Alan at the Good Beer Blog reports:

Andhra Pradesh is dry this summer. A dispute between manufacturers and
suppliers of beer has left bars and liquor shops without any stocks of
beer, the state’s most popular summer drink.

Nitin at the Acorn notes a movement to include Pakistan dictator Musharraf’s picture on the currency:

Ishfaq Chaudhry, the Pakistan People’s Movement
chairman, has moved the Lahore High Court (LHC) to direct the State
Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to publish the picture of President General
Pervez Musharraf on the Rs 5,000 currency notes.

The petitioner said that 80 percent of the people of Pakistan supported President Pervez Musharraf’s policies. [DT]

"Mr Chaudhry does not go far enough," Nitin suggests. "The Pakistani Rupee could also be renamed to the Mushee."

Good news for some of us, Singabloodypore has left blogspot and can now be easily viewed behind the great firewall of China.

Thanks Stephen! My preferred proxy server hasn’t let me access your site for days.

I observed the anti-Japanese protests in Shanghai a few weeks ago. While the violence and vandalism was repulsive and the perpetrators should have been punished, a five-year sentence for an alleged organizer is needlessly severe.

I feel totally sorry and sad for Mr. TANG Ye, the author of "A detailed instruction on the Protest Against Right Wing Japanese", an email which has been widely circulated on the internet a few days before the Anti-Japanese protest in Shanghai.   

It
turned out that the instructions Tang wrote were intended for
circulation internally at his workplace only. But someone from his
company posted it to the world wide web without omitting Tang’s name
and contact information.

Once the word was out, the message was unstoppable.  By noon time, it was wide-spread.

Mr. Tong, a white-collar worker in Shanghai, landed a five year jail term for what he wrote.

More than 20,000 protesters attended the anti-Japanese protests in Shanghai. I hope that even more join the newest protest.

…from now on until May 16th, put a yellow ribbon on trees in Shanghai’s
People Square, "to express our best wishes" for Tang Ye.

Singapore’s blogging elite are looking for a name for their upcoming convention.

SexybloggerCon perhaps?

Happy teachers’ day for those in South Korea! Japundit relays a report that makes me want to return to Korea:

May 15 is Teacher’s Day in South Korea, and to honor their teachers,
students will be bring them flowers, write compositions in appreciation
of them, and even participate in sports competitions with them. Parents
also often give gifts or gratuities to the teacher. According to an
article in the Nishinippon Shimbun, surveys indicate
that parents spend a minimum of 100,000 won on these gifts (roughly
US$100.00), while cash presents can go as high as 30 million won
(roughly US$3,000). Instead of cash, reports the paper, it is not
unusual for teachers to receive gift certificates, gold bracelets,
Western liquor, foreign cosmetics, or nutritional supplements.

Those kind of gifts would really help boost my fiancee’s income.