The HK government finally more-or-less resolutely fixes its national anthem Google algorithm woes by putting the music clips on its own English-language website (instead of linking to a PRC government site in simplified Chinese, which ‘would have been unintelligible to the organizers in Sarajevo’). Who would have thought it could be so easy? Why didn’t they just do this from the start?
Now maybe they can sort out the traffic/parking mess on Queens Rd Central – and hundreds of other streets in urban areas where cars come first and pedestrians last.
Some mid-week links…
The Guardian looks at rights lawyer Xu Zhiyong – once hailed as one of China’s top legal figures, now in prison for 14 years for ‘subversion’.
British politicians feel effects of being sanctioned by Beijing…
Lord Alton recalled one occasion when he was warned the Foreign Office could not guarantee his safety if he went to see British troops in the Middle East with a parliamentary committee.
…“But I was given warning by the Foreign Office in advance that they couldn’t guarantee my safety.
“The anxiety would be that [China] might have an extradition agreement with a country you’re visiting, and it might just suit that country to ingratiate themselves with the People’s Republic of China because of, perhaps, indebtedness over Belt and Road.”
From CMP, all you wanted to know about the ‘Six Adheres’. For example, Number 2 is ‘Self-confidence and self-sufficiency (自信自立)’, meaning…
…China must adhere to a “firm faith” (坚定信仰) in the tenets of socialism, and a “firm belief” (坚定信念) in Xi Jinping Thought. This involves the so-called “Four Confidences” (四个自信), which for a time in 2021 became five.
The grovel is the message.
Why didn’t they just do this from the start?
Patriotism
Why didn’t they just do this from the start?
Because – like what happened just prior to the storming of LegCo during The Protests – the stage needs to be set in order to create a situation that then justifies subsequent actions.
Or they’re Ooompah Loompahs – though the two aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive… the Oompah Loompahs may have just been implementing what Western District instructed them to do.
They didn’t do it before because, quite obviously, these are people who don’t perceive how other people think. They prefer to think that the rest of the world should think just like them. The entire government IT infrastructure is like this. All of the information is organised as if itis the filing cabinet for the backend server administrator. It has nothing to do with user design or user interaction. It’s really just bureaucracy links.
Also, is it just me or do the four confidences sound like something a really insecure person would believe in?
Your attempt to brand Ooompah Loompahs as mindless clones is quite misjudged.
I spent a pleasant summer as an intern in the Oompah Loompah land. I can confirm the Loompahs (as they call themselves) are highly individualised happy characters with well manicured hair, good oral hygiene and a faint whiff of Old Spice – which is used by both male and female Loompahs .
12-hour waits at A&E not ideal: health secretary
Understatement of the day/week/month/et al?
But he doesn’t fail to push covid jabs…
“The HK government finally more-or-less resolutely fixes its national anthem Google algorithm woes by putting the music clips on its own English-language website (instead of linking to a PRC government site in simplified Chinese, which ‘would have been unintelligible to the organizers in Sarajevo’). Who would have thought it could be so easy? Why didn’t they just do this from the start?”
Because they’re absolute cretins who would rather shirk their responsibilities, blame the vulnerable when they’re the cunts inciting hatred on themselves.
Sounds like Anthem Gate isn’t quite over:
https://hongkongfp.com/2023/04/19/govt-website-with-chinese-anthem-download-links-tops-google-results-for-hong-kong-national-anthem/
“When HKFP used an incognito window, however, Glory to Hong Kong was still the first result in the Google search.”
On the national anthem search result, I’m sure there’s a lot of manual search result optimisation going on – 15 years ago Cambodian farmers given an internet connection and told to search repeatedly for whatever….
@Mark Bradley
Don’t tell the HKSARG, but their super duper “problem solved forever” government website thing only appears at the top on Google if you’re in… Hong Kong.
Which is of course the only place where the folks googling it already know that using Glory to Hong Kong as the national anthem upsets the HKSARG and the CCP (and amuses the populace). It’s why it was written and why most of the populace sang it all the time in the first place.