Raoul's China Saloon (V5.0) Beta

The Bar Room => The Champagne Cabana => Topic started by: Vegemite on April 24, 2007, 07:30:05 PM

Title: What's in the News
Post by: Vegemite on April 24, 2007, 07:30:05 PM
A warning for some of us...

Alcohol damages women's brains faster than men's
Reuters | Tuesday, 24 April 2007

The brain-damaging effects of alcohol strike women more quickly than men, a new study conducted in Russia confirms.


Female alcoholics performed worse on a number of tests of neurocognitive function compared with males, Dr Barbara Flannery from RTI International in Baltimore and her colleagues found.

However, Flannery cautioned in an interview with Reuters Health, the findings aren't good news for alcohol-dependent men. "Women are vulnerable to the extent to which they will experience the negative consequences of alcohol abuse and alcoholism more rapidly than men, but men will also experience it
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on April 24, 2007, 10:16:00 PM
So..... if ole Barbie there is a bit of a drinker herself, how can we trust her findings?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mr Nobody on April 24, 2007, 10:21:59 PM
Latest findings indicate that the 'inactive product' created by alcohol dehydrogenase (the enzyme mentioned) is actually several times for active in the body,worse than alcohol itself, seems to be a carcinogen and probably is responsible for more of the damage to liver and brain than the alcohol itself. It is also this same substance that causes Chinese people to go red - they lack one of the genes to deal with this chemical in the blood. Which is acetaldehyde, for those that care.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on April 24, 2007, 11:21:27 PM
Cool, Mr. Nobody, I care.  Like the chemical info and stuff like that. bfbfbfbfbf
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Vegemite on April 25, 2007, 04:36:06 AM
...this same substance that causes Chinese people to go red - they lack one of the genes to deal with this chemical in the blood. Which is acetaldehyde, for those that care.

I must have Chinese blood in me...I go red :-[
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on April 25, 2007, 02:10:09 PM
Quote
I must have Chinese blood in me...I go red
Nah! That's just embarrassment at your drunken behaviour!! ahahahahah ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mr Nobody on April 25, 2007, 03:19:25 PM
A smaller proportion of westerners also have this gene deficiency.

It means a reduced ability to deal with acetaldehyde. If alcohol makes you really nauseous then maybe you have this problem. It will also make for severe hangovers, and increased risk of damage from drinking.

Alcohol also dilates surface blood vessels. If a perosn is pale, then they will also go red. It isn't as obvious with darker people. Unless they have this gene problem.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Vegemite on April 25, 2007, 04:07:35 PM
Quote
I must have Chinese blood in me...I go red
Nah! That's just embarrassment at your drunken behaviour!! ahahahahah ahahahahah

I never get embarrassed kkkkkkkkkk,

...if one can't remember how can one be embarrassed :-[

Besides, it's my PI genes - we were originally settled by the Asians...a long, long time ago - so that bloody gene must have stayed stuck jjjjjjjjjj
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Noodles on April 25, 2007, 07:39:16 PM
I just wanted to share this story from todays' guardian.  But it made my eyes water, so be warned.

A man burst into a busy central London restaurant and chopped off his own penis with a knife in front of horrified diners, police and reports said today.

The man - identified by the Sun as a 35-year-old Polish national - ran into Zizzi, in the Strand, at 9pm on Sunday.

"This guy came running in then charged into the kitchen, got a massive knife and started waving it about," Stuart McMahon, who was eating at the restaurant with his girlfriend, told the paper. "Everyone was screaming and running out as he jumped on a table, dropped his trousers and popped his penis out. Then he cut it off. I couldn't believe it."
 A Scotland Yard spokeswoman said a man aged between 30 and 40 was the only person hurt in the incident, and that his injuries were self-inflicted.

He was taken to hospital, where his condition was described as stable. According to the Sun, the man was being assessed by psychiatrists and was expected to be detained under the Mental Health Act.

The paper reported that police had subdued the man with CS gas spray and recovered his severed penis, which surgeons at St Thomas' hospital in central London attempted to re-attach. It was not known whether the operation had been a success.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lone Traveller on April 25, 2007, 07:47:27 PM
OH MY GOSH!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on April 25, 2007, 07:58:40 PM
OH MY GOSH!

Do not order the Polish sausage in that restaurant!!!!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on April 25, 2007, 08:24:44 PM
 asasasasas Beat me to it, Stil.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Vegemite on April 26, 2007, 04:42:01 AM
Poor, poor guy...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lone Traveller on April 26, 2007, 07:23:27 PM
Poor guy???? What about the poor unsuspecting diners?  aoaoaoaoao
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on April 28, 2007, 10:48:29 PM
Japanese!!  llllllllll llllllllll And we thought Chinese were silly!

Japanese fooled in poodle scam
April 26, 2007 - 8:59PM

Thousands of Japanese have been swindled in a scam in which they were sold Australian and British sheep and told they were poodles.

Flocks of sheep were imported to Japan and then sold by a company called Poodles as Pets, marketed as fashionable accessories, available at $1,600 each.

That is a snip compared to a real poodle which retails for twice that much in Japan.

The scam was uncovered when Japanese moviestar Maiko Kawamaki went on a talk-show and wondered why her new pet would not bark or eat dog food.

She was crestfallen when told it was a sheep.

Then hundreds of other women got in touch with police to say they feared their new "poodle" was also a sheep.

One couple said they became suspicious when they took their "dog" to have its claws trimmed and were told it had hooves.

Japanese police believe there could be 2,000 people affected by the scam, which operated in Sapporo and capitalised on the fact that sheep are rare in Japan, so many do not know what they look like.

"We launched an investigation after we were made aware that a company were selling sheep as poodles," Japanese police said, the The Sun reported.

"Sadly we think there is more than one company operating in this way.

"The sheep are believed to have been imported from overseas - Britain, Australia."

Many of the sheep have now been donated to zoos and farms.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lone Traveller on April 28, 2007, 11:11:40 PM
Well maybe next time they'll do some research first.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on April 28, 2007, 11:31:43 PM
Crap, are we eating this every day?

CFIA on border lookout for plastics chemical that could enter food chain[/b]
Last Updated: Friday, April 27, 2007 | 11:28 PM ET
CBC News

Canada's food inspectors have issued border lookouts for vegetable proteins coming from China to prevent melamine
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on April 29, 2007, 12:48:02 PM
More misery for men!!


'Women's town' to put men in their place

April 27, 2007 - 9:44AM

Chinese tourism authorities are seeking investment to build a novel concept attraction - the world's first "women's town", where men get punished for disobedience, an official said on Thursday.

The 2.3-square-kilometre Longshuihu village in the Shuangqiao district of Chongqing municipality, also known as "women's town", was based on the local traditional concept of "women rule and men obey", a tourism official told Reuters.

"Traditional women dominate and men have to be obedient in the areas of Sichuan province and Chongqing, and now we are using it as an idea to attract tourists and boost tourism," the official, surname Li, said by telephone.

The tourism bureau planned to invest between 200 million yuan ($31.2 million) and 300 million yuan in infrastructure, roads and buildings, Li said.

"We welcome investors from overseas and nationwide to invest in our project," he added.

The motto of the new town would be "women never make mistakes, and men can never refuse women's requests", Chinese media have reported.

When tour groups enter the town, female tourists would play the dominant role when shopping or choosing a place to stay, and a disobedient man would be punished by "kneeling on an uneven board" or washing dishes in restaurant, media reports said.

The project, begun in the end of 2005, was expected to take three to five years to finish.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on April 29, 2007, 01:21:35 PM
Poor Italy! Whatever have they done to harm us!!
AUSTRALIA has breached the Vienna Convention with a diplomatic shortcut to parachute dumped minister Amanda Vanstone into the ambassador's post in Rome.

The deputy secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Doug Chester, formally notified the Italian embassy in Canberra of Ms Vanstone's appointment only hours before Foreign Minister Alexander Downer announced it publicly on Thursday.

John Howard yesterday insisted that everything had been done correctly in sending his former immigration minister, who he dumped from cabinet in January, to Rome.

"I think Amanda will be a very good ambassador," he told Melbourne's 3AW radio yesterday, defending Opposition claims the Government was turning the diplomatic corps into a "Liberal employment agency". "I support the idea that you should have some former politicians as diplomats. I think they do a very good job; most of them do," he said.

The 1961 Vienna Convention, which sets out the rules for diplomacy, requires Australia to wait for Italy's official approval before accrediting new diplomats - giving Italy a chance to knock back nominations in confidence. The process normally takes a month or two.

"The sending state must make certain that the agrement (a French term for approval) of the receiving state has been given for the person it proposes to accredit," the treaty says.

"The receiving state is not obliged to give reasons to the sending state for a refusal of agrement."
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on April 29, 2007, 01:24:47 PM
Amanda Gallstone!
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v112/gingermeggs/amandavanstone_wideweb__470x4170.jpg)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on May 04, 2007, 08:45:13 PM
Old nuclear weapons base open to tourists.

May 4, 2007 - 11:03AM


China has declassified its first nuclear weapons base and is inviting tourists to visit the site, in a remote part of the northwestern province of Qinghai, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Thursday.

Built in 1958 over more than 1100 square kilometres of the grasslands of northern Qinghai, the base was the birthplace of China's atomic and hydrogen bombs, but was closed in the late 1980s, Xinhua said.

China became a nuclear power in 1964.

"The underground headquarters of the nuclear weapons research and production base are a curiosity to many people. They can see the 'nuclear city' for themselves," the report quoted Zuo Xumin, an official in the mainly Tan region where the base is situated, as saying.

"The base will be developed into a key travel site, and it will become a platform for spurring the patriotic spirit of Chinese people," he said.

Opening the base is a rare move for China, where the definition of state secrets is notoriously broad and its weapons development is seen as highly sensitive.

The headquarters of the base comprises several rooms more than 9 metres (30 feet) underground and reinforced with concrete, which originally held a research laboratory, electricity generation room, telegraph transmitting room and a command room.

Tourists will be able to visit the underground rooms, which now stand empty, the report said.

A museum built at the base now houses old machinery, as well as clothes and food coupons that belonged to the workers who once staffed the remote site.

Hotels and restaurants are also springing up in the township in anticipation of a wave of visitors, Xinhua said
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Raoul F. Duke on May 04, 2007, 08:54:30 PM
Sheesh.

I might want to go see the old nuke site. The only way you'd get me into the Sichuan "women's town" would be to super-glue my gonads to a Long March rocket and fire it into the village.

Not even ol' Amanda there is going to have me kneel on uneven boards or wash restaurant dishes for having a mind of my own.  bababababa
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on May 05, 2007, 07:36:59 PM
All the latest in one hit.
http://buzz.stumbleupon.com/ (http://buzz.stumbleupon.com/)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on May 07, 2007, 07:11:11 PM
Spiders make home in boy's ear

Albany, Oregon
May 7, 2007 - 9:21AM
These guys were not exactly Snap, Crackle and Pop.

What began as a faint popping in a 9-year-old boy's ear - "like Rice Krispies" - ended up as an earache, and the doctor's diagnosis was that a pair of spiders made a home in the ear.

"They were walking on my eardrums," Jesse Courtney said.

One of the spiders was still alive after the doctor flushed the fourth-grader's left ear canal. His mother, Diane Courtney, said her son insisted he kept hearing a faint popping in his ear - "like Rice Krispies".

Dr David Irvine said it looked like the boy had something in his ear when he examined him.

When he irrigated the ear, the first spider came out, dead. The other spider took a second dousing before it emerged, still alive. Both were about the size of a pencil eraser.

Jesse was given the spiders - now both dead - as a souvenir. He has taken them to school and his mother has taken them to work.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Vegemite on May 08, 2007, 04:19:06 AM
Been there, done that - and it wasn't a faint popping, it was more like boy racers inside my head, and it was only one big ol' brown spider. It was awful...and everytime I tell people about it, they laugh! asasasasas

I spent months paranoid that the thing had laid eggs inside there...

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on May 09, 2007, 12:29:33 AM
"Harmless Canadian coin led to US spy warning

Washington
May 8, 2007 - 6:19PM

An odd-looking Canadian coin with a bright red flower has been found to be the cause behind a US Defence Department's false espionage warning earlier this year, The Associated Press has learned.

The odd-looking - but harmless - "poppy coin" was so unfamiliar to suspicious US Army contractors travelling in Canada that they filed confidential espionage accounts about them.

The worried contractors described the coins as "anomalous" and "filled with something man-made that looked like nano-technology," according to once-classified US government reports and emails obtained by the AP."

Sneaky, those Canaducks!!!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kcanuck on May 09, 2007, 01:24:10 AM
Unfortunately, the Canadian mint didn't do such a great job on the coins, the red coating on the poppy was easily damaged.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on May 09, 2007, 01:53:31 PM
I think it's an old coin. Yeah, 2004.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v112/gingermeggs/0905COIN_narrowweb__300x3300.jpg)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kcanuck on May 09, 2007, 02:45:04 PM
There have been other symbols placed on the Canadian 'loonie' as we call it.  The Canadian Cancer Society pink ribbon was minted shortly before I left.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on May 10, 2007, 08:49:47 PM
Ha hahaha hahaha hahaha!!!!  ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Vegemite on May 11, 2007, 04:16:38 AM
When is a zebra not a zebra?

A Chinese park has reportedly painted stripes on a horse and is charging people to have pictures taken with the 'zebra'.

Shenyang botanical park is charging 30p each for pictures with the animal which, as well as painted black stripes, has fluffy white hair.

When asked if the zebra is real, the feeder answered: "It's from Africa. What do you call it, if it's not a zebra?"

"We saw right away that the zebra is fake, but we are here for fun, so it doesn't really matter," said a mother who had just paid for her child's picture.

According to the City Evening News, the park says it doesn't know if the horse is a zebra or not: "It's not that important. It is for fun," said a spokesman.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mr Nobody on May 11, 2007, 04:51:01 AM
And that just about sums up this wonderful, terrible, and sometimes downright strange country.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Vegemite on May 13, 2007, 05:05:00 PM
Kiwi judge calls Blair a criminal
By IRENE CHAPPLE - Sunday Star Times | Sunday, 13 May 2007

A New Zealand Supreme Court judge has launched a blistering attack on outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair, effectively calling him a war criminal for his role in the Iraq conflict.

Justice Ted Thomas, who retired last year but still presides over ongoing cases, told the Sunday Star-Times yesterday that Blair "deceived Cabinet, parliament and the British people" over the war.

And in a hard-hitting essay published in British journal The Spokesman this month, Thomas writes: "As extreme as it sounds, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that, should he be prosecuted at a time when the plea of sovereign immunity is not available, Mr Blair would be found guilty of a war crime."

Thomas said Blair would be guilty of the customary international law crime of aggression as the war was launched without legal basis. "A regime change is not the basis for conducting an invasion of another sovereign state." He said Blair misrepresented - and must have known he was misrepresenting - his attorney-general's advice on the legality of the war.
...
Thomas's savage essay accuses Blair of treating the foreign affairs portfolio as his "personal fiefdom". Blair, says Thomas, became "almost like a parrot" to the neo-conservatism of US president George W Bush's administration during his tenure.

He says the war is "also an indictment on the political system" which failed to hold him to account over the manipulation of intelligence. The lack of political checks meant Blair "was not constrained from committing political, immoral and illegal misdemeanours".

...
The essay, written as a judicial investigation, said it was "incongruous" Blair had not resigned or been forced to resign over the war, which "was based on a delusion, and which has had such calamitous and humanly tragic consequences. In short, he has not been held accountable in parliament for the manipulation of the intelligence or the deception he practised in pursuit of the war".
...
But speaking yesterday to the Star-Times, Thomas said it was "beyond feasibility" Blair would ever stand trial for a war crime. "It will never happen, but (Blair) may have to be circumspect as to which countries he visits."


Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on May 13, 2007, 07:42:05 PM
They went into that war saying "I know it's illegal, but trust us, it's necessary for the whole world's survival."  Their citizens backed them.  So now what?  I can't believe they can't effectively impeach Bush.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on May 13, 2007, 09:01:43 PM
Cheney is worse aoaoaoaoao
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on May 14, 2007, 09:51:09 PM
Cheney is worse aoaoaoaoao

Yet, tragically, will never hang for treason.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on May 14, 2007, 10:19:41 PM
...or assault with a deadly weapon (shooting that fellow in his.....)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Vegemite on May 15, 2007, 04:07:30 AM
Bullied teen awarded income for life
By LEONIE LAMONT - SMH | Monday, 14 May 2007

SYDNEY: A bullied teenager will receive substantial damages and an income for life after an Australian Supreme Court judge found NSW educational authorities failed in their duty of care to deal with playground assaults and bullying.

Benjamin Cox's mother, Angela, sued the State of NSW on behalf of the Hunter Valley teenager.

He will receive at least $220,000 for pain and suffering.

She said the bullying, which started in infants school, had resulted in her son having little education and being unable to work.

Outside court his barrister, Dennis Wheelahan, QC, said the judgement had implications for the education system.

"The implications are that pupils in our school systems who are the subject of this type of conduct [if liability is established] can expect to recover substantial damages as is the case for Benjamin Cox."

In her judgement, delivered today, Justice Carolyn Simpson commented that Mr Cox's "adolescence has been all but destroyed; his adulthood will not be any better. He will never know the satisfaction of employment. He will suffer anxiety and depression, almost certainly, for the rest of his life".

During the case, the judge heard that, while at Woodberry Public School in 1995, Mr Cox was "throttled" by an older boy, and received compensation from the Victims Compensation Tribunal over the attack. By the time he went to high school, his mother said he thought school a "scary proposition".

"He didn't like crowds, he didn't like teachers, didn't like the work," she said.

The court heard Mr Cox, who is now 18, was a virtual recluse. He had only completed schooling up until the end of year 7, and an attempt at home schooling had failed.

His mother said he rarely went out, had no friends, and was on a pension.

"He just locks himself in his room playing PlayStation games," she said.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on May 15, 2007, 07:22:08 PM
This part:

Mr Cox's "adolescence has been all but destroyed; his adulthood will not be any better. He will never know the satisfaction of employment. He will suffer anxiety and depression, almost certainly, for the rest of his life".

Never?  Almost certainly?  They're saying that $220,000 worth of therapy and capital can't fix this guy to the point of being in control of his life?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on May 15, 2007, 07:45:13 PM
This kid needs to get out in the world. Does his mother really think that playing the playstation all day is really the best option out there?

He needs and deserves help, not apathy.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on May 15, 2007, 08:29:10 PM
Kiwi judge calls Blair a criminal
By IRENE CHAPPLE - Sunday Star Times | Sunday, 13 May 2007

What I figured was criminal was calling teh US 'oldest ally'.  Excuse me - what about the Maori wars in 1860, Boer War, the Boxer Rebellion, Sudan in 1885, WWI WWII (there way before the US ever thought about it), Malayan Emergency in the 1950's, , Indonesia in 1964,
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Vegemite on May 16, 2007, 05:00:16 AM
This part:

Mr Cox's "adolescence has been all but destroyed; his adulthood will not be any better. He will never know the satisfaction of employment. He will suffer anxiety and depression, almost certainly, for the rest of his life".

Never?  Almost certainly?  They're saying that $220,000 worth of therapy and capital can't fix this guy to the point of being in control of his life?

And who bullied him into taking the case?

I think it's appalling that someone can get that amount of damages...all you Ozzies can use this precedent now and demand compensation for various 'things' that happened to you in the past, that forced you to leave Oz and come to China...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Vegemite on May 16, 2007, 05:02:23 AM
Kiwi judge calls Blair a criminal
By IRENE CHAPPLE - Sunday Star Times | Sunday, 13 May 2007

What I figured was criminal was calling teh US 'oldest ally'. 

Wo bu ming bai...who called the US their oldest ally? Ah, was it Blair?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on May 16, 2007, 01:17:01 PM
Rare koala twins new ambassadors

May 15, 2007 - 10:23AM

They may be Australia's cutest icons, but these twins are 100 per cent made in China.
 
Koala joeys Little Michelle and Little Amanda have captured international attention after finally emerging from their mother's pouch to greet their adoring fans this week at China's Xiangjiang Safari Park in Guangzhou.

Experts say the marsupials are the first twins to be born in captivity since the early 1960s, when twin koalas were born at Sydney's Taronga Zoo.
 
The chances of both twins surviving in the wild are virtually nil, but the six-month-old babies are now believed to have an 85 to  90 per cent chance of reaching maturity.
 
To ensure their survival, the babies are under round-the-clock supervision by safari park staff who monitor the 10 cameras located inside the enclosure.

The joeys' mum, Murrumbidgee, was a gift to China from Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary on the Gold Coast.

Two other females and three males were also relocated to this new home, much to the delight of the Safari Park staff and visitors.

All three females have since become mothers, with the twins the latest addition to the extended family.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mr Nobody on May 16, 2007, 02:40:32 PM
That's ok. A lot of their pandas were born in oz. bfbfbfbfbf
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Vegemite on May 18, 2007, 05:11:40 AM
Teen paints Queen's portrait in Vegemite
AAP | Thursday, 17 May 2007

BRISBANE: A Queensland teenager has painted a portrait of the Queen in Vegemite.

Sixteen-year-old Stef Chard, from the south-east Queensland town of Gympie, said she did not deliberately set out to capture the likeness of the monarch in yeast extract.

"When you run out of paint, then you really turn to the next best thing
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Newbs on May 18, 2007, 09:44:50 AM
But it won only second prize at the Gympie Art Show.

Load of bloody philistines up that way, aren't they?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: contemporarydog on May 20, 2007, 05:04:13 AM
Is that in response to that Jesus in Chocolate thing?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on May 20, 2007, 01:46:48 PM
Is that in response to that Jesus in Chocolate thing?

I think it was the Queen in Vegemite thing  ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on May 25, 2007, 01:07:49 AM
Deaf-mutes sold to China pickpocket ring

May 24, 2007 - 5:29PM

Chinese police have detained the vice-principal of a school for deaf-mutes and other special needs children for selling 10 students to a ring that trained them to become pickpockets, the Guizhou Metropolitan Daily reported.

Police rescued the victims, the youngest of whom was 12, in Jiangxi and Henan provinces this month, the online edition of the newspaper said.

They went missing from their school in Liupanshui city, Guizhou, last month, the newspaper said, adding that the ring trained and required each person to steal and turn in 500 yuan ($A79) a day.

Zhu Xiangyu, 52, vice-principal of the school and vice-president of Liupanshui's Deaf-Mute Association, and four other suspects were taken into police custody.

Hundreds of deaf-mute students had gone missing since 2005, the newspaper said.

Bloody schoolteachers!! They'll do anything for a quid!!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on May 26, 2007, 03:02:49 PM
Words fail me.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lone Traveller on June 02, 2007, 08:54:26 PM
Has reality TV gone too far?

Dutch kidney television show a hoax
Saturday Jun 2 07:48 AEST

A Dutch reality television show in which a supposedly dying woman had to pick one of three contestants to whom she would donate a kidney has been revealed as an elaborate hoax.

The show, which the broadcaster had said aimed to focus attention on a shortage of donor organs in the Netherlands, was condemned by Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende ahead of transmission and sparked controversy worldwide.

Identified only as Lisa, the 37-year-old woman who had been said to have been suffering from a brain tumour was to base her selection on the person's history and conversations with the candidates' families and friends.

The contestants were also part of the deception, although all three are genuine kidney patients.

"Their life is bitter reality," the presenter said after revealing the deception, just at the moment at which Lisa was to have made her choice.

Dutch Education Minister Ronald Plasterk hailed the show as a "fantastic stunt" and an intelligent way to draw attention to the shortage of donor organs.

The show is expected to set off heated debate between those who believe reality television has gone too far and others who believe the publicity was generated for a good cause.

Program makers apologised to viewers and said they hoped "outrage" over the show would turn into anger over the lack of organs for transplant.

Viewers in the Netherlands were asked to give advice via text messages in the 80-minute show, and appeals ran throughout for people to donate their organs.

Early in the show Lisa was shown selecting three people from 25 candidate profiles who matched her blood group.

"It feels like playing God," said a fraught-looking Lisa. "Think of it as playing Santa Claus," replied the presenter.

The show had set off a storm of criticism, both at home and abroad, though some kidney patients said ahead of the show that they approved of it because it drew attention to their plight.

Balkanende had said the show was detrimental to the whole business of organ donation and it would do the reputation of the Netherlands no good abroad, Dutch news agency ANP said.

Dutch embassies received complaints from people expressing their shock over the show.

Public broadcaster BNN, which came up with the idea, said it wanted to draw attention to the growing shortage of organ donors in the Netherlands.

"Money has never been part of this thing and no money will be made from this," said BNN chairman Laurans Drillich.

Callers to a local radio station had suggested the whole thing could be a hoax by BNN to build up its ratings.


Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mr Nobody on June 07, 2007, 06:26:03 PM
I am still trying to get over the vegemite/queen thing. A toast to the queen? I mean, who writes this stuff.

Reality TV left reality some time ago. Reality TV is to entertainment what the KT event was to the dinosaurs. I am remain unconvinced there is life before death.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on June 07, 2007, 06:28:41 PM
Mr. Nobody. I am so very glad you have started posting again.  bfbfbfbfbf I have truly missed your wit and candour.  agagagagag agagagagag agagagagag

Welcome back to the saloon.   jjjjjjjjjj
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lone Traveller on June 09, 2007, 04:14:00 PM
G8 Africa pledge is a smokescreen: Bono
Friday Jun 8 23:01 AEST


Rock star Bono has denounced world leaders for producing a "deliberately misleading" pledge to fight AIDS and other killer diseases.

"I am exasperated," Bono told Reuters in a telephone interview at the Baltic resort where leaders from the world's rich nations were rounding off their three-day summit.

"I think it is deliberately the language of obfuscation. It is deliberately misleading," he added.

G8 leaders announced a $60 billion pledge to fight AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis with great fanfare but many activists were disappointed that they failed to set a timetable for the spending plans and that it contained little new money.

"They have taken language hostage. We wanted numbers but this is burobabble," Bono said, criticising the lack of a timeline and the fact that the pledge did not apply specifically to Africa.

"It is not real in any language. We are looking for accountable language and numbers. I might be a rock star but I can count."

The U2 singer and campaigner, who has been in Heiligendamm holding private meetings with G8 leaders, identified Italy and Canada as the main obstacles to a more ambitious deal.

He also expressed disappointment that German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the summit host, had not managed to convince her counterparts to make concrete commitments.

"We wanted her to be an honest broker - she has a history of that - but she hasn't managed to rein them in."

"I think Merkel showed passion and commitment but she hasn't turned that into real outcomes."

G8 leaders also restated pledges made to double aid spending made two years ago at a summit in Gleneagles in Scotland.

"They say they will keep their pledges on Africa but it is remarkable. In a 25 page document we can't see any evidence of how they are going to get to those. It is a maze."


Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lone Traveller on June 09, 2007, 04:14:58 PM
"I'm a rock star, but I can count"

 ahahahahah ahahahahah ahahahahah love this.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: teleplayer on June 11, 2007, 06:35:11 AM
I've never seen this term "burobabble" before. I know, I'm just not worldly enough.  But I like it and what should be it's logical synonym "bureau-speak." The former lends itself to easy abbreviation to yell out "BB! BB! when listening to politicians.

NOw, it's probably due a re-spelling to "bureau-babble." At least Bono's a rock star who can count all the way to and from the bank but I imagine the Reuter's reporter probably ONLY a groupie & p-t journalist who never did well on the J-School spelling test.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lone Traveller on June 11, 2007, 06:23:40 PM
burobabble ???
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on June 11, 2007, 10:18:29 PM
Hope this embarrasses my government into stepping up.  But , knowing Harper, he probably talked some sh!t about why spend money on africans when there are Canadians with goalie helmets, and now has to back up his stupid words.

When I think of how many vicious diseases we could eradicate from history with a determined, sustained effort, this foot-dragging really pisses me off.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on June 11, 2007, 10:23:18 PM
Quote
When I think of how many vicious diseases we could eradicate from history with a determined, sustained effort, this foot-dragging really pisses me off.
More votes in killing people, Con!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Vegemite on June 13, 2007, 05:13:30 AM
Randy sniffer dogs get the sack
Reuters | Tuesday, 12 June 2007

Two Thai street mutts who became ace sniffer dogs at an airport near the notorious "Golden Triangle" opium-producing region have been fired for urinating on luggage and sexually harassing female passengers.


The pair, Mok and Lai, had been plucked from obscurity under a program initiated by King Bhumibol Adulyadej to turn strays into police dogs, the Bangkok Post said on Sunday.

Although they won plaudits from police for their work in sniffing out drugs at northern Thailand's Chiang Rai airport, near the border with Laos and Myanmar, so many passengers complained about their behavior they had to be fired.

"He liked to pee on luggage while searching for drugs inside," Mok's former handler, Police Lieutenant Colonel Jakapop Kamhon, said. "He also liked to hold on to women's legs."

"Both were just as good as foreign dogs trained for use in drug missions," he added. "But they were stray dogs, so their manners were worse than those of foreign breeds."

Mok and Lai now work on a farm, herding chickens and pigs, the paper said.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on June 13, 2007, 12:55:46 PM
can't trust those Albanians! Someone stole his watch.

http://www.nos.nl/nosjournaal/artikelen/2007/6/12/120607_bush_horloge.html (http://www.nos.nl/nosjournaal/artikelen/2007/6/12/120607_bush_horloge.html)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on June 13, 2007, 07:52:29 PM
US denies Bush had watch stolen


June 13, 2007 - 2:08PM
This series of images shows Mr Bush starting his Albanian meet-and-greet walkabout with his watch on, and finishing without the timepiece.

This series of images shows Mr Bush starting his Albanian meet-and-greet walkabout with his watch on, and finishing without the timepiece.
Photo: AP

Reports that US President George Bush had his wristwatch stolen while shaking hands with Albanians on his weekend visit are false, Albanian police and the U.S. embassy said on Tuesday.

"The story is untrue and the president did not lose his watch," a spokesman for the embassy in Tirana said.

Some newspapers, television stations and websites carried reports that Bush's watch vanished on Sunday when he was greeted by ecstatic crowds in Fushe Kruje, outside the capital Tirana.

"It is not true," said Albania's police director, Ahmet Prenci.

Photographs showed Bush, surrounded by five bodyguards, putting his hands behind his back so one of the bodyguards could remove his watch.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Newbs on June 13, 2007, 09:41:44 PM
Why the hell's he got a watch?  It's not like he can tell the time or anything.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Newbs on June 13, 2007, 09:42:52 PM
And this one makes me proud to be a Hoganlander.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200706/s1950397.htm (http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200706/s1950397.htm)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on June 13, 2007, 10:17:54 PM
Getting priorities right is our strong point, Newbs.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Newbs on June 14, 2007, 01:31:53 AM
Greetingks, American Imperialist Swine fellow freedom lovers from the newly liberated West.

My name Blerta is.  I is Albanian mans.  I haf, for sale, on the ebay, one genuine American Swatch watch.  Is kinda funny lookingk.  Face of watch is blue.  On blue face is, how you say, eagle with no hair, and lots of arrows.  What am I bid for funny lookingk watch?  Bids start at 10000 Albanian Leke, which is $2-55 in your money.  Hurry, hurry, hurry.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on June 15, 2007, 01:07:03 AM
Here is a humdinger for ya: I lifted this from Fox News.

TEHRAN, Iran
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on June 15, 2007, 04:42:09 AM
Please note that (although many people do have them) satellite dishes for private use are against the law in Iran! 

And they are very strict in their interpretations of acceptable vs forbidden.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on June 15, 2007, 08:12:31 PM
It's my understanding that everybody and their dog have a dish strung up on their roof.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on June 15, 2007, 09:55:44 PM
It's my understanding that everybody and their dog have a dish strung up on their roof.

My penpal estimates about 50% have satellites at home, but they must use them secretly (against the Law)....and whilst the receiving/viewing of porn (or "porn") is one thing, it's the production and distribution that has just been legislated against.   
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on June 15, 2007, 10:03:10 PM
I always find it interesting that lawmakers everywhere have no trouble with blood,guts, and violence....either real or in a war.....but turn all coy and prudish when it comes to sex. Killing people is fine, and good fun, but depicting the procreation act is a dastardly crime!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on June 20, 2007, 11:20:48 PM
Quote
CHINESE police have detained a college student suspected of poisoning three classmates' drinking water with the toxic metal thallium.

Three students from the Chinese University of Mining & Technology in Xuzhou in the eastern province of Jiangsu were hospitalised and diagnosed with thallium poisoning after developing symptoms including stomach aches and vomiting on June 1, the Beijing News said.

Investigators examined their drinking cups and found excessive levels of thallium, a highly toxic metal that can damage the nerves and kidney as well as lead to hair loss, the newspaper said.

Police last week detained a classmate surnamed Chang, who confessed he poisoned the three out of deep resentment that they had isolated him, it said.


  Chinese University of Mining & Technology in Xuzhou ...Is this Suzhou??
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Newbs on June 21, 2007, 01:22:42 AM
Don't think so George.  There is a Xuzhou in Jiangsu, about as far away from Suzhou and still be in Jiangsu.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: non-dave on June 21, 2007, 04:29:55 AM
Did he pass his exams? Sounds like he did.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on June 22, 2007, 03:07:13 AM
Quote
'World Cup air' sale hits wall in China
CanWest News Service
Published: Thursday, June 21, 2007
BEIJING - A Chinese firm that once tried to sell land on the moon has been banned from a more down-to-earth venture of selling bags of "World Cup air" to fans hoping to recreate the football tournament's atmosphere.

Beijing Lunar Village Aeronautics Science and Technology Co. lost a suit last year against the Beijing Administration for Industry and Commerce, which refused its application to sell green plastic bags full of air from stadiums that hosted matches in the Germany 2006 World Cup.

Company chief executive Li Jie had planned to sell the bags to football fans for 50 yuan ($7 Cdn) each, the agency said.


"My idea was that fans unable to make the trip to the World Cup soccer tournament in Germany earlier this year could hang the green plastic bags around their necks and breathe in the air while watching matches on television," Li was reported to have said last year.

Oh, my splitting sides...laughing too much axaxaxaxax
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lono Tiki on June 22, 2007, 07:49:40 AM
I don't understand why they lost the suit though. It makes perfect sense to want to have relatively clean air from Germany when you're only alternative is Beijing air.

Prediction: 42 athletes drop dead at the 2008 Olympics, just from being unable to chew the air enough to breath.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on June 22, 2007, 10:01:59 AM
Air? They have air in Beijing now? How quickly things change...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on July 03, 2007, 02:18:13 AM
NEW YORK (AP) -- A peacock that roamed into the parking lot of a Burger King in New York City was beaten by a man who insisted it was a vampire.

Animal control officials in Staten Island say the bird was beaten so fiercely that most of its tail feathers fell out and it had to be euthanized.

The seven-year-old male peacock wandered into the restaurant parking lot and perched on a car hood last week. Charmed employees had been feeding it bread when the man appeared.

A restaurant worker says the man grabbed the bird by the neck, hurled it to the ground and started stomping it. She says when he was asked what he was doing, he responded, "'I'm killing a vampire!"'

Employees called police, but the man ran when he saw them.


Maybe he watched "The Birds" one too many times. Normally I find loonies highly amusing, but not animal cruelty loonies. I hope the peacocks take revenge.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on July 09, 2007, 02:45:06 AM
China is to make the Guinness Book of Records...for a 4-storey buildng, housing over 1,000 toilets & urinals!!! (in many different colours, shapes and sizes). 
Chongqing in SW China is very proud of their new, public facility, and many Western news agencies are picking up this report.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on July 14, 2007, 02:19:03 AM
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1864916/posts
I hope this link works. Spy squirrels??? Mwahahahaha...soon my army of small, furry animals will be ready!!!  qqqqqqqqqq qqqqqqqqqq soon my small friends will know all your secrets and you will bow down to this  cgcgcgcgcg
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on July 31, 2007, 02:32:32 AM
BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese state television has begun sacking contract staff after a bogus news report about toxic dumplings that drew international alarm and angered propaganda chiefs, newspapers reported on Monday.

ADVERTISEMENT
 
A report made by Beijing TV and shown on China Central Television (CCTV) this month claimed to show a vendor selling steamed dumplings stuffed with chemical-laced cardboard masquerading as pork.

The report brought a crescendo of domestic and international alarm about the country's lax product safety, with news of bogus food, drugs and other products ranging from seafood and toothpaste to tires.

And it was with both relief and shame that officials announced days later that a Beijing TV contract worker had fabricated the report.

Propaganda officials are now seeking tighter control on the mammoth, multi-channel national broadcaster by sacking masses of contract and informal staff, according to Ta Kung Pao, a Hong Kong paper under mainland control.

A staff member told the paper that after the scandal, the ruling Communist Party's propaganda department and the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television had demanded that media "carry out resolute self-examination and self-correction."

"CCTV is following the demand and has begun dismissing employees," the employee said. "Those with ability can stay, those that aren't qualified must all be dismissed."

Reflecting its status as an arm of state, CCTV has a limited number of formal staff positions authorized by the government. But as channels and the chase for ratings and advertising revenue have expanded, the broadcaster has taken on many hundreds of contract and informal staff.

"These irregular staff are huge in number -- about as many as there are formal staff," commented the Yangcheng Evening News, a state-run paper in Guangdong province, which also reported the dismissals.

They now face official wrath over the scandal.

The move was confirmed to Reuters by several employees of the state broadcaster. "People must go even if the number of programs is reduced," said one, who said the sackings had begun in recent days.

"These media laborers are too sad. They rushed into CCTV full of ideals ... and now they're being kicked out the door," said one commentator on a Chinese blog.

But staff were also skeptical about how deep and lasting the cuts would be. One CCTV worker said many dismissed staff were likely to be re-employed because many programs could not be made without them.

The reporter who made the dumpling report, Zi Beijia, and a handful of others have been detained.

Now, which version do we believe?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on July 31, 2007, 03:07:01 AM
In re: "dumplings" made of cardboard......But it sounds so very plausible!  TIFC, after all.  Cheap, convenient and tasty....Yummm.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on August 01, 2007, 09:39:16 PM
I'm sitting here reading the numerous articles reporting that the Danish troops have pulled out of Basra. One sentence struck me as being worthy of quoting: the human cost has been significant. Six soldiers have died since the four-year occupation started and numerous soldiers have returned with emotional and psychological scars.

Six soldiers??? Four years and six soldiers died? I may be a bit callous here but don't find that to be a terribly high body count. I do remember that every time one soldier died, there were several articles in which the parents of the deceased soldier would rant and rave against the government who killed their darling little boy. Now, what do people think happens when soldiers go to war? Their little sweet boy did not go to the Iraq pillow-fight or the Iraq sit-in-a-circle-while-making-sarcastic-comments-about-the-enemies-relatives-and-general-personality conflict. If we put the Iraq war in a historical perspective, especially given the time frame, does six soldiers really seem a lot? How long did WWI last? Or the Crimean war? Or the Korean war?
I think Danish journalists might benefit from a bit of a reality check or a history lesson.
Now they are also debating if we had any positive impact in Iraq. And honestly, I don't think we did. From what I can read, Iraq is currently much worse off than it was under the oppressive rule of Saddam.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on August 02, 2007, 01:00:54 AM
Now they are also debating if we had any positive impact in Iraq. And honestly, I don't think we did. From what I can read, Iraq is currently much worse off than it was under the oppressive rule of Saddam.


