You know the crazy BODIES exhibit that features plasticized dead bodies, like, playing soccer and blogging and stuff? (We have not seen it, so maybe we're making up the stuff they do.) Those bodies are totally from a shady supplier that buys "unclaimed" bodies from the Chinese Bureau of Police. Which, like, means disappeared people and political prisoners and stuff! Yay! Now New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is forcing the South Street Seaport to tell visitors to the exhibit that the bodies are all executed prisoners who may have been tortured. But it's "don't be too mean to China" week so the exhibit remains open. [Jaunted]

Mere days after scientists assured her that "karma tectonics" was most certainly not responsible for the devastating May 12 earthquake that killed nearly 70,000 people in China, Sharon Stone revised her earlier geological lecture to include a direct apology to the Chinese people for suggesting as much in the first place. "Due to my inappropriate words and acts during the interview, I feel deeply sorry and sad about hurting Chinese people," Stone said in a statement released through Christian Dior, which is dropping the actress from its ads in China. "I am willing to take part in the relief work of China's earthquake, and wholly devote myself to helping affected Chinese people."

Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao's profile was profiled in the New York Times, and he has since added over 3,000 fans to the already impressive 13,000 cited in the article. And typical of a vain Facebook user, his photo is years out of date. [NYT] (Photo by AP/Liu Jiansheng)

Sharon Stone has finally apologized for her "inappropriate" comment that the recent massive Chinese earthquake was a product of "bad karma" for the country for its treatment on Tibet. She's sorry, okay! Nevertheless, fashion house Christian Dior announced that it's pulling all of its ads featuring the actress from all department stores, and the entire country of China. Though the comment itself was stupid, Stone's hasty retreat from her brash Tibet-championing—and Dior's even harsher public rebuke of her—are a great illustration of what is becoming the New China Rule: "Do Not Talk About The New China Rule." It's been de rigeur for top stars to prove their class by endorsing luxury brands, and to prove their morality by pontificating about Tibet. But guess what: pretty soon you're going to have to pick one or the other, Hollywood. And it's not looking good for the Dalai Lama.

Yes Red China has wised up to the actress's ways after she blunderingly suggested on a red carpet that the massive earthquake in Szechuan was a bit of "karma" spurned on by the Chinese "not being very nice" to her "good friend" the Dalai Lama (who, as it turns out, has praised China's disaster relief efforts). The nation has now decided to issue a boycott of sorts, or at least its actors have. "This actress does not deserve our attention. The best way is to ignore her. I will never watch her films in future," said actor Liu Wei. Others Chinese performers have said she lacks "respect" and "humanity." Well, OK, we wouldn't go that far. She's just a little much sometimes. Oh, Sharon. [Variety]

Yesterday we noted that even though the American media is the grand imperial bloodsucker of our nation's soul, that's okay; at least we don't immediately do bikini shoots on the scene of our latest national disasters. Like the media in China does. In a counterpoint, Animal's Bucky Turco argues that the Chinese government's censorship of the media in the wake of said photos was actually worse than the photos themselves—a couple of which he has posted on his site. Since we have posted only a heartrending photo of homeless young victims, we're better than him. So whatever. [Animal, Previously, Donate to Earthquake Relief]

The US media takes a lot of crap from people like us for being amoral, craven bottom feeders. We take a lot of crap ourselves for being sensationalist controversy-chasers. But all of us here in the American mass media can pat ourselves on the collective back and say: at least we never took sexy pictures of scantily-clad models posing in the rubble of an earthquake that just killed 100,000 of our countrymen:

Google has reportedly turned over the necessary information to identify an Orkut user who wrote "I hate Sonia Ghandi." The Indian government had the name of the perpetrator, Rahul Vaid, but Google provided the IP address that pinpointed his location. This is not the first time Google has helped a foreign government go after its own citizens. After the jump, Boing Boing TV filmed the art pranksters from the Billboard Liberation Front and Monochrom teaming up to help Google advertise their close relationship with the ruling Chinese Communist Party's Internet censors — on the day of Google's annual shareholder meeting, no less. "Do no evil" seems pretty darn flexible if you're a moral relativist with profitable interests in international markets.

Google has been hoping to get more market share in China, but surely not this way. A tipster sends in this photo of bus ads in Xi'an, China, advertising "Googirls" with the search engine's familiar candy-colored design. Is this another Marissa Mayer project? Suggest a caption in the comments. The best one will become the new headline. Wednesday's winner: "The first rule of Hair club is you do not talk about Hair Club," by FlakJack.

A News.com reporter covered the death toll in 28 words before spending the next 613 trying to figure out if the recent earthquake in China near the manufacturing hub of Chengdu would hurt multinational technology companies. Which is only slightly less tasteless than the conversation which broke out on tech news tracker Techmeme — where the conversation revolved around Robert Scoble shouting "first!" You stay classy, technosphere.

