Note: The report is based on
Jamil Anderlini, Bo Supporter Hands Over Roles in China's Security; Chief of domestic spy regime sidelined; Lobbying sparked move, say insiders. Financial Times, May 14, 2012. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/929411 ... 9-00144feabdc0.html
Quote:
"On paper and in public, Zhou Yongkang * * * retains his title as secretary of the ruling Communist party’s political and legislative affairs committee. He is also part of the nine-member politburo standing committee, which effectively runs China. But according to three senior party members and diplomats briefed on the subject he has handed operational control of the pervasive Chinese security apparatus to Meng Jianzhu, the current minister of public security.
Quote: "Sagan is also widely regarded as a freethinker or skeptic; one of his most famous quotations, in Cosmos, was, 'Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence' (called the 'Sagan Standard' by some). This was based on a nearly identical statement by fellow founder of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, Marcello Truzzi, 'An extraordinary claim requires extraordinary proof.' This idea originated with Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749–1827), a French mathematician and astronomer who said, 'The weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness'")