Nobel Peace prize to Chinese prisoner

[softwareNerd]

The Nobel Peace prize doesn't mean much, because it's a political statement by a bunch of European style leftists. Despite that, I'm glad to see this year's prize go to a Chinese dissident, Liu Xiaobo, who is currently jailed in China. The Chinese consider "face' to be extremely important, so something like this is the kind of egg that stings particularly. I'm also glad to see that Obama commented positively on the Nobel committee's choice.

[softwareNerd]

The FT reports that:

A group of veteran reformers in China’s Communist party has demanded that the country dismantle its elaborate censorship apparatus, an appeal for accelerated political reform which Beijing quickly moved to silence.

In an open letter to the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, 23 former senior party cadres and one-time editors at party media called on the legislative body to pass laws entrenching the freedoms of speech and publishing that are guaranteed in the constitution but often denied in practice.

The article is mixed: the good thing is that some who are or were part of the establishment want to open up still further; the bad is that they were silenced. Still, I assume the silencing is like insiders telling other insiders that they will get their change in good time. The FT also reports the Chinese prime-minister the desire for more characterizing democracy and freedom as "irresistible" .