ES and DJ: View and comment!

Bloody things:D

http://weburbanist.com/2009/03/24/bloody-brilliant-10-blood-themed-design-ideas/

Very very cool indeed.

Mug Hard!

THE Raffles school brand is well-known in Singapore, and yesterday’s release of the A-level results showed why.

Not only did its junior college graduands outperform their peers, they also put up the best showing in the school’s 28-year history.

Last year, there were 143 students with seven distinctions. This year, astoundingly, the figure was 250 – one in five students.

In the General Paper, long viewed as a difficult-to-ace subject because it requires a discursive essay, 57 per cent of its students scored distinctions. Last year, 47 per cent did.

In Project Work, for which students have to submit a project file which includes an oral presentation, 85 per cent went home with a distinction, double that of the previous year.

The sterling results for the two subjects were instrumental in pushing up the school’s overall scores, said principal Lim Lai Cheng.

‘We knew we were going to be quite comfortable with how they would do based on their preliminary exams but this surpassed our expectations,’ she said.

The cherry on top was its three ‘perfect’ scorers, who each took the maximum 13 credits allowed and received distinctions in their eight or nine subjects.

All were relieved that they aced General Paper. Wang Yong Jin, 19, an only child who speaks Mandarin at home, said he spent most of his time reading essays and vocabulary lists compiled by the school. His parents own a school bus company.

Likewise, Milashini Nambiar, 19, felt that her essays ‘couldn’t cut it’ when she started her General Paper classes two years ago. She started to read more widely, including newspapers, periodicals and news magazines.

Read the full story in today’s edition of The Straits Times.

Statistics for Econs

Singapore’s expected GDP growth in 2009 is forecasted to be between -2.0 – 1.0% as of 2 Jan 2009.

For residents of Singapore, income tax rates are as follows:

For YA 2007 onwards

Chargeable Income	Rate (%)	Gross Tax Payable ($)
First $20,000 Next $10,000	0 3.50	0 350
First $30,000 Next $10,000	- 5.50	350 550
First $40,000 Next $40,000	- 8.50	900 3 400
First $80,000 Next $80,000	- 14	4 300 11 200
First $160,000 Next $160,000	- 17	15 500 27 200
First $320,000 Above $320,000	- 20	42 700

For YA 2008, a personal income tax rebate of 20%, up to a maximum of $2,000 is granted.
For YA 2009, a personal income tax rebate of 20%, up to a maximum of $2,000 is granted.

For (not newly started) companies, the corporate tax rates are as follows:

Tax Rates for Companies for Year of Assessment 2008 and for those who do not qualify for the New Start up exemption rates

Amount of chargeable income	Effective tax rate
First $10,000	4.5%
Next $290,000	8.5%
In excess of $300,000	17%

And with regards to employment:

For the whole of 2008, total employment increased by 227,200, driven by strong gains earlier in the year. This is slightly lower than the increase of 234,900 in 2007.

For the whole year of 2008, the unemployment rate averaged 2.3% (overall) and 3.2% (resident), up from 2.1% and 3.0% respectively in 2007. This is the first time that the annual average unemployment rate has increased since 2003, when it peaked at 4.0% (overall) and 5.2% (resident). On average, 62,900 residents were unemployed in 2008, compared with 56,700 in 2007.

And Price Levels:

Compared with January 2008, the CPI in January 2009 rose by 2.9 per cent due mainly to higher costs of housing, food and “recreation& others”.

Wonderful year ahead.

Increase your General Knowledge!

Retrieved 1st Dec 2008 from http://www.knowledgebase-script.com/demo/article-485.html:

