The local Xinming Evening News 《新民晚报》points us to this uber-harmonious picture of foreign prisoners housed in the Qingpu District Jail standing by their paper model of the Bird's Nest, made with lots of love over the course of 28 days with 18,000 pieces of paper. Awwwwww..........

digg_url = 'http://digg.com/olympics/Video_Sneak_preview_of_Beijing_Olympics_opening_ceremony'; Much to the dismay of some Chinese YouTube commenters, a Korean news team sneaked into Beijing's Bird's Nest Stadium and videotaped rehearsals of the much-hyped Zhang Yimou-orchestrated opening ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. One Twitter user commented that the whole thing "looks somewhat fascist. Confascisism?" What do you think? UPDATE: The original two videos we embedded were removed by YouTube. We have replaced them with three more. Via Danwei......

Could today's Beijing be what New York City was at the turn of the 20th Century? According to this article in Vanity Fair, there are certainly many similarities to draw upon. Kurt Andersen starts off noting the correspondences between population growth and development of city infrastructure. In 1904 New York's first subway line opened. Likewise, Beijing's new subway system is spreading out at a breathtaking pace (a point which subway fanatic and Beijingologist, David Feng,......