Sorry, I didn't catch it. Too busy playing with my iPhone.

Are you kidding me? The mission was announced in 2002. With the date being narrowed down as time passed. The use of a female astronaut was announced in 2004. Nothing secret about it.

Maybe, but then again one may also not like the results of government trying to correct nature.

At least when nature corrects itself we can be sure it was really necessary and not purely for personal gain.

People who drive carefully also die every day [at the hands of others.]

You don't need lie to propagandize, being biased is sufficient, which is not hard when billions of dollars are involved. You also don't need to lie to be wrong, just not knowing any better will do it.

Because what? Because it seems to work so well for Facebook?

Streaming actually works quite well for me, in most cases. I understand what you mean though. I bought an HD movie on iTunes last week: it needed 3 hours to download. I did not cancel my download/purchase, but I did also grab a HD rip from usenet, which downloaded in under 20 minutes. When we finished watching the movies the iTunes download was still in progress.

I've stopped pirating MP3's when I got Spotify where I have a paid premium account. I stopped pirating US TV-series since I got VPN access to Hulu, which would be a Hulu Plus account if they would accept my foreign credit card. I've stopped pirating movies since I discovered Netflix can be tricked into accepting foreign credit cards. Also recently discovered Crackle for free older movies.

A lot of folks I know would stop pirating if the above services were made available in their country, without artificial delays from when content is released in the US.

Really the only thing we need to stop pirating completely is to have a service where you can watch the latest cinema released. An online cinema if you will.

Seriously? I used to make RMB 20K/m + 3% of profits in a small Chinese trading company. Currently I make RMB 60K/m in IT in Shenzhen. Teachers making more than 15K/m are rare and I have yet to meet one that made more than 20K/m. 60K/m may be a challenge in his first year in China, but the 20K+2% or 3% in a small trading company is really quite common.

Please read The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Then tell me how many of those 30 rights are not abused in the US of A.

This really depends which city he ends up in. 5 years in Beijing taught me nothing, with people at the office as well as many restaurants speaking English to me.

I've since moved to a smaller town and I've learned more Mandarin in 2 weeks than in the 5 years before.

This is false. Companies do not hire people because they are white, the Chinese government would never give a work permit for this reason. What is true, is that companies are willing to pay for a white face to show up. Without a work-permit however this is very much illegal.

China is cracking down on foreigners currently. There's a 100-day crackdown, coincidentally announced a few days after a Brit tried to rape a Chinese girl.

This crackdown focuses on those without a valid visa, those working without a work permit and those who did not register their place residence. However, while it does not target legit foreigners directly, it also means a lot more scrutiny goes into work permit applications. This may make your search a little harder, at least temporarily.

Where in most countries any company with a justified need can apply to hire foreigners, in China this is not the case. Companies need to be licensed to do so, so writing to Chinese or even foreign companies in China randomly is probably a waste of time. Your best bet may be contacting some China based head hunters, which you can easily find on LinkedIn.

Please do not go the route of working on an F-visa (business visa). For those who come to China alone the risk of being kicked out (and banned!) may not be too bad, but since your girl will be staying there it would be a dumb choice to make, especially with the ongoing crackdown.

Same here. Wish I knew about it earlier!

Can you in good conscience stop buying tech and put these people out of a job? Send them back to the country side where conditions are even worse?

The question is not whether to buy or not to buy tech. The question is which brands try hardest to do the right thing so you can support those and encourage change.