1. Shakespeare invented the word ‘ assassination’ and ‘bump’.
2. Stewardesses is the longest word typed with only the left hand.
3. The ant always falls over on its right side when intoxicated.
4. The electric chair was invented by a dentist.
5. The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet.
6. Wearing headphones for just an hour will increase the bacteria in your ear By 700 times.
7. Ants don’t sleep.
8. Owls have eyeballs that are tubular in shape, because of this, they cannot move their eyes.
9. A bird requires more food in proportion to its size than a baby or a cat.
10. The mouse is the most common mammal in the US.
11. A newborn kangaroo is about 1 inch in length.
12. A cow gives nearly 200,000 glasses of milk in her lifetime.
13. The Canary Islands were not named for a bird called a canary. They were named after a breed of large dogs. The Latin name was Canariae insulae – “Island of Dogs.”
14. There are 701 types of pure breed dogs.
15. A polecat is not a cat. It is a nocturnal European weasel.
16. The animal responsible for the most human deaths world-wide is the mosquito.
17. The biggest pig in recorded history was Big Boy of Black Mountain, North Carolina, who was weighed at 1,904 pounds in 1939.
18. Cats respond most readily to names that end in an “ee” sound.
19. A cat cannot see directly under its nose. This is why the cat cannot seem to find tidbits on the floor.
20. Pigs, walruses and light-colored horses can be sunburned.
21. Snakes are immune to their own poison.
22. An iguana can stay under water for 28 minutes.
23. Cats have more than one hundred vocal sounds, while dogs only have about ten.
24. The biggest member of the cat family is the male lion, which weighs 528 pounds (240 kilograms).
25. Most lipstick contains fish scales.
26. Rats multiply so quickly that in 18 months, two rats could have over a million descendants.
27. Each day in the US, animal shelters are forced to destroy 30,000 dogs and cats.
28. A shrimp’s heart is in their head.
29. A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.
30. A cockroach will live nine days without its head, before it starves to death.
31. The cat lover is an ailurophile, while a cat hater is an ailurophobe.
32. A woodpecker can peck twenty times a second.
33. It may take longer than two days for a chick to break out of its shell.
34. Dragonflies are one of the fastest insects, flying 50 to 60 mph.
35. Despite man’s fear and hatred of the wolf, it has not ever been proved that a non-rabid wolf ever attacked a human.
36. There are more than 100 million dogs and cats in the United States.
37. Americans spend more than 5.4 billion dollars on their pets each year.
38. Cat’s urine glows under a black light.
39. The largest cockroach on record is one measured at 3.81 inches in length.
40. It is estimated that a single toad may catch and eat as many as 10,000 insects in the course of a summer.
41. Amphibians eyes come in a variety shapes and sizes. Some even have square or heart-shaped pupils.
42. It would require an average of 18 hummingbirds to weigh in at 1 ounce.
43. Dogs that do not tolerate small children well are the St. Bernard, the Old English sheep dog, the Alaskan malamute, the bull terrier, and the toy poodle.
44. Moles are able to tunnel through 300 feet of earth in a day.
45. Howler monkeys are the noisiest land animals. Their calls can be heard over 2 miles away.
46. A quarter of the horses in the US died of a vast virus epidemic in 1872.
47. The fastest bird is the Spine-tailed swift, clocked at speeds of up to 220 miles per hour.
48. There is no single cat called the panther. The name is commonly applied to the leopard, but it is also used to refer to the puma and the jaguar. A black panther is really a black leopard. A capon is a castrated rooster.
49. The world’s largest rodent is the Capybara. It is an Amazon water hog that looks like a guinea pig; it can weigh more than 100 pounds.
50. The poison-arrow frog has enough poison to kill about 2,200 people.
51. The hummingbird, the loon, the swift, the kingfisher, and the grebe are all birds that cannot walk.
52. The poisonous copperhead snake smells like fresh cut cucumbers.
53. A chameleon’s tongue is twice the length of its body.
54. Worker ants may live seven years and the queen may live as long as 15 years.
55. The blood of mammals is red, the blood of insects is yellow, and the blood of lobsters is blue.
56. Cheetahs make a chirping sound that is much like a bird’s chirp or a dog’s yelp. The sound is so intense; it can be heard a mile away.
57. The underside of a horse’s hoof is called a frog. The frog peels off several times a year with new growth.
58. The bloodhound is the only animal whose evidence is admissible in an American court. 98% of brown bears in the United States are in Alaska.
59. Before air conditioning was invented, white cotton slipcovers were put on furniture to keep the air cool.
60. The Barbie doll has more than 80 careers.
61. To make one pound of whole milk cheese, 10 pounds of whole milk is needed.
62. 99% of pumpkins are sold for decoration.
63. Every 30 seconds a house fire doubles in size.
64. The month of December is the most popular month for weddings in the Philippines.
65. A one ounce milk chocolate bar has 6 mg of caffeine.
66. Carbon monoxide can kill a person in less than 15 minutes.
67. The largest ever hailstone weighed over 1kg and fell in Bangladesh in 1986.
68. Ants can live up to 16 years.
69. In Belgium, there is a museum that is just for strawberries.
70. The sense of smell of an ant is just as good as a dog’s.
71. Popped popcorn should be stored in the freezer or refrigerator as this way it can stay crunchy for up to three weeks.
72. Coca-Cola was originally green.
73. The most common name in the world is Mohammed.
74. The name of all the continents ends with the same letter that they start with.
75. The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.
76. TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.
77. Women blink nearly twice as much as men!!
78. You can’t kill yourself by holding your breath.
79. It is impossible to lick your elbow.
80. People say “Bless You” when you sneeze because when you sneeze, your heart stops for a millisecond.
81. It is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the sky.
82. The “sixth sick sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick” is said to be the toughest tongue twister in the English language.
83. If you sneeze too hard, you can fracture a rib. If you try to suppress a sneeze, you can rupture a blood vessel in your head or neck and die.
84. Each king in a deck of playing cards represents great king from history. Spades – King David, Clubs – Alexander the Great, Hearts – Charlemagne, Diamonds – Julius Caesar.
85. 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
86. If a statue of a person in the park on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle. If the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle. If the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.
87. What do bullet proof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers and laser printers all have in common? Ans. – All invented by women.
88. This is the only food that doesn’t spoil. What is this? Answer: Honey.
89. A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.
90. A snail can sleep for three years.
91. All polar bears are left handed.
92. American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served in first-class.
93. Butterflies taste with their feet.
94. Elephants are the only animals that can’t jump.
95. In the last 4000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.
96. On average, people fear spiders more than they do death.
97. The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
98. Most lipstick contains fish scales.
99. Like fingerprints, everyone’s tongue print is different.
100. Tapeworms range in size from about 0.04 inch to more than 50 feet in length.
101. A baby bat is called a pup.
102. German Shepherds bite humans more than any other breed of dog.
103. A female mackerel lays about 500,000 eggs at one time.
104. It takes 35 to 65 minks to produce the average mink coat. The numbers for other types of fur coats are: beaver – 15; fox – 15 to 25; ermine – 150; chinchilla – 60 to 100.

