He's back and he wants you to read his books!

• Jiang Zemin's selected writings released in three volumes collecting 203 of Jiang's reports, speeches, articles, letters, inscriptions and decrees from August 1980 to September 2004. Today's People's Daily not only runs the announcement on the front page, but includes a photograph that makes it look like Jiang's works run to 33 volumes, as well as an editorial that extolls the collection as a fine exemplar of all of the current buzzwords and urges everyone across the country to study it carefully. This follows last month's publication of For a Better World, a record the former president's state visits overseas (link, in Chinese, or see China Daily article in English).

• Beijing is currently clamping down on illegal motorcycle taxis or hei mo. Most of these are motorized tricycles or beng beng that are supposed to be used only by handicapped people, but are commonly used as a cheap alternative to proper taxis. Clamping down on the beng beng seems to be a way for the city's traffic authorities to be seen to be acting against traffic jams, but the disappearance of the relatively small number of these small vehicles is unlikely to make a difference when set off against the nearly 2 million private cars in the city. The blog China Machete has images of the propaganda banners advertising the clamp down (link).

UPDATE from Roddy in the comments: More images of the anti-motorbike cabs banners on Signese.com: 1, 2. The first one is current contender for 'Signese.com Ugliest Slogan of the Year'

I've also noticed a resurgence of banners about not taking black (car) cabs. I think it anything it's about driving people back to the 2Y cabs and keeping the cabbies happy, rather than a traffic issue.

• Global Voices has a post by John Kennedy (link) about the new Chinese blog aggregator Bullog:

The Chinese blogsphere took a substantial step closer to the blogblogrevolution late last month when the very ‘bull’ (Chinese for cool) and well-known blogger Luo Yonghao (罗永浩) rounded up all the hippest, smartest and most progressive of bloggers on his list and launched his Bullog.cn blog aggregator of sorts. Just a few of the names found there: Ran Yunfei (冉云飞), He Weifang (贺卫方), Chai Jing (柴静), He Caitou (和菜头), Lian Yue (连岳), Milk Pig (奶猪) and the blogger some consider the best in China, Wang Xiaofeng (王小峰).

• The Washington Post has an article by Maureen Fan about the Beijing punk scene, including a short video of a P.K.14 gig (link). You can see one of P.K.14's recent music videos on Danwei / Youtube here. If you're interested in Chinese rock and punk, there is another article on Newsweek from June this year by Jonathan Ansfield here.

• Sina has an article about Li Kai-Shing's son Richard Li and his purchase of half of the shares of the Hong Kong Economic Journal (信报) (link - in Chinese). The Standard had an report in English on the same deal at the end of July (link)

• College students beware! Around eighty Beijing college students were recruited for summer jobs as service personnel for meetings. The Ivory Tower Club, which handled recruitment, handed them off to the West Train Station PSB, which sent them instead to the suburb of Huairou to act as security for a high-voltage power line project that had met with resistence from the locals. Naturally, the PSB denies involvement, Ivory Tower says that the students agreed to work as security for 10 yuan a day, and the students claim that they were tricked. (Beijing Times, link - in Chinese)

• Mure Dickie at The Financial Times reports on the deal between Newspaper Direct and Founder to print and distribute foreign newspapers in China (as reported on Danwei yesterday). Money quote:

However, China's General Administration of Press and Publication, the industry regulator, on Wednesday cast doubt on the legality of the arrangement (link)

• The New York Times has an article by Howard French on Chinese geeks who take American TV programs, add Chinese subtitles and make them available for free download on the Internet (link). The New York Times still has the annoying old media habit of not providing links to websites mentioned in articles; here is one such site, focused on movies rather than TV programs.

UPDATE: From the comments- YDY is one of the TV program websites.