The "positive impact" is that European/US have now freed the Iraqi citizens from the tyranny and cruelty of Saddam so that they can now conduct their own civil war. 

Trying to impose peace and civility on others seldom works.  Iraq is the prime paradigm.











I'm feeling a bit cynical today.  Can you tell???
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on August 02, 2007, 01:17:14 AM
You and me both. Søren Gade, the deranged junkie-smurf who somehow got to be minister of defense, is jumping around saying we brought peace to Iraq whle rockets are dropping all around him. The power of denial is amazing.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on August 02, 2007, 07:04:11 PM
Mississippi Bridge collapse.......
http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/i-thought-i-was-dead/2007/08/02/1185648017276.html (http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/i-thought-i-was-dead/2007/08/02/1185648017276.html)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: decurso on August 02, 2007, 07:46:55 PM
What a horror show. The pictures and videos are almost unbelieveable.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on August 02, 2007, 08:44:14 PM
That is just effing unbelievable! How does a gigantic bridge just suddenly collapse? According to authorities, the collapse is not attributable to terrorists but rather maintenance and the severe lack of same. I'm flummoxed.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on August 03, 2007, 02:41:27 AM
MOSCOW, Russia (Reuters) -- Russia staked a symbolic claim to the resource-rich Arctic on Thursday when a submersible dived beneath the ice directly under the North Pole and planted a Russian flag on the seabed.


The Akademik Fedorov research ship carried about 100 scientists to the region.

 The rust-proof titanium flag was planted on the seabed 4,261 meters (13,980 ft) under the surface of the Arctic Ocean, Itar-Tass news agency quoted Vladimir Strugatsky, vice president of Russia's polar exploration association, as saying from a support vessel.

Russia wants to extend the territory in the Arctic it controls right up to the North Pole. The region is believed to hold vast untapped oil and gas reserves.

Under international law, the five states with territory inside the Arctic Circle -- Canada, Norway, Russia, the United States and Denmark via its control of Greenland -- have a 320 km (200 mile) economic zone around the north of their coastline.

But Russia is claiming a larger slice extending as far as the pole because, Moscow says, the Arctic seabed and Siberia are linked by one continental shelf.

One of the aims of the expedition is to allow oceanographers to study the seabed and establish that Russia and the North Pole are part of the same shelf.

Don't Miss
Russia in Arctic Sea oil and land grab
"It was a soft landing ... There is yellowish gravel down there. No creatures of the deep are visible," Tass quoted expedition leader Artur Chilingarov as saying.


Soviet and U.S. nuclear submarines have often traveled under the polar icecap, but no one has so far reached the seabed under the Pole, where depths exceed 4,000 meters (13,100 feet).

Expedition leaders have said their main worry is to resurface at the ice hole where they dived as the mini-submersibles are not strong enough to break through the North Pole's desolate ice cap.

Tumtitum....and the Ship of Fools sail merrily on...not that the Russians are fools, not at all. All the Russians I have ever encountered were delightful. The world, from what I can tell, just seems to have morphed into a Ship of Fools or the lunatic asylum described in Poe's "Dr.Tar and Professor Feather".
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on August 04, 2007, 02:34:39 AM
Mississippi Bridge collapse.......

According to reports on (all) the news, the bridge had gotten a "still safe" but "in need of repairs in the future" and "structurally deficient".....and there are about 750  aoaoaoaoao other bridges of the same design in and around the US (in a similar state of disrepair?).
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on August 04, 2007, 03:40:16 AM
It would seem that the authorities responsible for bridge maintenance work according to the time-honoured maxim: If it ain't broken, don't fix it.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on August 04, 2007, 03:42:59 AM
Tell that to the families of the dead.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on August 04, 2007, 03:47:12 AM
I think they know already. I only wonder who will be to blame? I mean, someone must be held responsible for a horrible incident like this. I find it hard to call this an accident as, from what the news tell me, all those fatalities and injuries could have been avoided if someone somewhere had been doing their job.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on August 10, 2007, 04:39:05 AM
I feel very sad for this panda, for so many reasons ahahahahah ahahahahah ahahahahah

Sexually suspect panda gives birth to twins
A panda once believed to be male gave birth to twin cubs this week

The panda was sent to Japan in 2000 to mate with a female... that didn't work out

The giant panda is one of the world's most endangered species
Next Article in Technology »



     
BEIJING, China (Reuters) -- A panda once believed to be male and sent to Japan to breed with a female without success gave birth to twin cubs this week, state media reported on Thursday.


An estimated 1,600 wild pandas live in nature reserves in China's Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi provinces.

 The panda, "Jinzhu", gave birth to two female cubs on Monday at the Wolong Nature Reserve in the mountainous southwestern province of Sichuan, 11 years after being declared male at birth in 1996, Xinhua news agency said.

"Jinzhu was believed to be male owing to her inconspicuous secondary sex characteristic and behavior," the agency quoted Wei Rongping, assistant director of the reserve's research center, as saying.

Jinzhu was sent to Japan in 2000 to mate with a female, the report said.

"When the pandas showed complete disinterest, experts decided to turn to artificial insemination, leading to the discovery that Jinzhu had no penis," it added.

Jinzhu was sent back to China in 2002, with experts arguing the panda was either a hermaphrodite or had "undeveloped" sexual organs.

"The penis of an adult panda is only about 3 centimeters (1.2 inches) long," Xinhua quoted Li Deshen, a panda expert, as saying, as a possible reason for the mix-up.

It was not until 2005 that scientists discovered nine-year-old Jinzhu's ovaries were positioned in the wrong place, and gave her a two-hour operation to make her a "normal girl", Xinhua said.

Jinzhu subsequently mated with a male in March 2007 and gave birth 142 days later, Xinhua said.

The giant panda is one of the world's most endangered species and is found only in China. An estimated 1,600 wild pandas live in nature reserves in China's Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi provinces.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on August 10, 2007, 09:47:27 PM
language barriers???

"Strewth. Crikey. Bloody hell. An Australian woman has reportedly sparked a security scare aboard a US flight after her use of a common Australian phrase was apparently misinterpreted as an act of aggression.

Sophie Reynolds, 41, from Queanbeyan, was flying aboard SkyWest Airlines from Atlanta to Pittsburgh this week when she asked a flight attendant if she could have a pack of pretzels instead of crackers.

"[The flight attendant] said they didn't have any [pretzels], and I said, 'Fair dinkum,' out of frustration," Reynolds was quoted as saying in the The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Before she knew it a second flight attendant asked her for her passport and copied down her name.

Then, when the flight landed, three uniformed officers greeted her.

"They said, 'You swore at the hostess and there are federal rules against that,"' Reynolds said. "And I said, 'I did not swear at the hostess, I just said 'fair dinkum."'

A spokeswoman for the airline said it was not simply a matter of misunderstanding the language.

"We witnessed aggressive behaviour throughout the flight," she said.

Reynolds was not charged and allowed to go on her way, she said."
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: birddog on August 14, 2007, 01:43:37 PM
I'm constantly collecting news articles, mostly realted to China. This one's a year old, but remains a favorite "evergreen." ;D

From Reuters:

Flaming dog meat sets Chinese school afire  
July 21, 2006

A Chinese headmaster, who tried to buy off colleagues by cooking dog meat for them after secretly selling off trees around the school, ended up setting fire to classrooms when the meal burst into flames, a Chinese newspaper said on Friday.

Ten classrooms containing televisions, computers, printers and textbooks burnt down, leaving nearly 100 children unable to go to school, the Beijing Youth Daily said.

The headmaster, in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, sold off a 1,000-tree arboretum surrounding the school on the sly, the newspaper said.

"In order to get the teachers not to tell anyone what he had done, on the afternoon of May 16, headmaster Meng got friends to obtain two dogs, which they proceeded to kill on the school grounds," the report said.

"He then told the teachers they would have dog meat to eat that afternoon," it added.

But the plan went awry when the dog being baked burst into flames and set fire to the school's main office and then the classrooms.

The local education bureau fined the headmaster 10,000 yuan (677 pounds) and suggested he be fired, the newspaper said.
 bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Newbs on August 14, 2007, 09:39:33 PM
Xinhua quoted Li Deshen, a panda expert,
  Hang on! This bloke is a panda expert but he doesn't know the difference between boy pandas and girl pandas. mmmmmmmmmm
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: birddog on August 15, 2007, 12:31:58 AM
...and I thought Chinese people were crazy... from today's AP wire:

Woman calls police about 'fake' cocaine  

August 13, 2007
Associated Press

ROCHELLE, GA -- A woman was arrested after she called police to help "get her money back" after she was unhappy with the crack cocaine she purchased.

Juanita Marie Jones, 53, called Rochelle Police late Thursday night after she purchased what she thought was a $20 piece of crack cocaine, according to police reports.

She told officers she broke the rock into three pieces and smoked one, only to discover the drugs were "fake."

She took Officer Joel Quinn and Deputy John Shedd of the Wilcox County Sheriff's Office into her kitchen and showed them the drugs, police said.

She was promptly arrested on charges of possession of cocaine.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on August 15, 2007, 01:47:35 AM
...and I thought Chinese people were crazy... from today's AP wire:

Woman calls police about 'fake' cocaine  

August 13, 2007
Associated Press

ROCHELLE, GA -- A woman was arrested after she called police to help "get her money back" after she was unhappy with the crack cocaine she purchased.

 ahahahahah ahahahahah ahahahahah That is the funniest thing I have read all day. What an optmistic little junkie. What'll be next? Burglars calling the police because the TV they stole does not work? Does crack come with a warranty? Full satisfaction or your braincells back?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: cheekygal on August 15, 2007, 02:08:47 AM
The cocaine mustnt have been fake - she got dooped to the extent of calling the police!  ahahahahah ahahahahah ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: birddog on August 15, 2007, 02:11:39 AM
Hey, ericthered, glad you got your daily dose of amusement!

The original reporter of the story, Cindy Bishop -- for the Cordele Dispatch in Georgia -- (http://www.cordeledispatch.com/local/local_story_223195348.html) opens her article with the burning question: “Do drug dealers issue gift cards if their buyers aren’t satisfied with the product?”

...and cheekygal makes an excellent point!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on August 15, 2007, 03:03:06 AM
If it was fake she can sue for wrongful arrest - no possession case at all.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: birddog on August 15, 2007, 03:10:34 AM
Yeah, lotus eater! Let's hope her lawyer makes that same argument in her defense. In Rochelle, Georgia, I imagine she worked hard for that $20! She can't be wastin' twenty bucks on bugus rocks and not get wasted herself!

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on August 15, 2007, 03:27:33 AM
This does raise a rather interesting point: crack cocaine is very bad for you, we all know this. Now, this woman attempted to purchase an illegal substance. A fellow cheated her and sold her something that she believed was crack cocaine. The particulars of the case, for instance what the actual substance was, have not been reported but if we work from the assumption that the purchased substance was completely harmless, like buying oregano and thinking it is pot, how exactly did she and the pusher break the law. Techincally, she had the intention of acquiring something illegal but she did not. The pusher did not sell something illegal, so is it not, in theory, wrong to arrest her? I know you can be arrested for intention to sell drugs but can you be arrested for intention to buy drugs or, in her case, for not buying drugs? I mean, isn't that what she did? Not buy drugs and then proceed to tell the police that she had not bought drugs, she had not taken drugs and the pusher had not sold her drugs?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on August 15, 2007, 03:46:36 AM
Eric...I'm beginning to feel like I'm in the middle of a Monty Python skit!!! aoaoaoaoao
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: birddog on August 15, 2007, 04:00:29 AM
Actually, AMonk, I think the year-old story I posted today about the exploding dog meat hush-lunch in China is much more "Monty Python" than the wacky-crack antics in Georgia!
 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on August 15, 2007, 04:06:24 AM
Oh, I don't know. I can just picture John Cleese as the arresting bobby and Eric Idle in a dress, discussing this. I wish I had the talent to write down the sketch being played in my head but alas, no.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on August 15, 2007, 04:08:13 AM
Maybe I should have referenced Danny Kaye's "The Vessel with the Pestle"?? bgbgbgbgbg
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on August 15, 2007, 04:11:53 AM
"The pellet with the poison's in the flagon with the dragon; the vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true".  ahahahahah ahahahahah ahahahahah I love that movie.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: birddog on August 15, 2007, 04:13:58 AM
Yeah, Eric... I can only imagine the conversation between Juanita Marie and the police dispatch who first received her call...
"Lookahere... Somebody done ripped me off for some whack crack! I ain't gonna stand for this! You gotta get some PO-lice over here, now!"
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on August 15, 2007, 04:17:36 AM
 bkbkbkbkbk bkbkbkbkbk
But seriously, if the thing she bought is not crack or, theoretically, not drugs, they can't really arrest her for possession, can they?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on August 15, 2007, 04:20:02 AM
I wouldn't have thought so.  but she claimed it was - so maybe they could arrest her for 'waste of police time'.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: birddog on August 15, 2007, 04:29:07 AM
While I am in no way a legal expert, I think there is something known as "unclean hands," meaning that people who engage in unlawful behavior for a particular outcome, are guilty of a crime. The fact that Juanita was (or believed she was) engaged in the purchase of illegal substances makes her a participant in a crime. But I also agree that it's a "shaky" case, at best.
 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on August 15, 2007, 05:06:29 AM
Apparently there is something like "ill will" or some such, which basically means that you can be arrested if proven that you had intended to break the law in some case. I'm no legal eagle either but all my friends are. Yeah, lawyers the lot of them...my mother always said I would end up hanging out with the wrong crowd...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: non-dave on August 15, 2007, 05:57:31 AM
It's not like the police officers had a choice. Someone told them they bought crack and then points to it, even claiming it's fake, their duty is to arrest the person for possession. Doing nothing, or even worse, trying to figure out for themselves if it's real or not, is more trouble than it's worth and would probably cost them their pensions. The Police officers' duty was to enforce the letter of the law. The rest is up to the courts. Easypeasy. Solid arrest. Stupid woman.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on August 15, 2007, 06:31:53 AM
I am not disputing the arrest nor the action taken by the police. It is indeed a matter for the courts, as you say, and that is what I find interesting. A clear open-and-shut case involving a triple axe-murder can be thrown out of court on insignificant technicalities. I can just see the judge's face when Juanita is questioned.
"Did you have any cocaine?"
"No"
"Had you bought any cocaine?"
"No"
Errr....
"Malicious intent" seems to be the techincal term. In this case it is no more than a misdemeanor and Juanita will probably face a fine and a short suspended sentence.
But what to do with the pusher? It's not as if Juanita can actually finger him to cut a deal. One thing intent to purchase but I don't think there is any law that says you cannot sell dried hamster poo to crack addicts.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on August 15, 2007, 09:22:40 PM
"China closes Carlsberg down
A Carlsberg brewery in China was closed down in April by the local authorities for allegedly violating environmental laws. Although China isn’t renowned for its re-cord on the environment, the brewery in the Ganzu province was forced to shut down production for weeks because it hadn’t built a cleaning plant as required. Carlsberg claimed that construction of the plant had been delayed by Chinese bureaucracy."

 aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao bureaucracy in China...nonono, gotta be a mistake.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: belrain on August 15, 2007, 10:02:13 PM
Well, how else can you call it if someone did not pay enough money to the responsible official - without blaming him and losing your face? ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on August 15, 2007, 11:28:04 PM
NEWSFLASH!!!

MattelR is the latest Toy Company to issue a recall of products manufactured in PRC.  It is fairly comprehensive (Elmo, Dora, etc) and the majority of toys were manufactured in the past 3 months!!! 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on August 15, 2007, 11:38:27 PM
I read about that somewhere. Didn't the CEO commit suicide due to this recall. Something about awarding a contract to a friend whose company failed do meet the health requirements and used poisonous paint?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: belrain on August 15, 2007, 11:43:46 PM
Here is a german article about it - sorry, I normally do not read english news(papers)
http://onleben.t-online.de/c/11/97/67/82/11976782.html
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on August 15, 2007, 11:48:53 PM
Don't know about the CEO, but the paint was lead-laden, and the toys also had tiny, detachable parts that could be (too) easily swallowed.  Not good for little tummies!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on August 16, 2007, 12:39:20 AM
I was right. The poor chap did commit suicide.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/08/13/china.toymaker.ap/index.html
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on August 16, 2007, 03:22:04 PM
It gets worse:

Chinese officials knew about magnetic toy problems: report
Last Updated: Wednesday, August 15, 2007 | 10:12 AM ET CBC News
 
Chinese authorities knew about safety problems with magnets on toys months before Mattel Inc. issued a massive recall, an industry official told Reuters Wednesday.

On Tuesday, the California-based toymaker recalled nearly 18.7 million toys worldwide because of magnets that could be swallowed, risking potentially fatal intestinal perforations, infections or blockage in children that swallow more than one, and excessive amounts of lead in the paint. About 10 million toys were recalled in Canada and the United States.

The Chinese official, who asked not to be identified, said the issue with the magnetic toys was known back in March, but neither the U.S. company nor the manufacturers were notified.   

"We knew about the situation, because since March some toys had been recalled due to magnetic parts problems," said an official with the China Toy Association.

The China Toy Association plans to meet with the Commerce Ministry and a quality watchdog Wednesday to discuss solutions to the problem.

China has been struggling to regain the trust of consumers worldwide after a string of recalls involving a number of products, including defective tires and tainted toothpaste.

Two weeks ago, Mattel's Fisher-Price division recalled about one million toys sold in the U.S. that could contain lead paint. The toys were painted by a Chinese subcontractor.

Chinese authorities have admitted that it will take years to set up a proper inspection system to ensure products are safe.

Already, officials are looking at solutions such as having North American companies send their own inspectors to Chinese factories to ensure their standards are met. As well, some companies have begun training Chinese inspectors.

Tuesday's recall by Mattel involves toys such as Polly Pocket dolls and Batman action figures, about 890,000 of which were sold in Canada. About 32,800 Sarge die-cast cars sold in Canada were also recalled because they contained lead paint.

The recall expanded on a similar recall in November 2006.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: belrain on August 16, 2007, 07:36:03 PM
Is your teaching job already influenced by this?
http://www.china.org.cn/english/education/220537.htm
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on August 17, 2007, 02:22:06 AM
OHHHh! Dethpicable Dutch perthons!!.....
THREE young men in the northern Dutch town of Damwoude were charged with damaging property after adding maggots to supermarket meat that was later sold to a customer, police said today.

The shopkeeper found 40 maggots after the customer complained, and identified the men, aged between 18 and 21, on a surveillance tape as they put the insect larvae into packaged meat.

 bibibibibi bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on August 17, 2007, 02:23:33 AM
 aaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaa that's disgusting.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: old34 on August 17, 2007, 02:37:17 AM
Is your teaching job already influenced by this?
http://www.china.org.cn/english/education/220537.htm

Not directly, but yes.

In their politics classes they are getting some of this these days. Don't know how much sinks in, because the politics classes are generally the ones where students catch up on their sleep or SMS's. But all are aware of it and I have seen an increase in these "political lessons" in the last couple of years. It's a good thing, really. It's the closest thing to a "moral education" you will find here.

But students really don't like to hear it first coming from the FTs unless you have been teaching them for quite awhile and you have built up a large reserve of trust and respect with them. 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on August 17, 2007, 02:49:30 AM
My students complain to me about the corruption - especially academic and in finding jobs - clearly it affects them as well.  It seems to be much more openly talked about now.  Reporting in the China daily of corruption has increased and this always seems to be the indicator that things are Ok to discuss.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: birddog on August 21, 2007, 06:09:39 PM
Australian woman killed by pet camel

BRISBANE, Australia (AP) -- An Australian woman was killed by a pet camel given to her as a 60th birthday present, police said Sunday.

The woman, whose name has not been released, was killed Saturday at her family sheep and cattle ranch near Mitchell, 350 miles west of the Queensland state capital Brisbane, state police Detective Senior Constable Craig Gregory said.

The 10-month-old male -- weighing about 330 pounds -- had knocked her to the ground then lay on top of her in what police suspect was mating behavior, Gregory said.

Camel expert Chris Hill agreed with Gregory.

Hill, who has offered camel rides to tourists for 20 years, said young camels are not aggressive but can be dangerous if treated as pets without discipline.

The woman was given the hand-reared camel in March as a birthday present from her husband and daughter.

The fate of the camel is not known.

An autopsy of the woman will determine the precise cause of death within days.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
 

 
Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/08/20/camel.death.ap/index.html?eref=rss_world 
 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: belrain on August 21, 2007, 06:50:41 PM
 bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on August 21, 2007, 07:35:07 PM
There is so many things one could say about that article but, as someone died, I won't.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: birddog on August 21, 2007, 07:50:56 PM
Yeah, Eric, that's why I also refrained from making a comment (or two), but I thought the piece warranted posting.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: birddog on August 21, 2007, 07:54:33 PM
Another, far more important story from today's Agence France Presse:

Freed dissident calls for 'taxpayers' revolution' in China  
by P. Parameswaran  --  Agence France Presse
August 21, 2007

A high-profile Chinese dissident freed from prison called on Tuesday for a "taxpayers revolution" in China to bring about greater openness and accountability in the world's most populous nation.

Yang Jianli, a veteran of the bloody Tiananmen Square student uprising in Beijing in 1989, urged Chinese communist leaders to give in to "mounting pressures from bottom to top for democracy in China" so that they could minimize the "social cost" for such change.

A permanent US resident, Yang returned to his Boston home from Beijing at the weekend after serving a five-year prison sentence for spying and illegally entering China.
Holder of doctorates from both Harvard and Berkeley, Yang was detained for illegal entry and alleged espionage for Taiwan in April 2002 when entering China with a friend's passport to observe labor unrest.

Beijing had refused to renew his own passport due to his involvement in the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement that ended in bloodshed when tanks crushed the demonstrations, killing hundreds or even thousands of protesters.

"People in China are more and more aware of their rights as taxpayers and I have been advocating a taxpayers' revolution from prison," Yang told AFP in a telephone interview from Boston.

Yang, who is to give a news conference at Capitol Hill with US legislators on Tuesday, said he wrote a number of chapters for a book on the topic while in prison.

"Everybody in China is a taxpayer and are entitled to certain rights as masters of the country, masters of the government," he said.

"They are entitled, for example, to ask the government to make public their budget so that they can choose the most efficient, cost effective public services people," he said.

The dissident believed "the days are not too far away" for democracy to take root in China and transform from a "100 percent police state now."

He said that President Hu Jintao and other Chinese leaders were already "feeling the urgency for freedom but are worried that if they open up, they will lose their power and everything.

"The reality is nobody can stop democratization in China now. The value of human rights has become universal."

Yang, a father of two, was released from prison on April 27 but his status has been in limbo as Beijing had refused to give him an identity card to stay in the country or an exit visa or passport to leave the country.

Yang's case was brought up with the Chinese leaders several times by US President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The US House of Representatives and Senate had unanimously passed several resolutions calling for his unconditional release.

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention also found that Yang had been held in violation of international law.

Barney Frank, the Democratic lawmaker from Massachusetts, whose constituents include Yang and his family, said US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's "intervention" with Chinese leaders in July helped prod Beijing to issue a passport for Yang and paved the way for his return.

"I also very much appreciate that the Chinese government acceded to Secretary Paulson's request and allowed Jianli to come home," Frank said.

Yang said that the Chinese authorities had taken him to Beijing airport in September 2006 to send him to the United States but he refused because they could not give him a verbal or written assurance that he could return to China or allow him to visit the grave of his father, who died during his imprisonment.

"So they put me back in prison and I fully served my term," he said. "I paid a high price but I accomplished my goals -- including getting a passport, which theoretically allows me to go back to China even tomorrow."

Yang said he would "spend meaningful time with his family" over the next few months to decide on what specific projects he would undertake to push for democratization in China.

In "Beijing Prison No. 2," he said, he taught mathematics, economics and English and coached basketball to inmates.

"I also offered them a course, for which I wrote textbooks, on common sense logic and the ability to search for truth," he said. "We all need it."


Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AFP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Agence France Presse.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on August 21, 2007, 09:11:48 PM
Odd. How are they going to maintain the Colonel Schultz approach to the whole Tianneman Square business when they let people who participated in it out of jail? A course in common sense, logic and the search for truth? ahahahahah ahahahahah ahahahahah ahahahahah I mean, there are some places and people in China who could benefit from such a course but I don't think he'll have much chance in setting it up.
A dissident is running around dizzing China...geez, the Chairman would be rolling in his mausoleum if he knew how much his Party is slipping. agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on August 22, 2007, 09:06:48 PM
Quote
The 10-month-old male -- weighing about 330 pounds -- had knocked her to the ground then lay on top of her in what police suspect was mating behavior, Gregory said.

WA HAHAHA HAHA HA HA HA!!!!!!!

Hell, I never met her.  Figure she was wearing a fur coat at the time?  Little camel tease.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: birddog on August 23, 2007, 04:04:32 AM
Arm Wrestling Machine Breaks Arms
TOKYO, Aug. 22, 2007

(AP) Lose a game of chess to a computer, and you could bruise your ego. Lose an arm-wrestling match to a Japanese arcade machine, and you could break your arm.

Distributor Atlus Co. said it will remove all 150 "Arm Spirit" arm wrestling machines from Japanese arcades after three players broke their arms grappling with the machine's mechanized appendage.

"The machine isn't that strong, much less so than a muscular man. Even women should be able to beat it," said Atlus spokeswoman Ayano Sakiyama, calling the recall "a precaution."

"We think that maybe some players get overexcited and twist their arms in an unnatural way," she said. The company was investigating the incidents and checking the machines for any signs of malfunction.

Players of "Arm Spirit" advance through 10 levels, battling a French maid, drunken martial arts master and a Chihuahua before reaching the final showdown with a professional wrestler.

The arcade machine is not distributed overseas.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on August 23, 2007, 04:08:31 AM
"Even women should be able to beat it" ahahahahah ahahahahah ahahahahah Any comments on that, dear ladies, whom I know would not only beat me in armwrestling but would do it with the left hand, blind drunk while re-organizing your closet.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: birddog on August 23, 2007, 01:35:01 PM
China Regulates Buddhist Reincarnation  
By Matthew Philips
Newsweek

Aug. 20-27, 2007 issue - In one of history's more absurd acts of totalitarianism, China has banned Buddhist monks in T from reincarnating without government permission. According to a statement issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes into effect next month and strictly stipulates the procedures by which one is to reincarnate, is "an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation." But beyond the irony lies China's true motive: to cut off the influence of the Dalai Lama, T's exiled spiritual and political leader, and to quell the region's Buddhist religious establishment more than 50 years after China invaded the small Himalayan country. By barring any Buddhist monk living outside China from seeking reincarnation, the law effectively gives Chinese authorities the power to choose the next Dalai Lama, whose soul, by tradition, is reborn as a new human to continue the work of relieving suffering.

At 72, the Dalai Lama, who has lived in India since 1959, is beginning to plan his succession, saying that he refuses to be reborn in T so long as it's under Chinese control. Assuming he's able to master the feat of controlling his rebirth, as Dalai Lamas supposedly have for the last 600 years, the situation is shaping up in which there could be two Dalai Lamas: one picked by the Chinese government, the other by Buddhist monks. "It will be a very hot issue," says Paul Harrison, a Buddhism scholar at Stanford. "The Dalai Lama has been the prime symbol of unity and national identity in T, and so it's quite likely the battle for his incarnation will be a lot more important than the others."

So where in the world will the next Dalai Lama be born? Harrison and other Buddhism scholars agree that it will likely be from within the 130,000 Tan exiles spread throughout India, Europe and North America. With an estimated 8,000 Tans living in the United States, could the next Dalai Lama be American-born? "You'll have to ask him," says Harrison. If so, he'll likely be welcomed into a culture that has increasingly embraced reincarnation over the years. According to a 2005 Gallup poll, 20 percent of all U.S. adults believe in reincarnation. Recent surveys by the Barna Group, a Christian research nonprofit, have found that a quarter of U.S. Christians, including 10 percent of all born-again Christians, embrace it as their favored end-of-life view. A non-Tan Dalai Lama, experts say, is probably out of the question.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20227400/site/newsweek/
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on August 23, 2007, 08:34:11 PM
Reincarnating without a license, eh?  You're getting a ticket, mister. cbcbcbcbcb
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: belrain on August 23, 2007, 08:58:10 PM
What will be the punishment for reincarnation without a license? Send to hell immediately? aoaoaoaoao
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: birddog on August 23, 2007, 09:20:54 PM
Eternal limbo?  afafafafaf
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on August 23, 2007, 09:46:16 PM
You'll come back as a politician and have to work your way up to dungbeetle?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on August 24, 2007, 01:41:11 PM
Koala sex machine thrills zoo

August 24, 2007 - 6:31AM


A sex-mad koala recruited from Scotland to teach his counterpart in an Austrian zoo about the birds and the bees is finding himself very much in demand.

When romantic music, erotic movies and aphrodisiac food failed to entice their male koala, Bilyarra, to mate with female Mirali, staff at Vienna's Schoenbrunn Zoo sought the help of Edinburgh Zoo's resident stud, Chumbee.

The five-year-old male and his super-active libido arrived on loan in the Austrian capital in March and zoo managers are confident they will soon be hearing the patter of tiny koala paws after Bilyarra started to get in on the action.

"Chumbee hasn't stopped since he got here," said Schoenbrunn Zoo manager Helmut Pechlaner.

"It has been almost non-stop sex in the koala enclosure ever since, and now even our own male is joining in."
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on August 24, 2007, 10:20:28 PM
Canadian cops tried to instigate violence at a protest so they could then step in and bash some heads!

Quebec police admit they went undercover at Montebello protest[/b]
Last Updated: Thursday, August 23, 2007 | 7:52 PM ET CBC News

Quebec provincial police admitted Thursday that three of their officers disguised themselves as demonstrators during the protest at the North American leaders summit in Montebello, Que.

A YouTube video shows Dave Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union, ordering three masked men back from a line of riot police.

However, the police force denied allegations its undercover officers were there on Monday to provoke the crowd and instigate violence.

"At no time did the police of the Sûreté du Québec act as instigators or commit criminal acts," the police force said in French in a news release. "It is not in the police force's policies, nor in its strategies, to act in that manner.

"At all times, they responded within their mandate to keep order and security."

Police said the three undercover officers were only at the protest to locate and identify non-peaceful protesters in order to prevent any incidents.

Police came under fire Tuesday, when a video surfaced on YouTube that appeared to show three plainclothes police officers at the protest with bandanas across their faces. One of the men was carrying a rock.

In the video, protest organizers in suits order the men to put the rock down, call them police instigators and try unsuccessfully to unmask them.

Police-issued boots identified fake protesters
Protest organizers on Wednesday played the video for the media at a news conference in Ottawa. One of the organizers, union leader Dave Coles, explained that one reason protesters knew the men's true identities was because they were wearing the same boots as other police officers.

Coles said on Wednesday that the only thing he didn't know was whether the men were Quebec police, RCMP or hired security officers.

"[Our union] believes that the security force at Montebello were ordered to infiltrate our peaceful assembly and provoke incidents," said Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union.

Police said the three were told to monitor protesters who were not peacefully demonstrating to prevent any violent incidents, but they were called out as undercover agents when they refused to throw objects.

Concern Canada losing control of its energy
The protest at Montebello occurred outside the Fairmont Le Château Montebello hotel, near Ottawa, where Prime Minister Stephen Harper was meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush and Mexican President Felipe Calderon. The summit about border security, free trade and other issues began Monday and finished Tuesday.

Protesters said they gathered to voice their concern about Canada losing control of its energy and water resources and borders. Others decried what they called a high level of secrecy at the summit.

The Quebec provincial police will not comment any further on the affair, a spokeswoman in Montreal said.

Quebec Justice Minister Jacques Dupuis was made aware of the news, but a spokesman from his office said he will not comment on the matter either.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on August 24, 2007, 10:34:59 PM
Bob Brown is a good guy - calls it right! I figure, even coming up to elections, there should be a couple more important things for the Oz Federal Gov't to be worried about.

Rudd strip club visit sparks rash of confessions

August 20, 2007 05:06pm
Article from: NEWS.com.au

   
OPPOSITION Leader Kevin Rudd says he's never claimed to be "Captain Perfect", and his decision to visit a New York strip club is the kind of mistake blokes make.

He may be right, because today a number of his blokey colleagues, and one woman, admitted they had seen strippers.

It was revealed yesterday that Mr Rudd visited Scores gentlemen's club in Manhattan in 2003 with fellow Labor MP Warren Snowdon and New York Post editor Col Allan during a taxpayer-funded trip when he was opposition foreign affairs spokesman.

Mr Rudd has apologised but said he has little recollection of what happened in the strip club, because he had had too much to drink.

"I think any bloke who's honest about their lives can point to times in their lives when they've got it wrong," Mr Rudd said today.

"I've done that, but can I say the attitude of the Australian community, their evaluation of me, that's a matter for them and I accept their judgment.

"I have never tried to present myself as Captain Perfect - I'm not, never have been. Captain Morality or anything like that - I'm not, never have been and we all make mistakes and I've made one here."

Mr Rudd said he had been embarrassed by the revelation but he and Mr Snowdon had no recollection of any inappropriate behaviour and he had apologised to his wife after the incident.

When asked whether wife Terese Rein had given him a "verbal bollocking", a jovial Mr Rudd said: "Therese is a firm woman, we've been married a long time."

The confessions came thick and fast from other politicians after Mr Rudd's revelations.

First, Defence Minister Brendan Nelson admitted he visited a strip club almost 30 years ago.

"I remember being at one when I was 20, in Adelaide," he said on ABC radio in Adelaide.

"I suspect that there are many Australian men and an increasing number of women who have done so as well."

Then Victorian Premier John Brumby suggested strip clubs were the only reason people visited
Sydney.

"The last time I attended a strip place would have probably been in the 1970s, when I was a student, I think if my memory's correct it was probably in Sydney," he said.

"It was with a group of mates, male and female, I can't remember the name of the place."

Queensland Government ministers were falling over themselves to fess up and even Deputy Premier Anna Bligh owned up to a bit of mischief.

"I've seen a strip-o-gram in a Chinese restaurant once - does that count?" she said.

Local Government Minister Andrew Fraser said he hadn't been to a strip club - at least recently.

"Not as a married man. I suppose we're all young once."

Transport Minister Paul Lucas said he had seen strip shows "a couple of times" in his 20s.

"I also actually had a couple of ciggies behind the bike shed at school, I think I swore on the football field when I played football a couple of times, and I was almost late for Mass on Sunday," he said.

But Premier Peter Beattie said he had never been interested in strip clubs. and Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott wouldn't say.

Prime Minister John Howard today declined to comment on the scandal.

But Greens leader Bob Brown said the revelations should be kept in perspective.

"Four years ago Kevin Rudd got drunk and took himself into a strip club," Senator Brown said.
"Four years ago John Howard, sober, took Australia into the Iraq war.

"I think the electorate can judge which one did the more harm," he said.


Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kcanuck on August 25, 2007, 12:15:10 AM
The police infiltration of the Canadian Summit protestors is extremely disturbing, especially since they appeared to be trying to incite a riot.  This was the lead story on CBC radio this morning and it will likely stay at in the public eye for awhile. 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on August 25, 2007, 12:41:44 AM

Errr...where is Matthew Hopkins when ya need him?

SALEM, Massachusetts (AP) -- A self-proclaimed high priestess of Salem witches and a second person were accused of tossing raccoon parts on the doorsteps of businesses, allegedly as part of a Wiccan community feud.

Sharon Graham, 46, and a fellow Wiccan, Frederick Purtz, 22, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges of littering and malicious destruction of property. Graham also was charged with intimidating a witness.

They were accused of putting a raccoon head and entrails on the doorsteps of Angelica of the Angels and the Goddess' Treasure Chest in May.

Salem, a historic seaport famous for holding witch trials in the 17th century, has an active Wiccan community and thriving witch-related tourism.

David Gavegnano, a lawyer for Graham, and Sean Wynne, a lawyer for Purtz, both denied that their clients had anything to do with the incident. They also argued that at any rate, the malicious destruction charge wasn't valid because the storefronts weren't permanently damaged.

A witness, Richard Watson, told police he accompanied Graham, Purtz and other people when they put the raccoon remains on the doorsteps. He said Graham hoped to frame a Wiccan businessman who had fired Graham from a psychic telephone business last spring.

Watson also said Graham had a disagreement with the owners of the two targeted businesses over proposed regulations that would limit the number of psychics who come to the city during the Halloween season. He said he was told the group had found the raccoon dead.

Gavegnano declined to comment on Watson's accusations Thursday. Wynne told The Boston Herald said there were probably "internal issues within the Wiccan community," but the tossing of raccoon entrails may be a "bastardization" of Wiccan practice because the religion doesn't condone harming others
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on August 25, 2007, 11:26:03 AM
This is a bit of a worry!!

Chinese police track missing uranium
 Mary-anne Toy
August 25, 2007

CHINESE police are attempting to trace eight kilograms of radioactive uranium ore that has gone missing.

The police arrested four men trying to sell the highly dangerous substance on the black market, state media have reported.

The men from Hunan province are on trial in Guangzhou, capital of the southern province of Guangdong, after they were arrested attempting to sell the the ore — comprising U-235 and U-238 uranium — for 1.6 million yuan ($A260,000) per kilogram.

A fifth accomplice, who allegedly has the bulk of the ore, has not been found.

Health authorities warned that the ore was highly dangerous. "The radioactive substance uranium does not explode when it is in its raw state, but it is very harmful to people's health," Jiang Chaoqiang, director of the Guangzhou No. 12 People's Hospital, told China Daily.

Mr Jiang said close contact with uranium for long periods could lead to leukaemia or other cancers.

Two of the defendants were arrested in Guangzhou in January trying to sell the uranium to Peng Shuang Jin. He offered to buy apparently on behalf of a customer in Hong Kong, but then informed police of the illegal activity, the New Express Daily newspaper reported.

Another two accomplices were arrested in Hunan six days later.

Police have recovered only 35 grams of uranium from the four men. They claimed a fifth partner, Zhang Xinfang, had disappeared with the bulk of the uranium and had since become seriously ill, presumably from exposure to the radioactivity.

"The men claimed it had been lost because it had been moved around so much between potential buyers," the paper said.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: birddog on August 25, 2007, 05:11:29 PM
British dwarf's penis gets stuck to hoover

(Agencies)
August 22, 2007

Edingburgh - A dwarf performer at the Edinburgh fringe festival had to be rushed to hospital after his penis got stuck to a vacuum cleaner during an act that went horribly awry.

Daniel Blackner, or "Captain Dan the Demon Dwarf", was due to perform at the Circus of Horrors at the festival known for its oddball, offbeat performances.

