Author: Jeremy Wallace
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Data Dilemmas, or How Does One draw lines?
How does one draw lines? Categorizing budget items is extremely difficult. In the US, it is widely acknowledged that around US$17 billion substantial portion of the Dept of Energy’s annual budget is “Defense Activities,” mostly researching and testing nuclear weapons. That spending could easily be classified as “defense” or “military” spending. Closer to home are…
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Headlines
The front page of today’s paper has a large picture of a planet and moon. The caption claims that oceans have been discovered on the 6th moon of Saturn, which is apparently Titan, and points to such a story later on in the paper. A vice mayor from Zhengzhou suggests abolishing GDP-based performance measures. They…
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Newspaper Subscribers
Jessica and I are now proud subscribers to The Beijing News. It’s a Chinese newspaper, but the webpage seems to get along with firefox better than most Chinese sites. Today’s issue had two interesting pieces/letters in the commentary section, which is page A02. The first discusses whether NPC delegates are able to have adequate time…
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What to do while rubber stampering at the NPC
A great photo of delegates sleeping can be found here. Of course, I happen to think that the NPC is becoming more and more politically relevant and less of a pure rubber stamp; however, I decided to avoid that topic for my dissertation based on good advice from my adviser Prof. Jean Oi.
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The only thing that lasts
Two of the major themes at this year’s “Two Conferences” or Lianghui, a.k.a. the NPC and CPPCC, have been continuing to continue building the countryside and to legislate property rights. Those not paying attention might assume that this extension of property rights would be part of the effort to help those unfortunate enough to be…
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Unexpected Secondary Effects
While trying to keep track of the budgetary commitments laid out in the new government work report (in Chinese), I found an interesting tidbit in an otherwise frustrating unclear piece. China Spends More on Rural Education…The move will relieve the financial burden on 150 million rural households with school-age children, who make up nearly 80…
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Chinese New Year’s Eve in Nanjing
[[Note, I began writing this note now a few days ago, and have enjoyed writing it in the style that you will see, but I do not think that I can continue with this level of detail, nor do I wish to subject anyone, even (or perhaps I should say especially not) my family, to…
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A Commemorative Colts Cake
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } A Commemorative Colts Cake, originally uploaded by Jeremy Wallace.
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Super Bowl in Beijing
Watching the Colts win the Superbowl in our apartment in Beijing. Thanks to TVU Player we were able to follow the action with the CBS feed from the States rather than the delayed and presumably bad Chinese language broadcast on CCTV-5. n.b. Yes, that is the Reggie Wayne touchdown that Jessica’s impeccable timing captured live…