Pornetry.

The bloggers at Brutal Hugs have decided that, in order to protect the rights of Iraqi detainees under the Geneva Convention, it's okay to deprive American soldiers of their rights under the US constitution. Mark Kleiman is only marginally better.

One more time for the slower members of the class -- refusal to testify, absent a grant of immunity, during an ongoing criminal investigation, is not evidence of guilt, either as a matter of law or of fact. It's more likely evidence that the potential witness has retained competent counsel. To recount a conversation I not long ago had with a client:

"You're not giving a statement."

"But I haven't done anything wrong."

"What's your point."

Anyone who thinks testifying can't get you in trouble if you haven't committed a crime, should try telling that to this cow. A witness who refuses to provide unimmunized testimony, in the midst of a criminal investigation in which the witness's own actions may be at issue, is not displaying "an abundance of caution", as Kleiman suggests, but rather, exercising prudence.

ADDENDUM: Of course, one shouldn't expect too much from a blog that asserts, as Brutal Hugs does, that "drugs aren't just fun. They can be part of a rich life of contemplation."

Bullshit! Drugs are just fun. Looking for enlightenment from drugs is like looking for wisdom in The Gweilo Diaries, i.e., unlikely be rewarding.

Who hasn't encountered the dippy stoner or ecstasy evangelist or acidhead, convinced that his chosen poison endows him with deep and meaningful insights into the mysteries of life, the universe and everything? What a bore. Sadly, one insight that drugs don't seem to offer the pharmacological philosopher is that we all really wish he'd shut the fuck up, or that, if he doesn't, the rest of us are contemplating cleaving his skull with a baseball bat (or a cricket bat for you Commonwealthers who don't realize that real athletes take steroids and not tea).

If you want to contemplate, read Aquinas. If you want to have a good time, do drugs (unless you're over 30, in which case drugs are undignified, raise questions about your maturity, and your employer won't understand when you miss work because you've been busted -- in that case, drink).

Germany's falling birthrate is explained:

A German couple who went to a fertility clinic after eight years of marriage have found out why they are still childless - they weren't having sex.

Doctors subjected them to a series of examinations and found they were both apparently fertile, and should have had no trouble conceiving.

A clinic spokesman said: "When we asked them how often they had had sex, they looked blank, and said: "What do you mean?".

The 30-year-old wife and 36-year-old husband are now being provided sex lessons by the clinic. If that doesn't work out, perhaps this government program will help.

Octogenarian US Democratic Senator and probable alzheimers victim, Fitz Hollings, thinks that Jews are omniscient, omnipotent and, through a secret cabal in the White House, control the US government.

Of course there were no weapons of mass destruction. Israel's intelligence, Mossad, knows what's going on in Iraq. They are the best. They have to know.

Israel's survival depends on knowing. Israel long since would have taken us to the weapons of mass destruction if there were any or if they had been removed. With Iraq no threat, why invade a sovereign country? The answer: President Bush's policy to secure Israel.

Led by Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Charles Krauthammer, for years there has been a domino school of thought that the way to guarantee Israel's security is to spread democracy in the area.

Of course, Hollings has a long history of bigotry.

Still more weirdness from North Korea (via the Marmot).

Heat signatures and some wisps of smoke from wildfires burning in Korean Peninsula are seen in the photo created by American commercial satellite, GFMC. While two forest fires and a normal fire have broken out in South Korea, it appears about 130 fires -- possibly forest fires -- are visible in the North.

No need for a preemptive strike -- between drought, famine, exploding trains and wild-fires, it appears that North is determined to destroy itself -- no doubt a new variation on the philosophy of juche.

It's not just Taiwan whose democratic aspirations are being met with threats from Beijing. In Hong Kong, Allen Lee, a local delegate to China's National People's Congress ("NPC"), radio talk show host and the former chairman of the pro-Beijing, pro-tycoon Liberal Party, yesterday quit his broadcasting job and resigned from the NPC, citing pressure to silence him.

Lee, who was previously close to Beijing officials before he began to express democratic views, replaced Albert Cheng, a long-time host who abruptly resigned after receiving death threats. Lee, along with Cheng and Raymond Wong, is the third pro-democracy radio presenter in the past three weeks, to resign in the face of pressure and threats of violence. Cheng and Wong fled Hong Kong with their families.