The main part of his act saw him appear on stage with a vacuum cleaner attached to his member through a special attachment.

The attachment broke before the performance and Blackner tried to fix it using extra-strong glue, but unfortunately only let it dry for 20 seconds instead of the 20 minutes required.

He then joined it directly to his organ. The end result? A solid attachment, laughter, mortification and ... hospitalisation.

"It was the most embarrassing moment of my life when I got wheeled into a packed AE with a vacuum attached to me," Blackner said.

"I just wished the ground could swallow me up. Luckily, they saw me quickly so the embarrassment was short-lived."
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: birddog on August 26, 2007, 04:09:36 PM
Daily life in America now also includes a heightened sense of paranoia:

Beer runners' trail a recipe for trouble
Pair arrested after marking a powdery path through IKEA parking lot

The Associated Press
August 25, 2007

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - Two people who sprinkled flour in a parking lot to mark a trail for their offbeat running club inadvertently caused a bioterrorism scare and now face a felony charge.

The sprinkled powder forced hundreds to evacuate an IKEA furniture store Thursday.

New Haven ophthalmologist Daniel Salchow, 36, and his sister, Dorothee, 31, who is visiting from Hamburg, Germany, were both charged with first-degree breach of peace, a felony.

The siblings set off the scare while organizing a run for a local chapter of the Hash House Harriers, a worldwide group that bills itself as a “drinking club with a running problem.”

“Hares” are given the task of marking a trail to direct runners, throwing in some dead ends and forks as challenges. On Thursday, the Salchows decided to route runners through the massive IKEA parking lot.

Police fielded a call just before 5 p.m. that someone was sprinkling powder on the ground. The store was evacuated and remained closed the rest of the night. The incident prompted a massive response from police in New Haven and surrounding towns.

Flouring the road from coast to coast

Daniel Salchow biked back to IKEA when he heard there was a problem and told officers the powder was just harmless flour, which he said he and his sister have sprinkled everywhere from New York to California without incident.

“Not in my wildest dreams did I ever anticipate anything like that,” he said.

Mayoral spokeswoman Jessica Mayorga said the city plans to seek restitution from the Salchows, who are due in court Sept. 14.

“You see powder connected by arrows and chalk, you never know,” she said. “It could be a terrorist, it could be something more serious. We’re thankful it wasn’t, but there were a lot of resources that went into figuring that out.”



© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20441775/
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on August 26, 2007, 04:42:57 PM
Quote
© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: birddog on August 26, 2007, 05:05:10 PM
Say what, George?
Are you suggesting that I be paranoid about The Associated Press too, or that I should truly refrain from making any future posts from AP, or other news wires or publications?
 mmmmmmmmmm

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on August 26, 2007, 05:34:41 PM
 agagagagag Don't worry about them, BD. Their lawyers probably don't know where China is!!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on August 27, 2007, 10:47:40 PM
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/law/08/24/michael.vick/index.html

I have to plow my way through newspapers everyday, pages of which are filled with reports of illegal activities. Some minor, some that leaves me with a distinct feeling that Shakespeare was on some really strong drugs, when he had Hamlet declare: What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel!
Unless Hamlet was ironic, of course...
Michael Vick leaves me just angry. Does it matter that he did not bet on the dog-fighting? If anyone ever deserved to be kicked repeatedly in the crotch by a camel, it is Michael Vick. He likes being cruel to animals, right then, let's see how he likes it when animals are cruel to him.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on August 28, 2007, 11:42:57 PM
Trapped Chinese miners survive on coal, urine diet 40 minutes ago
 


BEIJING (Reuters) - Two Chinese brothers who tunneled their way out of a coal mine collapse after being trapped for nearly six days survived by eating coal and drinking urine, a local newspaper reported on Tuesday.


 
Brothers Meng Xianchen and Meng Xianyou became trapped while working at an illegal mine in Beijing's Fangshan District late on Saturday, August 18, the latest in a series of disasters to strike the world's deadliest coal mining industry.

Two days later, rescue efforts were called off and relatives began burning "ghost money" at the entrance of the mine for the dearly departed.

"At first there was no feeling, but then I was so hungry I couldn't crawl any more," Xianchen told the Beijing News. "I got so hungry, I ate a piece of coal, and I thought it quite fragrant.

"Actually, coal is bitter and unsmooth but you can chew up pieces the size of a finger. In the mine, we picked up two discarded water bottles, and drank our urine. You can only take small sips, and when you've finished, you just want to cry."

He said because they were eating coal, and were in the mine for nearly six days, they did not defecate.

"We were only able to do that the day before yesterday in hospital. It was full of coal."

Both said they would not go back into mining.

But their younger brother, Meng Xianjun, who has a decade of experience in the mines, cut in to the interview to add: "I'll still do it."

Chinese mine owners regularly flout safety regulations to meet insatiable demand for a fuel powering the country's booming economy.

A gas explosion in an Inner Mongolian mine that was operating illegally killed seven people on Saturday, as officials began handing compensation to families of 181 miners trapped and presumed dead after a flood last week in eastern China.

But in a second miraculous rescue, four builders trapped more than a week ago inside a collapsed tunnel at a hydropower project in the southwestern province of Yunnan were pulled out alive early on Tuesday, Xinhua news agency reported.

Rescuers in Yunnan's Yingjiang County dug an extra passage to reach the workers and used a ventilation pipe to carry food and drinking water to the four, who were being treated in a local hospital following their rescue.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Newbs on August 29, 2007, 12:27:31 AM
Brothers Meng Xianchen and Meng Xianyou became trapped while working at an illegal mine
Well, that was the problem you see, if they had been working in a legal mine this sort of thing wouldn't have happened.



I'm not making fun of the poor bastards plight, but I am making satirical comment on China's mine safety record.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on August 29, 2007, 12:43:33 AM
Brothers Meng Xianchen and Meng Xianyou became trapped while working at an illegal mine
Well, that was the problem you see, if they had been working in a legal mine this sort of thing wouldn't have happened.



I'm not making fun of the poor bastards plight, but I am making satirical comment on China's mine safety record.

mine safety??? China does not have mine safety. That term is anathema.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on August 30, 2007, 06:01:25 PM
Michael Vick made a point of denying any gambling because, I figure, his lawyer rightly surmised this could affect Vick's ability to get reinstated to the NFL after he serves whatever time he'll do.

Uranium is missing in China. aoaoaoaoao  Think I'll fix myself a drink. jjjjjjjjjj
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on August 30, 2007, 09:53:55 PM
Uranium is missing in China. aoaoaoaoao  Think I'll fix myself a drink. jjjjjjjjjj



Just DON'T touch that canister to the left of the Absinthe!!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on August 31, 2007, 02:34:50 AM
Ummm...some criminals are just plain odd.


FBI: Strip-Or-Get-Bombed Threat Spreads
15 Stores Targeted In 11 States In Past Week, Police Say

POSTED: 1:15 pm PDT August 28, 2007
UPDATED: 8:33 pm PDT August 29, 2007


PHOENIX -- A telephone caller making a bomb threat to a Hutchinson, Kan., grocery store kept more than 100 people hostage, demanding they disrobe and that the store wire money to his bank account.

Tuesday's incident may be part of a broader scam targeting other businesses around the country, the FBI said. Similar bomb threats are under investigation at more than 15 stores in at least 11 states -- all in the past week, authorities said.

FBI spokesman Rich Kolko said the threat appears to be related to a plot in recent days focusing on banks and stores in places like Detroit, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, Philadelphia and Newport, R.I.

SURVEY: Should A Company Pay A Bomb Scare Bribe?
 

"At this point, there's enough similarities that we think it's potentially one person or one group," Kolko said.

Police in Kansas safely led the 46 employees and 64 customers, some of whom had taken off their clothes, out of a Dillons grocery store after about 90 minutes.

Authorities said the caller appeared to have visual access to the store, although officials were investigating whether the caller was out of state and may have hacked into the store's security system.

"If they can access the Internet, they can get to anything," Hutchinson Police Chief Dick Heitschmidt said. "Anyone in the whole world could have access, if that's what really happened."

On Wednesday, two other stores in Hutchinson also received bomb threats, said police Lt. Steven Nelson.

In Arizona, a bomb threat led to the evacuation of a Prescott Safeway on Tuesday.

A caller with an accent demanded $2,850, according to police and city spokesman Kim Kapin.

"The maximum that Western Union can send through its service is $3,000," Kapin said. Wiring money also includes a $150 service charge, Kapin added. "This individual was obviously aware of that."

Initially, the caller led employees to believe he was observing them.

"After a while, it sounded like he was just taking a shot in the dark at what they might be doing, or what they looked like or how they were reacting to his call," Prescott police Lt. Ken Morley said.

Sherry Johnson, a spokeswoman for Englewood, Colo.-based Western Union, said the company was working with the FBI and U.S. Secret Service to trace the money sent through the service.

It was also telling its agents to be on the lookout for the extortion plot.

"This is an ongoing law enforcement investigation," Johnson said.

A bomb threat at a supermarket in Millinocket, Maine, on Wednesday was tied to the scam. Authorities there said a caller threatened to detonate a bomb inside the store unless money was wired to a bank account. Click here to read about the incident.

An unidentified man called a Newport Wal-Mart on Tuesday morning, saying he had a bomb and would harm employees. He also demanded that workers transfer $10,000 to an account, said Newport Police Sgt. James Quinn. The store wired the money, Quinn said.

FBI Looks For Overseas Connection

The FBI was looking into whether the calls to the banks and stores were being placed from overseas and was compiling reports from local police departments to probe for similarities between the cases, Kolko said Wednesday.

"At this point, there's enough similarities that we think it's potentially one person or one group," Kolko said from Washington.

Police in Virginia said a similar threat was made at a store there on Tuesday. In that case, no money was sent and no bomb was found.

In Newport, the caller placed three separate calls to the store, Quinn said. An employee reported the bomb threat to police at 6:52 a.m., minutes before the store's scheduled opening.

Roughly 25 employees who were inside at the time were evacuated as a police SWAT team spent hours sweeping the building and bomb-sniffing dogs searched around cars in the parking lot. Neither the suspect nor any explosive device was found in the store, and no one was injured.

Quinn said police have identified the account where the money was wired, but he would not say where it was held. He said the caller used a land line from out of state, but would not say from where. No arrests have been made.

A similar call was made to a bank inside a Wal-Mart store in western Virginia late Tuesday morning, police said. An employee at a bank branch inside a Wal-Mart store in Salem was told that a bomb would explode unless an undisclosed amount of money was sent via Western Union. The store was evacuated and later reopened after no bombs were found, police said.

Another bomb threat was called in a few minutes later to a bank inside a store in Virginia's Pulaski County. That store was also evacuated and no bombs were found.

No arrests have been made in either of the Virginia incidents.

The store in Newport does not have a bank branch inside, but offers a money transfer service similar to Western Union, police said.

College Campuses Get Bomb Threats

Separately, the FBI is looking into bomb threats on college campuses, including three in Ohio -- the University of Akron, Kenyon College and a community college in Lorain County, Ohio.

No explosive devices have been found. Law enforcement officials said there was no evidence at this time linking the college bomb threats with those at grocery and discount stores.

Kenyon, in Gambier in central Ohio, received six separate bomb threats in a general admissions e-mail account between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. Wednesday, college spokesman Shawn Presley said.

Local and federal authorities determined the threats to be a hoax and the school was not evacuated as officials swept buildings searching for the bomb, he said.

The University of Akron closed classrooms, labs and offices in its Auburn Science and Engineering building on Wednesday, after a secretary in a dean's office received an anonymous e-mail that included a bomb threat.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on September 04, 2007, 12:18:04 AM
This is just plain cheating.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/09/02/megamillions.jackpot.ap/index.html

You can't just go around making financial deals with deities. It's not fair  gggggggggg
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on September 04, 2007, 06:33:50 PM
How can you trust a healer with such an overt glandular problem?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on September 06, 2007, 12:23:13 AM
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/09/04/dating.mating.ap/index.html

And in other news: Scientists have, after extensive studies, reached numerous conclusions:
- Water is wet.
- The majority of people find it quite annoying to be hit over the head with a mallet.
- If you want to be a pop star, looks count for more than talent.
- People do in fact eat rice in China.
- If an elephant steps on a mouse, the mouse will die.
- Nobody really likes celery and brussel sprouts.
- Dolly the sheep is not the reincarnation of Errol Flynn.
- Homer Simpson could never become president of the US since, as recent studies show, the man is overqualified.
- Men who wear pink glasses stand a good chance of being the target of unwanted attention from gay men in bars.
- Women like shopping and shoes. They really like shopping for shoes. Some women do not like shopping, shoes or shopping for shoes.
 and the list continues.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mr Nobody on September 06, 2007, 12:31:45 AM
Actually, that isn't quite true. I only like brussell sprouts cooked one way - stuffed with bacon and cheese sort of thing - and celery is only good for their leaves, used as a parsley substitute which I dislike even more than celery. But who finds out these things? People must be checking my shopping trolley.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on September 06, 2007, 01:01:48 AM

- Nobody really likes celery and brussel sprouts.


With Thanks to Ogden Nash (R.I.P.)

Celery, raw,
Develops the jaw.
While celery, stewed,
Is more quietly chewed.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on September 06, 2007, 02:01:15 AM


And in other news: Scientists have, after extensive studies, reached numerous conclusions:
- Water is wet.


Hmmm, I bought powdered water the other day.

Anybody know what I should add to it?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on September 06, 2007, 02:04:40 AM
Three tears from a unicorn.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on September 06, 2007, 11:01:15 AM
Dog sauce.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on September 07, 2007, 10:21:47 PM
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/

Oh, Bush, your oratorical skills would make even Cicero envious.
I can just imagine an interview with the President.
"Mr. President, why did you invade Iraq?"
"Because it was time to kick ass and chew bubblegum and I was all out of bubblegum!!"
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: belrain on September 07, 2007, 11:36:32 PM
Well, but speaking clearly what he is thinking about leads to no misinterpretation  ahahahahah ahahahahah
 agagagagag agagagagag agagagagag agagagagag agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on September 08, 2007, 12:13:07 AM
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2007410737,00.html

Now, if the only one in the world who understands you is a kitten on crack, you have serious issues. I mean, other than the serious issues that led you to give crack to the poor kitty in the first place. I think people like Pete Doherty and Michael Vick should be sentenced to a lifetime of being punched repeatedly in the face my Evander Holyfield. What a pair of jackasses! llllllllll llllllllll
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: birddog on September 10, 2007, 05:23:41 PM
Man's waist exceeds height
(China Daily)
September 7, 2007

A man learned that his waist measurement surpassed his height by 18 cm after he visited a hospital in Zhengzhou, capital of Henan Province.

The obese man, surnamed Zhou, arrived at the local hospital to get advice from doctors about how to lose weight.

Zhou measured 147 cm but his weight was 160 kg. The 23-year-old said he attracts many curious glares from pedestrians whenever he is in public. Zhou said he has little freedom because of his heavy body.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on September 10, 2007, 06:43:36 PM
Judge rejects case against carpenter, saying he has right to work nude
Published: Sunday, September 9, 2007 | 5:17 PM ET
Canadian Press

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) - A carpenter caught hammering nails and sawing wood in the nude has been found by a judge to be not guilty of indecent exposure.

Alameda County Superior Court Judge Julie Conger ruled Thursday that although Percy Honniball of Oakland was naked, he was not acting lewdly or seeking sexual gratification.

Honniball, 51, was arrested last year after he was spotted building cabinets naked at a home where he had been hired to work.

The carpenter has said he likes to work in the nude because it is more comfortable and it helps him keep his clothes clean.

Honniball earned two years' probation in 2003 after being caught three times working naked in Berkeley, which prohibits public nudity. Oakland does not have a similar
law.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: birddog on September 10, 2007, 06:56:39 PM
The cling-free carpenter's name is "Honniball"?   The whole thing sounds like some sort of gay porn fantasy!  ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on September 10, 2007, 07:00:44 PM
Weirdest story in a long time.  How does this even work?

Israeli neo-Nazi gang attacked Jews, police say
Last Updated: Sunday, September 9, 2007 | 3:02 PM ET
CBC News

Eight Israeli youths have been arrested and accused of being in a neo-Nazi gang that attacked foreign workers, gays, homeless people and orthodox Jews, police said Sunday.

The suspects were taken into custody a month ago, but police had not previously released details of the arrests.

All the suspects are between the ages of 16 and 21 and have Israeli citizenship, said police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld.

They all arrived from Russia over the past few years and were living in the central Israel city of Petah Tikva, east of Tel Aviv, where police have been investigating reports of attacks for more than a year, Rosenfeld said.

During a court appearance Sunday in the town of Ramle, the accused covered their faces with their shirts.

The court ordered seven of the suspects to be held for another 48 hours pending a review of the evidence against them and was to rule on the eighth suspect on Monday, Agence France-Press reported.

A ninth suspect fled the country, Rosenfeld said.

News of the arrests came as a shock to people in Israel, which was founded nearly 60 years ago as a refuge for Jews in the wake of the Nazi Holocaust.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the allegations suggest that society has 'failed in educating these youths and distancing them from crazy and dangerous ideologies.'

Police allege the gang made videos of their attacks. After watching a video at Sunday's cabinet meeting, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert speculated on possible reasons for the violence.

"We saw the appalling documentation of violence for its own sake, suspected — and I stress, suspected — of being motivated by neo-Nazi ideology," Olmert said in a statement.

"I'm sure that no one in Israel is indifferent to these scenes, which demonstrate that we as a society have failed in educating these youths and distancing them from crazy and dangerous ideologies."

Investigators allege they seized Nazi uniforms and portraits of Adolf Hitler in the suspects' homes. At one home, police allegedly found explosives.

Investigators have also released photographs showing spray-painted swastikas on the interiors and exteriors of synagogues in Petah Tikva.

The suspects all came to Israel under the Law of Return, which allows anyone with at least one Jewish grandparent to become a citizen.

Revital Almog, the police official who led the investigation, told Israeli public radio that the suspects' connection to Judaism "is distant, through grandparents or distant family connections."
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: birddog on September 10, 2007, 08:58:37 PM
Equal parts tragic, horrifying (although not surprising) and amusing...

China's censors scour the Web  
Electronic offenders are the new frontier

By Edward Cody
The Washington Post
Sept. 10, 2007

DANZHOU, China - Li Hua was outraged. The public high school where he had been teaching civics for six years was about to be swallowed up by a fancy private institution. The merger had been ordered by local officials, Li suspected, because they had a financial stake in the big new school and wanted to see it flourish.

Following the literary traditions of this little farm town in the center of Hainan Island, just off China's southern rim, Li gave voice to his anger with a bawdy folk song in the distinctive local dialect. Among other things, it said merrily that Danzhou's leaders "sold us like pigs, sold our flesh and sold our doo-doo." One verse took things a step further: It named as main culprits the Danzhou Communist Party secretary, Zhao Zhongshe; the deputy mayor, Wang Yuehua; and the school superintendent, Li Shenghua.

Li's irreverent ditty was folk art of a kind Danzhou officials did not appreciate. On July 27, five days after the lyrics were posted on various Web sites -- including the school system's -- Li was thrown in jail. He was interrogated twice, he recalled, and forced to translate the song into Mandarin Chinese so his jailers could understand it. At noon on the seventh day, he was released, but only after writing a self-criticism about how naughty it was to compose ribald lyrics describing the actions of party officials.

"I felt the sky was broken and the earth was cracked," Li said, still appearing shaken and dejected as he described his experience six weeks later. "When I made up that folk song, I could never have imagined it would bring me such trouble."

Li, 31, a short, slight native of the nearby countryside who has big, round eyes, fell victim to the Communist Party's enduring determination to decide what Chinese people can read or hear, sing or say, write or perform. His travails were not unusual for modern China, even in a backwater town far from the center of power in Beijing. More than a quarter-century after Deng Xiaoping launched the country on a course of drastic reforms, the party at all levels has clung to rigid censorship over information and art -- including folk songs in a dialect only the locals understand.

But party censors are now turning to China's booming Internet and cellphone networks with particular vigor. Given the easy access to technologies such as text messaging, censors have found it difficult to keep a grip on information.

It hasn't been for lack of trying. The Public Security Ministry, which monitors the Internet under guidance from the Central Propaganda Department, has recruited an estimated 30,000 people to snoop on electronic communications. The ministry recently introduced two cartoon characters -- a male and female in police uniforms -- that it said would pop up on computer screens occasionally to remind people that their activity is being tracked.

Traditionally, the censors' main concern has been keeping political expression in check. That has become particularly urgent, officials say, as the country prepares for the 17th Communist Party Congress in October, during which President Hu Jintao is to solidify his leadership and move a successor into place. But because transmitting information of all kinds through the Internet and cellphone messages is relatively easy, the party's censorship bureaucrats also have been fighting new battles. As Li Hua's case showed, the enemy is not always political.

Satire stings the party
Fan Bin, who runs a little-known Web site in eastern China, was about 300 feet from his house in the Hangzhou suburb of Ling An in early June when he saw a police tow truck taking away a car.

Curious, Fan and his intern, Sang Yang, 26, moved closer to take a look inside. What they saw, Fan recalled, was the naked body of the local party secretary, Xu Xinxian, and the equally naked body of one of his female colleagues. The two apparently had been enjoying a tryst in the back seat, he said, and because they had left the motor running to power air conditioning, both were asphyxiated by leaking exhaust fumes.

Sang, the intern, could not resist the opportunity to poke fun at the philandering. Too inexperienced to worry about issues such as taste and official wrath, he immediately posted a satirical report on Fan's Web site.

"It was said that party secretary Xu and the lady had been discussing job issues in the car until the fuel ran out and the air conditioner was cut off. In order to cool down, the two people stripped off their clothes. They kept on talking business until they finally died," he wrote, employing an impressive imagination in describing the episode. "Local people are really lucky to have such a serious party secretary. He kept the people's business in his heart and even took care of the women's rights issue in person."

For two months, the posting bounced from Web site to Web site around the country, with delighted readers eager to share it with others. The topic touched a nerve for many Chinese, who are constantly told in official propaganda how party leaders are the "vanguard" to be emulated but who just as constantly see their local officials involved in corruption and dissolute living.

For reasons Fan does not understand, the posting long escaped the notice of Ling An censors. Finally, though, officials from Ling An and surrounding Qing Liangfeng County got wind of the merriment. Not amused, they had the city Propaganda Department order that the report be deleted immediately. The department's deputy director called, Fan said, accusing him of airing dirty laundry in public.

Fan, a businessman at heart, quickly complied, taking the satire down Aug. 8 and replacing it with a statement saying the intern "lacked social experience" and had made a blunder. The description of Xu's death was untrue, the Web site said, and the intern was fired for posting it. He has since gone into hiding, Fan said.

"We hope readers don't talk about this anymore, and please do trust the party," the notice concluded.

Fan's troubles were not over. Police raided his offices Aug. 24 and seized 13 computers, confiscating his investment and putting him out of business. Officials said he was allowing young people to log on from his office, turning it into an unauthorized Internet cafe. But in Fan's view, it was the Ling An party leadership getting back at him for the embarrassing report on their colleagues' deaths.

"It's revenge," Fan said.


Web wins in credibility
As July rains pelted China, the northeastern province of Shandong got an unusually heavy three-hour downpour. As a result, the provincial capital, Jinan, flooded.

Guided by the provincial Propaganda Department, government-controlled newspapers and television stations focused their reports on efforts by authorities to rescue those stranded by the floodwaters and restore municipal services to affected areas. In all, officials reported, 34 people were killed in and around the city.

Not so, insisted an Internet contributor who identified herself as Red Diamond Empire. At least 100 people were killed in downtown Jinan alone, she said, when floodwaters poured into an underground supermarket.

As usual, she went on, authorities were concealing the real death toll to minimize the scope of the tragedy. The truth came out because bystanders saw the bodies as the floodwaters receded, she said.

After her account attracted wide attention, the 23-year-old woman, identified only by her surname Li, was arrested and charged with contributing to public disorder by spreading rumors. The arrest was widely reported in government-controlled media. But more than a month later, a Jinan taxi driver eagerly recounted to a visitor how several hundred people had died in the supermarket.

Jinan residents and others across China readily believed the anonymous Internet posting rather than the official version provided by city and provincial authorities. Using their censorship powers, local governments routinely have concealed the extent of natural disasters and other accidents to avoid blame from the central government in Beijing. As a result, many Chinese learned long ago not to believe statistics relayed by the government-controlled media.

Tracking a cancer rumor
From spring well into the summer, southern China's banana farmers faced a crisis they could not understand. From cellphone to cellphone, a text-message rumor had swept the country saying that Chinese bananas carried an infection called "Panama virus" that could cause cancer. As a result, consumers everywhere were leery, and bananas piled up unsold.

Distraught agriculture officials knew of no such problem with Chinese bananas. Eager to restore the market, they called in the Public Security Ministry's electronic censors to find out where the rumor originated. From message to message, the monitors traced it back through thousands of cellphone connections.

After weeks of sleuthing, they discovered the first message had been sent by a woman in Nanning, capital of Guangxi province just northwest of Vietnam. Because she lived in a major banana-growing region, they surmised the woman might have been seeking to inflict harm on a local businessman or farmer.

But after tracking her down and interrogating her, Nanning police said she explained that she was only passing along what she had read in an article in China Daily, the government's main English-language newspaper. Beijing police launched an investigation at the newspaper's head office in the capital. The article in question was indeed about bananas and it did mention cancer, they found, but the writer had said nothing about bananas causing cancer.

After further interrogation, China Daily editors said, Nanning police discovered the woman was reading the paper as a way to improve her English -- which was still shaky -- and she had misunderstood the article.

© 2007 The Washington Post Company
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20685526/

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: birddog on September 10, 2007, 09:53:34 PM
Leading headline from today's edition of USAToday:

"Poll: Most Want a Pullout Date"

Hmmm... Is this a survey of U.S. citizens regarding the war in Iraq, or single women's definition of a good time?   afafafafaf

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on September 11, 2007, 04:53:25 PM
This is just horrible aaaaaaaaaa


Chinese woman to have 23 needles removed
Tuesday Sep 11 11:32 AEST

Chinese surgeons are planning to remove 23 needles from a woman, possibly imbedded under her skin by grandparents trying to kill her so that a baby boy might take her place.

The needles had been discovered by X-ray after Luo Cuifen, 29, went to doctors complaining of blood in her urine.

Many have worked their way into Luo's vital organs including her lungs, liver, bladder and kidneys, making their removal difficult, said Qu Rui, a spokesman for the Richland International Hospital in Yunnan province's capital, Kunming.

He said six of the 23 needles, all of them in Luo's abdomen, would be removed Tuesday in the first of several expected operations.

"Tomorrow's surgery carries a definite degree of risk," Qu said.

According to a hospital news release, Luo suffered from severe depression and anxiety and long-term insomnia, and was completely unable to do any heavy lifting or hard physical labour.

The operation will involve 23 doctors in fields ranging from women's medicine to neurology and including bone specialists and cardiologists, the news release said.

Doctors from Canada and the United States will join those from China in the operation. It did not say how long the operation was expected to last.

He said doctors believe Luo's grandparents may have inserted the needles long ago, hoping she would die and her parents might have a boy in her place. China limits most families to just one child, although rural Chinese may be allowed to have a second if their first is a girl, subject to the payment of fines.

In many parts of China, baby boys are still heavily favoured over girls because they are bound by tradition to support their parents in their old age, and because they carry on the family name.

Infanticide and abortions of female fetuses have created a skewed ratio between the genders, with 119 boys reported born for every 100 girls, according to official figures. By comparison, the ratio in industrialised countries is 107 to 104 boys for every 100 girls.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: birddog on September 13, 2007, 11:02:56 AM
Thousands of ex-soldiers riot in China

By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN, Associated Press Writer
September 11, 2007

Thousands of demobilized Chinese soldiers rioted last week at training centers in at least three cities in an extremely rare series of coordinated demonstrations, a human rights group said Tuesday.

Former troops smashed classrooms, overturned cars and set fires to protest their poor living conditions, the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy reported.

At least 20 people were injured and five arrested when riot police moved in to quell the disturbances, which started on the afternoon of Sept. 3, it said.

The center said about 2,000 ex-soldiers took part in the riots in the cities of Baotou, Wuhan, and Baoji, spread over a 775-mile stretch of eastern China. Reports posted on the Internet along with video clips appearing to show some of the violence said the disturbances were even more widespread, but gave few details.

The reported protests, which authorities refused to confirm, were notable for their level of coordination, something not seen on a nationwide scale since the 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing and several other cities.

They also follow a string of recent campus unrest by students angered by poor living conditions or administrative changes that reduced the value of their diplomas.

However, they were the first incidents reported involving former soldiers, who are usually deferential and loyal to the communist regime.

Demobilized soldiers are frequently rewarded for their service with government jobs, and 6,000 of them were sent to 12 different railway schools in July for two years of training, the reports said.

However, they were angered by run-down dormitories, bad but expensive food and a lack of study materials, according to the center and Internet reports.

Dorm rooms did not have electrical outlets and students were charged 75 cents each time they charged their mobile phones, the reports said.

The reports said classes have been suspended and police moved in to patrol.

Phones at the Baotou school rang unanswered, while officials who answered at the Baoji and Wuhan schools refused to comment on the reports or further identify themselves. The Railways Ministry that runs the schools did not immediately reply to faxed questions.


Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on September 14, 2007, 12:22:34 AM
Anyone heard more about this??

FORMER Big Brother contestant Gordon Sloan has died in mysterious circumstances in Beijing, reports have claimed.
Sloan allegedly collapsed on September 1st and was in a coma when he died at 1pm yesterday at a Beijing hospital.

Sources told ninemsn.com.au that drugs may have played a part in the 34-year-old's death, but it has not yet been confirmed whether this was due to an overdose or being deliberately drugged by another person.

It was confirmed by the Department of Foreign Affairs that a New Zealand-born Australian citizen from Victoria died in Beijing yesterday.

Sloan's parents, who are based in New-Zealand, and his brother and sister, flew to Beijing yesterday but declined to comment.

One of the housemates in the first series of Big Brother, Sloan was evicted after 35 days. Fellow contestant Ben Williams went on to win the series.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on September 14, 2007, 11:06:46 PM
Just what I've read on the net, friends say that he wouldn't be into heroine  and that they expect that Sloan had be drugged intentionally.

I wonder where it'll go from there.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: birddog on September 16, 2007, 02:40:26 PM
As my students always say to me: "Be Happy Everyday!"

Check the color of your chopsticks
(China Daily)
September 14, 2007

A woman's two front teeth became discolored last week after using poor-quality painted chopsticks.

Living in Shenyang, capital of Northeast China's Shenyang Province, Wang thought it would be fashionable to buy the colorful chopsticks to brighten up her dining experience.

But little did she know that as the color of the chopsticks began to fade, her teeth would turn a pastel paint color, much to her embarrassment when she smiled at people.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: birddog on September 18, 2007, 02:23:51 AM
China Blues
By Al Meyeroff 

The Huffington Post       September 15, 2007 
________________________________________

"Merchants Have No Countries"   - Thomas Jefferson

What was she thinking? CNBC commentator Erin Burnett got a huge laugh when her comments on China were broadcast on Jon Stewart's Daily Show. "I think people need to be careful what they wish for in China. If China were to say start making toys without lead in them, or food that isn't poisonous, their costs of production are going to go up. And that means that prices at Wal-Mart here in the United States are going to go up too." Her utter lack of irony blew the audience away.

And yet, she's right. Here's why. We live now in an out of control global economy - one created by a Second Industrial Revolution - with consequences more far reaching than the first. Some of these are well known, such as trading high paying jobs in the West for low paying jobs elsewhere, with trade deficits turning the U.S. into a debtor nation -and China holds the mortgage. But this ongoing global shift also adversely impacts the food we eat and the products we buy. China trade, especially if not exclusively, demonstrates how we further open our borders to imported goods at our peril. This is not xenophobia. This is a price we pay beyond the one on the sticker, when food is grown and processed without regulation or inspection, when goods from t-shirts to toasters are manufactured by the lowest bidder.

For more than 150 years, reformers - from Upton Sinclair to Ralph Nader - have fought to achieve tough regulation of our food, drugs, cosmetics and other consumer products. In 1848, Congress first imposed controls on imported goods with the Drug Importation Act. In the midst of the Civil War, Lincoln helped establish the Bureau of Chemistry, forerunner of FDA. Following exposés like The Jungle documenting unsanitary factories and adulterated food, populist Teddy Roosevelt pressed through the nation's first food safety statute. And during The New Deal, Congress enacted the comprehensive food, drug and cosmetic legislation still in force today.

These and other efforts were intended to insure quality consumer products; they established our safety net. Compliance with such laws requires on-site and product inspection; liability is then imposed throughout the production chain. The absence of such safeguards in China makes production there of goods less costly. The absence of such safeguards too often makes imported goods of inferior quality, presenting higher risks.

During the NAFTA and other "free trade" debates, lip service was paid to imposing labor and environmental controls offshore. This approach was rejected "as protectionism". Well they were meant to protect, alright. They were meant to protect you against poisons in Fido's meal and on Timmy's toys.

Regrettably, we simply cannot rely entirely on our domestic safety net to protect us from hazards we import. First of all, from e coli in the spinach to Vioxx in the medicine chest, enforcement even for domestic goods is often weak and product inspection less than thorough.

Agencies like FDA, USDA and the Consumer Product Safety Commission are woefully under-funded and poorly staffed. And they decidedly lack the resources to protect us from the ever increasing volume of goods coming off the ships, into the stores and onto the dinner table. When more than one million imported toys were found contaminated with lead, the government response was to calm and placate, not protect. Just this month, more than 1 million pounds of Chinese seafood - shrimp, catfish and eel - went to our supermarkets despite an FDA "import alert" that it all should be tested for contamination.

And only a tiny fraction of imported goods even get to that step.

So what's an American consumer to do? Use the one power you have, self defense. Be careful of what you buy and from where you buy it. From toys to organic food, there has been a recent and dramatic surge in "buying American". That's a start. But unfortunately, products do not always identify the country of origin. Nor are can we be confident that assurances from retailers like Wal-Mart and Toys 'R Us ( Toys 'R Lead?) are legitimate.

So here's an idea. Institute a "global right to know". In California, often the place of new ideas, we already have laws on the books requiring companies to warn us when products - domestic or imported - present an unacceptable risk of cancer or birth defects. How about a warning on products that present other risks because they fail to meet minimum U.S. standards? Companies should be required to certify goods are safe. If not, tell us. If the warning is lacking and the product proves dangerous, then make the seller responsible for substantial penalties and a return of the purchase price. Let the market work.

Why punish the U.S. company? Why not the Chinese factory owner? Because it is Wal-Mart that took the manufacturing offshore and brought the products to us - they have a duty to insure product safety.

Unsafe workplace conditions translate to unsafe consumer products. The absence of adequate labor, health and environmental controls, together with cheap labor (Chinese toy workers make about twenty-five cents an hour), allow U.S. companies to garner even higher profits. The absence of such safeguards puts these workers at enormous risk; consider what the ambient lead exposure must be in a Chinese toy factory. China Labor Watch, a New York based human rights group, this week issued a report finding widespread labor violations in toy factories, including child labor, mandatory overtime, unsafe working conditions, and abusive managers. This is only the latest in a series of such reports by nongovernmental organizations this year. A market driven more level playing field would benefit workers and consumers alike.

If you went to a restaurant and were a victim of food poisoning, you would not return. Not so for U.S. retailers. They will keep going back to the same or similar factories so long as the price is right. It is a matter of business judgment, of risk-benefit. Your risk, their benefit. They have the power to insure safe products - and some do - by imposing tough quality controls in their supply contracts, by rigorous inspection of foreign factories, by comprehensive testing of consumer goods. But many would rather not know what they're selling - or what we're buying. They lack the incentive.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on September 18, 2007, 09:23:06 AM
Quote
They lack the incentive.

But they have the greed!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on September 18, 2007, 03:28:24 PM
That's an interesting notion: don't go after the foreign factories but rather the domestic retailers.  If Walmart has to risk lawsuits, they'll have to check the products.

It's always an eye opener to watch CCTV-9 news: tells you exactly what the government is embarrassed about.  A news item pronounced that the banned products represented a tiny fraction of China's overall production, and hysteria over the issue would be regrettable.

In other words, most of China's products are NOT lethal to humans, so why worry?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: birddog on September 18, 2007, 06:48:33 PM
Sen. Craig's airport stall now a tourist stop  

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — "Where's the bathroom?"

That's the question camera-toting tourists in Minneapolis are asking as they visit the men's room where U.S. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, was arrested in a sex-solicitation sting.

"It's become a tourist attraction," said Karen Evans, information specialist at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. "People are taking pictures."

Craig was arrested June 11 by a Minneapolis airport police officer. The Idaho Republican pleaded guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct.

Craig has since said his guilty plea was a mistake. His request to withdraw the guilty plea will be heard Sept. 26, four days before he has said he will step down from his Senate seat.

Craig's arrest came to light Aug. 27, and Evans said airport workers have since been giving directions to the men's room near a central food court and shopping area.

Just 15 minutes into her shift at the airport Friday, Evans said she had been asked directions to the new tourist attraction four times. Other airport workers field the same question.

"It's by the Lottery shop, right next to the shoeshine shop," said newsstand worker Abdalla Said, adding he gets the question daily.

At the Royal Zino Shoeshine shop, Royal Zino, the owner's grandson, said he might have been working the day of Craig's arrest.

"I might've actually been here. Me and my buddy were watching them doing a sting," he told TheIdaho Statesman. Zino said he gets to watch tourists now.

On their way to Guatemala, Jon and Sally Westby of Minneapolis made a visit to the new tourist attraction. "We had to just stop and check out the bathroom," Sally said. "In fact, it's Jon's second time — he was here last week already."

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mr Nobody on September 18, 2007, 08:02:06 PM
Oh, those tourists certainly know how to have a good time.

Dear deary me.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: belrain on September 18, 2007, 08:11:34 PM
 bibibibibi

What is so interesting about a bathroom? Just because a famous person had sex there? I could understand they take pictures while he is having sex, but now, it is just a batroom.


Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on September 18, 2007, 11:33:53 PM
Wow, kids, this is the real McCoy!  It's a waterfall out there!  adadadadad

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - A powerful typhoon targeted China's booming eastern province of Zhejiang and financial hub Shanghai on Tuesday, prompting the evacuation of tens of thousands of people as ships and boats were called back to port.
 
Typhoon Wipha was 440 km (270 miles) southeast of the former foreign treaty port of Wenzhou in Zhejiang at 0300 GMT. With gusts of up to 198 km per hour, it was moving northwest at 20 km per hour, Xinhua news agency said, putting it on a course to skirt Taiwan.

"East China, including the commercial hub of Shanghai, is preparing for what may be the most destructive typhoon in a decade," the agency said.

It did not mention Typhoon Saomai, which killed 436 people in southeast China in August and was labeled the strongest storm to hit China in 50 years.