About Phythagorus

Since the fourth century AD, Pythagoras has commonly been given credit for discovering the Pythagorean theorem, a theorem in geometry that states that in a right-angled triangle the square of the hypotenuse (the side opposite the right angle), c, is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides, b and a—that is, a² + b² = c².

While the theorem that now bears his name was known and previously utilized by the Babylonians and Indians, he, or his students, are often said to have constructed the first proof. It must, however, be stressed that the way in which the Babylonians handled Pythagorean numbers, implies that they knew that the principle was generally applicable, and knew some kind of proof, which has not yet been found in the (still largely unpublished) cuneiform sources.^[4] Because of the secretive nature of his school and the custom of its students to attribute everything to their teacher, there is no evidence that Pythagoras himself worked on or proved this theorem. For that matter, there is no evidence that he worked on any mathematical or meta-mathematical problems. Some attribute it as a carefully constructed myth by followers of Plato over two centuries after the death of Pythagoras, mainly to bolster the case for Platonic meta-physics, which resonate well with the ideas they attributed to Pythagoras. This attribution has stuck, down the centuries up to modern times. ^[5] The earliest known mention of Pythagoras’s name in connection with the theorem occurred five centuries after his death, in the writings of Cicero and Plutarch.

Retrieved 21st September 2008 from Pythagoras. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoras

As a member the Chinese community (though I am not of Chinese citizenship), China has always believed the Pythagorus’ theorem to be discovered by a member of our ancestry and termed it 勾股定理 (Gougu theorem), not sure which came first, but the sheer lack of respect of intellectual property rights by the Greeks calls into question the legitimacy of the whole entire western world calling it by his name doesn’t it?

Greatest Story Ever Told

Sapphire

I love the September birth stone!

In earlier times, some people believed that the firmament was an enormous blue sapphire in which the Earth was embedded. Could there be a more apt image to describe the beauty of an immaculate sapphire? And yet this gem comes not in one but in all the blue shades of that firmament, from the deep blue of the evening sky to the shining mid-blue of a lovely summer’s day which casts its spell over us. However, this magnificent gemstone also comes in many other colours: not only in the transparent greyish-blue of a distant horizon but also in the gloriously colourful play of light in a sunset – in yellow, pink, orange and purple. Sapphires really are gems of the sky, although they are found in the hard ground of our ‘blue planet’.