Pro-Beijing legislators downplayed the resignations, claiming that quitting one's job is "natural".

Meanwhile, Hong Kong legislator Frederick Fung, leader of the moderate and pro-demcratic Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood, received a letter threatening him with physical harm, while another pro-democracy lawmaker, Leung Yiu-chung, arrived at his office yesterday to find excrement smeared on the walls. Police are investigation whether the trail of kaka was an act of vandalism, or if current Liberal Party chairman James Tien merely dropped by for a visit while Leung was out.

In addition to broadcasters and legislators, private citizens in the SAR continue to report telephone calls from their mainland relatives who plead with their Hong Kong kin to vote for pro-Beijing candidates in September's Legislative Council election. Otherwise, the mainlanders reveal, Chinese officials have promised make their lives difficult.

A Hong Kong resident in Guangdong reported that mainland officials demanded the names and phone numbers of 100 of his Hong Kong friends and, in one Hong Kong company with ties to Beijing, senior executives told employees to vote for pro-Beijing candidates, and to use the cameras in their mobile phones to send pictures of their completed ballot papers to prove it.

In response to the increasing reports of intimidation, Hong Kong's Acting Chief Secretary for Administration, Michael Suen, pledged to protect freedom of expression in the SAR.

Pro-Beijing commentator Ming Kai Lau, however, expressed doubt over claims of intimidations and chided Hong Kongers for being ungrateful to Beijing:

"People will tend to believe that the allegations are true, even if these might have arisen because of misunderstanding or are exaggerated. This is because of their uneasy relationship with the central government."

"For instance, no one has said thanks to Beijing for allowing mainland individual travel to Hong Kong despite the fact that the move has saved tourism here."

'Give me Liberty or give me tourists.' Patrick Henry must be spinning in his grave.

Kopassus, the Indonesian army's special forces unit, has has condemned the US military's treatment of prisoners in Iraq.

Talk about being called ugly by a toad.

Kopassus is responsible for murder, torture and sexual assault, including maintaining "clandestine" torture centers (in Cibubur and Bogor), thousand of rapes, killings and "disappearances" in Acheh, Papua and East Timor, organizing the 1998 anti-Chinese pogrom in Jakarta (in which untold numbers were killed, assaulted, raped and/or burned alive), the 2001 assassination of the non-violent Papuan separatist leader Theys Eluay, coordinating the 1999 orgy of violence in East Timor, the murder of two US citizens near the Freeport gold mine in Papua in 2001, the 1984 massacre of unarmed Muslim protesters at Tanjung Priok, supplying and deploying Islamic extremist thugs, such as Laskar Jihad, in Sulawesi and Ambon and Christ only knows what other heinous shit.

The former head of Kopassus, Lieutenant General Prabowo Subianto, was dismissed from the military in 1998, following the fall of the former dictator Suharto, over his role in the abduction and torture of pro-democracy activists. Amnesty International holds Kopassus "responsible for some of the worst [human rights] violations in Indonesia's history" and describes the unit as " specializing in torture, disappearances and night raids on civilian homes."

Compared to a Kopassus detention center, Abu Ghraib looks like Club Med.

In advance of Taiwanese president Chen Shui-bian's inauguration, China threatens to use military force to "crush'' Taiwanese independence "firmly and thoroughly'' and "at any cost."

"The mainland is ready to afford a slowdown in its modernization bid, a reversion in Sino-U.S. ties and the boycott of the Olympic Games,'' government-owned China Daily quoted Xu Bodong, director of the Institute of Taiwan Studies at Beijing United University, as saying.

I hope they are also prepared for the destruction of their comparatively primitive navy, strikes against mainland airfields and missile bases, the destruction of any invasion force at sea and the consequential overthrow of Communist Party rule, because if China uses force against Taiwan, the US will respond, China will lose and the CCP will be brought down by the very knee-jerk nationalism it has fostered.

The Hong Kong government has had another visionary idea. Unfortunately, like all such previous ideas, it's a vision from someone dropping acid.

Having pissed away untold resources trying to turn Hong Kong into an amusement park host like Anaheim, a high tech center like Silicon Valley, a manufacturing dynamo like Guangzhou and a logistics hub like Singapore, our leaders now intend to ape New York.

