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James Powderly of Graffiti Research Labs Detained In China
An anonymous reader writes "News from Free Tibet 2008 that internationally known artist, technologist and co-founder of the Graffiti Research Lab, James Powderly, was detained in Beijing early on August 19th while preparing to debut a new work and technology of protest, the L.A.S.E.R. Stencil. According to a Twitter message received yesterday by Students for a Free Tibet at approximately 5 pm Beijing Standard Time, Powderly had been detained by Chinese authorities at 3 am. His current whereabouts remain unknown. Powderly was the inventor of throwies." (Powderly's detention was also mentioned at Make Magazine's blog.)
Amen! Don't you love the way capitalism lets you profit without worrying about the moral standards of the companies you invest in? I mean, I can invest in a company that will do awful things I would never do personally, and I never even have to hear about it, let alone lose sleep over it. And even if I do hear about it, well, I'm just a little investor, I didn't make that decision, it's not my fault! I love diffusion of responsibility.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
In NYC on Aug 10th, some protesters projected a film onto the Chinese Consulate in NYC.
Here's video on YouTube [Warning, there are some graphic scenes].
Not a laser, but interesting trick nonetheless.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
What does this have to do with my online rights? Shouldn't this be filed under politics?
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Wow, Death Vans. That's creepy as hell. I mean, I know that there's been state-sanctioned capital punishment since the beginning of civilization but it just seems creepy when combined with the mobile approach. I'm used to seeing mobile clinics, mobile libraries, mobile law offices, not mobile death chambers. It reminds me of all the creepy art from the christian apocalypse stuff at my church when I was a kid. Once the UN ushered in the New World Order and the Antichrist became the General Secretary, all people now professing to be Christians post-rapture would be put to death, always by guillotine. This was absolutely agreed upon, just the same as the Antichrist working through the UN. Jack Chick had creepy little moto-guillotines in his drawings where smartly-uniformed motorcycle cops would drive up in an open-cab vehicle that looks like a landscaping utility tractor, the guillotine in the flatbed. They would then line up the Christians for the day's executions and lop off their heads. This part really freaked me out because the public works dept. of the city I lived in used tractors of exactly the same design. I was convinced that they had mounting brackets for the guillotines and were just waiting for the order to install them. Yeesh. Freddy Krueger never did anything for me but my religion scared the shit out of me.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
"I'm most proud of the bed. It's very humane, like an ambulance," Kang says. He points to the power-driven metal stretcher that glides out at an incline. "It's too brutal to haul a person aboard," he says. "This makes it convenient for the criminal and the guards."
So, basically, it makes it easier to ignore the fact that you're killing someone.
I'm not against capital punishment, but I think that there should be a certain amount of raw reality involved in it. No coat of sugar.
Whenever someone is exulting over inventing an instrument of punishment or death like this, I always wonder if they ever entertain the thought that they might have it used on them. I believe the story of Dr. Guillotine being serviced by his own device was a myth but this idea is a popular one, recurring throughout history. It just seems like poetic justice.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Tibet has been part of China since 1792. Yes, for over two freaking centuries! You might not like it, but tough shit. And guess what, if a bunch of Chinese students came to the US and flung banners around Stanford demanding we give California back to Mexico, we'd probably tell them to get their butts back to China and mind their own business. Heck, we'd probably even detain a couple of them.
1) At Stanford they'd probably get a few hundred locals supporting their idea.
2) Some idiots would yell things at them about going back to China, some would defend them, and the government and 95% of the population would think of it as normal. People express dissent in the United States. It's no longer all that attention-grabbing.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
These "technologists" without any actual techincal knowlege are only popular in the decaying United States as it strips off manutacturing assets and sells them off to China. What replaces technology in the US are MBAs on one side, and these "artists"/ "technologists" on the other (in reality, they are socialists, political activists). In China, these "technologists" go to jail. Technologists WORK, they do spread their peacock tails.