Blue is the main colour of the sapphire. Blue is also the favourite colour of some 50 per cent of all people, men and women alike. We associate this colour, strongly linked to the sapphire as it is, with feelings of sympathy and harmony, friendship and loyalty: feelings which belong to qualities that prove their worth in the long term – feelings in which it is not so much effervescent passion that is to the fore, but rather composure, mutual understanding and indestructible trust. Thus the blue of the sapphire has become a colour which fits in with everything that is constant and reliable. That is one of the reasons why women in many countries wish for a sapphire ring on their engagement. The sapphire symbolises loyalty, but at the same time it gives expression to people’s love and longing. Perhaps the most famous example of this blue is to be found in music, in George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue”. And the blue of the sapphire even appears where nothing at all counts except clear-sightedness and concentrated mental effort. The first computer which succeeded in defeating a world chess champion bore the remarkable name ‘Deep Blue’.

What makes the sapphire so fancy?Its beauty, its magnificent colours, its transparency, but also its constancy and durability are qualities associated with this gemstone by gemstone lovers and specialists alike. (This does not only apply to the blue sapphire, but more of that later on). The sapphire belongs to the corundum group, the members of which are characterised by their excellent hardness (9 on the Mohs scale). Indeed their hardness is exceeded only by that of the diamond – and the diamond is the hardest mineral on Earth! Thanks to that hardness, sapphires are easy to look after, requiring no more than the usual care on the part of the wearer.Top-quality sapphires are rareSapphires, call them gemstones of the sky though we may, lie well hidden in just a few places, and first have to be brought to light through hard work. Sapphires are found in India, Burma, Ceylon, Thailand, Vietnam, Australia, Brazil and Africa. From the gemstone mines, the raw crystals are first taken to the cutting-centres where they are turned into sparkling gemstones by skilled hands. When cutting a sapphire, indeed, the cutter has to muster all his skill, for these gemstones are not only hard. Depending on the angle from which you look at them they also have different colours and intensities of colour. So it is the job of the cutter to orientate the raw crystals in such a way that the colour is brought out to its best advantage.

 

The gemstones in the corundum group consist of pure aluminium oxide which crystallised into wonderful gemstones a long time ago as a result of pressure and heat at a great depth. The presence of small amounts of other elements, especially iron and chrome, are responsible for the colouring, turning a crystal that was basically white into a blue, red, yellow, pink or greenish sapphire. However, this does not mean that every corundum is also a sapphire. For centuries there were differences of opinion among the specialists as to which stones deserved to be called sapphires. Finally, it was agreed that the ruby-red ones, coloured by chrome, should be called ‘rubies’ and all those which were not ruby-red ‘sapphires’.

If there is talk of the sapphire, most gemstone aficionados think immediately of a velvety blue. It’s a versatile colour that becomes many wearers. A blue sapphire fits in best with a well balanced lifestyle in which reliability and temperament run together and there is always a readiness to encounter things new – as with the woman who wears it. The fact that this magnificent gemstone also comes in a large number of other colours was known for a long time almost only to insiders. In the trade, sapphires which are not blue are referred to as ‘fancies’. In order to make it easier to differentiate between them, they are referred to not only by their gemstone name but also by a description of their colour. In other words, fancy sapphires are described as yellow, purple, pink, green or white sapphires. Fancy sapphires are pure individualism and are just made for lovers of individualistic coloured stone jewellery. They are currently available in a positively enchanting variety of designs – as ring stones, necklace pendants or ear jewellery, as solitaires, strung elegantly together or as sparkling pavée.

However, the sapphire has yet more surprises in store. For example there is an orange variety with a fine pink undertone which bears the poetic name ‘padparadscha’, which means something like ‘lotus flower’. The star sapphires are another rarity, half-dome-cut sapphires with a starlike light effect which seems to glide across the surface of the stone when it is moved. There are said to have been gemstone lovers who fell in love with these sapphire rarities for all time. And indeed the permanence of relationships is one of the features that are said to belong to this gemstone.

 

 

Depending on where they were found, the colour intensity and hue of the cut stones vary, which means, later on, that the wearer is rather spoilt for choice. Should she perhaps go for a mid-blue stone which will remind her even on rainy days of that shining summer sky? Or should she prefer a lighter blue because it will continue to sparkle vivaciously when evening falls? The bright light of day makes most sapphires shine more vividly than the more subdued artificial light of evening. So in fact it is not, as is often claimed, the darkest tone that is the most coveted colour of the blue sapphire, but an intense, rich, full blue which still looks blue in poor artificial light.