The Hong Kong Observatory chart showed Wipha heading directly for Zhejiang where it was likely to make landfall early on Wednesday and sweep north across the province towards Shanghai.

China's National Meteorological Centre described the storm on its Web site (www.nmc.gov.cn) as a "super typhoon."

About 200,000 people living in exposed areas in Shanghai, bordering Zhejiang in the north and with a population of over 14 million, would be moved to temporary shelter before evening.

Tens of thousands of boats and ships had returned to harbor in Zhejiang, where beach resorts and sea farms were evacuated and ferry services suspended, state media said.

"Wipha will hit our province head on and the areas affected would be the most economically developed and densely populated," the Zhejiang provincial government warned.

"Strong winds will come with heavy rainfall ... The relief work will be complicated and grave," it said in a statement on its Web site (www.zj.gov.cn).

Zhejiang's inland areas also faced the threats of floods and landslides caused by torrential rain, it said.

The edge of Wipha grazed northern Taiwan on Tuesday, bringing downpours and prompting the area to close schools, offices and markets.

The major northern port of Keelung stopped all traffic on Tuesday until further notice, while five airlines cancelled some international flights.

Typhoons, large cyclones known as hurricanes in the West, regularly hit China, Taiwan, the Philippines and Japan in the summer season, gathering strength from the warm waters of the Pacific or the South China Sea before weakening over land.

Sometimes they make a u-turn, gather strength at sea again, and return to wreak more havoc.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: birddog on September 19, 2007, 10:21:37 AM
The latest idiot addition to "The View" panel...(and to think she gets paid HANDSOMELY to proudly utter such nonsense) cbcbcbcbcb

I'm sure her son will be ridiculed at school now. Thanks, Mom!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/09/18/new-view-cohost-sherri_n_64864.html

And be sure to read viewer's comments... Priceless! For example: "She doesn't look like she has any trouble whatsoever finding food." 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on September 19, 2007, 10:51:22 AM
http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/foreign-teachers-dudded-in-japan/2007/09/18/1189881510131.html (http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/foreign-teachers-dudded-in-japan/2007/09/18/1189881510131.html)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on September 19, 2007, 02:14:15 PM
The Japan one is really interesting. Why would the major English language company go under in Japan after being so successful for so long? And the other places aren't hiring.

My daughter worked for NOVA for 12 months.  Shared accommodation, weekends and night classes. Set boring textbooks you were not meant to deviate from, and classes that changed relatively regularly, so you were not sure which students you would be teaching. Not permitted to make friends with the students outside class. 

Is the "English bubble' bursting finally in Japan? After all English is now studied in all primary and high schools.

Also interesting that they say they have not enough money to fly home on - NOVA used to do the return airticket stuff - 6 months/12 months same as here.  NOVA's pay wasn't the best over there, my daughter also took extra work in a bar so she could save money. Living in Japan is EXPENSIVE.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on September 19, 2007, 03:10:36 PM
 Park apologizes for cursing myna
(China Daily)
Updated: 2007-09-18 11:18

A hill myna with a foul mouth (or should that be beak?) has been causing headaches for a bird park in Changsha, Hunan Province.

A tourist surnamed Du was showered with invective when he visited the park last Wednesday morning.

According to bird park officials the myna, one of nature's best mimics, learned how to swear from other visiting tourists. Officials said this was the first time there had been a complaint.

(Sanxiang Metropolitan News)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on September 19, 2007, 08:13:11 PM
That The View clip: I don't have sound, but the look on Joy behar' face: "Thank God hiring this twit wasn't my call!"

Imagine all those foreigners, suddenly broke and unemployed.  Wonder if a rival will buy Nova out.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on September 22, 2007, 05:03:49 AM
Well, here's a turn of events!

Mattel apologizes to China over recalls of toys
Vast majority of recalls were Mattel design flaws
Last Updated: Friday, September 21, 2007 | 7:29 AM ET
CBC News
U.S.-based toy giant Mattel issued an extraordinary apology to China on Friday over the recall of Chinese-made toys, taking the blame for design flaws and saying it had recalled more lead-tainted toys than justified.

The gesture by Thomas A. Debrowski, Mattel's executive vice-president for worldwide operations, came in a meeting with Chinese product safety chief Li Changjiang, at which Li upbraided the company for maintaining weak safety controls.

"Our reputation has been damaged lately by these recalls," Debrowski told Li in a meeting at Li's office at which reporters were allowed to be present.

"And Mattel takes full responsibility for these recalls and apologizes personally to you, the Chinese people, and all of our customers who received the toys," Debrowski said.

Mattel ordered three high-profile recalls this summer involving more than 21 million Chinese-made toys, including Barbie doll accessories and toy cars because of concerns about lead paint and tiny magnets that could be swallowed.

The recalls have prompted complaints from China that manufacturers were being blamed for design faults introduced by Mattel.

On Friday, Debrowski acknowledged that the "vast majority of those products that were recalled were the result of a design flaw in Mattel's design, not through a manufacturing flaw in China's manufacturers."

Lead-tainted toys accounted for only a small percentage of all toys recalled, he said. "We understand and appreciate deeply the issues that this has caused for the reputation of Chinese manufacturers."

In a statement issued by the company, Mattel said its lead-related recalls were "overly inclusive, including toys that may not have had lead in paint in excess of the U.S. standards.

"The followup inspections also confirmed that part of the recalled toys complied with the U.S. standards," the statement said.

Li reminded Debrowski that "a large part of your annual profit … comes from your factories in China.

"This shows that our co-operation is in the interests of Mattel, and both parties should value our co-operation. I really hope that Mattel can learn lessons and gain experience from these incidents," Li said, adding that Mattel should "improve their control measures."

Since this summer's recall, Mattel has announced plans to upgrade its safety system by certifying suppliers and increasing the frequency of random, unannounced inspections. It has fired several manufacturers.

Tests had found that lead levels in paint in recalled toys were as high as 110,000 parts per million, or nearly 200 times higher than the accepted safety ceiling of 600 parts per million.

China has become a centre for the world's toymaking industry, exporting $7.5 US billion worth of toys last year.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Newbs on September 22, 2007, 02:53:21 PM
 bdbdbdbdbd says it all, IMHO.  What a wanker.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on September 22, 2007, 04:04:47 PM
What it means to me is "Mattel" is off my shopping list permanently.   Too much  bdbdbdbdbd    Not sure why they felt the need to bdbdbdbdbd
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: birddog on September 22, 2007, 10:49:17 PM
Chinese brothers lose court battle to stay in Canada

September 21, 2007   Agence France Presse
 
Two Chinese brothers accused by China of embezzling tens of millions of dollars lost a legal battle Friday in their fight to avoid deportation from Canada.

The Federal Court of Canada refused to overturn orders to deport the brothers, Li Dongzhe and Li Donghu, from the country.

The siblings also lost their appeal of Canada's refusal to consider their refugee applications, which had been denied on the grounds that they were already under a removal order.

The Federal Court said their applications were "without foundation in fact and in law."

The brothers, who arrived the Pacific coast city of Vancouver in December 2004, were arrested on February 23.

China accuses the Li brothers, along with a third man, Chinese banker Gao Shan, of involvement in embezzling more than 100 million dollars from a Chinese bank.

The Federal Court's ruling allows Canadian official to begin a process to determine if siblings are at risk of facing the death penalty if they are sent back to China.

Canada does not have capital punishment, and therefore cannot legally deport people to countries where they could be killed or tortured.

The Pre-Removal Risk Assessment process can take more than six months, said Citizenship and Immigration Department spokeswoman Lois Reimer.

 - - - - - -

Not that I exactly sympathize with these two guys, but I think most of us can agree that a death sentence likely awaits them in China, yes?



Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: birddog on September 22, 2007, 11:12:24 PM
and yeah guys, as for the Mattel "olive branch"... who can possibly explain? Chinese manufacturers and American corporations make for bizarre and sado-masochistic bedfellows indeed! That whip is obviously being passed back and forth.

But now, did you the read the article today about the recall of Made-in-China baby cribs?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on September 22, 2007, 11:26:22 PM
I'm not too wracked with concern over those crook brothers.  I do oppose the death penalty, but I'm sick of the sleazebag types getting away with this kind of crap.  And it really pisses me off that they figured they'd get away with it by hiding out in Canada.

Cribs?  bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: birddog on September 22, 2007, 11:36:23 PM
Yeah, Con, I agree with you completely regarding those two brothers... I'm just commenting on the fact that the article states: "The Federal Court's ruling allows Canadian official to begin a process to determine if siblings are at risk of facing the death penalty if they are sent back to China." Again, I think we can all agree, yes, they ARE at risk of facing the death penalty. Very little doubt about that!

As for the cribs... very interesting... In the short interval between the time I first read the article, and now -- returning to copy and paste a weblink -- the title has been altered. They have removed the reference to China in the title (although the text still claims all of the cribs were manufactured in China). Hmmmm.... That whip is makin' the rounds!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20907633/
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: birddog on September 23, 2007, 07:05:57 AM
Ok, here's Newsweek's explanation of the Mattel's bdbdbdbdbd to China...

Why Mattel Must Save Face with China
Quick to blame its Chinese suppliers for a massive recall, the toy giant now apologizes for its own mistakes. Why Mattel—and other major American companies—must save face with China.
WEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY
By Daniel Gross
Newsweek

Sept. 21, 2007 - When Mattel recalled lead-tainted toys in August, and earlier this month, the company was quick to blame its suppliers in China. It was as if Mattel weren’t responsible for the quality of products sold under its name.

But today the toy giant changed its tune. An executive offered a public apology to China and Chinese suppliers. “Our reputation has been damaged lately by these recalls,” Thomas A. Debrowski, Mattel’s executive vice president for worldwide operations, told a Chinese consumer-products safety official. “And Mattel takes full responsibility for these recalls and apologizes personally to you, the Chinese people, and all of our customers who received the toys.”

This kowtow isn’t a sudden outbreak of good manners or even responsibility at a Fortune 500 company. Rather, it’s a sign of how the balance of power has shifted between massive American consumer-products companies and their rapidly growing China-based suppliers.

Companies like Mattel have pursued a deliberate strategy in recent years: get out of the low-margin, capital-intensive business of manufacturing goods and focus on the higher-margin business of branding and marketing. Pursuing this strategy has led them to relentlessly seek centers of low-cost production. As a result, China has quickly emerged as the world’s workshop, able to cheaply mold petrochemicals into toys and just about anything else.

Today Mattel and other American companies can’t do business without Chinese partners. In a highly competitive environment, they need suppliers who can turn around new products quickly, complete their orders ahead of those placed by rivals, and commit to maintaining the desired production levels at the desired costs. Yes, Chinese toy producers need Mattel’s orders. But it’s now a two-way street.

The U.S. economy finds itself in a similar situation vis-à-vis China, as does Mattel and its supplies. America can’t afford to offend or alienate China—not because it would suddenly stop selling goods to us, but because the U.S. economy has evolved in such a way that its health depends on China.

U.S. companies need China to produce goods cheaply and thus keep our rate of inflation in check. Many companies—from Wal-Mart to General Motors, from Starbucks to McDonald’s—feel as if they need China since it represents a vast, largely untapped consumer market, a billion-strong frontier for growth. And the U.S. government needs Chinese investors—including China’s central bank—to purchase and hold the massive quantities of debt the U.S. creates each year.

Until recently, large companies haven’t asked many questions about how China is delivering all the goods we require. And there’s been a general willingness to overlook the downsides of China’s rampant growth—the environmental degradation, the lack of civil rights, the culture of piracy—mostly because those are phenomena whose impact seems limited to China. As the Mattel recall shows, however, that is increasingly not the case. The relationship between the two distant countries has evolved beyond a simple supplier-purchaser relationship.

To a degree unthinkable 10 years ago, China and the United States now share a bloodstream. The toxins that China ingests as it produces goods are exported here. Clouds of mercury emitted from Chinese power plants waft over the West Coast of the U.S. several days later.

Financially, the two countries are connected as if through an umbilical cord. Inflation in China would translate into inflation in the United States. It works the other way, too. A sudden downturn in the U.S. economy would be horrific news for China. China has expressed concerns about the health of imported pork from America. And if Mattel is to be believed, some of the problems with its China-produced toys stem from flaws in designs created by Mattel.

All of which is to say that it’s not sufficient for American executives or American consumers, who have benefited in equal measure from China’s willingness to produce goods cheaply, simply to blame their Chinese counterparts for the problems that crop up, or to turn a blind eye to industrial conditions in China. Just as conditions in America’s factories and slaughterhouses a century ago led to increased vigilance and reform, conditions in China should lead to similar vigilance and reform there. And it’s likely we’ll be seeing more apologies—from Chinese suppliers and from their American customers. Today the Consumer Product Safety Commission announced it is recalling 1 million cribs made in China and marketed under American brand names, due to a potential lethal safety problem.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Eagle on September 23, 2007, 02:36:07 PM
From neighbours back in Canada we find that a similar story has been published there in the papers.  Of course, it is headlines in the China Daily. 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on September 23, 2007, 02:41:33 PM
A learning fad that's truly crazy

By Raymond Zhou (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-09-22 06:52

English as a second language (ESL) is all the rage in China. Gazillions of people are learning it. Unfortunately, the experience is quite unpleasant for many. Long hours and endless repetition of dry lessons yields little tangible result in terms of ability to use the language. No wonder the "I hate English" club is growing in leaps and bounds.

Into this chorus of grumbling stepped Li Yang, an entrepreneur who has invented his own pedagogy called "Crazy English".

Simply put, he has his students stand in large formations and shout at the top of their lungs. It is designed to overcome the innate shyness of most Chinese in verbalizing what they have learned in the classroom or by themselves.

All this sounds innocent enough. But is it?

In recent weeks, Li Yang has incurred the wrath of the public after encouraging his students to kneel "in gratitude" towards him. Photos of a huge crowd in kowtow positions, first published by Li himself on his blog, raised the question: What's wrong with this person and his tactics?

The answer, in my opinion, is everything.

Li Yang is a demagogue, to say the least. He wants you to believe that he has come up with an effective way of learning a foreign language. But actually it is an excuse for mind control, intended to maximize his commercial interests. In addition to the exorbitant tuition fees, his overpriced books and tapes - many lifted from copyrighted materials - form the basis of his business empire.

Many students and their parents are deceived by him because they gain new confidence when they hear him preach. Like all demagogues, Li correctly identified a problem plaguing most ESL students in China.

The traditional method of learning words and grammar rules by rote has produced an army of students whose approach to the language is with a scalpel in hand. Many tend to use the language as if it were a dead one like Latin. One gets the feeling that it is a strange echo of the real language, sapped of any vitality.

But saying the old way is wrong does not make the new way necessarily right. What the tongue-in-cheek "Crazy English" offers is truly crazy. The teaching sessions are like cult meetings; the shouting matches are reminiscent of the slogan fests during the cultural revolution (1966-76). If shouting can improve one's linguistic skills, we would have all turned into Confucius after that mass movement.

Indeed, shouting breaks down psychological barriers and helps strengthen bonding. The question is: Is the new camaraderie used to inspire and learn, or to submit and be obedient? Can you question authority? Can you conduct a rational discourse?

Many reported a feeling of liberation at the "Crazy English" hollered gatherings. That is not unique. The catch is, Li Yang liberates students in order to enslave them even further, very much like most agitators, political or commercial.

Even though our traditional methodology is fraught with rituals of submission, it has not stooped as low as asking hundreds of students to kneel as if they were being received by a feudal emperor. That is not a manifestation of a student's gratitude towards a teacher; rather, it strips a person of individuality and pounds him into obsequiousness.

Just imagine if Li had called his language education a "pyramid scheme" or "cult meeting" - what would have become of it? He is clever because he engages in these activities but adroitly avoids the label, of which many "regular" teachers of English have long accused him, at least in private.

After the kneeling incident, Li encouraged his female students to shave their heads. So far nobody has complied. But his true colors are now clear: he is crazy.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: decurso on September 23, 2007, 04:28:17 PM
Li Yang is also a racist and a xenophobic. His books contain material that openly mocks America and Japan. And his English sucks.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: birddog on September 23, 2007, 05:06:48 PM
 ahahahahah ahahahahah ahahahahah decurso, don't be shy... go ahead, open up... don't be afraid to express your true feelings...  ahahahahah ahahahahah ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on September 23, 2007, 05:50:03 PM
I've met him. Had dinner with him in Jianxi. he has nothing but contempt for foreigners. He particularly dislikes Americans. He also doesn't seem to understand that some foreigners can understand Chinese spoken between two or more Chinese people. In Chinese he's quite crass. Typical businessman type. Others fawn over him but don't like him. As Decurso said, his English is not very good. He speaks in idioms. In Chinese that shows education in English it just makes him sound like an idiot.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on September 23, 2007, 05:58:54 PM
He's a shonky businessman. His products are faulty!!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: decurso on September 23, 2007, 08:38:35 PM
I've met him. Had dinner with him in Jianxi. he has nothing but contempt for foreigners. He particularly dislikes Americans. He also doesn't seem to understand that some foreigners can understand Chinese spoken between two or more Chinese people. In Chinese he's quite crass. Typical businessman type. Others fawn over him but don't like him. As Decurso said, his English is not very good. He speaks in idioms. In Chinese that shows education in English it just makes him sound like an idiot.

 Yeah an Ozzie friend of mine went to one of his cult meetings. The guy totally ridiculed him in Chinese and was shocked when my friend told him in Chinese that what he was saying was rude. He attempted to apologize in English and my friend told him he couldn't understand his pronunciation and to either speak slower or use Chinese. What a loss of face!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: birddog on September 24, 2007, 10:53:32 PM
Recommended reading...

VERY funny piece in the latest edition of The Onion entitled:

"Chinese Authorities Execute 10 Million Recalled Toys"

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/chinese_authorities_execute_10

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on September 25, 2007, 05:59:40 PM
Typical of this little piece of manure:  running behind in election results and tries to show his 'green' credentials - but actually does nothing,.
Quote
Australia's PM Goes Green, Opponents See Red

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CANBERRA - Australia's prime minister, facing a tough re-election fight and under pressure over his climate credentials, has pledged new "clean energy" targets in a move environment groups said would not sway green-leaning voters.

By 2020, John Howard said, 15 percent of Australia's energy would come from "clean" sources including solar, wind, nuclear or clean coal, reversing his coalition government's previous reluctance to lift its renewable energy target from 2 percent.

The promise also dropped "renewable" from the government's agenda, paving the way for a controversial switch to nuclear energy, backed by Howard as a greenhouse-friendly alternative.

"It will drive additional investment in renewable energy and other low-emissions electricity generation. This will reduce costs for business, and ultimately for households," Howard said, promising to roll state and national schemes into one.

But environment group Greenpeace said the target only streamlined existing state-based schemes, leaving sunny Australia lagging behind renewable energy leaders such as Germany and Spain, which are harnessing solar and wind power.

"The coalition's clean energy target is a missed opportunity to drive the growth of Australia's renewable energy industry and cut greenhouse pollution," Greenpeace energy campaigner Mark Wakeham said.

Howard, 68, is expected to call a national election within weeks and is polling well behind the opposition Labor Party, whose leader Kevin Rudd has pledged to sign the Kyoto Protocol capping greenhouse gas emissions in 35 developed nations.

A long-running drought in much of Australia and warnings by international scientists about the impact of global warming have spooked voters and elevated climate change to an election-turning issue.

A Galaxy poll on Monday had Labor 12 points in front of the government, 56 to 44, which would hand a landslide election victory to the youthful Rudd.

Rudd, who is this week tipped to unveil a renewable energy target of 20 percent, also won backing at the weekend from former US vice-president and climate change campaigner Al Gore.

To win over voters Howard has promised a carbon emissions trading system, banned incandescent light bulbs and pledged A$200 million (US$173 million) to combat forest clearing in Asia.

Australian Greens Senator Christine Milne said Howard's clean target of 30,000 gigawatt hours each year did not add up and was just 9 percent of demand projected by the government's official commodities forecaster to reach 342,000 GWh in 2019.

"Around the world, the renewable energy industry is booming. In Australia, where we have tremendous resources and world-leading researchers, our industry is stalling," Milne said. (US$1=A$1.15)


Story by Rob Taylor

Story Date: 25/9/2007

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on September 25, 2007, 10:33:44 PM
Recommended reading...
VERY funny piece in the latest edition of The Onion entitled:
"Chinese Authorities Execute 10 Million Recalled Toys"


A most excellent article!!! agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on September 27, 2007, 05:37:54 AM
To 15 percent by 2020?  That will likely happen anyway, even if the guv does nothing.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mr Nobody on September 27, 2007, 01:34:31 PM
I got 3 for yez.

Bush's grammar lessons: "Childrens do learn"
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=300075

Things you can buy at auction: (smoked long-ham) (dammit they took it off before i could get it here. Some guy bought a smoker at an auction and found a human leg in it. The previous owner lost it in an accident and kept it there.)

And my favourite, Everyone Loves Elton is now guilty of distributing photos of naked children! The Kingpin of Child Porn! (Er, he gave famous old pictures to a museum but some idiot objected by the sound of it.) http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=300079


Remember, you read it here first. Pictures at 11.

Elton John investigated for child porn after artwork seized
Thursday Sep 27 08:00 AEST
By ninemsn staff

Elton John has become the centre of a child pornography investigation after a painting of two naked girls he donated to an art gallery was seized by authorities.

The artwork was taken by British authorities yesterday after the gallery began fielding a number of complaints, the Times of London reports.

Authorities are concerned the painting, which John said has been published numerous times around the world, could breach UK child pornography laws.

 
"We attended the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead last Thursday at the invitation of the management, who were seeking advice about an item for an exhibition prior to it going on public display," a police spokesperson told the paper.

"This item is being assessed, and Northumbria Police, in consultation with the Crown Prosecution Service is investigating the circumstances surrounding it."

An investigation has begun to determine whether it violates Britain's 1978 Protection of Children Act.

According to a statement posted on the singer's website, the photograph is one of 149 comprising the "Thanksgiving installation by renowned US photographer Nan Goldin."

"The photograph … has been widely published and exhibited throughout the world," the statement read.

"It … has previously been exhibited in Houston, London, Madrid, New York, Portugal, Warsaw and Zurich without any objections of which we are aware."

Neither the artist or the gallery have commented on the investigation.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on September 27, 2007, 01:44:56 PM
We told you so...

BEIJING - China's huge Three Gorges Dam hydropower project could spark environmental catastrophe unless accumulating threats are quickly defused, senior officials and experts have warned.

The dam in southwest China, the world's biggest hydropower project, has begun generating electricity and serving as a barrier against seasonal flooding threatening lower reaches of the Yangtze River, Xinhua news agency reported late on Tuesday, citing a forum of experts and officials.

But even senior dam officials who have often defended the project as an engineering wonder and ecological boon now warn that areas around the dam are paying a heavy, potentially calamitous environmental cost.

"There exist many ecological and environmental problems concerning the Three Gorges Dam," the senior officials were quoted as saying. "If no preventive measures are taken, the project could lead to catastrophe."

The US$25 billion dam, whose construction flooded 116 towns and hundreds of cultural sites, is still a work in progress, but state media have said it could be completed by the end of 2008, just after the Beijing Olympic Games.

Wang Xiaofeng, director of the administrative office in charge of building the dam, told the forum that it was time to face up to the environmental consequences of constructing the massive concrete wall across the country's biggest river.

"We absolutely cannot relax our guard against ecological and environmental security problems sparked by the Three Gorges Project," Wang told the meeting, according to Xinhua.

"We cannot win passing economic prosperity at the cost of the environment."


LITANY OF THREATS

Wang cited a litany of threats, especially erosion and landslides on steep hills around the dam, conflicts over land shortages and "ecological deterioration caused by irrational development".

The strikingly frank acknowledgement of problems comes weeks before a congress of the ruling Communist Party that is set to consolidate policies giving more attention to environmental worries after decades of unfettered industrial growth.

Wang revealed that Premier Wen Jiabao had used a cabinet meeting earlier this year to discuss the environmental problems surrounding the dam.

Tensions over residents resettled to steep hills where good farmland is scarce had been reduced and water quality in the dam was "generally stable", Xinhua said.

But the officials and experts were worried about the landslides threatening densely populated hill country.

"Regular geological disasters are a severe threat to the lives of residents around the dam," senior engineer Huang Xuebin told the forum.

Huang described landslides into the dam waters making waves dozens of metres high that crashed into surrounding shores, creating even more damage.

The dam has displaced 1.4 million people and is retaining huge amounts of sediment and nutrients, damaging fish stocks and the fertility of farmland downstream, researchers say.


Story Date: 27/9/2007

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: birddog on September 27, 2007, 04:59:13 PM
Chinese, US citizens charged with espionage in San Francisco  
Agence France Presse
September 27, 2007

A Chinese national and a US citizen have been charged with conspiring to steal sensitive microchip designs capable of use in military technology, justice officials said Wednesday.

The US Attorney's office in northern California said Lee Lan and Ge Yuefei had been indicted on multiple charges of conspiracy to commit economic espionage and to steal trade secrets.

Lee, 42, a US citizen, and Ge, 34, a Chinese national, had sought to steal secrets from their employer, NetLogics Microsystems, and from the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation, a statement said.

The two men had set up a company for the purpose of developing and marketing products related to the stolen trade secrets, and had attempted to secure funding from the Chinese government, it added.

"The vigorous enforcement of intellectual property statutes increases the economic vitality of this region, and adds to the security of our nation as a whole," US attorney Scott Schools said.

"This office is committed to the prosecution of individuals who seek to benefit foreign governments or instrumentalities with stolen trade secrets."

Lee and Ge have been released on 300,000 dollars bail and must reappear in court on October 29. They face up to 15 years in jail and a 500,000 dollar fine if convicted.

US officials have said China and Russia are spying in the United States at levels close to those of the Cold War.

In July, FBI Director Robert Mueller told Congress that China's espionage operations were a "substantial concern" and Beijing was stealing US secrets to boost its fast developing military and economy.\

Earlier this month, the Financial Times reported that China's military had hacked into the Pentagon's military computer network -- though the Chinese government denied the report.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: birddog on September 28, 2007, 01:36:16 AM
More than 600,000 toys recalled  
Playthings ranging from rakes, jewelry to train sets could contain lead
The Associated Press
Sept. 26, 2007

WASHINGTON - Toys and children’s necklaces made in China were recalled Wednesday, including five more items from the popular Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway product line, because they contain dangerous levels of lead.

RC2 Corp.’s “Knights of the Sword” series toys and some of its Thomas and Friends items, along with floor puppet theaters and gardening tools and chairs for children, were among the more than 601,000 toys and children’s jewelry announced in the recall by the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

The recalled toys contain high levels of lead in their surface paint, and the necklaces and jewelry sets contain excessive lead in some of their metal parts, the agency said.

Under current regulations, children’s products found to have more than .06 percent lead accessible to users are subject to a recall. The government warned parents to make sure children are not playing with or using any of the recalled products.

This is the second recall from the Thomas & Friends product line after RC2 Corp. on June 13 announced a recall of 1.5 million wooden railway toys. The company is recalling five product items, totaling about 200,000 toys in all, of Thomas & Friends toys not included in the first recall.

Julie Vallese, a spokeswoman for the CPSC, said the latest recalls were a result of both pressure from her agency and the toy industry’s own initiative.

“There’s been a very concentrated, concerted effort by both the CPSC and the industry to do a top-to-bottom investigation of the products to make sure they are not in violation with any toy safety standards,” said Vallese. “The agency overall has been pushing and strongly suggesting to industry, whether it’s RC2 or anybody else, to do a systematic inventory. Today’s recall is a result of that work.”

“I don’t think consumers have seen the end to lead paint recalls,” she said.

The CPSC announced seven product recalls in all:

Target, the importer of Happy Giddy gardening tools and children’s Sunny Patch chairs, recalled about 350,000 items of the product. The children’s gardening tools and chairs, manufactured by Starite International Ltd., were sold nationwide from August 2006 through August 2007.

RC2 recalled about 200,000 Thomas and Friends Wood Railway Toys and 800 Britain’s “Knights of the Sword” series toys. The five recalled Thomas and Friends items, sold nationwide from March 2003 through September 2007, include the all-black cargo car, toad vehicle, olive green cargo box and all-green maple tree top and signal base accessories.

The “Knights of the Sword” recalled toys products include three items: a mounted silver knight on a red horse with an ax; a mounted silver knight on a red horse with two hands on a raised weapon; and a mounted silver knight on a red horse with a lance. The products were sold at specialty toy stores nationwide from April 2004 through March 2006.

Jo-Ann Stores Inc. recalled about 16,000 children’s toy rakes. The rakes, each about 24 inches long with a yellow duck head attached to the green handle, were sold only at Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft Stores from January 2007 to September 2007.

Guidecraft Inc. recalled about 10,000 floor puppet theaters. The recalled puppet theaters, each with a chalkboard surface on the front and colored side panels, were sold nationwide in specialty toy stores, gift shops, catalogs and Web sites from June 2006 through August 2007.

TOBY N.Y.C. expanded its recall of TOBY & ME jewelry sets to include 23,500 more. The company recalled about 14,000 jewelry sets Aug. 22, also due to high levels of lead in the metal jewelry. This recall was expanded to include two additional styles: a pink crystal and wood bead necklace and bracelet set with a monkey pendant as well as a pink and clear crystal bead necklace and bracelet set with a heart pendant.

The recalled products were sold at T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, A.J. Wright, Cracker Barrel and Shopko stores nationwide from August 2006 through August 2007.

Rhode Island Novelty recalled about 850 children’s spinning wheel metal necklaces because the clasp on the necklaces contain high levels of lead. This recall includes necklaces with a spinning wheel pendant, which has rhinestones attached to the front and a silver base. They were sold nationwide from November 2006 through May 2007.

--------------
It'll be interesting to see if these companies and this federal agency suddenly turn around and apologize to China...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on September 28, 2007, 02:14:56 AM
These toys are not designed in China. They are designed in USAnia , Pommyland, or wherever, then contracted out to Chinese factories to be manufactured to a price! The responsibility lies on the designers to maintain quality control, but this might cost a little more, so they take the gamble. I have no sympathy for those importers who have to bear the costs of recall. They should have done their homework in the first place.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on September 28, 2007, 02:24:38 AM
Wow, I figured America would threaten a trade war over these recalls.  I'm utterly gobsmacked that they're pusyfooting around the Chinese on this.

 vvvvvvvvvv  blblblblbl  I think the Yankx have lost face.  They should have gotten tough.  Call me dismayed.  Is it really too late? Is the U.S. over a barrel?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on September 28, 2007, 02:43:34 AM
China couldn't sell this shit if there weren't buyers! The buyers, by and large, couldn't care less if the product is bad, poisonous, or faulty. They want something cheaper than their competitors. I have seen so many "offers to buy" on trade websites.....most stipulate a lowest price!! They don't care two hoots how the stuff is made, as long as it doesn't cost more than a dollar!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on September 30, 2007, 11:03:02 PM
I think you're too cynical, old bean.  If Mattel had known, surely the basic fear instinct would kick in and they'd avoid being the butt of poisoning jokes on Letterman.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mr Nobody on September 30, 2007, 11:07:43 PM
I think they would have planned to have their PR division ready to blame China, but something went wrong.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on September 30, 2007, 11:09:54 PM
Quote
I think you're too cynical, old bean.
When it comes to Big Business (and politics) there's no such thing as "too cynical".
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mr Nobody on October 01, 2007, 12:40:25 AM
Well, things are not all bad: At least they are getting rid of 'reality' tv, and dodgy 'outrageous and unsupportable' claims in advertising and other things that we should get rid of too. Pity that the tv stations back home don't take it that these things reflect badly on themselves, not to mention the general public for watching it.

Not so sure of the 'pornographic' nature of the shows they banned though. Oh well. TIFC.


China bans figure-enhancing undies ads
Sunday Sep 30 19:00 AEST
AP - China has banned TV and radio ads for push-up bras and figure-enhancing underwear in the communist government's latest move to purge the nation's airwaves of what it calls social pollution.

No examples were given, but Chinese television channels have increasingly broadcast late-night infomercials featuring scantily clad women, as well as ads for products that claim to boost sexual performance.

Regulators have already targeted ads using crude or suggestive language, behaviour, and images, tightening their grip on television and radio a few weeks ahead of a twice-a-decade Communist Party congress at which some new senior leaders will be appointed.

The latest ban by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, or SARFT, also bans advertisements for sexual aids including tonics and sex toys, along with "inelegant images" in ads for what it referred to simply as "adult products".

   
The notice indicated that regulators were concerned about both lascivious imagery and outrageous or insupportable claims about some products' benefits or effectiveness.

"Illegal 'sexual medication' advertisements and other harmful ads pose a grave threat to society," said the SAFT notice, issued last week and seen on the administration's website.

"They not only seriously mislead consumers, harm the people's health, pollute the social environment, and corrupt social mores, but also directly harm the credibility of public broadcasting and affect the image of the Communist Party and the government," the notice said.

China has already issued strict rules for TV talent shows, including the banning of American Idol-style mass audience voting by mobile phone text message or the internet.

A few weeks ago, SARFT ordered 11 radio shows off the air in southern and central China for talking too explicitly about sex or for broadcasting material of an "extreme pornographic nature".

Regulators have also banned television shows about cosmetic surgery and sex changes, and a talent show that they deemed coarse.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on October 05, 2007, 03:40:14 AM
http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/14264375/detail.html

Poor Devil, so much slander and libel. Poor old Lucifer would never do anything like what this woman describes. I mean, do you have any idea how much trouble he would be in if they found out about it upstairs? It violates the Angelic-Infernal Treaty of 1645 and the Armageddon Agreement of 2001.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kcanuck on October 05, 2007, 01:53:09 PM
It's already on, episode 3 should be tonight.  Watched the first one just cause it was in China, but this is season 15 after all, I'm a little Survivored out.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mr Nobody on October 05, 2007, 02:17:42 PM
They don't put things on TV unless they can sell advertising space. People who watch TV are stupid, is my guess. It is an indictment of society.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Newbs on October 05, 2007, 04:41:10 PM
Remember the good ol' days of the Great Leap Forward?  Well, I reckon something like it is being played out in Hoganland this year.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/10/05/2051428.htm (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/10/05/2051428.htm)

If I read this correctly some farmers got a payment for a wheat crop that was due to be harvested some months later.  Now farmers, of all people, should know about the vagaries of the weather.  Yet some of them seem to be in deep  bqbqbqbqbq right now.  It reminds me of the GLF, when peasants would promise that they would harvest 10 tonnes of rice per hectare (say) and the next commune would promise 20, and so on.  Come harvest time, and only 5 tonnes was harvested. bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on October 09, 2007, 08:50:14 PM
Leave him! Marry me!  I tell funnier jokes!  I'm good with kids!

China's richest person is 26-year old woman Mon Oct 8, 12:56 PM ET
 
BEIJING (Reuters) - The twenty-six year-old daughter of a rags-to-riches property developer is China's wealthiest person, with a $16 billion ( 7.8 billion pound) fortune, Forbes magazine said on Monday.

Yang Huiyan shot to the top of the China Rich List after the firm her father founded floated on the Hong Kong stock exchange in April, creating five billionaires at once.

Her low-profile father, Yeung Kwok Keung -- who worked as a farmer and on construction sites before making his fortune, according to Chinese media -- had transferred his stake in Country Garden Holdings Co. to his daughter in 2005.

Also Asia's richest woman, the Ohio State University graduate this year married the son of a top Chinese official she met on a blind date, the China Daily reported.

She is one of the few on the list to have inherited her wealth, in a country where booming economic growth has created fortunes virtually overnight.

The economy has expanded so fast that the country's 40 wealthiest people are now all dollar billionaires, compared with just 15 last year, Forbes said in a press release.

Their combined net worth more than tripled to $120 billion, from last year's $38 billion, Forbes said.

But as the number of the super-rich grows, officials in Beijing are stepping up efforts to tackle the gulf between rich and poor because they fear it threatens social stability.

Real estate was among the most lucrative sectors. Eight of the top ten have big property development interests.

"Household incomes are rising rapidly, and a growing number of people are moving into cities from rural areas. Those trends are creating great business opportunities for property developers," said Russell Flannery, Forbes senior editor and compiler of the China Rich List.

Country Garden, based in the southern city of Guangdong focuses on building villas, townhouses and large apartments.

Yang's father is still chairman and chief executive while she sits on the board as an executive director.

Last year's number one on the Forbes list, Wong Kwong Yu, slipped nine places to squeeze into the top ten, even though his fortune rose by nearly 50 percent.

Forbes compiles its list by looking at stakes in listed and private companies and other assets. It excludes Hong Kong residents like tycoon Li Ka-shing -- estimated by Forbes to have a $22 billion fortune in January.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on October 10, 2007, 05:45:30 AM
Space Exploration.
Here's a digital simulation of a landing on a meteor, created by my little Sister's Company in Maffra......
http://www.space.com/php/video/player.php?video_id=NEOnauts2 (http://www.space.com/php/video/player.php?video_id=NEOnauts2)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on October 13, 2007, 06:47:10 PM
Men, it seems your in the wrong Country agagagagag

NZ women most promiscuous: survey

New Zealand women have the most sexual partners in the world, according to a global sex survey reported on Saturday.

They have an average of 20.4 sexual partners, according to a survey by condom-maker Durex - well above the global average of 7.3.

The Durex Sexual Wellbeing Global survey, which questioned 26,000 people in 26 countries, found that Austrians topped the male list with 29.3 sexual partners, more than twice the global average of 13.2.

New Zealand was the only country where women were more promiscuous than their men, who averaged 16.8 sexual partners, The Press newspaper said, reporting the survey.

advertisement
The survey showed that Austrians were the youngest to lose their virginity at an average of 17.3 years, followed by Brazilians (17.4), Germans (17.6) and New Zealanders (17.8).

 cheexyblonde cheexyblonde cheexyblonde
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on October 13, 2007, 11:25:43 PM
Durex company did the survey? and got these results?  Well!!  The results are only as good as the customers that use the product.....we (sadly) have had a record of illegitimate birth rate of 1/3 for at least the past 70 years!!  Maybe the Company should have surveyed "in the islands" afafafafaf
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on October 14, 2007, 12:13:09 AM
Yes, Kiwi women top the world's list.














...for honesty.  ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on October 14, 2007, 12:58:10 PM
Mite not right — in prison


Reid Sexton
October 14, 2007


VEGEMITE is off the menu for Victoria's 4200 prisoners because of fears they could use Australia's favourite breakfast spread to make booze.

Authorities have cracked down on the dark spread because prisoners have discovered ways to refine Vegemite, which has a high yeast content, to brew alcohol.

Authorities first cracked down on the breakfast spread in the late '90s, but there are concerns that home brew is still being made inside prisons, particularly in the lead-up to Christmas.

The Department of Justice said Vegemite was banned because prisoners have been known to extract the yeast. The extraction process involves melting Vegemite and using the yeast to ferment sugar or carbohydrates into alcohol.

Last year, several prisoners were found severely drunk at the Metropolitan Remand Centre.

