Art appreciation at The China Daily

• From the Financial Times (subscription required): Air China scales down Shanghai offer

Air China Ltd., the country’s flagship carrier, said on Tuesday it scaled down its Shanghai stock offer by 39 percent to 1.639 billion shares from an original plan of 2.7 billion shares after weak subscription from institutional investors...

• Xinhua News Agency's top Chinese story today is about August 8 being the two year mark in the countdown to the 2008 Olymic Games. The top story on Xinhua's English website however, is a call for an unconditional ceasefire in Lebanon.

• Xinhua also reports that China's new animated movie has been a box office disappointment:

Thru the Moebius Strip, the most expensive animation ever made in China, crashed in its first week at the domestic box office. It banked only 100,000 yuan, a drop in the bucket of its 130 million yuan investment.

• ESWN pieces together the elements of another tale from "the world of Internet rumors in a time of untransparent official information", proving that "the Internet is not ready to displace mainstream media": The Great Xiangyin Massacre.

• The China Daily notes that the sometimes ballsy Guangzhou-based Southern Metropolis Daily (南方都市报) "has been ranked as China's most competitive metropolitan daily newspaper" at an official event. It's good to see that paper being praised instead of having its editors purged for once. The article continues:

Hangzhou-based Qianjiang Evening News and Jinan-based Qilu Evening News were second and third in the rankings, conducted by the General Administration of Press and Publication.

Last year's number one, Shanghai-based Xinmin Evening News, fell to 14, while two major Beijing newspapers, Beijing Youth Daily and Beijing Evening News, dropped to 12th and 13th from last year's 6th and 7th.

The results were announced at the closing ceremony of the third Annual Conference on Competitive Edge in China's Press Industry on Saturday in Beijing.

• Global Voices Online has translated a blog post by Southern Metropolis Daily columnist Lian Yue (连岳), which suggests that the recent banning of certain commercials for products like breast enlargement devices will not last a long time, because too many of China's TV stations depend on such advertising for a big chunk of their revenue.

• From Xinhua: An investigation into the "Big taxpayers' children get additional university entrance test points affair" in Zhangzhou, Fujian Province (in Chinese). A policy in that city granting extra exam points to children of privately-owned businesses that pay a lot of tax has caused a controversy.

• Xinhua clears up some misunderstandings about new rules aimed at cooling off China's property market, and preventing inflows of that terrible stuff called "hot money" that we have been hearing so much of lately:

China's new property policy aims to deter hot overseas money

Under the new policy, overseas institutions must produce documents approving their presence in China when buying properties for their own use. These documents will be obligatory when they bring in foreign currency or register their properties...

...The new policy allows overseas residents who have worked or studied in China for more than one year to buy one housing unit for their own use. The spokesperson said these people are considered residents and their economic activities are part of China's gross domestic product (GDP)...

...The spokesperson said the policy does not discriminate against foreign businesses, because it also applies to Chinese firms.

• Shanghai blogger Bingfeng translates and comments on advice from media expert Hu Yong about how foreign China should study China, and looks at the difference between Western media coverage of new karaoke song regulations and Chinese media and Internet responses to it: Chinese media expert on Kristof. Bingfeng has also posted the People's Daily front page from August 8, 1966. It's headlined: "CCP Central Committee issues decision about the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution"

• Beijing blogging spin doctor Imagethief looks at The trouble with English teachers in China, and commenters weigh in.

• And finally, in the state-owned babe watch department, an update from Steven Schwankert:

Today is the 8th of the 8th month, a lucky day and also a quality day for China Daily-based porn. Although down from the high-water mark that earned them a link from pornblog Fleshbot, there are still plenty of nipples and naked asses to be had today, free and unfettered by firewalls and prying employer eyes.

A four-photo series of photographer Spencer Tunick's work features, with some nipples and butts galore. Unfortunately half of the photos look a tad too much like the horrific shots taken of stacked bodies when Europe's concentration camps were liberated at the end of World War II. The series can be found here:

It's bare painted breasts from Sturgis, South Dakota, in a double-photo spread from that Midwestern town's annual motorcycle rally. Entitled "Full Throttle Saloon," we see an airbrush artist painting the name of a woman's husband on her exposed chest. Or so the caption claims.

At Danwei we note that Xinhua is trying in vain to keep up with the China Daily with a scan of a GQ magazine cover featuring Christina Aguilera in a bikini, although fetishists might enjoy this gallery of body painting on the bellies of pregnant women. Xinhua also has these galleries: Tang Jiali's underdress album, Aniston tops most perfect legs list, Miss HK contestants in swimwear, Paris Hilton's photo album, Ariadne Artiles' photo album , etc.