand, some scholars point to a radically lower estimate of only 108,000 annual defensive uses based on the National Crime Victimization Survey…”
The most comprehensive study ever conducted about defensive gun use in the United States was a 1995 survey published by criminologist Gary Kleck in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. This study reported between 2.1 and 2.5 million defensive gun uses every year.
The City of Midland tells NewsWest 9 that a suspect burglarized a north Midland home Saturday morning and was killed by the homeowner who used self-defense.
According to the Midland Police Department, at about 4:09 a.m. on Saturday, officers responded to the 1400 block of Daventry Place due to a “disturbance with weapons.”
Upon arrival, officers found a man identified as 37-year-old George Samuel Butler located at the scene, deceased.
MPD determined that Butler entered the residence “by force with a rifle,” and then the homeowner placed Butler in a choke hold some time during the burglary.
Butler was killed by the homeowner in a case of self-defense, according to the city.
Bartlesville Police say a woman shot and killed a man who broke into her apartment.
Police say the man was 23 years old and that the woman told police she didn’t know him.
Neighbors say the thing that surprised them the most is they didn’t expect something like this to happen in broad daylight when families are getting ready for work and kids ready for school.
Bartlesville Police say a woman called 911 this morning and said someone was breaking into her apartment, then said she’d shot the intruder.
The piece is light on shooting details and heavy on neighbors “I never thought such a thing could happen here blah blah blah” reaction quotes, so I’m chopping it off there.
A Phoenix homeowner shot a strange man last week when the intruder forced his way into the residence last week.
According to the Arizona Family, it was just after 8 p.m. that night when the intruder attempted to force entry into the home.
Police reports say this was when the homeowner shot the man.
The intruder, later identified as 24-year-old Isaiah Roggenbuck, ran away from the home. Police found him in a nearby part of the neighborhood.
Reports from the Arizona Family claim that Roggenbuck was found near a marijuana dispensary.
This is my shocked face.
Roggenbuck was charged with criminal trespassing.
In Houston, somebody robbed a guy at a gas pump and was promptly shot and killed by another guy, who then took off.
Good on you, red car guy. I think the victim showed poor situational awareness, and should have doused the perp, which tends to make any halfway sane thug think twice.
In Indianapolis, a homeowner wrestled the gun away from an intruder and shot him.
A baller move, to be sure, but it’s far better to rely on your own gun…
Two videos on increasing Russian logistics difficulties in the Russo-Ukrainian War. First up: A video that suggests Ukraine has switched from a territory recapture strategy to an attrition strategy.
“Russia is burning whether it’s oil terminals on the Baltic and the Black Sea, factories in far-flung Siberia, or military bases in Crimea, it seems almost every day something bursts into flames in Putin’s backyard. And Ukraine is thought to be the one behind it.” It’s an open question whether structure hits in places like Siberia are Ukrainian “werewolf” teams operating behind enemy lines, or native anti-Putin/anti-war (or even anti-Russian) partisans, but the effect seems the same: Russia now has to worry about attacks to its military, transport, energy, and manufacturing infrastructure far from the frontlines in Ukraine.
Zelensky warned Putin that if Russia attacked Ukrainian cities with indiscriminate missile attacks again, Ukraine would hit back. When it did, “Ukraine struck back a fire at the electrical substation outside Moscow, plunged three districts of the capital into darkness. Water pipes also burst, leaving people freezing in their homes. The plague of accidents soon spread to the cities of Omsk and Novosibirsk, deep in Siberia, which were left without heating as temperatures fell below -2.” Actually, Omsk and Novosibirsk aren’t “deep” in Siberia, because the place is so vast there another five time zones east of there.
“Soon after attacks began on critical infrastructure, including oil refineries upon which Putin’s economy relies. To date, three refineries have been blown up or set on fire, including two which were hit by long-range Ukrainian drones. One of those the Ust-Luga oil refinery near St. Petersburg, is almost 600 miles from Ukraine.”
“Railways and factories have also been blown up or burned down at the same time the Ukrainians have stepped up their campaign against Crimea.” Naval successes we’ve covered here already skipped.
At this point the video argues that Ukraine’s strategy was to liberate Ukrainian territory, no matter the strategic value. I don’t think that was the case.
Following the “failure” of the summer offensive (I would say “limited gains”), “Ukraine is digging in and refocusing liberation of territory is no longer the main goal hitting Russia where it hurts most.”
“Ukraine knows that victory in a long war depends on two things above all else: The will of people to keep fighting, and the ability of the country to provide weapons for them to fight with, and that’s where these drone missile and sabotage attacks come in.”
It then argues (as many others have) that Crimea is Putin’s main weakness, and that losing it will cripple his prestige and ability to stay in power and continue the war.
I think there has been a shift in Ukrainian strategy, but that shift has mainly been driven by the development and availability of longer-ranged weapons Ukraine lacked earlier in the war, combined with the effects of a long-term campaign to degrade Russia air power, naval assets and SAM systems, opening up avenues for longer range strikes. Ukraine focused on attacking Russia’s logistics systems right after the Battle of Kiev was won, but now they have the capability to hit much deeper into Russia’s logistics infrastructure.
