Hay

O, what me dare do! what me may do! what me daily do, not knowing what I do!

[Kevin Yam 任建峰 @kevinkfyam]

Macau was supposed to show how China would handle an “obedient” special admin region, compared with “rebellious” Hong Kong. Macau’s reward? Worse repression than HK.

Those that claim “if only HK didn’t oppose China things would’ve been different” can therefore shut the f*** up.

[Lens on World @lenscn]

香港大火烧到习远平小姨子的屁股，李家超不想背锅。
火灾起因在“像汽油一样助燃”的尼龙棚网。网友深挖：棚网产商山东宸旭化纤绳有限公司，法定代表人是张珊珊。疫情期间核酸检测公司开遍全国的「核酸女王」张姗姗，是习远平妻子张澜澜的亲妹妹。

这可能不是简单的承包商偷工减料，而是香港官员对习近平家人搞利益输送，造成人祸灾难。

事出反常必有妖！前几天，举国上下甩锅香港竹架，为习家腐败企业甩锅！ 现在香港官员不想再背锅了。

[Tommy pang 🇨🇦移民回忆录TV🇨🇦 @TommyPang10]

我贴上此文，也许大家更能找到香港这场大火的复杂性的乱。。。

香港高楼维修，早已不是单纯的民生议题，而是另一种形式的“高层经济循环”。
根据香港法律，旧楼必须按《强制验楼计划》定期检验和维修，看似为了市民安全，实则无形中创造了一个天文数字级别的金矿。目前全港约 28,000–30,000 幢 楼龄超过30年的大厦，全部需要排队进入维修周期。
以每幢 500–2,000 万港元 的工程费用计算，旧楼维修市场的保守规模已破 1,500 亿港元；再把外墙、消防、电梯、顾问费、管理费加进去，轻轻松松推到 3,000–5,000 亿港元——堪称香港地产界之外的第二条“金矿脉”。而且这还是循环型的生意：十几年一次，永不停止，堪比印钞机。
如此巨大的利益，自然不会只有工程公司在旁边喝汤。邓炳强、李家超、各路建制派，个个都像不经意间路过香味浓郁的厨房，却偏偏嘴角又沾着油。至于真正切这块“天字号大饼”的人是谁？大家心里都明白——当利益大到这种程度，厨房主厨通常都不是在香港，而是在北京某栋灯光永远亮着的大楼里。
表面是旧楼维修，实际是“合法、稳定、可持续发展”的权力分红。
香港对于北京来说，唯一是个全面发达的城市，市民相对富足，可炸油水多。。。这块大饼的水，不只是深，是深不见底。

这场大火，牵动到2019年（反送中）香港人当年为什么反对香港大陆化，我想，大家应该找到其中某一个原因了吧？！

[🖤 Mimi ⁷⁼¹ ᴮᵗˢ ʸᵉᵃʳ ⊙⊝⊜ 🏒 @mimimichi4]

I rarely see people talk about this. Although Wang FUK Court is not exactly public housing, it is a complex arranged by government and sold below market price to lower income families. Residents there are not wealthy. It’s not only a trauma but a tough road for them to rebuild their lives.

[YTSL @FY4Chan]

Chung Ching-kwong is precisely the kind of person that Hongkongers would vote into political office if Hong Kong had genuine universal suffrage. Instead, she is in exile, and her informative posts like👇might well result in her getting a bounty put on her head by the authorities.

[Kevin Yam 任建峰 @kevinkfyam]

Narratives of this (now) ongoing incident is running hot on Chinese language Facebook. It reflects a number of things:

1. The Hong Kong public does NOT trust its Government and its lackeys with supplies that are intended for victims. It reflects the fact that the years of distrust which culminated in the 2019 protests has not gone away despite 5 years of national security crackdown, media censorship and constant pro-Government propaganda.

2. The Hong Kong Government and its lackeys are not acting in good faith. If this was merely a case of them believing that they have the resources and logistics to do things on a larger scale and more efficiently, they could have chosen to work with the citizen-led cohorts of volunteers, rather than reporting the volunteers to the police for unlawful assembly. At best this is an act of revenge for Government lackeys having been shown up in the last day or so for being only interested in photo opportunities for performative purposes rather than actually helping victims. At worst this is yet another sign of the Government and its lackeys treating civic-minded ordinary Hong Kong people as enemies.

3. These moves to monopolise the narrative and the audio visuals (let’s face it these lackeys aren’t really into helping people) is yet another reminder for ordinary Hong Kong people that their city is now subject to Mainland Chinese official malpractice in the aftermath of disasters (ie all political and PR show all about self-benefit no real assistance to victims). In other words, even in times of disaster and grief, it is now made known to Hong Kong people in no uncertain terms than they are now subject to a bad faith colonial master.

