Meanwhile in China…

Mr Ai [WeiWei] says ordinary Chinese people have been tucking banknotes into paper aeroplanes and flying them over his garden wall, in order to contribute to the $2.4m tax bill that Chinese authorities say he owes them. He was detained in April and held for nearly three months for what the Communist Party later said was tax evasion. Mr Ai says that the charges are politically motivated, a response to his outspoken criticism of the party.

One Chinese supporter in the southern city of Guangzhou told the BBC he had sent a postal order [a money transfer] to Mr Ai because it was a “rare opportunity to support what I believe.” The supporter added, “I will keep my receipt of the postal order forever, because it is my first real vote.” The Chinese government, desperate to prevent such shows of support for a man it considers to be deeply subversive, has attempted to prevent the contributions.

Från Banyan.

Imagine that…

Från R.A på The Economist Free Exchange:

Doing a bit of background research for a piece on the euro zone, I stumbled across this:

Inspiration for the € symbol itself came from the Greek epsilon (Є) – a reference to the cradle of European civilisation – and the first letter of the word Europe, crossed by two parallel lines to ‘certify’ the stability of the euro.

Quite.

Recent Kauffman poll among economics bloggers.

"We are but dust and shadows. And that’s ok."

Quintus Horatius Flaccus. With a less gloomy addition by me.

1984 is right now

Vowing to promote the development of what it called a healthy
Internet culture, the Central Committee said it will supervise the world’s biggest online community more closely, promote “constructive” websites and punish the spread of “harmful information,”…

China’s leaders are grappling with the best way to manage Twitter-like social-media sites such as Sina Corp.’s Weibo service that are hard for government censors to control.

That coincided with an announcement last night that new limits would be imposed on the number of “overly entertaining and vulgar” reality and talent shows aired on television.

Starting next year, the nation’s 34 satellite channels must limit themselves to two such programs every week, according to a statement yesterday on China’s State Administration of Radio, Film and Television’s website.

The new rules are meant to “prevent the trend of overly entertaining and vulgar programs, and satisfy mass audience demand for various multi-level and high standard programs,’” the statement said. Channels should “start an ideology and morals-building program to promote Chinese traditional virtue and socialist core values,” it said.

(Source: bloomberg.com)