Specialists and connoisseurs regard the Kashmir colour with its velvety shine as the most beautiful and most valuable blue. These magnificent gemstones from Kashmir, found in 1880 after a landslide at an altitude of 16,000 feet and mined intensively over a period of eight years, were to have a lasting influence on people’s idea of the colour of a first-class sapphire. Typical of the Kashmir colour is a pure, intense blue with a very subtle violet undertone, which is intensified yet more by a fine, silky shine. It is said that this hue does not change in artificial light. But the Burmese colour is also regarded as particularly valuable. It ranges from a rich, full royal blue to a deep cornflower blue.

The oldest sapphire finds are in Ceylon, or Sri Lanka as it is known today. There, people were already digging for gemstones in ancient times. The specialist recognises Ceylon sapphires by the luminosity of their light to mid-blue colours. Having said that, most blue sapphires come either from Australia or from Thailand.

Their value depends on their size, colour and transparency. With stones of very fine quality, these are, however, not the only main criteria, the origin of the gem also playing a major role. Neither is the colour itself necessarily a function of the geographical origin of a sapphire, which explains the great differences in price between the various qualities. The most valuable are genuine Kashmir stones. Burmese sapphires are valued almost as highly, and then come the sapphires from Ceylon. The possibility of the gemstone’s having undergone some treatment or other is also a factor in determining the price, since gemstones which can be guaranteed untreated are becoming more and more sought-after in this age of gemstone cosmetics. And if the stone selected then also happens to be a genuine, certificated Kashmir or Burmese, the price will probably reflect the enthusiasm of the true gemstone lover.

It is not often that daring pioneers discover gemstones on a scale such as was the case on Madagascar a few years ago, when a gemstone deposit covering an area of several miles was found in the south-east of the island. Since then, not only have there been enough blue sapphires in the trade, but also some splendid pink and yellow sapphires of great beauty and transparency. Meanwhile, experts in Tanzania have also found initial evidence of two large-scale gemstone deposits in the form of some good, if not very large sapphire crystals coloured blue, green, yellow and orange. And the third country to register new finds recently was Brazil, where sapphires ranging from blue to purple and pink have been discovered. So lovers of the sapphire need not worry: there will, in future, be enough of these ‘heavenly’ gems with the fine colour spectrum. Top-quality sapphires, however, remain extremely rare in all the gemstone mines of the world.

Retrieved 12th June 2008 from http://www.gemstone.org/gem-by-gem/english/sapphire.html

Maybe it is all not so simple

Referring to recent article on Newsweek (May 3, 2008), by Kishore Mahbubani, retrieved 3rd May 2008 from http://www.newsweek.com/id/134272,

Tibet Through Chinese Eyes

The recent crisis over the Olympic torch and Tibet represent an epic clash: not just between Tibetans and Beijing, but between a self-congratulatory Western worldview and the very different vision of a billion-plus Chinese. Until Western leaders start trying to understand the Chinese perspective, friction is likely to grow, and the victims will include the Tibetans themselves—the very people Western leaders say they want to protect.

According to the current U.S. and European narrative, the popular protests in Tibet and elsewhere were entirely justified. The demonstrators pushed a moral cause: to free the poor Tibetans from an oppressive communist government. And the European leaders who decided to boycott the Olympics’ opening ceremonies, like Germany’s Angela Merkel, deserved nothing but praise for their courageous stance.

The Chinese view could not be more different. Before describing it, however, it is vital to dispel a major Western misconception. Many Americans and Europeans think that China‘s furious reaction to the protests—a reaction that has now inspired a massive boycott of Western goods and businesses in China—has been the result of media manipulation and information control by Beijing. If only the Chinese public had access to real facts, Westerners think, their attitudes would be different. This is a huge mistake. The reality is that some of the strongest anger toward the West at the moment is coming from liberal Western-educated Chinese intellectuals who have access to accurate information. China today enjoys the most competent governance it’s ever had, and its elites are intelligent, well educated and sophisticated—the exact opposite of the “goons and thugs” described by CNN’s Jack Cafferty.