Hong Kong is to learn from New York and will redesign itself to attract more tourists by enhancing shopping, food and cultural facilities, with the focus on Lan Kwai Fong, Causeway Bay and Tsim Sha Tsui.

The Lan Kwai Fong area will be the heart of the food culture under the new metropolitan tourism concept.

Causeway Bay will be moulded into a miniature shopping paradise. The government will build on the existing shopping arcades and department stores such as Sogo and Times Square, high-end boutiques such as Louis Vuitton, Chanel and Christian Dior, and also Jardine's Crescent where cheap clothing is sold.

The source said Tsim Sha Tsui will become the cultural cradle which is an important ingredient if Hong Kong is to be developed along the lines of New York.

Lan Kwai Fong, the habitat of on-the-piss expats and mainland adventure tourists photographing the aforementioned pale, large-nosed, lumbering beasts, shall become Greenwich Village. Causeway Bay, home to a shopping mall, a second-tier Japanese department store and vendors of used mobile phones, will be transformed into Fifth Avenue. Tsim Sha Tsui is to be another Lincoln Center, but one infested with dodgy Indian touts, titty bars and consumer electronics rip-off artists.

As a native New Yorker, my urge to laugh uproariously is tempered only by the realization that, as a current Kong Kong taxpayer, the joke is on me.

Meanwhile, The Standard reports that InvestHK Director Mike Rowse may face dismissal for frittering away HK$100 million on Harbour Fest, the ill-conceived government sponsored pop-concert. This seems grossly unfair. Punishing a Hong Kong bureaucrat for wasting public money? That's what they do. It's the nature of the beast, so to speak. One might as well condemn a bird for flying or a fish for swimming.

Saturday found me celebrating my birthday in an alcohol induced blur. This evening brought the inevitable repercussions.

Ring, ring.

"Hello."

"Hi Conrad, it's Winnie."

[Winnie friggin' who?] . . . . "Er, hi."

"You remember? We were dancing. On Saturday? At Drop?"

[Not a fecking clue Sweetheart.] "Of course, of course, how are you Honey?"

"Good. I've missed you. Can I see you tonight?"

[It depends, are you beastly?] "Uhm. . . . What time?"

Around 7:00?"

[Oh, what the hell.] "Sure. How about we meet for a drink in Soho?"

"Ok-lah, meet me at Peak Cafe"

[The Peak? Are you nuts?!? I'm not hauling my ass all the way up there. Oh yeah, what the hell am I thinking, it's not actually on the Peak anymore. Why do I keep forgetting that?] "That's fine."

"See you, bye-bye."

Click.

This should prove interesting. Sort of like Russian roulette, but with the possibility of getting laid instead of my brains blown out.

Every 17 years, billions of insects emerge from the ground in the Eastern United States with, as Reuters describes it, "a single goal in mind" -- to prove that American children are morons:

First there was the girl who fell off her bike fleeing a flying cicada. Then a boy trying to swat a cicada out of the air with a baseball bat instead hit his friend in the nose.

The final straw came when another child hurt his hand trying to squish a cicada under a car's tires. Dr. Ray Baker of Cincinnati Children's Hospital was convinced -- cicadas can be a safety hazard to children.

We just noticed when this all started, children were coming in and having injuries related to cicadas," Baker said in a telephone interview.

"After the third or fourth one we decided to keep a list."

They noted 12 injuries that were fairly significant, Baker said. He wrote a letter to the journal Pediatrics afterward, outlining the cases.

Several children fell off bikes, Baker said. "We had a concussion, a 9-year-old who was fleeing a cicada on her bicycle and fell off," he said.

Another child hit his head on a brick wall while he was running away from one of the insects.

"We had a stab wound to the arm from a kid who was trying to kill a cicada on the arm of another child but unfortunately he was using a knife," Baker added.

"Another kid tried to kick one under a lawn mower and cut his foot, and we saw a crush injury to the hand when a kid tried to put a cicada under the wheels of a moving car."

The parents must be very proud.

With his memoirs out of the way, Bill Clinton is going to need something to keep him occupied. Here's an organization that could put his special talents to good use.

And he's already a New York resident.

(Via Country Store)

US Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry is clearly trying to land the endorsement of The Gweilo Diaries.

Okay Dubbya, the ball is now in your court. Tell Jenna and Barbara, off with their kit.

