Departure from Dege, that is.
Through tear-misted eyes, I cast one last glance at the World Wide World around me, before plunging headlong once again into yakland.
What do I find?
In London, Simon Hoggart says unkind things about nice Mr Cameron. ("Mr Cameron sat down with a tight little circular smile that, I regret to say, reminded me of our cat's backside.")
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"Buyers of big cars have to pay more tax!" screams the headline in today's... China Daily! How about that? Is nice Mr Brown moonlighting for the other side?
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Also in China, a new report links the habit of chopsticking food from communal plates - the normal way to share a meal in these parts - with the spread of disease.
Curiously, Hu Yaobang, a high-ranking politician who raised this issue in the 1980s, and called for the introduction of more hygienic western-style, capitalist-individualist personal plates, knives and forks, was subsequently elbowed out of power.
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Also in the Shiny Happy People's Republic, a man has been sentenced to death for forcibly tattooing hundreds of Chinese characters on the bodies of three women.
Now one thing I like about the United States is their sometimes-creative approach to sentencing. And surely here there was great scope for something more imaginative than the Death Penalty?
Add you suggestions for what you would have tattooed on the man's forehead here.
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In Afghanistan, they want the Rule of Law to apply, while in London, Washington and Berlin, we would prefer they did things the old-fashioned way, on a nod and a wink.
The story, if I read it right, is that an Afghan man will, if convicted of apostasy - converting from Islam to Christianity -, face the death penalty. This is apparently in line with the Laws and Constitution of the Land, as drafted by that loya jurga thing We in the West were so proud of a few years back.
Security considerations prevent me from carrying out a comprehensive opinion poll on the subject, but maybe the majority of Afghans feel that the this would be a punishment that fits the crime, however peculiar an attitude We in the West might feel this to be.
Nice Mr Karzai, the President, has admirably said that he will Respect the Independence of the Courts, as he was probably taught to do at CIA Democracy School.
He might be puzzled to find his (school-)masters in Washington and elsewhere now yelling that he'd better intervene, or else. Talk about confusing a puppy about where he's allowed to poop.
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And in Norway, Asmund proposes Firecrackers. I have some thoughts on that .
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