They had secretly fermented fruit, believed to be stolen from the prison's kitchen, and turned it into alcohol.

Brimbank Legal Centre spokesman Charandev Singh said the only times prisoner advocates came in contact with the Vegemite issue was after alcohol-related deaths in custody.

"Anything in prison can be turned into alcohol. Fruit, sugar, bread. The issue for us is not banning Vegemite. It's about basic safety."

Is that all the cons we got??  bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Newbs on October 17, 2007, 12:38:25 AM
Another wonderful initiative by a Hoganland entity.  In fact, it happens to be the football club with the oldest and finest tradition in the land world.  George, ... GEORGE  wwwwwwwwww  For goodness sake, stir from your alcoholic slumber and pay attention.

http://melbournefc.com.au/Season2007/News/NewsArticle/tabid/7415/Default.aspx?newsId=52511 (http://melbournefc.com.au/Season2007/News/NewsArticle/tabid/7415/Default.aspx?newsId=52511) There's a mention there of them visiting Suzhou.  Just giving you a heads up, boss. uuuuuuuuuu
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on October 17, 2007, 01:58:02 AM
Yeah! They'll probably start a brawl in Suzhou! Keep away from them, fellas!!

Interesting quote, which shows the intelligence of the MFC executive......
Quote
"There is currently an AFL youth ambassador in Tianjin, Australian football has been endorsed nationally as an approved physical exercise in Chinese schools, and there are young and middle aged children, and university students already playing the game," said Harris
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mr Nobody on October 17, 2007, 03:33:14 AM
Yeah, I have been drinking with those middle aged children many times.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: woza on October 17, 2007, 05:08:59 AM
BBC world service are doing a series on China.  Not too bad actually.  I would love my student's to listen to it.  The in county reporters are good. Nothing really that we don't alreday know. Well their take on things agrees with mine.
Corruption blah blah That even though Central goverment passes down good laws they can't implement them.   Don't do business with the Chinese unless you have a Chinese helping you.  Guanxi is all important but even though you may know the word you have to know how it works.  A few good stories about that.  Foreigners getting burnt.  Foreigners believing all the flattery, appealig to their egos, such an easy target.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: old34 on October 17, 2007, 05:38:08 AM
Woza, is that the "Brits Get Rich in China" documentary? Agreed, it's nothing most of us don't already know, but it IS very good.

Youtube has it in 6 or 7 parts. Part 1 starts here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_n4pTMJLnE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_n4pTMJLnE)

BTW, where I am at here in China, Youtube is slow as hell most of the day - 3 second chops. But before 8 AM, which is when the China Internet cranks up for yet another day in paradise of business, Youtube streams like a river.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: woza on October 17, 2007, 02:56:30 PM
OLD34 thanks for the linK I will check it out
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kcanuck on October 17, 2007, 06:15:30 PM
I watched the first installment this morning and will definitely watch the rest.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Newbs on October 19, 2007, 06:58:39 PM
Somthin' to make ol' Newbs' busom swell with pride.  My boys, the mighty Dees, Melbourne football club playing footy on the Great Wall.
http://realfooty.com.au/news/news/no-rabbits-but-a-few-demons/2007/10/18/1192300952268.html (http://realfooty.com.au/news/news/no-rabbits-but-a-few-demons/2007/10/18/1192300952268.html)

Watch this spot.  If previous form is anything to go by, they'll be involved in a punch up in some bar in Beijing one night real soon. uuuuuuuuuu
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on October 19, 2007, 09:21:30 PM
I'm sure the Suzhou blokes could organize a brawl at the Shamrock! jjjjjjjjjj jjjjjjjjjj
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on October 19, 2007, 11:52:46 PM
That could be Fun!!! Looking forward to meeting Ron Barrasi, hope that the guys realize that the only place to be SEEN in Suzhou is at the Shamrock :)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Newbs on October 20, 2007, 12:00:10 AM
Looking forward to meeting Ron Barrasi
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooo
My life has been one of, from time to time, a successions of meetings with Ron Barrassi and on each succeeding occasion being more and more disappointed in him.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on October 20, 2007, 12:10:56 AM
I'll bear that in mind, thanks for the warning :) agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on October 20, 2007, 01:31:02 AM
When your woman is watching yuo sure can't be taken down!

Man sentenced in 'pride' killing of ostrich

Posted Sun Oct 7, 2007 10:02am AEST

A US man was sentenced to five months in jail after he and a friend, acting on wounded pride, gunned down an ostrich that had kicked them as their female companions laughed.

"This whole thing is about male pride," prosecutor Steve Wagstaffe said, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

The powerful flightless bird, named Gaylord, kicked Timothy McKevitt, 19, and Jonathon Porter, 21, last October when they trespassed on an ostrich ranch south of San Francisco after a night of drinking, the paper cited attorneys as saying.

As the startled bird attacked, the women began to laugh, prosecutors said.

McKevitt was kicked in the ribs and knocked over, while Porter suffered scrapes and bruises.

The two men returned with a rifle and shotgun seeking revenge, the Chronicle said. They fired at least seven shots at Gaylord, according to a police report.

McKevitt, free on bail, was ordered to turn himself in on November 3. Porter was sentenced in March to seven months in jail after pleading no contest in the ostrich killing.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mr Nobody on October 20, 2007, 03:50:11 AM
Two men with firearms vs one ostrich named Gaylord.

Yes, I can see where you would be proud of that.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on October 20, 2007, 10:17:33 PM
Will Google Crush The iPhone?

Take one look at the smart-phone market, and it's easy to see a murderer's row. Apple sold one million iPhones in less than three months this summer. Palm is rejuvenating its lineup with the cheap, pretty Centro. Research in Motion's BlackBerry continues to enslave the corporate class. And Microsoft looms large as well, with its software on 140 phone models available from 160 mobile-phone carriers.

But all those devices are, well, just phones. None truly disrupt the wireless industry. That fact has left the field wide open for Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) to do a little murdering of its own. Industry sources say the online search and advertising specialist could publicly detail its long-rumored mobile-phone project as early as next week--with tech-gadget bloggers gossiping about every aspect of the look and feel of the latest tech toy.

Ultimately, however, the device's design won't matter. Instead, it is the business model powering Google's phone that promises to be something completely new. To Google, it doesn't matter how many software licenses you can grab. It doesn't matter how many pricey handsets you can sell in a quarter. The only thing that matters is eyeballs. More people spending more time with Google's phone will mean more money.

Google's thirst for ad dollars means its phone will be very different from offerings from Apple (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ) or Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ). While both Apple and Microsoft started with the affluent, Google will be trying to crack the smart-phone market from the bottom up, industry sources say (Google declined to comment for this story).

First, a recap: Google has been building a mobile-phone team ever since the acquisition of mobile-gadget developer Android in 2005. Andy Rubin, Android's founder, is leading the project's engineering team. He co-founded Danger, Inc., the company behind T-Mobile's popular Sidekick line of Internet-friendly smart phones. Rich Miner, in Google's Boston office, is leading the business side of the effort, sources say. Meanwhile, Google co-founder Larry Page is providing high-level support for the project.

The phone promises to fuse open-source software with Google's applications on a high-end handset. Rubin's team is building custom mobile-phone software atop the free Linux operating system that will bind the phone tightly to Google's online applications and advertising services, sources say. Software from another Google acquisition, Skia, will put a slick user interface on the package. Finally, Google will build all that software into a smart phone built by Taiwanese handset specialist HTC, according to a source familiar with the matter.

In some ways, that's not so different from Microsoft's strategy: put its operating system, and applications such as Word and Excel, onto hardware from HTC, and later on, other manufacturers. That, however, is where the similarities end. "Licensing a mobile OS is not the endgame," UBS analyst Benjamin Schachter wrote in a note to investors last week.

It is dissatisfaction with the ability of today's phones to carry targeted advertising--rather than a thirst for software-licensing revenues or desire to build cool gadgets--that is pushing Google to take on the mobile-phone market, industry sources say. "[Google] will likely focus on extending its current ad-based economic model," Schachter writes.

That means Google may find a home for its phone among consumers in developed and emerging economies, rather than the corporate or creative elite. Carriers catering to the developed world hope to make their profits by offering online services and content, such as ringtones. In emerging economies, carriers figure that subscribers bring their eyeballs rather than their wallets. That could make Google attractive in Asia and other fast-growing markets, with China Mobile (nyse: CHL - news - people ) and Orange Telecom--which has a large presence in the developing world--likely to become Google partners.

The payoff could be big: While analysts estimate that mobile-phone software generates $500 million in revenue for Microsoft, New Jersey-based market researcher Kelsey Group figures mobile-search advertising in the United States alone will grow to $1.4 billion in 2012 from $33.2 million this year.

Microsoft has spent its energy helping its partners create applications for its mobile operating system, rather than turning the mobile operating system itself into a vehicle for ads.
"We're going to put the choice in the customer's hands," says Scott Rockfeld, group marketing manager with Microsoft's mobile communications business.

Google, on the other hand, won't be interested in offering a choice between its applications and those offered by the carriers or Microsoft. As a result, Google may have to play rough. UBS's Schachter warns that Google may even have to threaten to spend billions on its own wireless spectrum to get the carriers in line. Google "may be using its potential spectrum acquisition as a hedge against carrier intransigence," Schachter writes.

Then again, unlike Apple or Microsoft, Google only wants one thing: advertising dollars. As a result, they can afford to stomp on a few toes
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on October 21, 2007, 05:17:02 AM
I had my heart set on an iPhone.  akakakakak It's my shiny object.

But now I'm not sure. alalalalal I wamt my tricorder... but which is it?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: non-dave on October 21, 2007, 01:55:38 PM
I've got one of the new HTC Touch's (after upgrading from the Dopod 818Pro) and I really don't know what the Apple hype is about. This phone is the bomb! - and it's got the same style of finger sliding navigation as the iPhone.

Unlike the Apple, however, you can do pretty much anything you want with it. Check it out here: http://www.htctouch.com/ 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on October 21, 2007, 04:52:30 PM
One of my friends is working on the iPhone in Shanghai - so it probably won't be 'disappeared'.  But LG is bringing out a newer better faster higher longer clone in November - so save your money for now.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on October 21, 2007, 09:26:58 PM
I admit, non-D, that I have the urge to rub the device all over my naked body.

But this is confusing me!  I want to surf the net on the colour display of my phone.  Where's Consumer Digest when you need them?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on October 22, 2007, 01:24:23 AM
The Dopod looks good and I really wanted to get one until I read this

I admit, non-D, that I have the urge to rub the device all over my naked body.

I don't want one anymore.


Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Nolefan on October 22, 2007, 01:30:58 AM
I've got one of the new HTC Touch's (after upgrading from the Dopod 818Pro) and I really don't know what the Apple hype is about. This phone is the bomb! - and it's got the same style of finger sliding navigation as the iPhone.

Unlike the Apple, however, you can do pretty much anything you want with it. Check it out here: http://www.htctouch.com/ 

ND, are you running pleco on the touch? what's the performance like?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: non-dave on October 22, 2007, 04:58:20 AM
Pleco's running okay on it. I'm waiting for the new release from them which should be totally problem free on WM6 - but I haven't had any problems so far - and I use it daily.

It's also running MapKing GPS software, surfs the net at Starbucks and takes a mean picture.

Con, rub away buddy! Sanitary rubber condom-like devices are available. I thought they were to protect the phone from dirt, water, etc., now I understand what they are really for. Knock yourself out (just not with mine!)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mr Nobody on October 24, 2007, 01:23:12 AM
Not a fan of the dopod. Had plenty of issues with it. Won't buy the product again.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on October 27, 2007, 12:27:46 PM
Teachers down the drain...

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/australian-teachers-high-and-dry-in-japan/2007/10/26/1192941340599.html (http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/australian-teachers-high-and-dry-in-japan/2007/10/26/1192941340599.html)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on October 27, 2007, 11:25:25 PM
OUCH!!!!


But does this mean that PRC can expect a rash/rush of Ozzie teachers arriving to fill posts in the not-too-distant future??


Hhhhmmmmmm.....!!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on October 27, 2007, 11:28:46 PM
Probably.  Cheaper to fly here then back home.  There will be Canadians and Americans also out of work!!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on October 28, 2007, 04:41:17 AM
Quote
In a bulletin to 1300 Australian Nova staff issued last night, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said that for a limited period, Qantas would offer a reduced fare for Australian Nova employees wishing to return to Australia.

"There are limits as to how much we can become involved as it is a private employment issue under the jurisdiction of the Japanese legal system," the statement said.

This is what I thought was the interesting bit. So - beware - no real help from the Embassy if you get caught by a dodgy school.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Newbs on October 28, 2007, 10:17:56 AM
Copy on that Lotus.  They're between a rock and a hard place.  Okay, maybe a very cautious person would have put away something for the airfare home, but not many people are really like that.  If Australians had a government that was concerned about Australians, (and, after November 25th that might just be the case) then they would be having discussions with the Japanese government about short visa extensions, whilst arranging emergency flights home, none of this "Qantas discount" bullshit.

I must disclose that one of my sons worked for Nova, but he quit last August.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on October 28, 2007, 01:33:16 PM
One of my daughters decided that after she finished her 1st degree she needed a break before she headed for the next one, and wanted MONEY so she too headed the Nova route - but that was several years ago.  She enjoyed it, but also felt the classes were too structured, the rules too inflexible (NO fraternisation with the students outside class) and ended up working a 2nd job for fun. Her view was that NOVA was also not the best paying company in Japan.

What interests me about this is that if a company like Nova can go belly up, then what is happening to the ESL market in Japan - and what will be the flow on for other countries? If the other schools don't pick up the teachers, then that indicates that the students aren't flowing into those programs either.

It might be interesting to consider long term prospects here if that's what you are about.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on October 29, 2007, 12:24:43 AM
Quote
Facing staff shortages in Iraq, the US State Department has announced that diplomats would have no choice but to accept one-year postings in the hostile environment or face losing their jobs. The department said about 250 "prime candidates" for vacant Iraqi posts would be notified tomorrow. They would have 10 working days to respond to the demand that they go to Iraq, and only those with valid reasons not to would be exempt. Until now, Iraq postings have been voluntary.

Conscription in the Diplomatic Service??
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Acjade on November 03, 2007, 12:29:48 PM
FOREIGN teachers stranded by the collapse of Japan's largest language school claim they are broke and being fed by their students, as media revealed a secret bedroom and opulent offices enjoyed by the firm's founder.

Nova Corp, which ran 900 language schools, filed for court protection from creditors last week, leaving thousands of mostly foreign employees unpaid and students without the lessons they paid for.

"I have a couple of thousand yen ($20) left in the bank. I am expecting an eviction notice any day," Kristen Moon, a teacher from the US, told a news conference in Tokyo, at which she appeared as a pink rabbit character that Nova used in advertising.

Australian Natasha Steele was on the verge of tears as she said her students were feeding her.

Nova teachers were employed on one-year contracts and many had not worked long enough to get unemployment benefits, union official Louis Carlet said.

Former company president Nozomu Sahashi paid himself 310 million yen ($A2.94 million) for the year to March 2006, Kyodo news agency said, compared with about 3 million yen ($A28,450) for an instructor — about a third below the average annual wage in Japan.

Mr Sahashi's lavish 300-square-metre personal office in Osaka was opened to media this week, revealing a hidden apartment complete with a bedroom, hot tub and sauna. REUTERS
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on November 06, 2007, 04:23:19 AM
Hollywood writers go on strikeStory Highlights
NEW: Writers and studios break off talks as writers walk out on strike

Studios stockpile movie scripts as prime-time TV completes shows in hand

The studios say the demands are unreasonable

Late-night comedy shows would take immediate hit in writers' strike

Next Article in Entertainment »


 Read  VIDEO
     
LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- The strike by Hollywood writers is on. Writers and studios broke off talks late Sunday after 11 hours of negotiations.

 
A man loads picket signs into a van Sunday at the Writers Guild of America headquarters in Los Angeles, California.

 1 of 2  The talks between the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers were called by a federal mediator. The producers said a deal couldn't be reached.

The writers want more money from the sale of DVDs and a share of revenue generated by the sale of TV shows and films over the Internet. The studios say the demands are unreasonable and will hamper attempts to experiment with new media.

Picketing starts in the morning in New York and Los Angeles.

The walkout will affect late-night talk shows first, then daytime talk shows and soap operas. Studios have stockpiled movie scripts and prime-time TV has completed shows in hand to last until early next year.

Hollywood writers and studio representatives held last-ditch negotiations Sunday in an effort to prevent a strike, the writers union said.

A federal mediator called the meeting between the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television producers at an undisclosed location.

Don't Miss
Union: Members can honor picket lines if writers strike
Reality shows loom
The first picket lines are scheduled to form at New York's Rockefeller Center, followed by picket lines at various locations in Los Angeles, the guild said.

The studios say the demands are unreasonable and would hamper attempts to experiment with new media.  Watch a report on the dispute »

The last time Hollywood writers went on strike was in 1988. The walkout lasted 22 weeks and cost the industry about $500 million.

WGA board members voted unanimously Friday to begin the strike unless studios offered a more lucrative deal. The two sides have been meeting since July.

"The studios made it clear that they would rather shut down this town than reach a fair and reasonable deal," Patric Verrone, president of the western chapter of the guild, said at a news conference.  Watch Verrone talk about a "bad contract" »

J. Nicholas Counter, chief negotiator for producers, called the writers' strike "precipitous and irresponsible" in a prepared statement.

Producers believe progress can be made on other issues but "it makes absolutely no sense to increase the burden of this additional compensation" involving DVDs and the Internet, he said.

The first casualty of the strike would be late-night talk shows, which are dependent on current events to fuel monologues and other entertainment.

"The Tonight Show" on NBC will go into reruns starting Monday if last-ditch negotiations fail and a strike begins, according to a network official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to comment publicly.

Comedy Central has said "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report" would likely go into repeats as well.

Daytime TV, including live talk shows such as "The View" and soap operas, which typically tape about a week's worth of shows in advance, would be next to feel the impact.

The strike would not immediately affect production of movies or prime-time TV programs. Most studios have stockpiled dozens of movie scripts, and TV shows have enough scripts or completed shows in hand to last until early next year.

Talks between writers and producers will likely impact upcoming negotiations between the studios and unions representing actors and directors.

All those unions believe revenue from content offered on the Internet, cell phones and other platforms will grow tremendously in the years ahead, even though it's now minuscule compared with DVD sales.

Consumers are expected to spend $16.4 billion on DVDs this year, according to Adams Media Research.

By contrast, studios could generate about $158 million from selling movies online and about $194 million from selling TV shows over the Web.


Studios argue that it is too early to know how much money they can make from offering entertainment on the Internet and on cell phones, iPods and other devices.

Producers are also uncertain whether consumers prefer a pay-per-view model over an advertising-supported system. They say they want the economic flexibility to experiment as consumer habits change in reaction to technology.

NOOOOOOOOO!!!! aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao The soap opera writers are on strike. People might have to..gulp, shudder, tremble....read! Or go outside. Or talk to each other. Chaos, mayhem...it's Ragnarok. Soon the sun will be eaten by an enormous wolf.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on November 08, 2007, 04:26:33 AM
Writers have always been treated like shit on the shoes of Hollywood.  Let's see how smart them actors sound now that they have to come up with their own ideas and words.  bbbbbbbbbb
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on November 08, 2007, 08:40:30 PM
Belgium... Canada.  Now I get it.

In Belgium, even the Smurfs are confused
Don Murray
Nov. 6, 2007
Belgium and Canada have similar positions. Each sits on its continent, incontournable as the French say, undeniably there, but largely ignored by its larger neighbours.

Consider Belgium today. It is in the midst of a major political crisis. You haven't noticed? Neither has most of Europe.

As of Nov. 5, the country achieved an unenviable record — 148 days without a real government, 148 days since a general election produced a stalemate. The previous record was in 1988 and the cause was the same and one that will be familiar to Canadians — language.

There are not two, but three official languages in Belgium, a lot for a country of 10 million inhabitants. But only two count, French and Dutch.

The Flemish speak Dutch in the province of Flanders and they are the majority, making up somewhere between 56 and 58 per cent of the country's population. The Wallons speak French and live in the south next to France. To complicate matters, Brussels, the capital, is largely French-speaking but it lies in Flanders.

What would Tintin do?

Curiously, few outside the political class in Belgium seem to be taking this crisis too seriously. There is a reason for that. Belgium is known for … well, what is Belgium known for? Beer, of course. There seem to be almost as many of those as Belgians, and moules et frites, mussels and french fries, and chocolate, and … comics.

Yes, tiny Belgium is a world leader in the production of comics and comic book heroes, starting with the boy reporter Tintin.

The comic approach appeals to Belgians. Listen to Rik Torfs, a Flemish professor of government and religion: "We only produce useless things such as beer and chocolates. So we are an absolute centre of mediocrity.

"And that's a good reason to be in favour of the survival of Belgium. As we are a centre of mediocrity, nobody envies us, nobody hates us. And that's nice."

Torfs is famous in Flanders, not because of his intellectual prowess as a professor but because he moonlights on a TV quiz show called The Cleverest Person in the World. It has one million viewers. That's one-sixth of Flanders.

Torfs is a sort of prosecuting judge, insulting the contestants so that they like it, as he puts it. He uses the same technique on his country.

His guide to Belgian politics is pithy: "Anything serious coming from Belgium, don't trust it."

What national anthem?

It's a motto Belgium's embattled prime minister-designate seems to be taking, if not seriously, then conscientiously. Yves Leterme is a Flemish politician, leading the largest coalition of parties trying to form a government.

On Belgium's national holiday, July 21, he was asked what the day was commemorating. He didn't know. (The correct answer was the swearing in as head of state of Belgium's first king in 1830.) Then Leterme was asked whether he knew Belgium's national anthem. Of course, he said, and began singing La Marseillaise, the national anthem of France. It's perhaps not surprising he's having trouble forming a government.

There are more serious reasons for Belgium's political crisis. For one, the country no longer has any national parties.

Four decades ago, the leaders of Belgium tried to clarify the vexed language issue by drawing a line through the belly of the country.

To the north, in Flanders, every official word spoken and written — in government departments, municipal city halls, schools, universities — would be Dutch.

To the south, in Wallonia, French would be official. (In a small eastern enclave tucked up against Germany, German would be the official language of about 75,000 Belgians). Brussels, situated in Flanders, would be bilingual.

Surgery required

This led to some drastic changes. The university of Louvain was a jewel of French-language learning, founded in 1425. But after the drawing of the language line, the university found itself in the Flemish sector. And so, in the 1970s, everything and everyone — books, faculties, professors, students — all were moved south. Not far south, just 30 kilometres and just across the language line. A new university — indeed a new town, Louvain La Neuve — was built. And the old one became the University of Leuven, where everything would be in Dutch.

The drastic surgery offered only temporary remission. By the 1980s, the national parties were splitting apart. Where once there was a national Christian Democrat party, now there are two — one Flemish and one Wallon. And the Flemish Christian Democrats did a deal with a small separatist party, the NVA, with the goal of forming the largest block in the Belgian parliament. The NVA wants Flanders to declare its independence from Belgium.

The Christian Democrat-NVA block achieved its electoral goal. But, thanks to the constitutional tradition that there should be a government with an equal number of Dutch- and French-speaking ministers, this has led to surreal political negotiations. Imagine the Bloc Québécois as part of a negotiating team to form a federal coalition government.

To add spice to the constitutional stew, there is a second, much bigger separatist party, not in the poorer, smaller section of the country, Wallonia, but also in Flanders. The Vlaams Belang, which calls for independence for Flanders and is accused of being rabidly right-wing by its opponents, takes 25 per cent of the votes and seats in the Flanders provincial parliament.

The Flemish have a long and well-developed sense of grievance. For decades they and their language were considered backward by the French-speaking elite. Now that Flanders is the rich part of the country, they resent paying subsidies to struggling Wallonia. A recent opinion poll suggested support for Flanders' independence had risen to 46 per cent.

Think of it in Canadian terms: it's as if the support for separation was being driven by Ontario and the West, not by Quebec.

Asking the Big Smurf

But not to worry, says Torfs. This is Belgium.

"It's like asking questions on divorce immediately after the quarrel. The bottles are still on the floor, the wine glasses on the table. At that moment everybody wants to divorce, to separate. But a few days, weeks, months later, we are very happy to be with our old enemies again."

Maybe, but the rot is so deep it has so soaked into the comics. Along with Tintin, Belgium has given the world the Smurfs. And these tiny blue creatures, like bigger Belgians, have managed, in one of their albums, to get themselves into a linguistic tangle.

It begins when a Smurf asks another for a bottle opener, a "bottle-Smurfer" in his parlance. His neighbour insists it's called a "Smurf-opener." They can't agree; the quarrel escalates.

And here Willem de Graeve, deputy director of the Belgian Museum of Comic Art, takes up the story: "So they go to the Big Smurf and ask him who is right. The Big Smurf says, I can't say because both are right, but they're not satisfied with this answer. It goes further and further. They decide one day to split the village in two and they make a border. You can't pass the border because you have two camps of Smurfs, speaking two languages. Now it's obvious that this is a real allusion to the situation in Belgium."

If the Big Smurf can't solve that one, who can save Belgium?

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mr Nobody on November 12, 2007, 08:12:34 AM
Writers always get crap.

They make up the ideas, write them out, get all the plots, characters etc fixed up, bleed for months or years over the typewriter ... and then  get a pittance. Some guy with a face and no brain acts the part, gets about 100 times the writers pay for the whole of their life for 3 months work acting the role the writer invented, and gets lauded for the rest of their life and invited to conventions. Everyone else involved gets lots, too. Probably the best boy makes more than the writer who thought the whole thing up. I know that many TV stars (eg star trek, sf movies, etc) get more for a single appearance at a single convention than the writer got for creating the movie, TV series and/or episode.

At a convention the writers get together and get drunk out the back having arrived more than likely paying for themselves to get there (even famous ones usually only break even), their own accommodation and their own food and beer.

However, they are much more interesting.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on November 13, 2007, 10:14:31 AM
TheCBC offered this today:


COLLEEN ROSS: WORD OF MOUTH
Lost in translation
Colourful Chinglish words enter global English
November 8, 2007
I'm in China, covering the Women's World Cup of soccer for CBC Radio. It's another late night and I'm resorting to room service to quell the rumbling in my tummy. But, scanning the menu, I'm not at all sure about the offerings: "stuffed fatty meat pork" makes me squirm. "Slobbering chicken," "lion head" or "cheese melting in ham parcel" … I'm not sold. I opt for the complimentary apples on my table — at least I know what I'm getting.

 English mistranslations of food dishes are rampant in China. My favourite example comes through the dietitian for the Canadian women's soccer team. For obvious reasons, the players were very careful not to be too experimental with food. Chicken is usually a safe bet, but not when the dish is translated as "the fragrance explodes the cowboy bone." That could have been too, well, explosive.

Other examples of mistranslations abound. A massage therapist advertises: "Relex your tired of bady"; a toilet for a disabled person is labelled "Deformed man toilet"; a slippery road is marked "Beware, the slippery are very crafty" (but they are!). "Drinktea" is hung on a shop door to mean it's closed (it also means "resting" in Mandarin). Yes, Chinglish is the weird and wonderful result of an English dictionary colliding with Chinese ideograms that often have multiple meanings.

These linguistic delicacies may well stay in China, but some experts say Chinglish words are zipping around the globe, even working their way into the English language.

Photo Gallery: Shanghai subway Chinglish by Anthony Germain
The Global Language Monitor tracks and analyzes trends in global English. Its president, Harvard-educated linguist Paul Payack, says the Chinglish phenomenon is helping drive the globalization of the English language, contributing up to 20 per cent of new global English words. Payack says the rate has increased in the past several years because of China's rising number of English speakers and economic boom. The surge in internet users has allowed for the free flow of Chinglish.

In its most recent annual survey, GLM selected the top Chinglish words: No noising (quiet, please!), airline pulp (food served on a plane), jumping umbrella (hang-glider) and question authority (information booth, interestingly enough). I decided to take some local words back home with me, stuffing them into my already bloated suitcase: financial supermarket (what better word for one store offering stocks, insurance and real estate services?) and super brand mall (only top-end items, please).

Payack says unless a word is on paper, the Oxford English Dictionary doesn't count it, but he insists the real language is what's spoken and what's used on the internet. "Maybe only five per cent of Chinglish words will stick around," he says, "but that's a lot." He expects the language cycle will go into high gear during next year's Beijing Olympics.

 The rising influence of China is coming not only through Chinese-influenced English, but also through its more famous export: Mandarin, the most widely spoken language on the planet. And beyond China's borders, tens of millions of people are now picking up scribes and learning to ink ideograms.

"If Mandarin Chinese ever becomes the first choice of a second language to learn, as English has been, there is … less of a chance for these Chinglish expressions to survive or make significant impact," University of Victoria linguistics professor Hua Lin says. If Mandarin becomes so popular that people speak Mandarin instead of English as a second language, people will communicate less in English, giving it less chance to be influenced by Chinese, Lin explains. Meanwhile, China's biggest cities are intent on sweeping the streets clear of unintelligible Chinglish. Beijing has launched a campaign to stamp out bad English in time for its international debut at next year's Olympics.

At Shanghai's Foreign Languages Institute, a bespectacled Zhang Jiani has spearheaded a student initiative to clean up English on menus, in taxis, in shops and in banks. She's an accounting student, but says this is her civic duty: "I think most of the students here have some English skills and I think it's our responsibility to do something for the city." She says they must, if Shanghai is to market itself as a truly international city.

So, once every few weeks, she meets up with a group of students to trek through designated parts of the city. Equipped with electronic dictionaries, they studiously note any suspected mistranslations. They get the correct wording from a professor, then deliver it to the perpetrator who, they hope, makes the correction.

Drinktea may mean closed for business, but this up-and-coming generation of Chinese will work until the worst of the Chinglish is laid to rest.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on November 13, 2007, 06:12:35 PM
China puts traditional focus on new holidays
By Winny Wang 2007-11-10

THE Chinese government yesterday announced a major overhaul of its national holiday system.

The May Day Golden Week has been canceled but three traditional festivals have been added as national holidays.

The draft proposal worked out by a special panel after more than a year's research has been posted on the Internet for public discussion.

If accepted, the proposal could be enacted in time for the 2008 Spring Festival.

It means workers will receive one more paid day off each year if the draft amendment to statutory holiday laws is approved.

The three-day May Day holiday will be cut to one day, while the Tomb-sweeping Festival, Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival will become national vacations, according to the draft, which was released by the government's office in charge of national holidays.

That raises the number of paid holiday days to 11 from 10.

The Spring Festival break will begin on Lunar New Year's Eve instead of the first day of the Chinese New Year, and the holiday will end a day earlier, the draft said.

People can vote or voice an opinion on the draft at China's major Websites such as Sina.com, People.com and Xinhuanet.com.

China introduced the Golden Week holidays in 1999 to boost domestic consumption.

Tourism revenue soared from 14.1 billion yuan (US$1.90 billion) during the 1999 National Day holiday to 64.2 billion yuan during the recent Golden Week in October.

However, complaints about overcrowding, poor service, a scarcity of hotel rooms and damage to scenic spots, especially historic sites, during the Golden Week breaks have spurred debate over the merits of the weeklong holiday concept.

According to Xinhua news agency, an official of the special panel said the new plan takes into account five key principles:

The number of legal holidays should mirror the current phase of economic and social development;

The legal holiday arrangement should help pass on traditional customs and culture;

Negative effects on the economy and society should be minimized;

All citizens should share in social justice via the achievements of economic and social development;

People should have the right to rest and travel.

Timely move

The official said the new arrangement will be enacted along with regulations on paid vacations. It will ensure that people have enough time to travel, yet won't all be on the move at the same time.

"Making traditional festivals legal holidays will help carry forward Chinese history and culture, benefit 1.3 billion Chinese citizens, help build a harmonious society and enhance the cohesion of the Chinese nation," said Ji Baocheng, a deputy to the National People's Congress and president of Renmin University of China in Beijing.

During its research, the panel investigated the holiday arrangements of other countries, consulted experts, citizens and law makers, and conducted online and phone polls.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: decurso on November 13, 2007, 08:30:49 PM
 The May holiday has been cut to one day?!?!? aoaoaoaoao asasasasas llllllllll

 I am SO not impressed.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on November 13, 2007, 08:33:44 PM
Wait, how will this affect the MIDI festival? aqaqaqaqaq
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on November 13, 2007, 09:49:58 PM
The May holiday has been cut to one day?!?!? aoaoaoaoao asasasasas llllllllll

 I am SO not impressed.

They are still talking about using the weekends before and after as work days giving more time off during the holiday.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on November 13, 2007, 10:18:04 PM
This takes  re-cycling to a whole new, level!!!

China recycling used condoms as cheap hair bands

November 13, 2007 - 3:09PM

Used condoms in southern China are being recycled into hair bands and they are selling well in local markets and beauty salons.

But they could spread sexually-transmittable diseases the condoms were originally meant to prevent, state media reported today.

Rubber hair bands have been found in local markets and beauty salons in Dongguan and Guangzhou cities in southern Guangdong province, China Daily newspaper said.

"These cheap and colourful rubber bands and hair ties sell well ... threatening the health of local people," it said.

Despite being recycled, the hair bands could still contain bacteria and viruses, it said.

"People could be infected with AIDS, warts or other diseases if they hold the rubber bands or strings in their mouths while waving their hair into plaits or buns," the paper quoted a local dermatologist as saying.

A bag of ten of the recycled bands sells much cheaper than others on the market, accounting for their popularity, the paper said.

China's manufacturing industry has been repeatedly tarnished this year by a string of scandals involving shoddy or dangerous goods made for both domestic and foreign markets.


I wonder who collects them??
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on November 13, 2007, 10:27:29 PM
Oh my dear God!!!  aaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaa Congratulations George, you win the prize for "Most revolting and disgusting news reported as yet". And may I add...yuck!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on November 14, 2007, 06:16:57 AM
I've decided that I never read it, it never happened and...

What?  What's in the news today?  aeaeaeaeae
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on November 15, 2007, 01:41:56 AM
Ah, mere sewage!  That'll improve the taste in my mouth...

Record amount of waste dumped in China's Yangtze River Tue Nov 13, 10:27 PM ET
 

BEIJING (AFP) - A record 30.5 billion tonnes of industrial, farming and human waste were dumped last year into China's Yangtze River, the country's longest, state media reported.

The quantity was twice as much as two decades ago and an increase of 900 million tonnes, or 3.1 percent, from the previous year, Xinhua news agency said late Tuesday.

The widespread dumping of industrial, agricultural and domestic waste has seriously polluted the Yangtze, a situation some ecologists warn will be worsened by the massive Three Gorges dam, which they say will create a "giant toilet bowl" of trapped sewage behind it.

The Asian Development Bank last month warned that water pollution in China, driven by rapid industrialisation and urbanisation, had reached "alarming" levels.

Xinhua, quoting a study by the Yangtze River Water Resources Commission, said 2006 was the first year sewage dumping had increased by less than five percent.

A joint Swiss-Chinese report said earlier this month that Yangtze pollution was "enormous" but added the ecological damage could be reversed if the government took aggressive steps.

Numerous unique species have been driven to the brink of extinction in the river, including the white-fin dolphin and Yangtze river sturgeon.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on November 15, 2007, 01:49:58 AM
I...I....I...once went swimming in that river...oh the horror... aoaoaoaoao aaaaaaaaaa
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: belrain on November 15, 2007, 03:02:18 AM
Here is an interesting article about the Three Gorges Dam. Unfortunatly, it is in german.

http://www.sueddeutsche.de/wissen/artikel/621/141316/
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on November 15, 2007, 11:40:01 PM
Chinese Law Student Sues Censor Board


 Angry that Chinese censors ordered graphic sex scenes removed from Ang Lee's Lust, Caution, a Chinese student at China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing has filed a lawsuit against the State Administration of Radio Film and Television, alleging that it had infringed on his "consumer rights" and "society's public interest," the Beijing Times reported today (Wednesday). The student, Dong Yanbin, is demanding that the board apologize and pay him the equivalent of $67 for "psychological damages." Analysts believe that it is unlikely that Chinese courts will accept the case.


I got this fromt the IMDB. 67 Dollars? I really do hope they got that wrong or this is one unambitious law student.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Newbs on November 28, 2007, 10:32:15 AM
When I first heard about this story I could see the funny side of it.  On reading it fully it seems more serious.  Still, I'm posting it.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22835095-29277,00.html (http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22835095-29277,00.html)
Quote
Jailed sailors may learn fate todayFrom correspondents in Los Angeles
November 28, 2007 06:27am
Article from: AAPFont size: + -
Send this article: Print Email
TWO Australian Navy sailors jailed in California for a vicious fight with an American man about the merits of Aussie rules football will learn today if US prosecutors will pursue serious assault charges against them.

Philip Graeme Ferres, 26, and Kolis Barba, 24, have been locked up in San Diego's Central Jail since their arrest in the early hours of Thursday morning.

Police accuse them of hitting and kicking their alleged victim, breaking his eye socket, after an argument flared at a party about Australian rules football and America's gridiron.

The alleged victim, a 28-year-old San Diego man, was a fan of gridiron while the Australians were talking up the virtues of AFL, which led to the fight, police said.

A spokesperson for the San Diego District Attorney's office said prosecutors were mulling over the evidence today to decide what charges, if any, will be filed against the two sailors, who arrived in the southern Californian city aboard the HMAS Sydney last week.

If charges are laid, Ferres and Barba will likely appear before a San Diego judge tomorrow.

San Diego police booked the Australians on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, with the deadly weapon being their feet.

The American man was taken to hospital.

Ferres and Barba claimed they acted in self defence.

They feared for their lives because they believed their alleged victim would get a weapon, police said.

The HMAS Sydney, which was moored at the US Naval Base San Diego for five days, left San Diego on Saturday without the two men.


Bit silly to get in a fight over which code of football is the best, when it's bloody obvious that Australian Rules is best. uuuuuuuuuu
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: non-dave on November 28, 2007, 01:04:03 PM
It's a good thing Rugby Union wasn't mentioned... someone might've been killed!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on November 28, 2007, 01:44:45 PM
"Deadly weapon" being feet that have played Aussie Rules?  I do keep telling them here that girls play soccer back home and they need to see a 'real' football game.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: icebear on November 28, 2007, 02:16:08 PM
They're in the military, its not surprising they're feet/fists are alleged to be deadly weapons.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Newbs on November 29, 2007, 03:06:39 AM
Here's some good news.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/11/28/2104456.htm?section=justin (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/11/28/2104456.htm?section=justin)

Quote
More than a billion trees planted this year: UN

Posted 1 hour 36 minutes ago

More than one billion trees have been planted around the world in 2007, with Ethiopia and Mexico leading in the drive to combat climate change, a United Nations (UN) report said.

The Nairobi-based UN Environment Program (UNEP) said the mass tree planting, inspired by Nobel Peace laureate Wangari Maathai, will help mitigate effects of pollution and environmental deterioration.