The independent panel appointed to investigate Harbour Fest, Hong Kong's government financed concert series (yes, along with amusment parks, technology start-ups and unoccupied property boondoggles, the HK government thinks that staging pop concerts is an appropriate use of taxpayer funds) released its report yesterday, concluding what everyone except festival organizer James Thompson already knew -- that the event was a complete fiasco.

Among the report's more interesting revelations is the fact that the artists -- using the term "artists", in the case of many of the performers, in the loosest possible manner -- were wildly overpaid. Prince and Neil Young, for example received US$800,000 and US$700,000 more than their standard maximum fees, respectively, while Irish boy-band Westlife received a US$300,000 premium. When Young, whose US$800,000 Harbour Fest windfall was 8 times his usual US$100,000 fee, famously sang "don't want no cash, don't need no money," he was, apparently, only joking.

That Russian faux-lesbians t.A.T.u and the egregious Air Supply were actually paid at all shocks the conscience.

Notwithstanding the litany of management failures identified by the panel, the largely empty venue, the embarrassingly awful press coverage and the cost to taxpayers of HK$100 million (US$12.9 million), Thompson -- who, when not living out his taxpayer subsidized concert promotor fantasies, serves as director of a removals, excuse me, "logistics", company -- continues to insist, against all evidence, that the event was a success.

UPDATE: It seems that someone in Hong Kong actually liked Harbour Fest and, if that's not odd enough, he believes that his perverse enjoyment is sufficient reason to compel me to help pay for it.

Here's a suggestion, anyone wanting an annual pop-concert series in Hong Kong can bloody well pay for a market price ticket and keep their grubby mits out of the public coffers and my pockets.

Perhaps Raymond Wu had a point about Hong Kongers, democracy and dog biscuits after all.

The South Korean foreign ministry announced that the US is considering redeploying to Iraq some of the 37,000 American troops currently stationed in Korea. A South Korean newspaper reports that 4,000 US forces will be transferred. Given that Seoul has pissed around for months to avoid sending to Iraq the 3,000 ROK troops it previously promised, this seems fitting.

If you've ever considered joining an organization making a difference in the world but the US Marines, Peace Corp and Doctors Without Borders are out of the question due to the risk of being shot by RPG wielding jihadis, an aversion to living in a malaria infested shit hole and the lack of a medical degree, respectively, here's an alternative that may be of interest.

From Saudi Arabia's Arab News:

Rare Beauties Seen in Camel Pageant

This is what happens when you keep your women covered in bedsheets.

Hong Kong's leading Buddhist monk, Kok Kwong, declared that Buddhists should not participate in politics. Kok then participated in politics by defending Mr. Tung's leadership and urging citizens not to take part in scheduled pro-democracy demonstartions on July 1st.

"It is best if we Buddhists don't participate in politics, and there would be peace. We all should not participate in things like demonstrations," he said, adding that the public should instead maintain social harmony.

"I think Tung has done a good job. He is very tolerant for he has endured daily criticism. People's hearts are just not content."

Kok also declared that Hong Kong was not yet enlightened enough to elect its own leaders and urged Hong Kongers to wait for democracy until "the time is ripe" . . . perhaps two or three incarnations from now.

Hong Kong's most prominent pro-democracy radio presenters, Albert Cheng and Raymond Wong, each quit their jobs last week, citing pressure, exhaustion and fears for their safety. Both had been harassed or assaulted during the past several months. Cheng previously survived a 1998 stabbing.

The director of the mainland Institute of Hong Kong and Macau Affairs ludicrously alleged that calls for universal sufferage were merely a pretext and that Hong Kong democrats' true agenda is a Hong Kong independant and autonomous from China.

The SCMP reports a recent spate of frightened telephone calls to Hong Kongers from their mainland relatives. It seems that Party officials in China have been paying said relatives a visit and demanding that their Hong Kong kin support pro-Beijing DAB party candidates in upcoming Legco elections, or else.

The mainland communist party mouth-piece China Daily engages in a remarkable display of projection, accusing Hong Kong's "radicals" (i.e., pro-democrats) of being privileged, arrogant, corrupt, dishonest, tyrannical and non-responsive to the demands of the people, of "chest-beating, slogan shouting, and mud-slinging", of operating "propaganda mouthpieces", protecting the interests of their cronies and supporters, of never admitting mistakes and behaving "like the emperors in old China".

Communists -- oblivious to irony since 1917.

