Evening Links: Suicide Rabbit, Google and realtor cartels

"This window was on a nondescript building near my new office. The characters mean 'laser' and 'quit smoking,' begging the question: how exactly do you use lasers to quit smoking?"

"Among the affected areas, sections of Xizang Road S., Minli Road W. and Dalin Road in Luwan District were shut down yesterday because of Metro Line 8 construction, according to the city's Engineering Administrative Bureau. They are expected to reopen in June."

"Beijing's censorship of language is a serious obstacle to democratization, but it would be a mistake to overemphasize this point. In China, the Internet has already set into motion a core component of democratic consciousness."

"Suicide Rabbit, introduced in August by Liu Gang, a 35-year-old cartoonist, has attracted a swiftly increasing audience by portraying with gentle humor the million little abuses suffered by Chinese people as their society endures a bumpy transformation."

"Asked whether he regretted the decision, Mr Brin admitted yesterday: 'On a business level, that decision to censor... was a net negative.'"

"But Liu Chunquan, a lawyer with the Shanghai Office of Beijing Guangsheng & Partners Law Firm, told Shanghai Daily yesterday that 'a price alliance of such kind is seen as unfair competition and is defined as illegal according to China's laws.'"

"China's economy surged in 2006, moving it closer to overtaking Germany as the world's third-largest economy. Now it may have No. 2 Japan and No. 1 U.S. in its sights, if it doesn't succumb to the pitfalls of an overheated economy, like soaring inflation and rampant debt."

"The bull market is so dramatic — the Shanghai index hit a record high this week before falling back slightly — that one senior Chinese official has warned against 'blind optimism.'"

"Campaigners for freedom of speech on the internet have hailed a major breakthrough after Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! agreed to join a working group to draw up a code of conduct for protecting human rights online."

"A Chinese man has persuaded his new bride to have plastic surgery to make her look like his first wife who died in a car crash. Zhao Gang, 32, from Chongqing, wed six months ago." That's the entire story.