"An initiative to catalyse the pledging and the planting of one billion trees has achieved and indeed surpassed its mark," UNEP chief Achim Steiner said in a statement.

"It is a further sign of the breathtaking momentum witnessed this year on the challenge for this generation - climate change.

"Millions if not billions of people around this world want an end to pollution and environmental deterioration and have rolled up their sleeves and got their hands dirty to prove the point."

UNEP said the total number of trees planted is still being collated, but developing countries top the list with more than 700 million and 217 million trees planted in Ethiopia and Mexico respectively.

Others include Turkey with 150 million, Kenya - 100 million, Cuba - 96.5 million, Rwanda - 50 million, South Korea - 43 million, Tunisia - 21 million, Morocco - 20 million, Burma - 20 million and Brazil - 16 million.

Mr Maathai's Green Belt Movement planted 4.7 million trees, double the number of trees it had initially pledged, according to UNEP.

Experts says that trees help contain carbon that accumulates the heat-trapping gases blamed for climate change.

Although the figure could not be verified, it sends a powerful message ahead of the December 3-14 meeting in Bali of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), a panel charting the path for negotiating pollution cuts to be implemented after 2012 when the Kyoto Protocol pledges run out.

"We called you to action almost exactly a year ago and you responded beyond our dreams," said Mr Maathai, who won the Nobel Peace prize for her campaign to plant tens of millions of trees to counter tree-loss and desertification in Africa.

"Now we must keep the pressure on and continue the good work for the planet," Mr Maathai said in the statement.

- AFP
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on November 29, 2007, 09:06:51 AM

OMG!!!  They banned the pushup bra ads!  NOOOOO!!!!!   ananananan

On those cold and lonely winter nights in Dongguan, I'd sit in front of the TV, mesmerized by hot Chinese girls suddenly becoming endowed with amazing cleavage.   ajajajajaj

Those ads should be considered to be a treasure of world heritage.  The people who ordered them censored should be made to drink lead paint.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on November 29, 2007, 09:57:16 AM
I feel for you EL. Don't you get the commercials for the miracle cream? I remember them vividly. A cream with basically the same qualities as a push-up bra.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on November 29, 2007, 12:46:48 PM
Damn!  I never saw the miracle cream commercials.   asasasasas  llllllllll


In the meantime, I seem to have accidentally dropped a couple of shopping bags from my car on my last trip over to Tampa:


Dude, didn't we have 60 pounds of pot?

TAMPA, Fla. - The Florida Highway Patrol says anyone missing two big bags of pot can call their Tampa area office. A crew picking up litter from along Interstate 4 near Tuesday morning made an unusual find: two big plastic garbage bags stuffed with freshly harvested marijuana.

FHP Trooper Larry Coggins says the 60 pounds of pot might be worth around $54,000 on the street. It probably fell off or was thrown from a car on the interstate.

The plants appeared freshly picked and some had intact roots.

Coggins says it's not the largest amount of pot ever dumped along a roadside, but it's certainly not a common find.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on December 01, 2007, 12:54:08 AM
Drambuie not the drop for bogans

By Erin Tennant
ninemsn

If you're "a guy who wears skirts" or maybe one of those "rich people with taste in their arse" you just might take to this refined drink, but if you're a bogan … forget it.

Drambuie has released an online video of blue-collar drinkers struggling with free samples of the whisky blend that suggests only educated consumers will enjoy the drop.

advertisement
The video follows a market researcher as he approaches patrons at downmarket pubs in Sydney and Melbourne with a glass of the liquor served with lemon wedge and straw, then records their predictably coarse responses after taking a swig.

A tattooed, singlet-wearing patron guzzles a glass in one hit, then — as the remains of the drink drip through his beard — is asked by the deadpan researcher: "Can you detect the nuances of flavour, the subtle hints of honey?"

Other drinkers offer opinions about the types of people they think would like the drink instead, such as cross-dressers or people with wealth but no taste.

The video, which has been doing the email rounds since Monday, carries the apparently patronising tag line "made for princes, not bogans" but a company spokesman insists the campaign is sincere.

"These were genuine people who honestly didn’t like the brand," Drambuie marketing manager James France said.

Only one actor was used in the production — Jason Torrens, a former star of the kids' 1990s television show Pugwall, performs in his real-life role as a drummer with a Melbourne rock band.

Mr France said the clip is an attempt to re-launch a drink that "for years has been stuck in the old-men-drinking-after-dinner-in-leather-lounges category".

He said the video was aimed at "successful urban male in the 28-35 age bracket" and insisted the ad was done at nobody's expense in particular because "there is a bogan in all of us".

Luke Nathans of The One Centre, the Sydney-based advertising agency that produced the ad, said the video is meant to be taken in jest.

The video's humour partly serves to poke fun at "how difficult it is to market Drambuie and its history to an Australian drinker", he said.

Drambuie is said to originate with an eighteenth-century Scottish prince who drank the whisky blend as an elixir.

The ad is another in a range of marketing campaigns — most notably those for Carlton Draught — which hope to raise brand awareness through entertaining viral videos.

Simon Canning, a marketing and advertising writer with The Australian, said the Drambuie video ran little risk of offending anyone.

"They know the market they're mocking would never consider buying Drambuie except as a present for their mother-in-law," he said.

"The market they're talking to is a pretty sophisticated market: as a message, the ad is effective because it reinforces people's prejudices and talks to them in their own tone of voice."

Advertising executive Natalie McLeod believes the Drambuie ad's shock value should ensure it enjoys wide email circulation, but questioned whether the video was likely to lure consumers.

"As an advertisement we have to ask if people would buy the product based on someone else hating it," she said.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on December 01, 2007, 01:10:10 AM
I luuurrrrve Drambuie! jjjjjjjjjj jjjjjjjjjj
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on December 01, 2007, 01:38:39 AM
Me too.  I also like scotch.  I also like rusty nails. agagagagag agagagagag agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on December 01, 2007, 02:14:37 AM
I like Drambuie. It tastes nice and the romantic story behind only adds to the flavour. Sipping a glass and thinking about how the Young Pretender, having just seen his dreams of ruling England destroyed at Culloden, is whisked away, disguised as a woman and brought to the Isle of Skye. Wherefrom he departed in a rowboat one fog-enshrouded morning, thanking his saviours the only way he could, by presenting them with the recipe for Drambuie. Might be a load of hogwash but it's good hogwash  agagagagag agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on December 01, 2007, 02:24:45 AM
Quote
I like Drambuie. It tastes nice
Right! End of story! It tastes nice!! Don't need all that extraneous hogwash!!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on December 01, 2007, 02:48:54 AM
And on to other news...the new Australian Minister of the Environment is a rock star  agagagagag agagagagag That's so cool. All our minister are boring morons.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on December 01, 2007, 03:52:12 AM

If you're "a guy who wears skirts" or maybe one of those "rich people with taste in their arse" you just might take to this refined drink

a drink that "for years has been stuck in the old-men-drinking-after-dinner-in-leather-lounges category".

I luuurrrrve Drambuie! jjjjjjjjjj jjjjjjjjjj

Not a suprise George.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on December 01, 2007, 09:52:43 AM
Yep, it's all over the news. She has been sentenced to 15 days in jail and then she'll be deported. The really stupid thing is, she did not name the sodding bear, the students did, after they came to a democratic decision that the majority wanted the bear to be called Muhammed. Then some yobbo decides that it is insulting to name a stuffed bear after the Prophet. Muhammad being a perfectly ordinary name in that area, I don't think any of the parties involved were even thinking about the Prophet. I am all for respecting the believes of others and, whenever possible, follow and obey the rules and customs of foreign lands, should I venture away from my rain-soaked island but this is just plain stupid! There are crowds demonstrating in the streets, demanding that the poor woman be shot! The British government has warned the Sudan officials that, basically, if they touch a hair on her head, their diplomats will be thrown out of England and the British Commonwealth will reconsider how much aid they want to give to Sudan. So not only has some overtly sensitive religious racist (I highly doubt this would have happened had the teacher in question been a Sudan native) caused a teacher to be expelled, but has also managed to put the relief aid that many poor and hungry Sudanese people depend on at risk. I work for Muslims and they even professed that they thought the whole thing to be ridiculous. Makes you wonder íf the complaint about the naming of the bear had more of an agenda behind it. What kind of sick, twisted, loathsome little pathetic sad excuse for a parody of a human being gets all worked up about what a child calls his/ her teddy bear? Religious insult??? They are children!!!! It's a stuffed bear!!! And....they are children!!!!!!!!!! llllllllll llllllllll llllllllll


Sorry about the rant but I have been reading articles about this case all day and it has gotten me somewhat worked up. I'll go lie down.....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on December 01, 2007, 10:01:27 AM
Ju8st an example of the insanity of it all...

Sudan protesters: Execute teacherStory Highlights
Some demonstrators demand execution of Gillian Gibbons, 54

Gibbons found guilty of insulting religion, sentenced to 15 days in jail

Teacher arrested after her class named teddy bear "Mohammed"
     
KHARTOUM, Sudan (CNN) -- Hundreds of angry protesters, some waving ceremonial swords from trucks equipped with loud speakers, gathered Friday outside the presidential palace to denounce a teacher whose class named a teddy bear "Mohammed" -- some calling for her execution.

 1 of 2  The protesters, which witnesses said numbered close to 1,000, swore to fight in the name of their prophet.

Gillian Gibbons, 54, was given 15 days in jail late Thursday after she was convicted of insulting religion. She was cleared of charges of inciting hatred and showing contempt for religious beliefs, her lawyer, Ali Ajeb, said.

Ajeb said they planned to appeal the sentence, which begins from the date she was detained, Nov. 25. Including Friday, she has 10 more days in jail.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said he was "extremely disappointed" that the charges were not dismissed.

Meanwhile senior British lawmakers were en route to Khartoum to try to secure Gibbons' early release.

The two members of the House of Lords were set to arrive in Khartoum about 5 a.m. Saturday (9 p.m. Friday ET), Time magazine reporter Sam Dealey told CNN, citing British and Sudanese sources.

They will meet with government ministers and Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, he said.

Sources close to the British government and the Republican Palace in Sudan say it is expected that a deal will be reached, and Gibbons will be released, Dealey said. Visas for the two, he said, were granted "in record time ... by Sudanese standards."

Friday's demonstrations began as worshippers spilled out of mosques in the capital after Friday prayers. They marched to the palace, which is on the same street as Unity High School, where Gibbons taught grade school students. Those who named the bear were 7 years old.

A heavy police presence was maintained outside the school, but no demonstrators were there.  Watch men brandish knives, shout »

Armed with swords and sticks, the protesters shouted: "By soul, by blood, I will fight for the Prophet Mohammad. Western journalists who attempted to talk to the protesters were ushered away by men in plain clothes. Gibbons is being held in a women's prison in the Omdurman district of Khartoum, and she will be deported at the end of her prison term, British consular officials told CNN.

British Embassy staff said they were giving the teacher -- from the northern British city of Liverpool -- full consular assistance.

In leaflets distributed earlier this week by Muslim groups, the protesters promised a "popular release of anger" at Friday's protests.

The leaflets condemned Gibbons as an "infidel" and accused her of "the pollution of children's mentality" by her actions.

Omer Mohammed Ahmed Siddig, the Sudanese ambassador to Britain, was summoned for a second time to meet with the British foreign secretary late Thursday after the court's ruling.

Miliband also spoke to the Sudanese acting foreign minister for 15 minutes on the telephone during the meeting, the British Foreign Office said.

"Our priority now is to ensure Ms. Gibbons' welfare and we will continue to provide consular assistance to her," Miliband said in a statement.

The Foreign Office said there would be further talks with the Sudanese government Friday.

Gibbons was arrested Sunday after she asked her class to name the stuffed animal as part of a school project, the Foreign Office said. She had faced charges under Article 125 of Sudan's constitution, the law relating to insulting religion and inciting hatred.

She could have received a sentence of 40 lashes, a fine or jail term of up to a year, according to the Foreign Office.

British newspapers condemned Gibbons' conviction, with the Daily Telegraph calling for the recall of the British ambassador from Khartoum and sanctions against the heads of the Sudanese government. Watch a report on reactions to the verdict »

In an editorial, the tabloid newspaper, The Sun, said Gibbons' jailing was a "grotesque insult to Islam" and called Gibbons "an innocent abroad."

Don't Miss
Teacher charged in teddy bear case
Bid to stop whipping
TIME.com: The blasphemous teddy bear
Web site: Unity High School
Four vans filled with riot police were waiting outside the courthouse at Thursday's hearing, but there were no disturbances. Staff from Gibbons' school, including director Robert Boulos, were present.

Defense counsel later confirmed that the complaint against Gibbons came from Sarah Khawad, a secretary at the school.


Gibbons has been working at the school, popular with wealthy Sudanese and expatriates, since August, after leaving her position as deputy head teacher at a primary school in Liverpool this summer, Boulos said.

He said Gibbons asked the children to pick their favorite name for the new class mascot, which she was using to aid lessons about animals and their habitats. E-mail to a friend

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on December 01, 2007, 11:12:54 AM
Yeah...the kids named the teddy bear "Mohammed" after one of their classmates!! llllllllll llllllllll




I wonder just how popular that poor kiddie-wink will be now?!? 




And just how her students feel about the whole deal....?!?......Talk about a Guilt Trip!!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on December 01, 2007, 07:37:38 PM
Thousands of Belgian parents camped in cold, wet weather Thursday to enroll their children in French-speaking schools under a new first-come, first-served registration system. aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao

Families set up impromptu camp sites outside school gates, with police in attendance to keep the peace ahead of the start of registration for next year's school term Friday.

"I am doing this for my daughter," said Thierry Colin, a navy officer drinking soup at the end of a queue of tents and improvised shacks in front of the prestigious St. Michel secondary school in Brussels.

The new system is designed to promote transparency and social diversity but has angered many parents. Previously, schools could decide which children to take based on criteria such as academic achievement.

Colin started queuing Thursday morning and did not know whether his night in the cold would pay off.

Four women near the head of the queue had been there since Wednesday and were more upbeat on their chances of success, although they were unhappy with the new system.

"Some students are offering to spend the night here for 500 euros ($740)," said Sandrine Konen, a mother trying to register her 11 year-old child.

"In the end, there are only people here who have the means not to work or who can take days off, or pay someone. The social diversity target has not been not reached."

The Socialist-led government of Belgium's French-speaking community said the new system gave all children an equal chance to go to the best schools.

"I would rather -- and I'm not saying I'm happy about it -- have queues for everyone than a system which is not transparent at all," Marie Arena, president of the French-speaking community, told Belgian radio.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on December 01, 2007, 08:17:43 PM
Dalai Lama may forgo death before reincarnation (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22838048-25837,00.html)
Jeremy Page, Amritsar, India | November 29, 2007

FACED with Chinese plans to seize control of his reincarnation, the Dalai Lama has come up with two revolutionary proposals - either to forgo rebirth, or to be reborn while still alive.

The exiled Tan Buddhist leader has proposed to hold a referendum among his 13-14 million followers around the world - before his death - on whether he should be reincarnated.

If the majority vote against it he said he would simply not be reborn, ending a lineage that tradition dictates dates back to the late 14th century, when a Lyoung shepherd was appointed the first Dalai Lama. If the vote was in favour he said he might appoint a reincarnation while he was still alive, breaking the 600-year-old tradition of being reborn as a small boy after his death.

His proposals not only raise some mind-bending metaphysical questions: they put China's atheist communist leaders in the unusual position of claiming to be the protectors of Tan Buddhist tradition.

The 1989 Nobel peace laureate, 72, said he was in good physical condition, that detailed discussions on his succession had yet to begin, and that several options were being considered. But he admitted his proposals were designed to thwart China's plans to select the next Dalai Lama and thus tighten its grip on the Himalayan region it has controlled since 1950.

"Yes, a referendum. Yes, it's possible," the Dalai Lama said at an interfaith conference in the north Indian city of Amritsar. "When my physical (condition) becomes weak and serious preparation for death (has started), then that should happen. According to my regular medical check-up it seems another few decades, I think, are there, so no hurry."

The Dalai Lama has traditionally been chosen by senior monks who interpret signals from the last reincarnation, scour the region for promising young candidates and set a number of tests.

The current Dalai Lama, the 14th, was born into a farming family and identified at the age of two after passing tests, including spotting his predecessor's rosary from among several others. He fled T in 1959 after an abortive uprising against Chinese rule and has lived in India ever since, heading a 200,000-strong Tan exile community from the northern town of Dharamsala.

He campaigns for greater autonomy within China, but Chinese leaders accuse him of still seeking independence for T, which they see as an integral part of their territory. They have tried to cultivate friendly lamas, but the 10th Panchen Lama, the second-most senior Tan Buddhist figure, turned on them in a speech in 1989, soon after which he died.

The young Karmapa Lama, the third-highest ranking, escaped to India in 1999.

In August, China's Government claimed exclusive rights to approve all Tan lamas' reincarnations in one of its strongest moves to control the region's clergy.

Yesterday it condemned the Dalai Lama's proposals.

"The reincarnation of the living Buddha is a unique way of succession of Tan Buddhism and follows relatively complete religious rituals and historical conventions," the Foreign Ministry statement said. "The Dalai Lama's statement is in blatant violation of religious practice and historical procedure."

The Dalai Lama said there was a historical precedent for a lama being reincarnated while still alive, giving the example of one of his teachers who died last year.

He did not explain how the referendum would be conducted, but said it should include all those who have traditionally followed Tan Buddhism.


The Times
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on December 01, 2007, 08:18:26 PM
Just goes to show being pretty isn't every thing...

Are you dumber than an American Idol contestant?

It appears that Miss Teen South Carolina's crown for being America's biggest ditz has been stolen by an American Idol contestant whose ill-fated quiz show appearance is sweeping the internet.

Kellie Pickler, who made the final six of the 2005 Idol series, had the audience of Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader in a state of disbelief and hilarity when she declared that Europe is a country where people speak French.

Three months after Miss South Carolina famously butchered a question regarding geography in the Miss Teen pageant, Pickler was asked: Budapest is the capital of what European country?

The 21-year-old immediately threw her hands in the air as she stared blankly at the board.

"This might be a stupid question … but I thought Europe was a country," she said to host Jeff Foxworthy.

As the studio audience started to giggle, her fifth-grade partner Nathan laughed in disbelief and rolled his eyes.

"I know they speak French there, don't they?" a mystified Pickler continued.

"Is France a country?

"I don't know what I'm doing."

The blonde country singer, who also hails from South Carolina, wisely chose to copy her schoolboy partner's answer instead of entering her own.

"I don't think France is a country, but I would have said that," she told a bemused Foxworthy.

When told the answer was Hungary, a look of disbelief came over Pickler's face.

"Hungry?" the puzzled singer asked.

"That's a country?

"I've heard of Turkey, but Hungry?

"I've never heard of it."

It would not surprise many that Pickler was once dubbed 'The next Jessica Simpson', after the pop starlet who was once stumped by a slogan stating 'tuna is the chicken of the sea'.

In August, Miss South Carolina became a worldwide celebrity when footage of her answering a pageant question swept the internet.

When asked 'why can’t so many Americans identify the United States on a map?', she responded with nonsensical ramblings about Iraq, South Africa and the bizarre observation that "some people in our nation don't have maps".
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Acjade on December 01, 2007, 09:41:25 PM
Does this imply that Buddhists can have more than one identity? Born again before you're actually reincarnated sounds like a very busy schedule and one that in some parts of the world may have the born again force fed anti-pychotic medication. But then we're all one, right? And if we're all one ....

... then there's only one of us. And I'm talking to myself. myselves. I think it's easier to be Catholic in 1970's Belfast.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on December 02, 2007, 02:19:34 AM
Quote
"The reincarnation of the living Buddha is a unique way of succession of Tan Buddhism and follows relatively complete religious rituals and historical conventions," the Foreign Ministry statement said. "The Dalai Lama's statement is in blatant violation of religious practice and historical procedure."

Superchina, to the defense of religion!  bjbjbjbjbj
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on December 02, 2007, 02:22:37 AM
Wrap that rascal, kids! bhbhbhbhbh  cheexyblonde kkkkkkkkkk


Up to 50 million Chinese at risk from AIDS: UN
Fri Nov 30, 6:00 AM ET
 
BEIJING (AFP) - Up to 50 million Chinese people are at risk of contracting HIV/AIDS, United Nations officials warned Friday, a day after the government said the spread of the disease has slowed.

Chinese health minister Chen Zhu said Thursday there were an estimated 50,000 new HIV infections in 2007 and China has about 700,000 HIV/AIDS cases.

This compares with the estimated figure of 650,000 announced nearly two years ago based on work carried out by the Chinese government, the United Nations and the World Health Organisation.

But a day ahead of the World AIDS day, UN officials warned against complacency and cautioned that between 30 and 50 million people in China remained at risk of contracting HIV/AIDS.

"Thirty to 50 million are exposed to substantial risk of HIV infection today. It shows you the potential and magnitude of the issue for the future," said Bernhard Schwartlander, China coordinator of UNAIDS.

The fact that heterosexual contact was the top cause of new infections in 2007, accounting for 44.7 percent, should also raise an alarm.

"It is remarkable and important to recognise that, because that shows the potential of that spread is quite significant," he said.

Schwartlander said although the current overall number of HIV/AIDS cases seemed relatively low for China's 1.3 billion population, infections were rising in more and more areas.

The rapid increase in male homosexual activities, expanding sex industry and more widespread drug use in China in recent years have also contributed to the potential for further spread of the disease.

"We may be seeing fewer infections than we have seen in earlier years, but that can change rapidly again," he warned.

Independent AIDS activists have long warned that the official estimates underestimated the rampant spread of the disease and the real number of people suffering from the disease could be 10 times higher.

But Khalid Malik, UN resident coordinator disagreed.

"The (official) numbers are estimates first of all, they (the real figures) could be a little lower, a little higher, but definitely not in the multiples."
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: contemporarydog on December 02, 2007, 04:34:43 AM
Expanding sex industry?  It's already huge.  Except for Amsterdam and Bangkok, I had never seen so many brothels til I came to China...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Acjade on December 03, 2007, 01:59:23 PM
A man in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu has died of the H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus, the official Xinhua news agency said, in the first case in the country since June.

China has now recorded 26 human cases of bird flu and 17 deaths.

The man, surnamed Lu, was hospitalised on November 27 with a fever and died on Sunday, Xinhua added.

The man had had no contact with dead poultry and there had been no reported poultry outbreak in the province, it said.

"The local government has adopted relative prevention and control measures. All of the 69 people who had close contact with Lu have been put under strict medical observation. So far, they have shown no signs of symptoms," the report added.

With the world's biggest poultry population and millions of backyard birds roaming free, China is at the centre of the fight against bird flu.

Scientists fear the bird flu virus could mutate into a form that could pass easily from person to person, sparking a global pandemic.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on December 03, 2007, 11:37:27 PM
A Symbolic gesture or a step in the right direction??

Australia has ratified the Kyoto Protocol.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd signed the instrument of ratification of the Kyoto Protocol in his first act after being sworn in on Monday morning.

The ratification will come into force in 90 days.

"This is the first official act of the new Australian government, demonstrating my government's commitment to tackling climate change," Mr Rudd said in a statement.

Mr Rudd said the ratification was considered and approved by the first executive council meeting of the government on Monday morning.

"The governor-general has granted his approval for Australia to ratify the Kyoto Protocol at my request," he said.

Under United Nations guidelines, ratification comes into force 90 days after the instrument of ratification is received by the UN, making Australia a full member of the Kyoto Protocol by the end of March 2008.

"Australia's official declaration today that we will become a member of the Kyoto Protocol is a significant step forward in our country's efforts to fight climate change domestically - and with the international community," Mr Rudd said.

He said the federal government would do everything in its power to help Australia meet its Kyoto obligations, including setting a target to reduce emissions by 60 per cent on 2000 levels by 2050.

It also would establish a national emissions trading scheme by 2010 and set a 20 per cent target for renewable energy by 2020.

"I will also lead the Australian delegation at the opening of the high level segment of the United Nations conference on climate change in Bali next week," Mr Rudd said.

The Bali conference, which opened on Monday, will set out a road map for the next round of action against climate change, starting when the current Kyoto targets expire in 2012.

The Kyoto Protocol was crafted in December 1997 and has been ratified by 175 countries.

Australia initially agreed to the protocol but later refused to ratify it, despite being on track to meet its target of limiting growth in emissions.

The new Labor government has now completed the first four of six steps necessary for ratification.

Mr Rudd signed an executive council minute recommending that Governor-General Michael Jeffery approve ratification on Monday.

The executive council - Mr Rudd, Major-General Jeffery and Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard - then met to consider the minute and its associated explanatory memorandum.

Maj-Gen Jeffery approved the ratification and Mr Rudd signed the instrument of ratification.

The remaining two steps are lodging the instrument with the UN and waiting 90 days for the ratification to enter into force.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kcanuck on December 04, 2007, 01:17:20 AM
Now if only the Canadian PM would do the same asasasasas
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on December 04, 2007, 01:22:55 AM
It is the beginning of us becoming nice people again.  Symbols can be powerful.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on December 04, 2007, 01:24:46 AM
KHARTOUM, Sudan - Sudan's president on Monday agreed to pardon a British teacher jailed after letting her students name a teddy bear Muhammad, and officials said she would be released and would fly back to England later in the day.

Sudan's ambassador in London, Khalid al-Mubarak, said he was "overjoyed" by the news.

"She is a teacher who went to teach our children English and she has helped a great deal and I am very grateful," al-Mubarak said. "What has happened was a cultural misunderstanding, a minor one, and I hope she, her family and the British people won't be affected by what has happened."
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on December 04, 2007, 01:31:04 AM
Miss World sets the tone as new China follows the line of beauty

They were forbidden for 54 years – frowned upon for their bourgeois decadence. But three years after Beijing lifted a ban on beauty pageants, China is celebrating the capture of the Miss World crown for the first time.

The coronation – on home soil – of Zhang Zilin, a 23-year-old secretary who is 6ft tall and has a degree in business administration, was greeted with widespread public delight in a country whose people have taken to such competitions with abandon. Miss Zhang’s blog received well over a million hits yesterday as congratulations poured in from cyberspace.

The response was more muted from the Communist Party media. The triumph of Miss Zhang, her face wreathed in smiles and her slim form clad in a figure-hugging, ruffled evening dress, failed to push a meeting of senior politicians in grey suits from the front pages of most official websites and newspapers.

The result, though, will reinforce the importance of beauty as a powerful currency in modern China. One Chinese airline, China Southern, ran its annual recruitment drive over six months on a reality television show that required applicants to be aged 24 or under, be above average height and to have slender legs. Thousands lined up for 180 vacancies.

Beauty contests have rapidly gained popularity in China. There was the Miss Artificial Beauty contest, won by 22-year-old Feng Qian, who was able to produce four certificates confirming her plastic surgery, designed to create a more heartshaped face and double eyelids. Then there has been the “Grey Headed Group” – a pageant open only to those aged over 55.

Such is the rivalry over looks that internet portals regularly host contests where young beauties are invited to submit their photographs for votes. Websites provide prizes such as holidays to Italy or the US for winners.

One admirer’s message on Miss Zhang’s blog stated: “You’ve brought honour to our country. We’re all happy for you! We’re proud for China.”

The 57th Miss World pageant was held at Sanya, a seaside resort on the southern tropical island of Hainan, the third consecutive Miss World to be hosted by China.

Miss Zhang hails from Shijiazhaung, a gritty industrial city in the northern Hebei province, and says that her favourite foods are chocolate and ice cream. She is now certain to become a role model for a generation of Chinese women.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Acjade on December 04, 2007, 03:34:12 AM
ASTROLOGY may usually be dismissed as harmless superstition, but scientists are discovering that the date we are born can affect our later lives.

Research has revealed the time of year a person is born can influence his or her personality, health and even whether they are male or female. But rather than being written in the stars, studies are showing that it is the season of birth that predisposes individuals to different traits.

In the northern hemisphere, women born in May will display more impulsive behaviour while those whose birthday falls in November will be more reflective. Men born in the spring will show greater persistence than those born in winter.

Other research has shown that people born in the autumn will tend to be physically active and excel in football while those born in the spring will be more cerebral and may be better suited to chess.

Those born between September and December are more prone to panic attacks while there is growing evidence that schizophrenia is higher among those born in the late winter and early spring.

"It is exactly what you would expect if it were temperature related," said Richard Wiseman, a professor of psychology at the University of Hertfordshire, who has examined the link between luck and the season of birth. "Many of the effects reverse in the two hemispheres."

Professor John Eagle, a psychiatrist at Aberdeen University who has studied the relationships between season of birth and mental health, added: "The two main culprits are diet and the seasonal fluctuations in nutrition, and the increase in infections during the winter."

Astrologers have seized on the findings as evidence that the stars influence personality. But scientists insist there are biological reasons behind the effects.

Telegraph, London

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on December 05, 2007, 05:46:34 PM
Dried noodles kill four Chinese schoolchildren

Four Chinese children died after eating a dried-noodle snack in the poor southern province of Yunnan, the latest in a string of food-poisoning accidents across the country.

The children bought the noodles on the way to school on Monday, the Beijing News said.

"The children began frothing at the mouth, were lapsing in and out of consciousness and clasped their hands together in distress," teacher Yang Tingzhou was quoted as saying.

The children were rushed to hospital where they died in the emergency room. Local officials were investigating all stores selling non-staple foods in the area, the newspaper said. There was no suggestion the poisoning was deliberate, it added.

It said families of the children would be given 6,000 yuan ($800) in compensation.

Food poisoning is a frequent problem at Chinese schools, especially in rural areas, where lax official supervision encourages canteen contractors to cut costs at the expense of proper hygiene and food safety.

China has also come under fire for a string of quality scandals involving products including food, toothpaste, drugs and toys.

Public fears about food safety grew in 2004, when at least 13 babies died of malnutrition in Anhui province, in eastern China, after they were fed fake milk powder with no nutritional value.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on December 15, 2007, 10:55:30 PM
See what happens when Santa drops his standards

Police hunt for Santa's filthiest elf


The post office and police in Canada are searching for a "rogue elf" believed responsible for mailing filthy letters to children on behalf of Santa Claus.

A handful of reply letters to children who wrote to jolly Saint Nick contained comments such as, "This letter is too long, you dumb s***".

Canada Post spokeswoman Cindy Daoust said: "We firmly believe there is just one rogue elf out there responsible for the letters. In our history, we've never had a problem of this nature."

She explained that the letters were part of a Santa letter-writing program in which postal workers across Canada reply to letters from children around the world posted to Santa Claus, the North Pole, Canada, postal code H0H0H0.

advertisement
Click here
Every reply letter is identical, except for a hand-written personalised postscript added by one of 11,000 volunteers.

Last year, Canada Post replied to 1.06 million letters on behalf of Santa, and 15 million letters have been posted since the program began in 1981.

Canada Post president Moya Greene said in a statement, "We are shocked and heart-broken that this much-loved quarter-of-a-century old program has experienced an incident of this kind."

"We deeply apologise to any families affected by this," she added, noting that police were asked to help identify the culprit.

Canada Post briefly shut down the program in Ottawa, after parents complained. A dozen inappropriate letters had been dropped in mailboxes throughout the capital city, but there could be more, officials warned.

Previously, Canada Post had received only one complaint about the program. In 1999, a seven-year-old in Oshawa, Ontario, received a Santa message from Canada Post that called him "one greedy little boy!"
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on December 15, 2007, 11:20:21 PM
Canada's not the only place with a problem...


http://news.theage.com.au/child-rapist-exmp-darcy-out-of-jail/20071215-1h9g.html
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on December 17, 2007, 11:28:00 PM
Santa's new sleigh gets safety clearance

Christmas is on Track :)

Children can breathe a sigh of relief - Santa's new sleigh has passed safety tests and is ready for his big Christmas flight, authorities say.

The sleigh, equipped with flight technology, passed safety tests conducted around the North Pole and is now ready to fly on Christmas Eve, Airservices Australia has confirmed.

"Airservices Australia worked with the North Pole to upgrade the safety features on the sleigh," Airservices spokesman Terry O'Connor said.

"Australia's aviation safety regulator, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority, has now checked the sleigh and issued an international clearance."

Santa has agreed to release photos of the test flights as well as more information about his new sleigh and flight plans later in the week.

Children can also use his sleigh flight simulator by visiting www.airservicesaustralia.com/santa07, which Santa uses to practice in the lead up to Christmas.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mr Nobody on December 18, 2007, 07:02:20 AM
Deary deary me.

I think I liked the good old days when Santa was just like this guy, you know, who did stuff. None of this attendant crap, like bullshit flight checks and official santa letters.

But then, I found out who Santa really was just after my fourth birthday. Too observant for my own good.

Grandparents were very disappointed. I spent most of the Christmases for most of the next decade getting lectures from my Dad about why I shouldn't go around telling kids my own age the truth about Santa. Apparently the other kids parents were not impressed.

Dunno why. I never said nuffin about the Easter Bunny....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on December 18, 2007, 12:50:56 PM
My daughters still believe in Santa - they operate on the "No believe no receive' principle and so convincingly tell me every year that they still believe.

Although Santa is now into the 'socks and jocks' phase of present giving. afafafafaf
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on December 18, 2007, 01:08:49 PM
My daughters still believe in Santa


So does my son.  When he was about 7 or 8, he said that some kids had told him that Santa is just your parents.  I pointed out that if that WAS the case, then there was no longer any need for putting up a stocking, was there?  gggggggggg

He still believes.....and so does my DiL and Hubby. bfbfbfbfbf
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on December 19, 2007, 12:30:43 AM
Cash-happy ATM lands Chinese man life in prison

A man in China's southern city of Guangzhou has been jailed for life for taking funds from a malfunctioning ATM, according to local media reports.

In April last year, Xu Ting let his friend in on his secret that the ATM deducted only 1 yuan (15c) from his account for every 1,000 yuan ($150) withdrawn.

"Xu subsequently withdrew 175,000 yuan ($26,250) in 171 transactions while Guo withdrew 18,000 yuan," the Beijing News reported.

Guo was jailed for a year after turning himself in while Xu remained on the run for a year before being apprehended and sentenced to life for theft.

The sentence has sparked an outcry from local media.

"Sentenced to life for unexpectedly discovering an ATM's malfunction and enticed into committing a crime is too harsh," the Beijing News said in an editorial.

Xu's lawyer said the ATM was the responsibility of the bank and it had had ample time to recover the lost funds.

Xu's actions should come under the lesser charge of embezzlement, it added.

Xu has appealed against his sentence.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on December 20, 2007, 06:23:16 AM
"Don't tase me, bro" tops 07 memorable quotes list
By Arthur Spiegelman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - "Don't Tase Me, Bro," a phrase that swept the nation after a U.S. college student used it seeking to stop campus police from throwing him out of a speech by Sen. John Kerry, was named Wednesday as the most memorable quote of 2007.

Fred R. Shapiro, the editor of the Yale Book of Quotations, said the plea made by University of Florida student Andrew Meyer on September 17, accompanied by Meyer's screams as he was tased, beat out the racial slur that cost shock jock Don Imus his job and the Iranian president's declaration that his country does not have homosexuals.

Shapiro said Meyer's quote was a symbol of pop culture success. Within two days it was one of the most popular phrases on Google and one of the most viewed videos. It also showed up on ringtones and T-shirts.

Second on Shapiro's list was this tortuous answer by Lauren Upton, the South Carolina contestant in the Miss Teen America contest in August:

"I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because some people out there in our nation don't have maps and I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and Iraq and everywhere like such as and I believe that they should our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S. or should help South Africa and should help Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future for us." Upton had been asked why one-fifth of Americans are unable to locate the United States on a map and later apologized for her answer not making a lot of sense.

Third was Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's October comment at Columbia University in New York, "In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country."

Shock jock Don Imus comments about the Rutgers University women's basketball team: "That's some nappy-headed hos there," was fourth.

Imus created a national outcry and lost his job at CBS radio in April, but returned to the airwaves in December with Citadel Broadcasting.

Other phrases on the list:

5. "I don't recall." -- Former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' repeated response to questioning at a congressional hearing about the firing of U.S. attorneys.

6. "There's only three things he (Republican presidential candidate and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani) mentions in a sentence: a noun and a verb and 9/11." -- Sen. Joseph Biden, speaking at a Democratic presidential debate.

7. "I'm not going to get into a name-calling match with somebody (Vice President Dick Cheney) who has a 9 percent approval rating." -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat.

8. "(I have) a wide stance when going to the bathroom." -- Idaho Republican Sen. Larry Craig's explanation of why his foot touched that of an undercover policeman in a men's room.

9. "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man." -- Biden describing rival Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

10. "I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history." -- Former President Jimmy Carter in an interview in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette newspaper.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on December 21, 2007, 12:14:22 AM
How, in the name of logic, can Time Magazine declare Vladimir Putin to be "Man of the year"????
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on December 21, 2007, 12:18:48 AM
lack of alternatives??
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on December 21, 2007, 12:22:00 AM
What's next? Kim Jong-Il as "Humanitarian of the Year"?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on December 21, 2007, 12:43:18 AM
How, in the name of logic, can Time Magazine declare Vladimir Putin to be "Man of the year"????

Really!?  The man is pure evil!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on December 21, 2007, 01:05:34 AM
Their stated rationale is that Cousin Vlad (not The Impaler) brought his nation "from chaos to stability".
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on December 21, 2007, 01:14:13 AM
So they just decided to ignore the fact that Comerade Stasi (which was Putin's nickname in his KGB days) is a Cold War relic who uses KGB stron-arm tactics and will resort to murder to silence any and all opposition?
Oh well, guess I should not be surprised...If Arafat could get the Nobel Peace Prize, Putin can be Man of the Year.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Shroomy on December 21, 2007, 04:23:52 AM
What's so stable about Russia these days?  It was a disaster in '93 when I left and I've only heard it's gotten worse.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on December 21, 2007, 04:39:19 AM
Hey!!!  Don't shoot the messenger!!!  I merely reported that it was THEIR stated rationale......I didn't express my opinion, one way or the other!!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mr Nobody on December 21, 2007, 01:46:27 PM
I think "Man of the Year" doesn't mean 'good man', it means historically the most influential, doesn't it?

Not that I still agree with Putin as a choice, but being nice makes less history than being nasty, any day of the millennium.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on December 29, 2007, 04:35:35 AM
Beijing lifts air quality goal for Games
Friday Dec 28 22:21 AEDT

Beijing is aiming for more "good air days" in 2008 as it prepares to host the Olympics in August, with the city's notorious pollution a major concern for athletes and organisers.

Beijing recorded 244 "blue sky days" by December 28 this year, a day short of its 245 day target. The standard of a "blue sky day" has not been widely recognised by international scientists.

"I predict that we will be able to meet this year's target in the last three days," said Jiang Xiaoyu, spokesman and executive vice-president of Beijing Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG).

"The target number of good air quality days in 2008 will be higher than this year," Jiang told a news conference.