Finally, China has greeted the inauguration of Taiwan's democratically elected President Chen Shui-bian, by demanding the Taiwanese people accept Chinese sovereignty over their island or "meet their own destruction by playing with fire."

I'm off to the mainland for a few days on business. In place of the usual insightful commentary, you'll have to make due with Raschel from the Philippines:

Sorry about that.

The Gweilo Diaries officially endorses:

Hemlock in '08

(Follow link and scroll down to the May 12 entry)

Sometimes the New York Times really is beyond parody. Only a Times reporter could see, in the story of Tony Taguba -- the son of an enlistedman, who immigrated to America from the Philippines at age 11 and rose to the rank of Major General in the US Army -- intimations of discrimination.

At 42nd Street, Taguba's ascension to the Chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs of Staff must have been blocked by prejudice, while Colin Powell's must have been abetted by affirmative action.

The treatment of Iraqi prsioners at the hands of US Army reservists was unacceptable, the perpetrators and their superiors should be punished and measures should be implemented to prevent a reoccurance. But the posturing ninnies in yesterday's US Senate hearings, who used words like "horrific" and "unspeakable" to describe the MP's actions, are in need of some perspective.

Today Al Qaeda provides it:

Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq beheaded an American civilian and vowed more killings in revenge for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners, an Islamist Web site said Tuesday.

A poor quality videotape on the site showed a man dressed in orange overalls sitting bound on a white plastic chair in a bare room, then on the floor with five masked men behind him.

"My name is Nick Berg, my father's name is Michael... I have a brother and sister, David and Sarah," said the bound man, adding he was from Philadelphia.

After one of the masked men read out a statement, they pushed Berg to the floor and shouted "God is greatest" above his screams as one of them sawed his head off with a large knife then held it aloft for the camera.

Given the choice, I suspect Nick Berg would have much preferred performing simulated sex acts for Lynndie England and her cohorts.

UPDATE: One of my favorite bloggers, Tom of Functional Ambivalent, characterizes observations of the type I make above, as moral relativism. I disagree.

Is it relativism to recognize that there are various degrees of evil? Are all sins of a kind? For example, is the humiliation of a detainee, by low level troops acting contrary to stated policy, remotely comparable to sawing the head off a living prisoner, with sanction from the highest levels, and promising more of the same?

I think not.

Abu Ghraib should, in the end, be a source of pride, not shame, for the West. Yes, certain soldiers did bad things. Sadly, such has always been, and likely will always be, the case in war. However, the reaction -- internal investigation, media outrage, prosecutions, public revulsion, Congressional investigation, official denunciation and apology, in other words, the overwhelming public and official repudiation of the acts -- speak well of our society.

I will not hold my breath awaiting the revulsion of the "Arab street", the condemnation of the Arab press or the apologies of Islamic leaders, for the brutal murder of Nick Berg.

Abu Ghraib proves, not that we aren't perfect -- we already knew that. Rather, Abu Ghraib, or more specifically, our reaction to it, proves the manifest superiority of our society and culture over that of our enemies.

With Uganda's gorilla-watching industry in a severe slump, after eight foreign tourists and a park ranger stumbled upon a band Rwandan guerrillas rather than Ugandan gorillas, with fatal consequences. Uganda has therefore decided to replace lost tourist revenue by licensing nude dancing.

Because where else in the world can one find that?

The dancers, known as ekimansulo, will be licensed to perform in the capital city of Kampala and the taxes could be high, the BBC said, quoting Uganda's Monitor newspaper.

I just can't see myself flying all the way to south-central Africa to watch nude dancing. Besides, aren't topless dancing African girls pretty much a staple of the National Geographic Channel?

Now, if they were licensing nude dancing gorillas . . . or even nude dancing guerrillas, maybe.

It's not enough that we Hong Kongers don't get universal sufferage, blogger Infidel wants to bankrupt us as well.

If anyone needed any more proof about the Bush administration's limp-wristed approach to China, this incredibly arrogant quote should leave no doubts:

Under the Hong Kong Policy Act, the White House is empowered to withdraw trade and other privileges from Hong Kong if the U.S. president determines that the territory's promised autonomy is undermined. But a senior U.S. official says this is unlikely, adding: "There's a strong argument to be made that there is sufficient autonomy."

No need to let elections interfere with a little business.

