What's in the News

Yes, he sped away while he was being treated by paramedics.  Didn't get far because he hit another taxi.  Lots of police were already on the scene when he did this.

A morbidly fascinated part of me cannot help but ask; "What was he thinking when he tried to drive away?"

Maybe not thinking straight at all. They hit 3 taxis and the driver died. He had a face/head injury.

Stealing the taxi, leaving the scene, drunk driving .... but murder?

Must be more to this.

I think it's considered murder in a lot of countries if a death occurs during the course of a felony. A felony is anything you can go to gaol for, such as stealing a car or assault or maybe drink driving.

Yeah in Chenzhou near the Hunan - Guangdong border. We are trying to find out if any my school students were on this train.

Chenzhou was that city in the south of Hunan province where there was that big winter blizzard in January 2008.  Seems to be a place that encounters more than its fair share of misfortune.  Are you based in Chenzhou, Stil?

I'm in Changsha Paul. That ice storm was not just in Chenzhou though that county was where the main train line problem occurred. I was supposed to go back to Canada then but got iced in. Fun times in an un-heated province.

Painting on Photo

http://bit.ly/y9tjD

Another one down. A bad week for show-biz. This time it was Karl Malden. R.I.P.

I'm in Changsha Paul. That ice storm was not just in Chenzhou though that county was where the main train line problem occurred. I was supposed to go back to Canada then but got iced in. Fun times in an un-heated province.

Sorry Stil.  I should have checked your sig file. D'oh for me.

I read in China Daily at the time though that the power was cut in Chenzhou for a while because of the snow storms there.  If I'm not mistaken the city has like 4 million people?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chenzhou

It's amazing how the tentacles of winter can reach that far south. Chenzhou is only a little further north of the Tropic of Cancer.(25°48′north of the Equator. Tropic of Cancer is 23° 26′ 22″ north of the Equator)  It went from summer to winter practically overnight.

http://www.wunderground.com/history/station/57972/2008/1/2/MonthlyHistory.html#calendar
http://www.wunderground.com/history/station/57972/2008/2/2/MonthlyHistory.html#calendar

As late as the afternoon of January 11th, it was 22 degrees celsius.  That's warmer than the average day time temperature in my country, Ireland, during July and August (19 degrees celsius).  The next day, winter had started.  No intermediate Autumn. It makes me wonder if global warming global cooling is taking place.

I think it was real miserable for the people of Chenzhou at the time.  Their power was cut for many days.  They were probably not used to a harsh winter like that.  No central heating that we in Beijing take for granted.  Pretty horrid for the very old and the very young.  And, since down there, there's quite a bit of humidity too all year round, then the coldness was felt all the more.  Up in Beijing, in winter, it's at least dry so we feel the coldness less.

Dude, it was all over Hunan. Chenzhou wasn't even the hardest hit. It just happened to be the place where the railway lines had trouble. I had no power over for 2 weeks, water pipes froze solid so no water either. In the countryside they build fires. Not so simple to do in apartments. No transportation out of town.

I've been here for 6 years. You can forget about temperatures, it comes nowhere close to what I'm used to in winter in Canada but feels much, much colder. There is no central heating anywhere but hotels and high end restaurants. This is true of all the provinces below the big-ass river. If I want to feel warm in winter, I go north not south. When you get inside you put on more clothes. Cook using a parka. -30C outside is fine for me. -5C inside watching TV is very, very difficult.

The buildings are built to dissipate heat. Walkways are also not constructed with ice and snow in mind. They often have big, steep slopes that are impossible to navigated when iced up.

The only way to keep warm was body heat. Which turned out to be not so bad. 

WTF has the press done to people in China?   

Most of them barely knew who Michael Jackson was.  Now they want to build monuments to him.   


*****

Chinese group planning Neverland ranch replica

 Thu Jul 9, 10:34 am ET

SHANGHAI (AFP) – A group of businesspeople are proposing to build a replica of Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch on an island north of Shanghai as a tribute to the late singer, state media reported Thursday.

The 100 million-yuan (14.6 million-dollar) replica would be the centrepiece of an agricultural sightseeing park where visitors will be able to sample rural cuisine and listen to Chinese folk music performances, the Shanghai Daily reported.

"We believe the farmland, without the Neverland Ranch, would be too plain," Qiu Xuefan, a chamber of commerce representative for businesspeople from the eastern manufacturing city of Wenzhou told the newspaper.

"We think it would be a good idea to build a place for Chinese fans to remember him," Qiu was quoted as saying, adding inspiration for the replica came after Jackson's death last month.

The report did not specify which parts the group planned to recreate from Jackson's former ranch, which featured a zoo, an amusement park and cinema.

At 667,000 square metres (165 acres), the replica ranch would be one seventeenth the size of the original, the report said, adding the first phase of the project on Chongming Island could be completed as soon as next year.

Wu Pei, another member of the Wenzhou Chamber of Commerce, said the group had contacted people close to Jackson about buying memorabilia for the ranch.

She told the newspaper the group did not believe the Jackson estate would oppose the replica ranch.

"We believe Jackson's cultural relics belong to the whole world," she said. "We don't think there will be a problem with intellectual property rights."

One of my first visits to the mainland, about 1999 or 2000, featured a side trip to a resort in Guangdong somewhere. There were millions of posters up all over the place that featured this for a concept : That night, although I didn't go, featured a 10 yo kid doing Michael Jackson covers. Completely looking like ol' Mickey J. Including the kid's afro. It was put up like he was a big star or something.

I dunno if he really looked like MJ, though, because all these singers look the same to me.

It was quite a shock to me. We had to go elsewhere that night, so we didn't see him. As a group, we didn't know whether we wanted to see him perform, or whether we would rather be pummelled senseless with ugly sticks. It was like a train wreck. You can see it coming, but are powerless to stop the horror, the humanity.

One of my kung fu students greatly admires MJ. I keep punching him in the head, but it's not working. Any suggestions?

Lobotomy??

One of my kung fu students greatly admires MJ. I keep punching him in the head, but it's not working. Any suggestions?

Tell him the secret burial is so that no one gets any photos of when he reanimates and rips out of his coffin.
 

Swearing 'helps to reduce pain'

http://bit.ly/10zsjU