Pollution in Beijing, known for its noxious smog, is a major concern for athletes and officials planning for next August and Olympic chief Jacques Rogge has said some events may have to be rescheduled if the air quality is not good enough.

The host city has already spent 120 billion yuan ($A18.74 billion)) in environmental programs to combat pollution and Jiang said there were more efforts to come.

"A new coordination plan to ensure a good environment during the Games by central government, Beijing government and neighbouring provinces is going to be issued soon," he said.

Venues for the Games were all finished for the end of 2007 as scheduled except for the National Stadium, dubbed the "Bird's Nest" for its interlaced steel shell, where the opening and closing ceremonies will be held. That stadium is likely to be completed by March.

But another showpiece venue, the "Water Cube" aquatics centre was finished and the pool had already been filled, Jiang said.

"The Water Cube is preparing for its first test event in January," he said.

Jiang said he expected more heads of state at the Games in Beijing than there were in Athens, and said they would include US President George W Bush, who has already agreed to visit the city during the Olympics.

"Security is included in our hospitality to all guests including those VIPs ... We will definitely do our job well to ensure their safety," he said.

Organisers must prepare for all kinds contingencies, crisis and risks in the final months, said Jiang.

"I am aware of the future difficulties and challenges," Jiang said. "But with the support of 1.3 billion Chinese people, I'm confident that we will be able to overcome them."
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on December 30, 2007, 02:09:49 AM
Beijing hints at HK democracy in 2017
Saturday Dec 29 20:12 AEDT

China has ruled out full democracy for Hong Kong in 2012, ignoring the majority opinion in the former British colony, but said it may pick its leader by universal suffrage at the following opportunity, in 2017.

Full democracy for forming Hong Kong's legislature would follow in 2020, the Standing Committee of China's parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC), said.

Chief Executive Donald Tsang welcomed the ruling, saying it offered an opportunity and that Hong Kongers should shelve their differences and work together to hammer out the details.

But the city's vocal pro-democracy camp, a key voting block in the legislative council, was disappointed at what it saw as yet another delay. It organised a protest that drew a few hundred people to grounds outside the historic legislative building and they then marched in downtown Hong Kong.

"We must treasure this hard-earned opportunity," Tsang told reporters. "I sincerely urge everybody to lay down all disagreements and start moving toward conciliation and consensus."

The decision to rule out 2012 was effectively the NPC's second veto of a possible date for universal suffrage after a 2004 ruling that quashed hopes for full elections in 2007.

However, the NPC's statement that Hong Kong "may" have universal suffrage in 2017 - the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong's return from British to Chinese rule - marked Beijing's clearest indication yet as to when full democracy might finally germinate.

Democratic politicians have been calling for a timetable for democracy, but Civic Party politician Audrey Eu said the pledge to consider full democracy in 2017 was not a promise to allow it.

"It's an expectedly disappointing decision," she said.

"A lot of people concentrate on the reference to 2017 and think there's hope, but to say you may have universal suffrage in that year doesn't mean it's going to happen ... there's no guarantee that it won't be vetoed again."

Hong Kong's mini-constitution, the Basic Law, promises universal suffrage as the "ultimate aim" but is vague on a date, giving Beijing scope to dictate a glacial pace of progress.

The chief executive is currently picked by an 800 seat election committee stacked in Beijing's favour, and only half of the city's 60 seat legislature are directly elected with the others picked by various business and interest groups.

At the demonstration, protesters hoisted banners that read "Democracy delayed is democracy denied" and "No compromise at all".

"We've been cheated out of democracy for another 10 years ... I don't trust the Communist Party at all," said Yeung Lai-kwong, 50, a protester in the printing business.

But political analyst Michael DeGolyer of Hong Kong Baptist University said unless the democratic camp accepted the NPC's decision, it risked being tarred as obstructionist and losing seats in the 2008 Legislative Council election.

"The likelihood is that the democratic movement will split," he said. "The phrase 'better late than never' is going to be a crucial notion."

The ruling came in response to a report by Tsang which said Hong Kong's majority wanted direct elections by 2012, though a delay until 2017 stood a "better chance of being accepted".

While most Hong Kongers want universal suffrage by 2012, a public opinion poll by the Chinese University found 60 per cent of citizens would accept 2017, if 2012 were ruled out.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on December 30, 2007, 02:28:28 AM
Interestingly enough, I recall that in the matter of "the Irish Question", it was case of
"Too Little, Too Late".  Makes me wonder........??........
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: decurso on January 04, 2008, 07:21:14 PM
 Just read in China Daily that France has banned smoking ararararar . In other news, Hell has frozen over, pigs have grown wings and cats and dogs are living together in holy matrimony.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: belrain on January 04, 2008, 07:42:30 PM
Beijing will block "Youtube, Stage6 and Metacafe" video platforms from January 13st. Because "they do not serve the people and socialism."  llllllllll

http://magazine.web.de/de/themen/digitale-welt/internet/aktuell/5178618-Peking-sperrt-Internet-Videoseiten,articleset=4155856,cc=000007159700051786181VUn2e.html

Sorry, it is in german
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on January 05, 2008, 12:08:48 AM
 asasasasas Bastards.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on January 05, 2008, 12:50:40 AM
Just read in China Daily that France has banned smoking ararararar . In other news, Hell has frozen over, pigs have grown wings and cats and dogs are living together in holy matrimony.

Next thing you know, they'll introduce common courtesy, deoderant and accept that there are other languages than French. Turkey also introduced a non-smoking law, as did Israel.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on January 08, 2008, 01:30:41 AM
Wisconsin man convicted of sexually assaulting dead deer gets more jail time


From CBC's website.  And no, I wouldn't bother going to read the article.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on January 10, 2008, 04:01:13 PM
Great minds:

Quote
China bins bags to cut pollution

Rowan Callick, China correspondent | January 10, 2008

THE Chinese Government has announced a nationwide ban on stores distributing free plastic bags from June 1.

As it inexorably overtakes the US as the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, China is fighting environmental battles on myriad fronts, the flipside of its soaring economic growth.

The Government will ban the production of ultra-thin bags less than 0.025mm thick, and require supermarkets to start charging for any plastic bags they provide.

It said in its announcement: "Our country consumes huge amounts of plastic bags every year. While providing convenience to consumers, they have also caused serious pollution, and waste of energy and resources because of excessive use and inadequate recycling.

"We should encourage people to return to using cloth bags, using baskets for their vegetables."

Much of China's countryside is shrouded in wind-blown plastic bags, which take 1000 years to biodegrade. Nationally, the 1.3billion population uses about 3 billion bags a day, and Beijing alone discards about 2.3 billion bags a year.

The production of the bags consumes annually about 5 million tonnes (37 million barrels) of costly imported oil.

The bustling new city of Shenzhen, near Hong Kong, was China's bag-banning pioneer, introducing a similar ban on free bags last November, with fines of up to $8000 for stores that continued to dole them out free.

The city of Panyu, not far from Shenzhen, derives much of its income from recycling plastic bags.

Many of them then find their way on to China's formidable export conveyor belt. The country's 500 specialist producers export about $65 million worth of plastic bags every month, with sales surging by 31.4 per cent in the first 10 months of last year, against the same period in 2006.

Poorer Asian neighbours Bhutan and Bangladesh took a similar step earlier, and Taiwan banned free bags five years ago.

Quote
Garrett serious about binning the bag
January 10, 2008

FEDERAL Environment Minister Peter Garrett says he is "confident" the phasing out of plastic bags will not disadvantage consumers.

Mr Garrett is working with the state governments to formulate a strategy for weaning Australia off its dependence on plastic bags.

The nation produces four billion plastic bags annually, and Mr Garrett said they were having serious impacts on coastal and marine environments.

"State ministers have already been meeting ... and they have agreed right across Australia that phasing out these bags is absolutely critical because of the impact that they are having on wildlife, on our litter stream, on our marine environment," Mr Garrett told Macquarie Radio.

"It clearly is something which we've got to address and there is strong consensus from the states to address it."

Banning the bags outright or imposing a levy on their use were among proposals being considered by the government, but Mr Garrett said he was conscious of passing the cost on to the public.

"We certainly don't want to disadvantage the consumer, and I don't believe in any way that any measure that will be brought forward will do that," he said.

Australia was lagging behind a number of other countries on the issue, he said.

Mr Garrett said biodegradable plastic bags were not the answer, with some taking as long as 1,000 years to completely break down.

He acknowledged composting and other environmentally-friendly waste options were not viable in every home, particularly densely-populated urban areas.

But the former rock star said he was confident Australians would embrace the idea.

"People use lots of different solutions," he said.

"It's the same ... as the great efforts that Aussies have made in saving water.

"If you would have said to me three or four years ago there would be a lot of people out in Sydney today who may have a bucket under a laundry tap, or they may be jumping into the shower (and) ... before the hot water comes on they've actually got the bucket there ... there are plenty of opportunities for all of us."

The state and federal environment ministers will meet to discuss the issue in April.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on January 14, 2008, 10:07:24 PM
It's almost English when dictionary does Australish

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Contemplating a New Year tattoo in that fashionable area above the buttocks? To help you along, Australians have given them a not-so-fashionable name: "arse antlers." Want a suntan as well? You could have "tanorexia."

These are just some of the words the country's biggest online dictionary is asking people to vote for as word of the year for its latest annual update.

A "butt bra" raises the profile of the buttocks to go with your arse antlers, while "manscaping" refers to removal of body hair for men, sometimes tied to the female preoccupation with the "lady garden," or pubic zone.

"Tanorexia" refers to an obsession with a suntan, while a "salad dodger" is an obese person.

Other nominations for the Macquarie Dictionary Online include "infomania," for those who constantly put aside the job at hand to concentrate on incoming email and text messages. "Password fatigue" is frustration from having too many passwords to recall.

Casting aside the personal, someone who spreads their clothes around the house, clean or otherwise, is said to be treating the room as a "floordrobe."

Or if the global credit crunch is hitting home, you may be tempted into becoming a "credit card tart," or someone who shifts loans around from one credit card to pay for another.

In business, the "glass cliff" refers to people placed in jobs with high risk of failure because they belong to a group not well represented in leadership positions, such as women.

Even geopolitics gets a mention, with "Chindia" joining China and India, at least in Australish English, in terms of their fast growing strategic and economic clout in the world.

The "Great Firewall of China" noun refers to the block preventing Chinese internet users from accessing online sites deemed undesirable by the Chinese government. To get around it may take a "cyberathlete," or professional computer game player.

Susan Butler, the dictionary's publisher, said environmental themes were hot this year in a time of global warming, with "climate canary" referring to a geographical feature, plant or animal species pointing to climate change.

"Toad juice" refers to a liquid fertilizer produced in Australia from pulverized cane toads, an introduced environmental pest marching its way across the continent.

To vote for their favorite word, Butler said people should visit macquariedictionary.com.au. Voting closes on January 31.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on January 14, 2008, 10:14:58 PM
 bkbkbkbkbk ahahahahah ahahahahah ahahahahah arse antlers? Salad dodger? Floordrope??? Them Aussies crack me up ahahahahah ahahahahah
 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on January 15, 2008, 10:57:45 PM
I personally love ass antlers.  Hope this doesn't discourage the trend.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on January 15, 2008, 11:09:56 PM
Also known as 'tramp stamps' lol
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kcanuck on January 15, 2008, 11:37:47 PM
I don't think I like tramp stamp very much.  That spot happens to be a pretty good spot to get a tattoo, since one of the things you should consider is the 'sag' factor that comes with aging.  A lady I know who is in her fifties now told me that the butterfly that once fluttered near her breast has suffered a marked change in appearance.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on January 16, 2008, 12:50:58 AM
Facebook lost for words over Scrabulous

Social networkers may have to search for another way to waste their time, as Facebook faces legal action from toy company Hasbro.

Scrabulous, based on the popular board game Scrabble, has attracted a huge following on Facebook in the past month, with more than 500,000 users playing it each day.

However, Scrabble's owner, Hasbro, is claiming a breach of copyright.

The Scrabulous game, which was developed by Indian brothers Rajat Agarwalla and Jayant Agarwalla, has become a big money earner for the pair.

It has been claimed that the brothers are receiving $US25,000 ($A27,853) per month in advertising revenue from Facebook.

According to Fortune magazine, Hasbro sent a cease-and-desist notice to Facebook asking them to remove the application.

"They sent a notice to Facebook about two weeks ago," Mr Agarwalla told Fortune.

"The lawyers are working on it."

In August last year, Hasbro signed an agreement with software company Electronic Arts to create electronic and online versions of its board games, including Scrabble and Monopoly.

In 2005, Hasbro shut down a similar unofficial online game called e-Scrabble.

Hasbro Australia has been contacted for comment.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on January 16, 2008, 12:58:03 AM
 asasasasas asasasasas penny pinching sons of malodorous pachyderms! But the people of Facebook should perhaps be a bit more vigilant when it comes to managing their creation.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on January 16, 2008, 01:34:30 AM
They could take Scrabulous away?   NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Shroomy on January 16, 2008, 04:39:30 AM
Just when I thought you were going to reappear and improve my stats.  I haven't had trouble all week.  Maybe it's the beer keg.  ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on January 17, 2008, 06:45:23 PM
Moving upstream is a good idea. aoaoaoaoao

China Warns of Faulty Dams Danger, Plans Repairs

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BEIJING - Just under half of China's nearly 90,000 dams are dangerously unstable and need urgent repair, the government said on Tuesday, unveiling a three-year plan to do just that costing 27 billion yuan (US$3.7 billion).

"Over the last several years, dams have had a very important effect on socio-economic development," Deputy Water Resources Minister Jiao Yong told a meeting carried live on central government Web site www.gov.cn.

"But many of these dams were built between the 1950s and 1970s, under conditions at the time which restricted objectivity," he added.

"The design and construction quality of many of these dams contain congenital deficiencies, and they are now old and in serious need of repairs. A large number have hidden dangers."

Chairman Mao Zedong, who died in 1976, ordered the country to develop at any cost, putting special emphasis on large-scale projects such as steelworks and dams.

Mao declared "man must conquer nature", and during his time in power engineers were feted for ambitious projects that sought to remould the landscape in pursuit of economic progress.

But many projects were hastily and poorly built, with little regard for the environment. In 1975, tens of thousands of residents of Henan province in central China died after two dams collapsed. That disaster was revealed to the public only in recent years.

Jiao said that of the roughly 87,000 dams in China, more than 37,000 were in a dangerous state.

"As the global climate heats up, weather extremes like torrential rain increases and as society and the economy develops downstream of dams, the potential danger gets greater and greater," he said.

"The huge number of dangerous dams has already become a weak link and unstable factor in flood prevention," Jiao said.

Vice Premier Hui Liangyu added that over the next three years the government would spend an annual average of more than 9 billion yuan to fix the problem.

"The task is very arduous, and work highly strenuous," Hui said.


Story Date: 16/1/2008

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on January 17, 2008, 11:03:02 PM
So Scrabulous is getting Hasbro'd, huh?   alalalalal  Frankly, I'm amazed it went on this long. 

What pisses me off is that Hasbro never developed Scrabble- Selchow and righter did.  Corporations- ooh- big greedy- oooh-  leave my candy alonne- pppppph!!!!!


Ya know.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on January 31, 2008, 12:59:49 PM
Married couple's blind dates a familiar story
(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-01-30 09:16


A couple in Chongqing municipality married six months ago but agreed to respect each other's privacy when it came to having "outside interests".

As a result Lu Yi, 27, and Huang Linqian, 26, went out on Friday for blind dates and discovered they would be dating each other.

Professor Wang Chengrong at Chongqing Industry and Commercial University said the pair did not understand the true meaning of marriage.

(Chongqing Evening News)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on January 31, 2008, 09:43:37 PM
Professor Wang Chengrong at Chongqing Industry and Commercial University said the pair did not understand the true meaning of marriage.


I can't stop reading this.   ahahahahah Which particular stream of Industry and/or Commerce has successfully defined marriage?

I'll guess "Accounts receivable".  Why? Why not?

Any other theories?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on February 01, 2008, 02:57:23 AM
Married couple's blind dates a familiar story
(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-01-30 09:16


A couple in Chongqing municipality married six months ago but agreed to respect each other's privacy when it came to having "outside interests".

As a result Lu Yi, 27, and Huang Linqian, 26, went out on Friday for blind dates and discovered they would be dating each other.

Professor Wang Chengrong at Chongqing Industry and Commercial University said the pair did not understand the true meaning of marriage.

(Chongqing Evening News)

Am I the only one who finds this story romantic? They are going to see other people and they end up with each other....it's such a sweet story..

They had to ask some professor. It looks bad in an article to list your source as "random married man we met in a bar".
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on February 01, 2008, 06:08:36 AM
"I like pinana coladas and getting caught in the rain......"
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on February 01, 2008, 11:05:11 PM
Hey, that's right!  I totally forgot about that song.  Life imitates art.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on February 02, 2008, 09:30:50 PM
Lu Kewen's Biography in Chinese.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23146978-601,00.html (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23146978-601,00.html)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on February 04, 2008, 05:56:14 PM
It's old news...18th July 2007, but I hadn't seen these vids before...
Check out  "related vids" too. Jinan is such an interesting place!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w49WpOysvOI&NR=1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w49WpOysvOI&NR=1)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on February 13, 2008, 11:55:31 PM
Why is my country so effing stupid?
Three guys were arrested for planning to assassinate one of the Muhammed cartoonists. Now, in sympathy and to defend freedom of speech, all the major newspapers have printed one of the really insulting cartoons! Didn't they learn something last time around? Freedom of speech does not mean you can insult people just because you want to.
I'm all in favour of freedom of speech. I am also clever enough not to use said freedom, walk up to a biker and tell him that I really did enjoy his mother last night and could he please make her stop calling, as she is a bit clingy.

The one newspaper headling you won't find today and which really should be there is:

Denmark screws up royally!

My country is so stupid, stupid, stupid  llllllllll llllllllll llllllllll llllllllll
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Acjade on February 14, 2008, 12:15:07 AM
Hey! I'll have you know your country married a Tasmanian... oh right. Sorry.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on February 27, 2008, 01:46:26 AM
Ok, got this in an e-mail today.  What think ye of this.  True and scary or a urban myth.  However, I do remember hearing something about it a few months ago, so it might be partly true.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuBo4E77ZXo
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on February 27, 2008, 02:22:21 AM
Dunno, but there are a lot of related vids on YouTube.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on February 28, 2008, 02:52:49 AM
http://uk.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUKL1568814620080215?feedType=RSS&feedName=oddlyEnoughNews

This is just too hilarious for words. It sort of puts the whole debate about the negative influence of popular entertainment on kids in a new perspective.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Monkey King on March 05, 2008, 04:11:11 AM
Bjork caused a minor stir during her visit to these fair shores.  I dunno, seems kind of selfish and pointless (on her part).

http://www.smh.com.au/news/people/china-sees-red-over-bjorks-politics/2008/03/04/1204402441712.html

China sees red over ice queen's politics


March 4, 2008 - 5:25PM

Icelandic singer Bjork has ignited criticism from Chinese fans after she declared "T! T!" to end a passionate performance of her song Declare Independence during a concert in Shanghai.

The outburst at the finale of Bjork's Sunday night concert drew rare public attention inside China to Beijing's often harsh rule over the at times independent Himalayan region of T.

Bjork's statement was not reported in the state-controlled media, but online sites were aflame with angry comment after word leaked out.

"If she really did this, then this woman really makes people throw up," one comment on popular Chinese web site Sina.com said.

Some at the Shanghai concert said the politically tinged finale made audience members uneasy,

"The atmosphere was very strange, uncomfortable compared to the rest of the concert," said audience member Stephen Gow, a British teacher who lives in Shanghai. People didn't boo, Gow said, but they left the Shanghai International Gymnastic Centre hurriedly.

Officials at the China-based company promoting the concert, Emma Ticketmaster, said they had no comment.

Bjork has used Declare Independence - the lyrics include the entreaty "Raise your flag!" - to declare political support for various causes.

She dedicated the song to Kosovo while performing last month in Japan. Her video for the song shows her in a jumpsuit bearing the flags of Greenland and the Faroe Islands, far-flung territories controlled by Denmark.

China's 58-year rule over the formerly independent mountain nation of T has drawn frequent condemnation from foreign governments and activists, often inciting a prickly nationalism among the Chinese government and ordinary people. Many Tans consider the exiled Buddhist spiritual leader the Dalai Lama as their rightful leader.

In a sign of Bjork's reputation for unpredictable behaviour, Shanghai's English-language newspaper, Shanghai Daily, last month heralded her concert date with the headline "Bjork's Shanghai Surprise."

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on March 05, 2008, 04:15:10 AM
I love it when singers/actors are politically active. The only thing she can hope to get out of this is publicity and possibly join David Thewlis in the We Are Famous and Not Allowed To Go To China Anymore group.

What a silly, silly thing to do.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on March 05, 2008, 05:08:25 AM
Doesn't help anyone, makes it harder for those living in T (ie Tans as well as foreigners).  The last time anyone did anything 'helpful' like that the Gov't decided all travellers had to use guides.  No more travelling independently. It's difficult enough already for the Tans.  Even in Gansu where I went for Monlam festival, the military were out in force during the festival to make certain there was no 'trouble'.

Bloody hell - why don't people ever consider the consequences of their actions?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: contemporarydog on March 05, 2008, 05:16:24 AM
It does show the difference between East and West.  If a Chinese group visiting the UK were to utter the words "Scotland! Scotland!" they wouldn't receive anything more than a few rolled eyes...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Clint Smoker on March 05, 2008, 07:53:14 AM
What did David Thewlis do??

I saw the Bjork sttory today. silly---some in the crowd thought she was yelling "to bed" since it was her last song. Screaming T makes no sense to anyone. Does she even know anything about T? Maybe but I somehow doubt it---just being trendy.

Reminds me of the Dixie Chicks doc title---SHUT UP AND SING. (Althought Chicks was another matter altogether.)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: teleplayer on March 05, 2008, 08:32:30 AM
By the time many of you see this, U.S. national good grammar day will have come and gone.....
http://media.www.dailytarheel.com/media/storage/paper885/news/2008/03/04/Features/Good-Grammar.Gets.Its.Day-3249247.shtml (http://media.www.dailytarheel.com/media/storage/paper885/news/2008/03/04/Features/Good-Grammar.Gets.Its.Day-3249247.shtml)

Good grammar gets its day
By: Andrew Dunn, Features Editor
Posted: 3/4/08
When sophomore Ben Thompson is listening to a story, he won't hesitate to interrupt it in the name of grammar.

"If they say, 'Sally and me went to the movies,' I'll stop them and say, 'Sally and I.' It can be at the most crucial part of the story, but I will stop it and fix it," he said.

"Dude, I hate when people misuse grammar."

Today, magicians of the modifiers and geniuses of the gerunds can take heart, for it is National Grammar Day.

Sponsored by the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar and the Microsoft Encarta encyclopedia, the day is intended to honor the English language and to emphasize the importance of proper syntax.

"If we don't respect and honor the rules of English, we lose our ability to communicate clearly and well," the day's official Web site states.

"In short, we invite mayhem, misery, madness and inevitably even more bad things that start with letters other than M."

How to celebrate? The grammar society recommends spreading the gospel of grammar.

"If you see a sign with a catastrophic apostrophe, send a kind note to the storekeeper," the Web site states. "If your local newscaster says, 'Between you and I,' set him straight with a friendly e-mail."

Also suggested are grammar potluck dinners, serving high-fiber foods.

They're good for the colon.

But some students at UNC take their grammar a bit more seriously.

Sophomore Stephanie Smith said she became dedicated to proper English during her junior year of high school.

She is particularly bothered by errors with "lie" and "lay" but enjoys parsing the differences between "who" and "whom."

Now, Smith said, she has trained herself to pay attention to grammatical errors in her friends' speech and corrects them when necessary.

"I don't say it to be superior or anything; I say it to help them," Smith said.

"At this age there is so much opportunity. We need to know how to speak intelligently."

She said she has converted her best friend and housemate, sophomore Elena Beidler, into a grammar aficionado.

"We talk about grammar all the time now," Smith said.

She added that grammar errors are not hard to fix, if people would just start learning basic grammar principles and noticing the errors in their speech.

"It's so effortless once you learn the fundamentals," she said. "It becomes a habit."

But UNC English professor Connie Elbe was not quite so extreme.

"I am not certain that formal training in grammar is necessary, or even important," Elbe wrote in an e-mail.

"I do think that the precise, clear and careful use of language is important. Insofar as the effective use of the language requires attention to grammatical structure, to that extent grammar is important."



Contact the Features Editor
at features@unc.edu.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
© Copyright 2008 Daily Tar Heel
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on March 05, 2008, 11:29:52 PM
Hullo! What's going on here???

"Ten Australians have been taken hostage by a Chinese national in China today, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) says.

The Australians were all later released unharmed after being taken hostage on a tourist bus in the city of Xian, in central China, a DFAT spokesperson said.

Nine of the Australians were released and transported to safety early in the crisis.

But a 48-year-old woman from NSW was not released with the rest of the group.

"Chinese police authorities intervened and secured the release of the woman," the spokesperson said.

Australia's Consulate-General would meet the group on arrival in Shanghai and provide assistance, the spokesperson said.

Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith said he was pleased the situation was resolved so quickly and the hostages were safe.

"Our Embassy in Beijing and our Consulate-General in Shanghai are providing consular assistance to the Australians affected by this incident," Mr Smith said."
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on March 05, 2008, 11:46:45 PM

"If they say, 'Sally and me went to the movies,' I'll stop them and say, 'Sally and I.' It can be at the most crucial part of the story, but I will stop it and fix it," he said.

"Dude, I hate when people misuse grammar."

Sophomore Stephanie Smith said she became dedicated to proper English during her junior year of high school.

She is particularly bothered by errors with "lie" and "lay" but enjoys parsing the differences between "who" and "whom."

Now, Smith said, she has trained herself to pay attention to grammatical errors in her friends' speech and corrects them when necessary.

"I don't say it to be superior or anything; I say it to help them," Smith said.

"At this age there is so much opportunity. We need to know how to speak intelligently."


Look, shoddy grammar irritates me too, but these two are going to star at an impromptu event involving duct tape and involuntary nudity if they keep this up.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: contemporarydog on March 06, 2008, 12:01:25 AM
I'm pretty shit-hot when it comes to grammar, but I can't remember the last time I used the word 'whom', I have to confess!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on March 06, 2008, 12:03:41 AM
"enjoys parsing the difference between 'who' and 'whom'" llllllllll llllllllll
Not only are these guys going to, invariably, get punched in the face after they tell some guy that, "aint is really not proper English, you know?" but they also just earned the Most Boring Entity in the Universe Award.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on March 06, 2008, 12:33:30 AM
Hullo! What's going on here???

"Ten Australians have been taken hostage by a Chinese national in China today, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) says.

The Australians were all later released unharmed after being taken hostage on a tourist bus in the city of Xian, in central China, a DFAT spokesperson said.

Nine of the Australians were released and transported to safety early in the crisis.

But a 48-year-old woman from NSW was not released with the rest of the group.

"Chinese police authorities intervened and secured the release of the woman," the spokesperson said.

Australia's Consulate-General would meet the group on arrival in Shanghai and provide assistance, the spokesperson said.

Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith said he was pleased the situation was resolved so quickly and the hostages were safe.

"Our Embassy in Beijing and our Consulate-General in Shanghai are providing consular assistance to the Australians affected by this incident," Mr Smith said."

I promise it wasn't me!!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on March 09, 2008, 09:37:25 AM
Ned Kelly's remains found in Victoria

Ned Kelly's resting place has been found among bones dug up at the former Pentridge Prison site.

The breakthrough solves an 80-year-old mystery, News Limited newspapers report.

The grave site of Australia's most notorious bushranger was unearthed after historians and archaeologists found a Department of Justice document that contained a vital clue.

Bone hunters last week found an unknown mass grave where the remains of Kelly and other executed prisoners, removed from the Old Melbourne Gaol in 1929, were interred at Pentridge.

"We have still some testing to do, but it's pretty clear we have found them," Heritage Victoria senior archaeologist Jeremy Smith said.

The bones are believed to belong to five prisoners and have been sent to the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine at Southbank in Melbourne.

Planning Minister Justin Madden confirmed the find almost certainly included Ned Kelly's grave.

"Heritage Victoria has co-ordinated extensive archaeological and historical investigations, which began in December 2006 after the possibility of multiple burial areas at the former prison site came to light," Mr Madden said.

Mr Smith said identifying the individuals might prove difficult because of advanced decomposition and the mingling of remains.

"Ned Kelly's remains were . . . not handled with a great degree of care," Mr Smith said.

The mass grave was found near the former F Division of Pentridge.

Kelly was hanged at Melbourne Gaol on November 11, 1880. His notorious crimes included murder.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on March 09, 2008, 05:22:36 PM
Exactly how evil was this guy?  I've heard of him before, and get the impression he was a sort of anti-hero, the Jesse James of Australia. 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Noodles on March 09, 2008, 06:21:06 PM
You gotta love this. agagagagag

Bars in Minnesota have found a dramatic way to get around the US state's recently introduced smoking ban.

The law grants an exception from the ban to performers in theatrical productions. So the bars have become theatres, and their customers, actors.

Now some bars print bills listing the "cast" of bartenders, and ashtrays become "props". Drinkers don costumes and attempt strange accents.

But a health official said it was time for the curtain to fall on the ploy.

'Before the Ban'

At the Rock, a heavy-metal bar in Maplewood, owner Brian Bauman explained why his clientele were doing little more than sitting around, smoking and drinking to a soundtrack of deafening music.
They're playing themselves before 1 October - you know, before there was a smoking ban," he said, according to the Associated Press.

"We call the production, Before the Ban!"

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on March 09, 2008, 10:11:35 PM
Exactly how evil was this guy?  I've heard of him before, and get the impression he was a sort of anti-hero, the Jesse James of Australia. 

From what I gather, Ned Kelly behaved in much the same manner as other legendary outlaws did in the US. Now you mention Jesse James, The Robin Hood of Missouri. Jesse James derailed trains, causing lots of civilians to die. He was not a nice man. Billy the Kid was not a nice man. His sole achievements rest on his ability to get out of jail and shoot people.
I read a critical biography on Ned Kelly, which painted a different picture of the man than the legend. He was a cold-blooded killer, he did not seem to have any scruples killing police officers. He probably was not evil but, in all honesty, if it had not been for the famous armour, I doubt he would have been more than a foot-note in Australian history.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: contemporarydog on March 09, 2008, 11:23:17 PM
I have to confess I now feel like a total ignoramus - I had thought Ned Kelly was American!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on March 10, 2008, 12:12:18 AM
I have to confess I now feel like a total ignoramus - I had thought Ned Kelly was American!

 bibibibibi llllllllll bibibibibi
There are mixed feelings about Ned Kelly. In the North-East of Victoria, there are many people who will not tolerate a bad word against him. He robbed banks, robbed graziers, stole horses, etc. Apparently didn't kill anyone till the police ambushed him at Stringybark Creek. Then he was definitely way outside the law. He made the big mistake of holing up in the Glenrowan Hotel. He had , I think, damaged the rail line, hoping that the train full of coppers from Melbourne would be de-railed. The stationmaster ran down the tracks to warn the train, and they all had a big shoot-out  at the Hotel. Ned was captured and subsequently hanged.
There were many other famous outlaws around at that time, but he captured the imagination.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on March 10, 2008, 01:25:21 AM
Just in on Yahoo.

BEIJING - Police captured and killed alleged terrorists plotting attacks targeting this year's Beijing Olympics, a Chinese official said Sunday.

Wang Lequan, the top Communist Party official in the western region of Xinjiang, said materials seized in a Jan. 27 raid in the regional capital, Urumqi, had stated the plot's purpose as "specifically to sabotage the staging of the Beijing Olympics."

"Their goal was very clear," Wang told reporters in Beijing.

Wang mentioned the raid during a meeting on the sidelines of the parliament's annual session but provided few specifics.

China has been fighting a simmering insurgency amongst Muslim separatists from the Xinjiang region's Uighur population.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Noodles on March 10, 2008, 01:43:31 AM
sounds like a good excuse to me.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on March 10, 2008, 05:34:10 AM
Any bets on whether there will be terrorist activity in Xizang as well??
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on March 10, 2008, 05:35:43 AM
The Irish may tell you that Ned Kelly was a wonderful son and freedom fighter.  But ... outlaws is outlaws - no matter how romantic they come across.  Of course, he did create Australia's first suit of armour.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on March 10, 2008, 05:37:27 AM
Armour?  What, as a gimmick, or to stop bullets?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on March 10, 2008, 06:19:13 AM
To stop the bullets.

(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y151/Deborann/NolanNedKelly013d.jpg)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on March 10, 2008, 08:17:02 AM
Is this the start of something??

China foils attempted terror attack on flight

Beijing
March 10, 2008

CHINA has foiled an attempt to crash a passenger jet en route to Beijing and the aircraft made a safe emergency landing, a senior official said yesterday in what state media called an attempted terrorist attack.

The China Southern flight originated in Urumqi, capital of the restive far western Chinese region of Xinjiang, where militant Uighurs have agitated for an independent "East Turkestan".

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/china-foils-attempted-terror-attack-on-flight/2008/03/09/1204998289521.html (http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/china-foils-attempted-terror-attack-on-flight/2008/03/09/1204998289521.html)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Shroomy on March 10, 2008, 06:24:51 PM
Oh, My.  This doesn't sound good for the sporting event planned for this summer.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on March 10, 2008, 09:05:28 PM
Interesting times...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: belrain on March 10, 2008, 11:57:11 PM
Is this the start of something??

China foils attempted terror attack on flight

Beijing
March 10, 2008

CHINA has foiled an attempt to crash a passenger jet en route to Beijing and the aircraft made a safe emergency landing, a senior official said yesterday in what state media called an attempted terrorist attack.

The China Southern flight originated in Urumqi, capital of the restive far western Chinese region of Xinjiang, where militant Uighurs have agitated for an independent "East Turkestan".

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/china-foils-attempted-terror-attack-on-flight/2008/03/09/1204998289521.html (http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/china-foils-attempted-terror-attack-on-flight/2008/03/09/1204998289521.html)

Something more about this
http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/?id=351614&type=National
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on March 11, 2008, 02:50:39 PM
Foreigners on the plane and it gives them a great, public excuse to clamp down on the Uighurs. Same with the 'terrorist' attack the week before.  Any money on how soon there will be an incident with the Tans that gives reasons for beefing up the police/military presence in Tan areas??  Even over Monlam festival in my favourite tiny town there were military stationed there - NEVER seen them there before.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on March 11, 2008, 06:58:41 PM
Hard to see how they could beef things up any more than they have: accounts I've heard have so many undercover folks that they almost outnumber the locals.

But I agree: you can't suspend civil rights without some terrorism to point to.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on March 11, 2008, 10:25:34 PM

Reason for fleeing to Blighty...aside from all the libraries, smoke-free pubs, London...


Danish tax level the worlds highest
Following the gradual lowering of the Swedish tax level, Denmark now stands alone with the world record in tax levels imposed on citizens and businesses. It is more than likely that the gap between Dan-ish and Swedish taxes will continue to widen. This weekend, the Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt promised at his party’s national assembly to propose new tax cuts on labour totalling DKK10bn this autumn. Minister of Tax Kristian Jensen (V) acknowledges that the Swedish devel-opment will put pressure on the fixation of Danish tax levels. “The Swedish proclama-tion concerning the lowering of taxes on labour clearly puts pressure on us here in Denmark getting the most out of the work of the tax commission. I have a clear vision that we will have lower tax in 2011 than we have today. If we don’t, then I have not been doing my job properly or else we have another Minister of Tax,” says Kris-tian Jensen to the paper.   
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Noodles on March 15, 2008, 05:08:18 AM
Wow, the power Bjork has is incredible bfbfbfbfbf
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Noodles on March 15, 2008, 05:14:12 AM
Actually i was just watching this on the news, i was quite shocked the Hong Kong news channel was allowed to even mention it.

Seems it's going to be a busy year for the  bababababa bababababa bababababa
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Nolefan on March 17, 2008, 11:28:20 PM

PLEASE REFRAIN FROM MENTIONING THE NAMES IN THE NEWS.... WE WERE ALMOST BLOCKED AND  I CAN"T AFFORD TO HAVE THE SERVER BLOCKED IN CHINA.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Skygod on March 19, 2008, 04:07:44 PM
We already know that meat has a huge carbon footprint, but the United States Olympic Committee is making it worse by shipping 25,000 pounds of Tyson Foods meat to Beijing for the athletes to eat, suggesting that Chinese standards applied to meat are lower than in the USA. A caterer describes Chinese chicken: “We had it tested and it was so full of steroids that we never could have given it to athletes. They all would have tested positive.”

So instead they will eat American meat, which is chock full of antibiotics, hormones and pesticides, is barely inspected by a dysfunctional USDA. We are certain that it is so much better.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/03/flying-meat-to-china.php
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: china-matt on March 19, 2008, 04:59:34 PM
Some wonderful news about my former governor--his former driver claims to have had a threesome with the gov and his wife (back in the days when the gov claimed he was straight). The gov says it's true, the wife denies it. Supposedly, she claims that the whole marriage was a sham and she's seeking tons of money in divorce. This is certainly hurting her case.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: contemporarydog on March 19, 2008, 05:00:16 PM
We already know that meat has a huge carbon footprint, but the United States Olympic Committee is making it worse by shipping 25,000 pounds of Tyson Foods meat to Beijing for the athletes to eat, suggesting that Chinese standards applied to meat are lower than in the USA. A caterer describes Chinese chicken: “We had it tested and it was so full of steroids that we never could have given it to athletes. They all would have tested positive.”

So instead they will eat American meat, which is chock full of antibiotics, hormones and pesticides, is barely inspected by a dysfunctional USDA. We are certain that it is so much better.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/03/flying-meat-to-china.php

I thought that the athletes had been told they all had to eat chinese food.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Noodles on March 20, 2008, 10:32:41 PM
Quote
I thought that the athletes had been told they all had to eat chinese food

It might make them run faster bqbqbqbqbq
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on March 24, 2008, 01:10:12 PM
Just watched a very interesting BBC Documentary about democracy in the Chinese style.

A class at a Wuhan Primary school (Evergreen, I think is the name) held democratic elections for position of Class Monitor - Class 1, Grade 3.

There were 3 candidates (Luo Liu, Cheng Cheng and Xijiaou).  Each one was permitted two assistants to help with their campaigning.  LL's parents are both police officers.  CC's parents were "regular" middle class, a TV producer and an engineer. XJ's mother (a school administrator) is a single parent.

The campaigning was hard fought, and all three wanted to quit the election, at one point.  In the end, LL (who had already been Monitor two years in a row) won.....with some judicious bribery gifts being arranged by his parents....nevermind that he was the least poular of the three, and has a reputation for being a pint-sized bully.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Skygod on March 24, 2008, 04:17:03 PM
US Olympic tourists warned about monitoring in hotels

Americans traveling to China for the Olympic Games in August can expect their hotel rooms there to be monitored, the State Department warned on its website.

