Banned in China

So, I promise I'll go back and write all about 12 hours in the West Bank, nearly dying in Kaliningrad (bonus points if you can find it on a map), the Trans-Mongolian Railway, etc., but skipping ahead real quick...

I'm now in Beijing, and it turns out that my blog - along with all of blogspot.com, wikipedia.com, bbcnews.com, and a couple million other websites - is banned in China! By some curious quirk, blogger.com (through which one updates a blogspot.com blog) isn't banned, so I can still post. Still, it's annoying, but in honor of the Party's concern for disseminating only officially-approved information, I instead share highlights from yesterday's edition of "China Daily."

Unstoppable economy (Editorial)
The severe weather conditions that have descended on the central and southern regions, devastating as they are, will not have very serious effect on the nation's economic fundamentals and will not dampen the strong momentum of economic growth, the National Development and Reform Commission has said... Our sizzling economic locomotive is simply too powerful to be hindered by such an episode. Neither the floods of 1998, nor the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) epidemic of 2003 could derail it. The damage wrought by the snowstorms will also pass, according to our economic authorities.

Migrants stay put in Guangdong
GUANGZHOU: More than 12.5 million migrant workers have been persuaded to stay in Guangdong province for Spring Festival, the local labor department said yesterday.

Questions raised over faith 'vote'
On Jan 6, the Dalai Lama compelled monks in India's Gaden Monastery to sign a pledge not to believe in the Buddhist Guardian, Gyaiqen Xudain, and expelled nine monks who refused to take the pledge...

In the 1990s, in the name of fighting against the Buddhist Guardian, the Dalai Lama started slaughtering members of the New Kadampa sect.

He incited the Tibetan Youth Congress, Tibetan Women's Federation and some other branches to forcefully dismantle statues of the Gyaiqen Xudain, and beat up people who refused to obey. Those who refused, were suppressed, and lamas and nuns were driven out of monasteries and nunneries.

Now, the Dalai Lama has resumed his old tricks by calling for a public vote.

Such a "public" vote is indeed blasphemy and is a mockery to democracy and freedom. Due to the Dalai Lama's religious autocratic behavior, people cannot help but think of the inquisition during the Dark Ages and the Pope's slaughter of heathens.

How can such a "Tibetan Buddhism leader" and winner of the "Nobel Peace Prize" resort to such actions?