CEOs and founders feeling hounded by pesky profit-hating humanitarians could learn a lesson or two from Google cofounder Sergey Brin. At Google's annual shareholder meeting yesterday, Amnesty International presented two shareholder proposals on behalf of the New York State Pension Funds involving Google's difficulties with China, privacy and censorship. Brin handled the PR mess, no problem.

Masayoshi Son is the kingmaker of the Asian Internet. His latest coronation: Xiaonei, a Chinese social network whose name translates to "on campus" and whose look and feel closely mirrors Facebook's. Son's Softbank and other investors have put $430 million into Xiaonei's parent, Oak Pacific Interactive, in a deal which values OPI at more than $1 billion. This has to worry executives at Facebook, which has raised less money — albeit while selling far less of the company to investors than Xiaonei has.

A school teacher and a beautician are suing CNN for $1.3 billion because shouting head Jack Cafferty said that the Chinese government is full of "goons and thugs." Why $1.3 billion? Because that way they give one dollar to everyone in China, duh. "The legal action, filed in a New York federal court, is the latest incident in a escalating row over Western media coverage of the clampdown on unrest in Tibet in March and disruptions to the Beijing Olympic torch relay abroad."

There are now more Internet users in China than in the U.S., according to the China Internet Network Information Center. The current count: 221 million. As of December, the U.S. had 215 million users. The upshot: When the Web 2.0 bubble pops, expect a rush of signups for Mandarin courses at City College of San Francisco. [Reuters]

With piracy at epidemic levels and the Beijing Olympics right around the corner, the Chinese government is following its sterling records of human rights and environmental protection with its latest quasi-altruistic crusade on behalf of intellectual property rights. And we know they're serious this time, what with the city's new "Chaoyang Model Anti-Copyright Infringement and Piracy-Free Zone" and a gigantic poster of Jackie Chan earnestly warning 20 million Chinese per day: "Protect the movies, say NO to piracy!"

The new "BrandZ" ranking of the world's most powerful brands is out, and it just helps to confirm that it's only a matter of time before China is running everything. China Mobile is the fifth most powerful brand in the world, ahead of names like IBM, Apple, and McDonald's. China's most powerful brands collectively gained more than 50% in value over the past year. And China and other emerging economies are the most powerful drivers of growth for all brands. Russia is also a fast riser. The takeaway: at least we are still killing all these foreigners through our strong American Marlboro brand (#10). Below, the top 25 brands in the world, and their added value to the company, so you can sound smart at your next branding party. Yes, Google is #1:

CNN has been taken down in parts of China, and reports are suggesting that hackers who may have the support of the Chinese government are responsible. The attacks have come after many Chinese feel that the news network's reports seemed biased in favor of pro-Tibet sentiment. While a simple DDOS attack on CNN's servers is fairly unremarkable, boasts by Chinese hackers that "no Web site is one hundred percent safe" got me thinking. Maybe the reason that Google and other Valley companies are cooperating with the Chinese government isn't just because they're greedy, but also because they're scared. After all, helping to censor and track down dissidents doesn't generate bad press stateside the way that, say, a security breach exposing the private, personal data of millions of Americans might. (Photo by heinousjay)

Shanghaiist is reporting that CNN.com seems to be unreachable in China, or at least in Shanghai. "Nobody we've asked seems to be able to access CNN.com right now," the blog reports. The Chinese government is still criticizing comments by CNN's Jack Cafferty that ended with Cafferty saying, in response to a question about China's communist regime, "I think our relationship with China has certainly changed. I think they're basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they've been for the last 50 years." Chinese officials argue that Cafferty was talking about the people of China, not just the government. In that case, it's easy to see how they'd feel insulted. Blocking the internet like some kind of goon is not something your average Chinese person engages in. That sort of work is a privilege. You earn it. Video of Cafferty's remarks after the jump. UPDATE: The problem also affects Hong Kong and may be the result of attacks by "nationalistic Chinese hackers" rather than the Great Firewall.

With the exception of women's gymnastics, the Olympics have pretty much been a big bag of turds for the last forty years. Aside from the general boredom, there was the the massacre of hundreds of student protestors in Mexico City in 1968, the massacre of Israeli athletes in Munich in '72, our boycott of the Commies in 1980, the Commies' boycott of us (and Mary-Lou Retton!) in 1984, East German women, and now all this blah-blah-blah about Tibet. What to do? "There is only one way left to improve the Olympics: to permanently end them."

China needs some serious professional PR help to tidy up their image for the upcoming Olympics. Mark Penn, back to being CEO of PR giant Burson-Marsteller after being dumped as Hillary Clinton's campaign chief, obviously has some time on his hands, and needs to land a big new client. Are you thinking what I'm thinking? The leadership of China and Mark Penn should come together to start a homemade noodle company! What with thousands of years of Chinese expertise in making noodles, and Mark Penn's apparent fondness for eating noodles, it's a natural fit. I'd sure like to see Amnesty International and Harold Ickes try to talk bad about a homemade noodle company.