So what? Are you suggesting that only those directly affected by human rights abuses can protest them, and everyone else should just mind their own business? In the Rosa Parks example given above, groups like the Congress of Racial Equality, which included white college students from northern states, took part in protests during the Montgomery bus boycott. Should they have just minded their own business?
That's debatable. The actions of any one person may be equivalent to "the movement of butterfly wings," as you stated below, but to quote Edmund Burke: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
I don't care why you're posting AC
..."PEE-POLE"...
But, I wonder about:
"Injections leave the whole body intact and require participation of doctors. Organs can "be extracted in a speedier and more effective way than if the prisoner is shot," says Mark Allison, East Asia researcher at Amnesty International in Hong Kong. "We have gathered strong evidence suggesting the involvement of (Chinese) police, courts and hospitals in the organ trade.""
Is the lethal cocktail an air injection? How do they remove the toxic lethal injection from any black market organs (of which they are accused of being in). Is the video showing the full event duration? I would imagine that IF there is organ harvesting going on, it might be better to sedate the condemned and dispatch them in a manner that doesn't pollute or derange the organs. Does an embolism by injection demolish the heart or a sedated person? Suffocating a conscious person might cause excessive adrenaline dumping.
And, if a monkey's organs are in demand, what about human former-prisoner magic extract powder? Could alter the meaning of "Tiger Balm Medicated Ointment".... Unless the sign of the condemned IS the Tiger.
But, as for hauling the condemned aboard the vehicle, it's probably more convenient to have a panicking, defecating dispatching occur on a ramp with a buttocks-located hole to avoid having to wash/decontaminate the Mobi-Cution Mobile. Plus, it's probably scary for the guards and staff to roam around in a $6 Million Dollar Man-like Death Probe containing the souls of the dispatched. Imagine 1700 souls a year: ~ 4 per day, and 4, in China and some other Asian locales is the same sound as "death", which is an unlucky number. Who'd want to roam the country in a tool symbolic of 4, execution, death? If executions rise, they might want to build a quantity not equal to nor divisible by nor a multiple of 4.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Powderly regularly protests all kinds of oppression, both at home and abroad.
When he protests in the US, people say that there are much worse things going on elsewhere (usually citing China). When he protests in China, the same people say he should to mind his own business.
At least he's doing something, and his sudden disappearance for throwing up a banner with a few lights on it certainly highlights the oppression that we all know exists in China.
"The cup is in turn designed for holding hot or cold liquids, and has an open rim and closed base." --US Patent #5425497
He was, until it was pointed out that taping an LED to a battery was a bit thin to really call an "invention". Mind you, the fact that Powderly is (IMHO) a self-promoting attention monger of limited substance does not excuse any otherwise inappropriate actions of the Chinese government vis-a-vis Tibet and or Powderly.
I just have to mention that I get tired of Americans who constantly lambaste China as the bad guys in the Tibet deal. The people of Tibet were treated as slaves by the ruling class before China stepped in.
Don't believe me? Look it up before you attack me on this one.
China is by no means perfect, but in the Tibet situation, they actually did end the medieval serfdom that plagued Tibet up until the 1950s.
Tibet has been part of China since 1792.
Tibet was ruled by Imperial China from 1642 to 1913. At which point the Tibetan Dali Lama, with support for Western backers, declared independence from China due to China's demands for greater political control of Tibet (basically eliminating the Lamas). From 1914 to 1950 Tibet was a completely independent kingdom.
Communist China, not being a representative government and not being a legitimate successor of the Ch'ing Dynasty, has no legitimate claims on Tibet, just as they had no legitimate claims on Korea. The invasion was just another communist power grab.
Strictly speaking, if you're talking about continuity of government, the "Chinese Government" is a robust democracy in Taiwan - they are the heirs to the traditional Chinese government. The murderous thugs ruling mainland China don't have a pedigree going back past 1949.
I've always wondered if there would have been a war in 1997 if England had said, "Ok...our 100 year lease on Hong Kong is up. Time to give Hong Kong back to China...here you go, TAIWAN!"\