Actually, I’m surprised there haven’t been any reported attacks on the Trans-Siberian Railway, given what a long, slender link that is. A few medium-to-long range drone teams inserted into northern Kazakhstan or Mongolia could wreck real havoc on trains, lines, bridges, etc.
Next, a video from Kanal 13 (very much a pro-Ukrainian source) suggests that the war and sanctions are cratering Russia’s military industrial complex.
“The Russian military industrial complex is being destroyed because of the war against Ukraine.”
Dimitri Fidive, CEO of the Muram Machine Building Plant, wrote in an email intercepted by the activists, that inflation and the shortcomings of Russia’s bureaucratic approach prevents plants that form the country’s military industrial complex from fulfilling government orders.”
“Plants are forced to sell their goods at prices set in 2019, but are at the same time expected to purchase details at market prices and in advance.”
“The money received from the government was not enough to cover the interest on the credit that his firm would need to take out to pay its suppliers.”
“Money is tied up until the completion of the government contracts, which normally last 3 to 5 years, meaning during this time the money is effectively frozen.”
“There is a shortage of staff at the plants due to both mass mobilization and a lack of accommodation [housing] in the area.”
Hell of a way to run a railroad. One wonders how extensive these problems are with other companies in Russia’s military industrial complex
Ukraine’s strategy has shifted more in relation to the way the war developed, and the changing availability of western weapons, than any fundamental shift in strategy. It became apparent that this was going to be a war of attrition in the first year, and the question of which would break first: The west’s willingness to send Ukraine weapons, or Russia’s economy and ability to wage it’s illegal war of territorial aggression?
Nothing about that strategy has changed, only Ukraine’s greater reach to affect the latter.
Farmers blockaded Paris to protest the impossible mandates being handed down to them by both Paris and the EU in the name of fighting “global warming.”
“Farmers are laying siege to Paris, as they put it, at eight points around the capital. And they say they won’t budge until the government gives them more concessions.”
“We need one of our French celebrities to do the same thing as Jeremy Clarkson.”
He said Clarkson “exposed the red tape in relation to the environment. Everything he explained, we’re going through in France.”
“It’s about bureaucracy, it’s about the European Union.”
He says farmers in the UK are still waiting for promised post-Brexit support.
“Everything in relations to environmental requirements is exactly the same in France, maybe even worse.”
“We are fed up with the admin, which is excessive in our country with regards to our work, the red tape that France adds in addition to the EU requirements.”
The farmer interviewed says they (i.e. FNSEA, the largest French farming union) have a list of 140 demands. Try as I might, I can’t find a list of those demands, in English or even French. This seems to hit on key grievances, but there’s a fair amount of highfalutin generalities in the English translation. This seems to be a key point: “In Europe, the very philosophy of the Green deal which assumes degrowth needs to be reviewed to restore visibility to farmers.”
If previous demands from other Eurostrikers are any guide, the demands are probably a mix of good (stop with the green insanity, lower taxes and eliminate red tape) and bad (more subsidies).
The French farmers said President Emmanuel Macron’s government now needed to act fast on its pledges, which have included scrapping plans to raise tax contributions on tractor diesel, an easing of pesticide regulations, a pause on new fallow land rules, and more safety checks on food imports.
If you had told some one five years ago that “French farmers will be hailing Jeremy Clarkson as a hero,” no one would have believed you…
In a followup to this post, I am happy to report that the St. Pancras station piano has now been freed from Chinese commie oppression.
And pianist Brendan Kavanagh had a few things to say about the CCP:
He displays a Winnie the Pooh doll and picture because “Pooh has been banned by the CCP as being subversive, and apparently if you have Winnie the Pooh, your videos won’t be shown in the Chinese Mainland. This shows the power of the arts to undermine authoritarianism.”
The original video has “taken particularly off in Hong Kong, in Taiwan, and anyone who suffered from oppression.”
“We all know who [the oppressors] are: They are living Western lifestyles, but having a Communist authoritarian ideology.”
“This piano has become a CCP free zone. Yesterday, there was people from Hong Kong here. God bless Hong Kong, glory be to Hong Kong, and the people who put on the Hong Kong video. Their YouTube channel was immediately deleted.”
“I completely support the arts to undermine authoritarianism.”
“Winnie the Pooh has the ability to undermine authoritarian cultures. It’s not just political activism it’s actually the arts which they are afraid of.
“XiXi is frightened of Winnie, can you believe it? The Red Army is frightened of Winnie the Pooh because what they were doing they were comparing XiXi to Winnie. They said he looked a bit similar. XiXi’s feelings were hurt, and so he banned Winnie the Pooh completely from mainland China. So Winnie the Pooh has also become a symbol of free artistic expression in the face of unjust authoritarians.”
“It it was the Streisand Effect effects par excellence, this video.”
“I totally support Taiwan, and I totally support artistic expression.”
“The little pinks tried to shut us down they failed miserably.”
“This piano has become a CCP little pink free zone! God bless you all, thank you for supporting the video!”
A tiny, technical correction: The Communist Chinese are totalitarians rather than authoritarians, as they seek to control every aspect of life, not just rule an existing social structure. See Jeanne Kirkpatrick’s Dictatorships and Double Standards.