Beijing denies us the right to choose our representatives and Infidel wants to take away our trading rights, because recession and disenfranchisement is so much more amusing than mere disenfranchisement alone.

Not even the kookiest of the pro-democrats -- say Emily Lau or "Long Hair'' Leung Kwok-hung -- would advocate sanctoning Hong Kong for Beijing's recent actions. Hell, sanction the Tibetans while you're at it, Beijing isn't letting them vote either. And, if the US wants to alienate public opinion in Asia's most pro-western city, I can't think of a better way of doing it than by damaging our economy.

Hong Kong has freedom of the press, speech, assembly and religion, private property, an independent judiciary, free market capitalism, open borders and a partially elected legislature -- if the US is going to sancton us, if that's the new standard, then they'd better be prepared to block trade with more than three-quarters of the countries in the world, starting with the entire Middle East and Africa, Russia and much of Asia.

What a terrible idea. Your concern is appreciated Infidel, but please don't help us anymore, okay.

(Link via Simon)

Medgar Evers, the 16th Street Baptist Church, Ben Chester White and now, perhaps, justice for Emmett Till:

Emmett Till, a Chicagoan who was visiting relatives in Money, Miss., [in] August [1955], was dragged from his bed, beaten, shot and dropped in the Tallahatchie River after he had been accused of whistling at a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, in her family's store. The image of Emmett's battered body in an open coffin at his funeral in Chicago became a galvanizing moment in the civil rights movement, particularly for many Northerners removed from the brutalities of the Jim Crow era.

Testimony from witnesses linked two white men — Carolyn Bryant's husband, Roy Bryant, and his half-brother, J. W. Milam — to the crime. But an all-white jury acquitted them after the defense appealed to the jurors' white heritage. The defendants later gloated about the killing and provided gruesome details about the torture and murder in a Look magazine article. Both are now dead.

The US Justice Department announced Monday that it was opening a criminal investigation into the case.

Prosecutors claim new information indicates that people in addition to the two original suspects may have been involved.

Local property tycoon Ronnie Chan, who previously accused Hong Kong people of being too poor, immature and uneducated for democracy, yesterday declared that Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa lacked the political skills necessary to lead the SAR.

Chan then demonstrated his own political acumen by launching an entirely unprovoked personal attack on the public figure Hong Konger most trust, former civil service chief, Anson Chan.

Chan did credit Mr. Tung with being a good manager, perhaps unaware of the latest demonstration of government ineptitude -- that, of the HK$$461 million (US$59 million) invested in the government's "Applied Technology Research Fund", the fund had lost $247 (US$32 million). Out of 50 projects in which government funds were invested, 32 lost money -- with 18 losing at least 90% of their value.

The Vatican's foreign minister, Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo -- about whom more below -- demands that the United Nations be given "a defining role" in Iraq.

Makes sense to me. If you're going to abuse and humiliate the locals, by all means turn the job over to those with real experience:

The UN Mission to Ethiopia and Eritrea (Unmee) patrols a 1,000km (620 mile) border between the two Horn of Africa countries, which fought a war between 1998 and 2000 that is thought to have killed more than 70,000 people.

Eritrea broadcast a statement on Thursday alleging a string of offences committed by Unmee, including housing criminals, paedophilia, making pornography and even using the national currency as toilet paper.

An Unmee report last June quoted Eritrean women as saying Irish peacekeepers on the mission had used prostitutes as young as 15.

The Eritrean government said: "The fact that Unmee has to date not taken any concrete actions and shown no co-operation to correct its modus operandi and clean up its activities, exposes to grave danger the peace and stability of the people and government of Eritrea, as well as the security and stability of our region."

The UN response was that, if the Eritreans don't appreciate the international community's efforts to establish prostitution, pornography and toilet paper indiustries in their developing nation, then the UN will bloodly well go home and leave them to the slaughter.

Ungrateful bastards.

The song "Fast, I Love the China Football Super League" by Hong Kong Canto-pop star and menace to the public highways, Nicholas Tse, has been selected as the league's theme song, the official Chinese news agency Xinhua reports:

Speaking at the press conference in Shanghai, a Chinese football authority said they hope Nicholas Tse's song will endow the China Football Super League with more cultural significance. It took the singer several months to compose.

Can anyone doubt that this is a sign?

(Link via Hemlock)