The Chinese are so angry because virtually all of them believe that the Western protests have had little to do with human rights, Tibet or Darfur. Instead, the Chinese think, the West’s real motivation is to deny China the triumph it deserves for its enormous successes. According to this view, Westerners cannot stomach the thought that China is poised to hold the best Olympics ever. Such a spectacle would vividly demonstrate how power has shifted from West to East. This would be intolerable, and thus Americans and Europeans are dead set on finding some way to disrupt the Games—and if Tibet or Darfur won’t suffice, they’ll find some other method. As several Western-educated Chinese friends have whispered to me, “Kishore, this is pure racism. The West cannot bear the thought of China’s succeeding.”

Chinese skepticism about the Western commitment to human rights is well founded. Indeed, there is something ironic about those who have committed genocide against American Indians or Australian Aborigines now castigating China on Tibet. Furthermore, Guantánamo—which Amnesty International has described as “the gulag of our times”—plus Abu Ghraib and European complicity in Washington’s extraordinary rendition program have badly damaged the West’s credibility and legitimacy.

Most Chinese also believe that Tibetans have received special treatment from Beijing. After the disastrous Cultural Revolution, in which all Chinese suffered, Deng Xiaoping adopted a more pragmatic approach to the region. Ruined religious sites were repaired, monasteries were reopened, new monks were allowed to join orders and the Tibetan language was permitted to be used more extensively than before. Chinese leaders believe that China has exercised sovereignty over Tibet for 700 years now, ever since the Yuan dynasty—one reason the “Free Tibet” slogan angers them so much. Then there’s the recent territorial disintegration of the Soviet Union and memories of how the West seized Chinese territory in the 19th century: still more reasons why Chinese suspicions run deep.

What really frustrates Beijing is the West’s apparent lack of comprehension of China’s aims for the Olympics. In 2005, World Bank head Robert Zoellick called on China to become a “responsible stakeholder.” The Beijing Olympics were meant to symbolize China’s willingness to do just that, and the Chinese expected their efforts to be welcomed enthusiastically. But now most Western leaders seem intent on slamming the door in Beijing’s face instead. The tragedy is that this will only stoke angry Chinese nationalism, which has already begun to surface. A fire-breathing Chinese dragon will clamp down on Tibet even harder than the current government has, which would serve no one’s interests. The West’s failure to recognize this fact demonstrates a serious failure of long-term strategic thinking.

If Europe’s leaders really want to show political courage, they should attend the Olympics’ opening ceremonies. Doing so would encourage China to open up further and engage the world. Over time, this will liberalize Chinese society and even lead to greater political and cultural autonomy for the Tibetans. So far, only one major Western leader has shown the requisite courage and foresight: George W. Bush. It is hoped numerous leaders from other continents will join him in Beijing. When that happens, it will only underscore Europe’s growing irrelevance: a tragedy that Europeans are bringing upon themselves.

Mahbubani is dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore and the author of “The New Asian Hemisphere.”

© 2008

The article tries to distinguish between 2 points of views by 2 different groups of people, shaped by two different societies with different cultural values and motives. It is rather succint and valid.

However, in my opinion, maybe it is all not so simple, maybe what we think is a result of clashing opinions may indeed be driven by something deeper, that both sides’ political leaders try to hide behind much simpler facades? How are we to know that what the Chinese perspective (i.e. that [parts at least] of the western world may not be doing so just because they are uncomfortable with [or rather are not willing to accept] the notion that China is going to be the next Big Power?

The western world has seen a history of such things: Waging war (Be it hot or cold) due to some up-there-and-high cause, when instead the real driving forces are just political gains/fear of losses. Take for example the Cold War, is it simply a drive for democracy? Take for example the War in Iraq, is it naively a desire to free our friends on the world from a corrupt and terrorist-infested government?

And here they are again!

On the other hand, to the people it may all be just that. Maybe the irrelevant snatcher of the torch from that wheelchair bound girl on the road of France, it may not be about how the country’s economy and political status will suffer in the rise of China. And we know that the Chinese are not the most mild in their reactions, possibly also an expected consequence to the “mastermind” Chinese government. As I said elsewhere, boycotting Carrefour may not be the best option.

Misunderstandings? Hardly. Yet the author’s ending sentiments I do share. No matter what is the purpose of your aggression, we know that the best course of action’s never to resort to violence. Sit down and have a good talk with each other, and maybe we can see how your economy can do wonders to mine.