[Xiang Yang 向阳 @TheXiangYang]

香港大埔火灾为何会引起全球关注？李家超警察政府多年的怠政懒政彻底打破了香港原本运行良好的的民主政治制度，取而代之的是中共国家安全和铺天盖地的意识形态宣传，腐败和官僚就这么夺去了至少350个香港老人和幼童的生命，成为香港历史上最严重的建筑火灾，“成功不需因我，成功只需有我”，这是李家超的座右铭。他也顺利的成了当之无愧的“香港之耻”。

火灾发生时小区正进行由官僚化越发严重的宏福苑业主立案法团（宏福苑的业主立案法团主席即为香港民政局副局长）主导的3.3亿元油水丰厚大规模外墙维修工程，中标建筑公司追求绩效，漠视业主投票反对同时将8栋楼一起围起来翻修，并使用不合格的保护网、发泡胶。双标总是存在的，出了问题都是团团伙伙以及德莫克拉斯的责任，总之就是没有肉食者的问题。很多人仿佛已经忘了这是已经进入新朝雅政的地区，没有做不成的事情。将制度的失灵，归咎于一个团体，归咎于一个已经得到“修正”的概念。只能说，百姓何辜…

事发后，李家超不及时赶赴救灾第一线，却开了超过五个小时的会，这不是一个急巿民之所急的政府，冷血无能。至李家超发言时，最先对习近平的“关心”表示感谢，一次还不够，要接二连三强调。政府的精力都用在了钳制市民言论自由，配合中共的战略部署，配合对台湾的文攻。与此同时，无视巿民日常的衣食住行﹑安全保障，心思都用来“表现”。因为李家超的权力合法性不是来自香港巿民，而是远在北京的习近平。

这场火灾以香港数千巿民的家毁人亡，终于为李家超“扬名立万”，事件成为国际媒体的头条新闻，香港政府宣称“由乱入治，由治入兴”，终于有一个出头机会，“兴”远远未见，“亡”却当下立见了。

[乔志飞 @Gfreedman9]

面对香港这次大火，仿佛所有人都站在旁边束手无策，看着灰烬飞散、尘埃落尽，泪水模糊了双眼。

这景象，像极了人们面对香港当前困局的心理状态：一个曾经繁华的城市、金融中心、无数人梦想和憧憬的所在，如今在政治的烈焰下奄奄一息。失去自由，失去平等，文明与多年培育的社会价值观被专制淹没在祸海里。看着在烈焰中岌岌可危的生命，倾听着衰落中求生的哀嚎，仿佛所有人竟无能为力，站在一旁望洋兴叹。

火灾面前的感慨和无力，充满现实的残酷；面对巨大的制度力量和城市命运的被迫衰退，何尝不是一个比香港更大的经济体衰败的写照呢？到底谁是那个纵火者？谁才是那个以维护为名的历史罪人？

烈焰当前，无能为力，个人的勇气和抗争竟然显得如此微不足道。留给香港的，也许就是有情人对过去和未来的唏嘘感叹，眼睁睁的看她变成废墟……

[💟Ole IS Right, Esq. @Ole_is_right]

My civil procedure professor in law school was a former IRS attorney. She lived in China for a couple of years working in the US embassy. While there, she became friends with several Chinese lawyers and judges.

One thing she noticed was that the judges were typically younger than the lawyers— the opposite of how it was in America.

She asked a (Chinese national) lawyer friend of hers why that was. He responded “it doesn’t take much experience to say ‘guilty’”

And that is, perhaps, the most bone-chilling sentence I have ever heard

[John Simpson @JohnSimpsonNews]

I watched this happen on the morning of 4 June 1989 in Chang’an Avenue, near Tiananmen Square, the morning after the night’s massacre. Don’t believe the propaganda lie that no massacre took place: I saw 40 people killed in front of me before giving up counting in despair.

[Ethics in Bricks @EthicsInBricks]

"Our desire not to be inferior to others in terms of performance, combined with the idea that we can freely choose to go the extra mile, can lead to self-exploitation. We force ourselves to go beyond what is good for us, until we burn out."
- https://t.co/ck3ImRttfY @goodreads

[Susie Dent @susie_dent]

Word of the Day is one I keep posting at the end of the year, hoping its time will come.

‘Respair’, from the 16th century, is fresh hope, and a recovery from despair.

Here’s to a few drops of respair in 2025.

[Louisa Lim @limlouisa]

As a generation of Hong Kong’s brightest and best start a collective 45 years behind bars, HK cartoonist summed it up best.

[vawongsir @vawongsir]

🇭🇰｜香港法治已死 The rule of law in Hong Kong is dead

[Cindy Wan @CindyWan19]

This is an uncredited photo from my phone, 12 or 13 November 2019, five years ago this week.
A picture is worth a thousand words.
Never forget.

[Xinqi Su 蘇昕琪 @XinqiSu]

🧵
The first judicial review (JR) challenging a new prison rule established under the #Article23 national security law concluded this afternoon after 2 days of debate.

It was revealed in court that the powerful , immune-to-JR national security committee played a role.