"All visitors should be aware that they have no reasonable expectation of privacy in public or private locations," according to the State Department site.

"All hotel rooms and offices are considered to be subject to on-site or remote technical monitoring at all times. Hotel rooms, residences and offices may be accessed at any time without the occupant's consent or knowledge," it said.

It added that many hotels and apartment buildings may be poorly built, lack emergency exits, fire extinguishers, carbon monoxide monitors and basic security like locks, alarms, and personnel.

It also said that the threat of terrorism appeared to be minimal, but urged caution nonetheless.

"The threat level for terrorism against Americans in China remains low. However, any large-scale public event like the upcoming Olympic Games could become the focus of terrorist acts or other forms of violence," it said.

"There is no reason to believe that US citizens are being targeted at this time," it said.

It also said crime rates were relatively low, with major metropolitan areas safer than similar sized cities in other developing countries.

But "while the overall crime threat is low, the number of criminal incidents, including those directed against Americans, continues to rise," it added.

The Olympic Summer Games will take place from August 8-24, followed by the Beijing Paralympic Summer Games 2008 from September 6-17.   
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on March 24, 2008, 07:11:43 PM
Wow !! Skygod, wonder who has the video rights to the hotel rooms being monitored?. uuuuuuuuuu
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on March 27, 2008, 08:26:52 PM
Why didn't you submit them Missy? I can just picture Byron as the mascot aoaoaoaoao
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on March 28, 2008, 01:33:35 AM
She's reprinting what that Brian Carefoot person wrote.

BTW, what does 'priaprismic' mean?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on March 28, 2008, 03:17:01 AM
Not certain you really want to know. afafafafaf afafafafaf

Having a persistently erect penis.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on March 28, 2008, 03:26:36 AM
Why am I not surprised??

Quote
Supplier Under Scrutiny on Aging Arms for Afghans

 
By C. J. CHIVERS
Published: March 27, 2008
This article was reported by C. J. Chivers, Eric Schmitt and Nicholas Wood and written by Mr. Chivers.

 
Ammunition supplied by an American contractor to Afghan forces. Some of it was in such poor shape that it was not used.


Problems with old munitions were exposed recently by explosions at an Albanian depot.
Since 2006, when the insurgency in Afghanistan sharply intensified, the Afghan government has been dependent on American logistics and military support in the war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

But to arm the Afghan forces that it hopes will lead this fight, the American military has relied since early last year on a fledgling company led by a 22-year-old man whose vice president was a licensed masseur.

With the award last January of a federal contract worth as much as nearly $300 million, the company, AEY Inc., which operates out of an unmarked office in Miami Beach, became the main supplier of munitions to Afghanistan’s army and police forces.

Since then, the company has provided ammunition that is more than 40 years old and in decomposing packaging, according to an examination of the munitions by The New York Times and interviews with American and Afghan officials. Much of the ammunition comes from the aging stockpiles of the old Communist bloc, including stockpiles that the State Department and NATO have determined to be unreliable and obsolete, and have spent millions of dollars to have destroyed.

In purchasing munitions, the contractor has also worked with middlemen and a shell company on a federal list of entities suspected of illegal arms trafficking.

Moreover, tens of millions of the rifle and machine-gun cartridges were manufactured in China, making their procurement a possible violation of American law. The company’s president, Efraim E. Diveroli, was also secretly recorded in a conversation that suggested corruption in his company’s purchase of more than 100 million aging rounds in Albania, according to audio files of the conversation.

This week, after repeated inquiries about AEY’s performance by The Times, the Army suspended the company from any future federal contracting, citing shipments of Chinese ammunition and claiming that Mr. Diveroli misled the Army by saying the munitions were Hungarian.

Mr. Diveroli, reached by telephone, said he was unaware of the action. The Army planned to notify his company by certified mail on Thursday, according to internal correspondence provided by a military official.

But problems with the ammunition were evident last fall in places like Nawa, Afghanistan, an outpost near the Pakistani border, where an Afghan lieutenant colonel surveyed the rifle cartridges on his police station’s dirty floor. Soon after arriving there, the cardboard boxes had split open and their contents spilled out, revealing ammunition manufactured in China in 1966.

“This is what they give us for the fighting,” said the colonel, Amanuddin, who like many Afghans has only one name. “It makes us worried, because too much of it is junk.” Ammunition as it ages over decades often becomes less powerful, reliable and accurate.

AEY is one of many previously unknown defense companies to have thrived since 2003, when the Pentagon began dispensing billions of dollars to train and equip indigenous forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. Its rise from obscurity once seemed to make it a successful example of the Bush administration’s promotion of private contractors as integral elements of war-fighting strategy.

But an examination of AEY’s background, through interviews in several countries, reviews of confidential government documents and the examination of some of the ammunition, suggests that Army contracting officials, under pressure to arm Afghan troops, allowed an immature company to enter the murky world of international arms dealing on the Pentagon’s behalf — and did so with minimal vetting and through a vaguely written contract with few restrictions.

In addition to this week’s suspension, AEY is under investigation by the Department of Defense’s inspector general and by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, prompted by complaints about the quality and origins of ammunition it provided, and allegations of corruption.

Mr. Diveroli, in a brief telephone interview late last year, denied any wrongdoing. “I know that my company does everything 100 percent on the up and up, and that’s all I’m concerned about,” he said.

He also suggested that his activities should be shielded from public view. “AEY is working on a moderately classified Department of Defense project,” he said. “I really don’t want to talk about the details.”

He referred questions to a lawyer, Hy Shapiro, who offered a single statement by e-mail. “While AEY continues to work very hard to fulfill its obligations under its contract with the U.S. Army, its representatives are not prepared at this time to sit and discuss the details,” he wrote.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Fugu on March 28, 2008, 02:06:58 PM
NZ man sentenced after claiming to have been raped by a wombat

A New Zealand man who claimed to have been left speaking Australian after being raped by a wombat has been sentenced to 75 hours community service.

Arthur Ross Cradock, a 48-year-old orchard worker, admitted in the Nelson District Court yesterday to the charge of using a phone for a fictitious purpose, after calling police with the message, "I've been raped by a wombat".

Police prosecutor Sergeant Chris Stringer told the court that on the afternoon of February 11 Cradock called the police communications centre, threatening to "smash the filth"  if they arrived at his home that night.

When asked if he had an emergency, he replied "yes", Mr Stringer said.

On a second subsequent call to the communications centre, Cradock told police he was being raped by a wombat at his Motueka address, and sought their immediate help.

He called police again soon after, and gave his full name, saying he wanted to withdraw the complaint.

"I'll retract the rape complaint from the wombat, because he's pulled out," Cradock told the operator at the communications centre, who had no idea what he was talking about, Mr Stringer said.

"Apart from speaking Australian now, I'm pretty all right you know, I didn't hurt my bum at all," Cradock then told the operator.

Mr Stringer said alcohol had played a big part in Cradock's life. However, defence lawyer Michael Vesty said alcohol was not a problem that day.

Judge Richard Russell said he was not quite sure what motivated Cradock to make those statements to the police.

In sentencing, he warned Cradock not to do it again.

stuff.co.nz

http://www.smh.com.au/news/unusual-tales/nz-man-jailed-for-wombat-rape-claim/2008/03/28/1206207344849.html (http://www.smh.com.au/news/unusual-tales/nz-man-jailed-for-wombat-rape-claim/2008/03/28/1206207344849.html)

Quote:
"Apart from speaking Australian now, I'm pretty all right you know, I didn't hurt my bum at all,"  afafafafaf afafafafaf
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: non-dave on March 28, 2008, 03:49:35 PM
I thought the bum hurting phenomenon was restricted solely to listening to Australian politicians speak.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: contemporarydog on March 28, 2008, 08:52:00 PM
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha I'm posting that as a note on facebook
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: contemporarydog on March 28, 2008, 08:54:17 PM
Having trouble getting into the "Notes" facility on FB.  Could that be being blocked (as its sort of like a blog)?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on March 28, 2008, 10:43:16 PM
Still can't get to FB :(
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on April 01, 2008, 04:29:14 PM
I'm pleased I'm not trying to live on 650Y a month - or working 73 hours a week to make a decent wage.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23455711-25837,00.html (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23455711-25837,00.html)

Quote
Fair play impossible, says Adidas workers
Claire Newell and Michael Sheridan, Fuzhou | March 31, 2008

THE German sportswear giant Adidas has paid a reported $108 million to sponsor this year's Beijing Olympics with the slogan "Impossible is nothing".

But for the thousands of Chinese workers who earn a basic $25 a week making Adidas's expensive trainer shoes at factories in the industrial city of Fuzhou, one thing does seem impossible: to get a fair deal.

An investigation by The Sunday Times of into the workers' pay and conditions has found apparent violations of China's labour laws and Adidas's code of workplace standards.

Workers at the factories in Fuzhou accuse the management of cheating on pay, discriminating against young men and stifling an attempt to set up a trade union.

They have provided documents appearing to prove that they have to work for more than 70 hours a week to earn a living wage, even though Chinese law limits the average working week, including overtime, to 49 hours.

Adidas has defended its record. The company denies discrimination but has conceded that many of its Chinese workers earn the minimum legal salary.

Life for workers in the Adidas factories, which are surrounded by a warren of narrow tenement streets, is a world apart from the celebrity-studded image projected by David Beckham, the soccer player, and the singer Missy Elliott, who designs some of the company's sportswear.

The Sunday Times found a history of industrial disputes at three of what Adidas calls "long-established partner factories" in Fuzhou, owned and operated by a Taiwan-based company.

In dozens of interviews, workers, administration staff and security guards described a hostile atmosphere of class and cultural conflict between the Chinese workforce, the Taiwanese managers and Adidas's German-led management team.

They say there have been at least five unreported strikes in the past 12 months over allegations of management cheating and abuse. The workers' complaints include claims that staff are sometimes forced to work overtime for no pay. Most cannot understand their complex wage slips.

"Life is very hard," said a worker with two small children. "We work morning to night, but have no money left."

One pair of Adidas trainers in Britain costs from £60 ($130) to £120 for the latest women's sports shoes, which are designed by Stella McCartney.

But factory payslips show the basic wage for an Adidas worker last year was just 570 yuan (about $90) a month.

Adidas confirmed the figure and said the pay was raised to 650 yuan a month, in line with a rise in the provincial legal minimum wage last August.

"The problem is that the minimum wage is not a living wage," said Geoffrey Crothall, editor of the China Labour Bulletin in Hong Kong.

Records reviewed by Bulletin experts showed that to earn a living wage, estimated by workers at $175 a month, employees would have to work excessive overtime. One wage slip indicated the employee had worked 73 hours that week.

In 2002, workers thought their conditions would improve when the management, under pressure from foreign customers, allowed a free election for union representatives. But by last year, when the union officers' five-year term was up, most workers had become disillusioned with the union and its leader, Tang Ximou.

Strikes were breaking out, real wages were falling, Mr Tang was accused of doing nothing and an atmosphere of conflict prevailed. On October 14, the management allowed an election - but only for part-time union posts. Mr Tang and his two deputies were reappointed without a poll.

After a strike in 2006 led by young male workers, the Taiwanese management took action against those involved. "They were all kicked out," said a clerk.

A sign outside the factory says all male workers must produce a certificate from their home town to prove they do not have a criminal record. No such rule applies to women.

"The boss thinks the men are troublemakers," a company security guard said. "We give them special searches and keep an eye on them."

The Sunday Times
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kcanuck on April 01, 2008, 05:55:42 PM
And Adidas corporate will deny knowing about the abhorrent working conditions and promise to look into it and nothing will change.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: contemporarydog on April 01, 2008, 06:11:54 PM
Some cockwit rightwing american on another forum I go on tried to justify the low salaries paid in these places by saying that if the jobs didn't exist, the people wouldn't have jobs at all.  asasasasas
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on April 01, 2008, 10:52:21 PM
1800s Industrial Revolution:Revisitation.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on April 02, 2008, 12:05:58 AM
Benefits of globalisation.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on April 02, 2008, 11:10:49 PM
Remember, economic forces are natural forces.  Children working themselves to death in a shoe factory are all part of the miraculous Cycle of Life.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on April 03, 2008, 06:16:11 AM
BBC's World News reports that Robert Mugabe is going down....28 years of power corruption controlling Zimbabwe may be/are over.  The only question is whether or not he will actually go llllllllll

His political Party now holds 93 Seats compared to 105 for Opposition candidates.  The results from the Presidential election are still not yet in and finalised (after 4 days!!), but indications are that he only held 43% of the vote, compared to his challenger who has 51%.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on April 06, 2008, 11:58:55 PM
Charlton Heston is dead.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: contemporarydog on April 07, 2008, 12:33:43 AM
 aoaoaoaoao

One of my favourite lines ever:

"IT'S A MADHOUSE! A MADHOUSE!"
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Pashley on April 07, 2008, 03:34:11 AM
Quote
Fair play impossible, says Adidas workers
Claire Newell and Michael Sheridan, Fuzhou | March 31, 2008

THE German sportswear giant Adidas ...

But for the thousands of Chinese workers who earn a basic $25 a week making Adidas's expensive trainer shoes at factories in the industrial city of Fuzhou, ...

The Sunday Times found a history of industrial disputes at three of what Adidas calls "long-established partner factories" in Fuzhou, owned and operated by a Taiwan-based company.
I lived in Fuzhou and knowa little about those factories. Pay is low, but I knew waitresses in Fuzhou making 450 for really long hours.

The Taiwan company does not just manufacture for Adidas; they also do Reebok and a Japanese brand I don't recall. Nike are down the road and conitions there are no better.

The Chinese friend I had who worked there was doing alright, She was a healh and safety manager making 4000 or so. From what she said, management did at least take that seriously. She was sent to Vietnam to help set up a factory there.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kcanuck on April 07, 2008, 12:13:38 PM
One of our teaching assistant's was just brought up to minimum wage, because the gate caretaker found out she was only making 400Y a month. New TAs must work this ridiculously low wage for a significant period of time; she's been a TA well over a year. asasasasas asasasasas Hopefully a precedent has been set and the entry salary will now be minimum wage.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on April 07, 2008, 07:46:51 PM
Kcanuck, that's utterly disgusting.  She should get retroactive pay, but we all know she won't.

"SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!"
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: contemporarydog on April 08, 2008, 01:43:10 PM
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7334233.stm
\
Quote
NZ man 'used hedgehog as weapon' 
A man in New Zealand has been charged with using a hedgehog as a weapon, the New Zealand Herald has reported.

Police said William Singalargh, 27, had hurled the hedgehog about 5m (16ft) at a 15-year-old boy.

"It hit the victim in the leg, causing a large, red welt and several puncture marks," said Senior Sgt Bruce Jenkins, in the North Island town of Whakatane.

It was unclear whether the hedgehog was still alive when it was thrown, though it was dead when collected as evidence.

The police spokesman said the suspect was arrested "for assault with a weapon, namely the hedgehog."

Mr Singalargh is due to appear in court on 17 April. If convicted, he faces up to five years in prison.

 
What with wombats and now hedgehogs, you lot have been coming up with some wacky stories of late!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on April 08, 2008, 03:35:54 PM
It's those dodgy Kiwis! 

A little outpost in the middle of the ocean - cabin fever strikes regularly.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: contemporarydog on April 08, 2008, 03:37:49 PM
Gotta say, sounds like their legal system is still much tougher than ours.  He probably wouldn't get any time in prison for throwing a hedgehog in the UK.

It's like China's at one, ridiculous extreme, and the UK is at the other.  asasasasas
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on April 11, 2008, 02:15:24 AM
According to a recent article, massage girls in the east-Java province of Indonesia are now being forced to wear chastity belts so they stick to just massages and no naughty stuff. Forced chastity belts...wonder if that would work in China.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: non-dave on April 11, 2008, 02:25:46 AM
I reckon a lot of Chinese guys would jump at the chance to buy them... for their wives.

Can't see it happening any other way.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Noodles on April 11, 2008, 03:34:56 AM
And so it continues

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSHKG8120420080410

China says foils "terrorist" plot to kidnap Olympians
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on April 11, 2008, 05:09:46 AM
Fusses in France, bothers in Britain and fancy side-stepping in 'Frisco.....what's next?










Sarkozy will miss The Opening gala.  GeeDubYah is considering a similar move.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Fugu on April 12, 2008, 02:21:51 PM
Fusses in France, bothers in Britain and fancy side-stepping in 'Frisco.....what's next?

Sarkozy will miss The Opening gala.  GeeDubYah is considering a similar move.

Fugu has announced, that due to scheduling conflicts, he will be unable to attend any Olympic event or partake in any flag waving.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/11/olympicgames2008.china (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/11/olympicgames2008.china)
Quote from the Guardian:

"The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, will not be attending August's opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. Although the reason for his absence was cited as "scheduling issues"."

and

" The British prime minister, Gordon Brown, and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, have both announced they will not be attending the opening ceremony."

Finally

"Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd had already said that Australia, not China, would be responsible for security of the flame."  bfbfbfbfbf

Everytime I see those 'guardians of the sacred flame' on CCTV9, it reminds me of Homer opening his door for 'hired goons' and copping a hiding for it.

Go Kev! liked what he said at Beida, shame the locals won't hear about it.


Edit: I can't see any 'key words' that would cause problems with your server. I'm also under the impression that the lads in Beijing are easing up a tad on net access. If there are problems, feel free to delete the post. 
agagagagag 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kcanuck on April 12, 2008, 05:58:23 PM
Canada's PM also not attending (for personal reasons) though he is sending a delegation
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on April 14, 2008, 10:11:38 AM
Looks like Raoul will need to take those fake plates off his bike.


Rash of fake military vehicles on Chinese roads: report
Fri Apr 11, 12:11 PM ET

BEIJING (AFP) - On-road privileges for China's legendary People's Liberation Army are leading to a rash of fake military vehicles and bogus number plates, state press said Friday.

Since launching a campaign to rid the roads of fake military vehicles in July 2006, police have uncovered more than 4,100 bogus vehicles and nearly 6,400 fake military number plates, Xinhua news agency said.

More than 5,000 people have been apprehended in the crackdown, it said.

In China, cars with military plates, which are a different colour from ordinary number plates, are legally entitled to privileges including exemption from road tolls and parking fees, Xinhua said.

Traffic police are also reluctant to pull over drivers of military vehicles even if they are breaking laws, it added.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on April 14, 2008, 10:46:08 AM
They periodically have crack-downs on fake plates. It's not new. A lot of cars also have the military sirens, and use them to blast their way through traffic.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: non-dave on April 14, 2008, 02:36:31 PM
If you can do it (and get away with it) it's a great way to go!

The military plates entitle the driver to absolute sovereignty on the road. The Police cannot do anything about them or to them - even if they suspect they are fake. The military police are the only ones with any authority.

I want some!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on April 14, 2008, 10:47:13 PM
Boy, there's the perfect case study for China's biggest problem: enforcing the law.  They have laws against all the things the West does, but try to give them teeth among 1.3 billion souls!  The solution will be mammoth:

1. Train enforcement officials to crack down on people without mercy;
2. pay them enough to resist taking red envelopes;
3. send them to jurisdictions far from home so their friends and families don't pressure them to make exceptions;
4. set up counter-intelligence so noone gets any notice of their presence;
5. conduct followup inspections so people don't just bribe locals to declare them "clean again";
6. randomize the crackdowns so that crystal balls won't predict their arrival.

 eeeeeeeeee
Wow, glad it's not my department.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on April 14, 2008, 11:43:22 PM
Fine not only the offenders, but the officials who helped issue them and the manufacturers.  Remove drivers license - permanently for the 3rd offence for all involved.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on April 20, 2008, 11:37:44 PM

The Onion

BEIJING—Known among schoolmates for his spirited antics and ability to make light of almost any situation, classroom jokester Wei Xiang, 11, was put to death by the Chinese government for drawing a mustache on an image of Education Minister Zhou Ji in one of his textbooks, sources reported Monday. "An enemy of the state has been dealt with accordingly," government spokesman Xu Qi said following Wei's execution by firing squad. "Let this be a lesson to other children considering wising off or otherwise wasting valuable class time." The fifth-grader previously served a six-month term in solitary confinement at Qincheng Prison after referring to the Tang Dynasty as "the Stank Dynasty" during a history lesson in 2007.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on April 20, 2008, 11:55:21 PM
Words fail me.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on April 21, 2008, 04:11:35 AM
There are times when 'satire' doesn't work. 

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on April 21, 2008, 02:29:40 PM
Quote
Glebe Morgue buys forklift to move obese

Sydney's Glebe Morgue has been forced to buy a forklift truck to cope with obese corpses.

The proportion of obese patients requiring coronial autopsies has doubled from 15 per cent in 1986 to 30 per cent, according to a study by forensic pathologist Professor Roger Byard.

The proportion of morbidly obese corpses has increased from one to five per cent.

Glebe Morgue forensic pathologist Matthew Orde said the larger bodies were putting workers at risk of injury because they were difficult to lift, move and store.

He told The Sun-Herald that putrefaction - the degradation of soft tissue - was speeded up in morbidly obese patients, making handling difficult.

"A fat person will go off more quickly than a skinny person," Dr Orde said.

Dr Byard agrees obese patients are problematic for pathologists.

"Autopsies have been performed on floors, or with a pathologist leaning from a ladder, or actually standing on the trolley over a body," he wrote in an article in the Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine.

Dr Orde said the problems facing Glebe Morgue reflected the growing incidence of obesity in the greater community.

Almost half of the NSW population was classified overweight or obese in 2005.

The state government has been forced to buy three extra-large $150,000 ambulances fitted with hydraulic lifts capable of carrying loads of up to one tonne.

They don't show this on "Bones".
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: contemporarydog on April 21, 2008, 03:10:50 PM
I was quite shocked when I read that Australia was catching up with us and the Yanks in the obesity stakes.  I thought you lot were much more 'active'...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on April 21, 2008, 03:19:38 PM
I love the bit where he says 'A fat person will go off more quickly than a skinny person".  That had me pleased I wasn't drinking my tea. ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: contemporarydog on April 21, 2008, 03:35:03 PM
It's also quite gross when you think about it...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on April 21, 2008, 03:44:55 PM
It's also quite gross when you think about it...

Yeah. It is.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: contemporarydog on April 21, 2008, 03:54:42 PM
I think I misread your other post as meaning "It's a good thing I wasn't drinking my tea as it would have made me spit my tea everywhere with laughter" as opposed to "It would have put me off my tea..."
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kcanuck on April 21, 2008, 06:01:26 PM
they did show it on CSI though, much better than Bones IMHO
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on April 21, 2008, 06:04:29 PM
It DID make me laugh!!  Just the really matter-of-fact Oz way of putting it had me in hysterics!


But I liked your 'gross' pun as well. (You did mean it didn't you ...?)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: contemporarydog on April 21, 2008, 06:40:00 PM
I have to confess, it was unintentional  ahahahahah ahahahahah ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Monkey King on April 21, 2008, 07:05:03 PM
If you are lucky enough to have (bootleg) cable, you probably get CNN international:

CNN reporter in sex, rope and drug scandal (http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/04/21/1208629776034.html)

Quote
Quest - who is known for his boisterous and quirky style...


Quite.  This is only really funny if you have seen him on TV - he kind of plays on his eccentric English gentleman abroad type character.  I always suspected he was a bit more mental than he let on.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on April 21, 2008, 07:44:50 PM
I was quite shocked when I read that Australia was catching up with us and the Yanks in the obesity stakes.  I thought you lot were much more 'active'...
We were,until the Government started handing out more "sit down money", to coin an Aboriginal phrase.
There is however plenty of activity going on between the sheets afafafafaf since the "baby bonus" has gone up to about $Aus5000. bfbfbfbfbf
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on April 23, 2008, 11:48:42 PM
Knighthood for Wills 'leaves Howard in cold'

John Howard's chances of being knighted appear to have been scuttled by Prince William.

Rumours have circulated since the beginning of the year that the Queen had personally chosen Howard, a staunch monarchist during his four terms as Prime Minister, to become a Royal Knight of the Garter.

However, Prince William has instead been selected as the Garter's 1000th knight, following the honour his father Prince Charles received fifty years ago, according to news.com.au.

If Howard was disappointed in missing out, he wasn't showing it today - claiming he actually knew nothing about the rumours.

"It's news to me," the Sydney Morning Herald reported Howard as saying when asked about the possible knighthood.

The announcement will be officially made tomorrow Australian time — keeping in line with a St George's Day tradition.

Really hope he doesn't get Knighted. A staunch monarchist, bloody hell he was nowt but a brown noser.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on April 24, 2008, 02:25:28 AM
Knight of the Garter...come on, would you really want to be one? What's next? Lord of the Frilly Dress? High Steward of the Pink Stiletto Heels? Grand Marshal of the Red Thong?


They made Cliff Richard a Knight...and Elton John...the latter just turned the whole knighthood into a mockery. I mean, does anyone really think "Elton John" when they hear the word 'knight'?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on April 24, 2008, 02:36:25 AM
Howard's idol was Robert Menzies.....who became a knight...and Warden of the Cinque Ports, for what that's worth. Howard wants to emulate the greatest QE2 brown-noser of all time.
" I did but see her passing by, and yet I love her till she kick the bucket".
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on April 24, 2008, 02:52:45 AM
Knights in white satin...

(http://evilmong.com/images/His_Majesty_Queen_Elton_I.jpg)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on April 24, 2008, 02:55:08 AM
 ahahahahah ahahahahah ahahahahah bkbkbkbkbk bkbkbkbkbk Damn you! Coffee all over my desk!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on April 24, 2008, 03:22:05 AM
The best i have seen the 'Queen' look :D
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on April 24, 2008, 04:21:51 PM
Damn shame, Little Johnny missed the mark again...

Former Australian prime minister John Howard appears to have missed out on joining a prestigious British order of knights.

Speculation mounted earlier this year that Howard might be appointed a Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter - the oldest order of British chivalry - when Queen Elizabeth II announced any new additions.

Howard was a staunch monarchist during his term as Australia's second longest-serving prime minister.

The deaths of former British prime minister Sir Edward Heath and Mount Everest conqueror Sir Edmund Hillary left two places open in the exclusive order.

But the Queen announced on Wednesday those vacancies would be filled by Lord Luce, who was Lord Chamberlain from 2000 to 2006, and Sir Thomas Dunne, Lord-Lieutenant of Hereford since 1977 and chairman of the Lord Lieutenants Association.

Their appointments take the number of Companion Knights to the maximum 24.

The Queen also announced her grandson, Prince William, would join other members of his family as a Royal Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter.

Members of the Royal family are additional to the 24 Knights Companion.

New members of the order, established in 1348 by Edward III, are customarily announced on St George's Day, England's national day on April 23.

Its emblem is a blue ribbon or garter worn by men below the left knee and women on the left arm.

Each year in June a procession and service take place at Windsor Castle for the order.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on April 24, 2008, 04:25:55 PM
That's a damn shame - he'd have looked so sweet wearing a bit of blue ribbon tied on his suit pants.  I bet he wouldn't have taken it off to go to bed!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: china-matt on April 25, 2008, 10:52:29 PM
What the hell is going on around this country? First 14 stupid lawyers sue CNN and Cafferty for 1400RMB in Beijing (cheap lawyers). Now their suing for $1.3 billion in New York.

I come from the most litigious state in America. This is ridiculous. I'm waiting for the counter-suits.

Also, if this is successful, can we start suing the Chinese for rude remarks toward us foreigners? I'd like to sue that jackass who called my wife a traitor for marrying a foreigner.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Shroomy on April 25, 2008, 11:32:45 PM
Would you mind telling me who is suing who for what?  No ranting without newsing first. bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on April 25, 2008, 11:42:35 PM
Would you mind telling me who is suing who for what?  No ranting without newsing first. bibibibibi

US TV-news station CNN has a "reporter" commentator surnamed Cafferty who said that China is being run by thugs.  No doubt, the lawsuit(s) stems from that remark.  I believe that a retraction/apology was demanded by the Chinese government, along with Cafferty's firing....which hasn't happened so far.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Senor Boogie Woogie on April 26, 2008, 01:26:59 AM
Japanese!!  llllllllll llllllllll And we thought Chinese were silly!

Japanese fooled in poodle scam
April 26, 2007 - 8:59PM

Thousands of Japanese have been swindled in a scam in which they were sold Australian and British sheep and told they were poodles.

Flocks of sheep were imported to Japan and then sold by a company called Poodles as Pets, marketed as fashionable accessories, available at $1,600 each.

That is a snip compared to a real poodle which retails for twice that much in Japan.

The scam was uncovered when Japanese moviestar Maiko Kawamaki went on a talk-show and wondered why her new pet would not bark or eat dog food.

She was crestfallen when told it was a sheep.

Then hundreds of other women got in touch with police to say they feared their new "poodle" was also a sheep.

One couple said they became suspicious when they took their "dog" to have its claws trimmed and were told it had hooves.

Japanese police believe there could be 2,000 people affected by the scam, which operated in Sapporo and capitalised on the fact that sheep are rare in Japan, so many do not know what they look like.

"We launched an investigation after we were made aware that a company were selling sheep as poodles," Japanese police said, the The Sun reported.

"Sadly we think there is more than one company operating in this way.

"The sheep are believed to have been imported from overseas - Britain, Australia."

Many of the sheep have now been donated to zoos and farms.

Who said Chinese and Japanese are so different? This story proves that the two cultures are not that dissimiliar.

Maybe I should try to sell them the Brooklyn Bridge (for cash or Japanese Hentai porn)

Senor
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on April 26, 2008, 01:33:39 AM
How in the name of Fenris, Grimnir and Hel do you mistake a sheep for a poodle?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on April 26, 2008, 01:58:27 AM
How in the name of Fenris, Grimnir and Hel do you mistake a sheep for a poodle?

Well, yer gotta be Japanese, for starters!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on April 26, 2008, 02:08:51 AM
So, I guess one might say the poor Japanese people had the wool pulled over their eyes? They probably looked somewhat sheepish when they found out.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on April 26, 2008, 02:21:54 AM
lambs to the slaughter, yer might say!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on April 26, 2008, 02:42:20 AM
OK, guys.  Time to stop with the horrible puns now.  Ewe've Ram-med home the point sufficiently.  Please go on the lam(b) immediately. 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on April 26, 2008, 02:46:41 AM
Better poodles than sacrificial lamb.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Shroomy on April 26, 2008, 03:32:02 AM
Other than not eating dog food and not barking, aren't there a few other problems to keeping sheep as house pets?  Did they just tell them that these poodles are too dumb to housebreak?  bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on April 26, 2008, 03:43:38 AM
Yes...they obviously did not think of the RAMifications.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on April 26, 2008, 04:03:08 AM
How to tell if your pet poodle is really a lamb

It has hooves instead of nails
It eats grass and houseplants instead of meat and dogfood
It bleats instead of barking
It's too mellow and stupid to housetrain instead of being too nervous and hyperactive
It has enough meat on it for more than one sandwich 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on April 26, 2008, 04:12:11 AM
Those tricked should severely LAMBast the people who sold them the "poodles". It's a bleating outrage (a pun and a homophone, dear me...)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: contemporarydog on April 26, 2008, 04:53:40 AM
What the hell is going on around this country? First 14 stupid lawyers sue CNN and Cafferty for 1400RMB in Beijing (cheap lawyers). Now their suing for $1.3 billion in New York.

I come from the most litigious state in America. This is ridiculous. I'm waiting for the counter-suits.

Also, if this is successful, can we start suing the Chinese for rude remarks toward us foreigners? I'd like to sue that jackass who called my wife a traitor for marrying a foreigner.

We could sue the China Daily for the amount of outright racism against westerners it allows on its boards, the only remotely comparable hate I have ever seen on a western website is on the likes of stormfront.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on April 27, 2008, 07:15:40 PM
Why first-borns have higher IQs

By Laura Mappas, April 21, 2008.

According to new research your older brother or sister really is smarter than you.

The new Dutch study shows that birth order affects intelligence, making the first-born the smartest, while a long list of other studies link personality, weight gain and even premature death to where you're positioned in the family lineage.

Here are some of the theories linked to birth order:

Intelligence
A number of studies have been conducted that suggest IQ scores decline according to birth order. Why this is the case still isn't clear, but a popular theory is that the extra one-on-one time, attention and patience parents give their first-borns, compared to children arriving later, gives them a intellectual head start.

Personality
A study from the University of California suggests first-borns are the achievers, more dominant, religious, conscientious and neurotic. They also earn more, are more responsible, anxious and organised, and they tend to stick to the rules.

Middle-borns on the other hand are rebellious, impulsive and open to new experiences. They perform more poorly academically and often procrastinate, but they are also the peacemakers.

And the lucky last-borns are the family favourite — they're often the joker, are warm, sociable, extrovert and creative. They are also the most likely to question authority.

Mortality
Later-borns are more likely to die prematurely. One possible explanation is that later-borns are also the bigger risk takers and that their adventurousness may at times put them in harm's way.

Eczema and asthma
Research shows that later-borns have a reduced risk of suffering from common childhood illnesses like eczema and asthma. One theory is that younger children are exposed to a wider range of infections by their older siblings and therefore have strengthened immune systems.

Sexual partners
Later-borns often have more sexual partners than first-borns. According to researchers, this finding suggests first-borns are more interested in finding a long-term mate, which is a reflection of the fact that they want to uphold the values of their parents, while the later-borns are more rebellious.

Weight
Later-borns are less likely to be overweight. It's not clear why this is, but one theory is that over-protection and over-feeding of the first-born may lead to obesity.


So now i know why i am super smart lol....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kcanuck on April 27, 2008, 07:36:37 PM
now I know why I'm neurotic and anal.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on April 27, 2008, 07:50:12 PM
Bugalugs, anything about half brothers or sisters in relation to this study? It appears that the children have to be raised in the same household.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on April 27, 2008, 08:10:36 PM
Haven't found anything about half siblings but i'll keep looking.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Monkey King on April 27, 2008, 09:14:07 PM
Open minded, procrastinating middle born peacemaker here...doesn't explain why my older sister is such a lazy **** though.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: contemporarydog on April 27, 2008, 09:25:42 PM
A lot of that definitely ties in with me and my younger brother.   aoaoaoaoao
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Noodles on April 28, 2008, 04:08:51 AM
I'm sorry, but i'm not having any of that. I don't believe a word of it, i'm definitely smarter than my older brother bbbbbbbbbb
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on April 28, 2008, 04:46:46 AM
So if I'm smarter (and I'm the one who did well in school), then why is it that I'm the rebellious one, the dreamer and seeker after distant truths? More to the point the one who makes less money? There's a lot more to it than just primogeniture. "Daddy loves me and that's what counts" (from The Lion in Winter)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on April 28, 2008, 04:50:48 AM
I'm the eldest of 6 aoaoaoaoao  So what does that do to the "statistics"??  And for that matter, Hubby is #4 out of 9 (but first son).  What's his profile, I wonder??
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on April 29, 2008, 02:21:24 AM
NZ scientists start to defrost big squid
By Xavier La Canna


For those of you who have trouble defrosting a steak in the microwave, spare a thought for New Zealand scientists tasked with thawing out a 500kg squid.

The massive colossal squid - the largest ever found - has been creating a headache for researchers trying to extract it from a giant block of ice.

The creature was frozen by fishermen who hauled it from Antarctica's icy waters in February last year.

Since then, the squid has defied attempts to defrost it intact, so scientists can properly examine and preserve it.

"We have never had a squid frozen in a block (of ice) before. Usually the squid we get come in bags and are frozen lengthwise," said a spokeswoman for Wellington's Te Papa Tongarewa Museum.

"They are very easy to defrost. You just put them onto an autopsy table and bang, there you go," she said.

"We are learning as we go with this one."

Scientists realised early on that just leaving the specimen in a room and allowing it to thaw would fail.

The squid's huge bulk would take days to defrost, leaving the outside to rot while the inside remained frozen.

An offer from an Australian academic to use a giant microwave to thaw it out was considered, but ultimately rejected, for fear of damaging the creature.

Scientists are confident a new thawing method, commenced on Monday, will be successful, and that they can start examining the creature on Wednesday.

The squid has been placed in a tank filled with salty water.

Because salt water freezes at a lower temperature than fresh water, it will allow the freshwater ice around the creature to melt, while the surrounding liquid is kept at or below 0 degrees Celsius.

Scientists hope Wednesday's planned examination will unlock many secrets, including the squid's gender.

Female squid are usually larger than males, so if the specimen turns out to be a male it could mean much larger colossal squid are yet to be found.

Little is known about the life cycle of the colossal squid, but they are known to have huge beaks and unique swivelling hooks, which can tear prey apart.

Colossal squid are shorter but can grow to a far greater mass than the better known giant squid, and are thought to be more ferocious.

People interested in watching the squid thawing out and being examined can view a live webcam broadcast at www.tepapa.govt.nz.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: becster79 on April 29, 2008, 03:07:23 AM
News of the day (or yesterday)...

The Chasers are FREEE!!!!!!!! ababababab

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/04/28/2228926.htm

Watch the video 'The Chasers' response by Osama Bin Laden- priceless!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: teleplayer on April 29, 2008, 11:29:32 AM
Given that the price of oil seems to be driving so many prices up not to mention this fuelish insanity to make biofuel that has forced so many poor to be poorer still since price of grain risen so high.... Wondering how many feeling pinch as value of dollar falls to Yuan. Are our Ozlanders and Canukastani's holding their own or are you experiencing the same.

China Daily posted this today. I do worry about the French woman in the article who shifted from her usual canned tuna to a Chinese brand. If we are concerned of mecury in our tuna then the alternative  aoaoaoaoao

Comfort food starting to come at heavy price

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-04/24/content_6639690.htm             
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kcanuck on April 29, 2008, 11:35:05 AM
A lot of tinned seafood sold in Canada originates from Asian waters, shrimp too.  I recently read an article in an Ottawa paper about mom and pop grocery stores having a tough go because the cost of flour and bread has gone up so much many of their customers have cut back on staples and it's impacting their businesses.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on April 29, 2008, 03:12:36 PM
Aussies have had their money rise against the greenback, and against the yuan - so I don't mind buying some more big toys here (lens for my camera).
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: teleplayer on April 29, 2008, 03:59:05 PM
Aussies have had their money rise against the greenback, and against the yuan - so I don't mind buying some more big toys here (lens for my camera).

LE, Enjoy it while you can. I'm sure there are those who will have an adavantage and those who don't. The next year, at least for USANIA, promises to be an interesting ride.
For me, I want to get someone to buy my car so I can end debt and if not go to the Big Silly for a year, at least have a long visit of a month +.
2009 will be my time to hopefully meet some of you.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on April 29, 2008, 07:54:07 PM
Incredible footage has emerged of a man who was talked out of jumping off a bridge by emergency workers, only to slip and then fall into the windscreen of a fire truck as the vehicle moved into position to bring him down to safety.

The drama began when 'Bruce' walked onto a railway overpass in the NSW regional centre of Dubbo late last week.

He was seen carrying a bladder out of a cask of wine and appeared intoxicated.

Concerned family members called police and when they arrived Bruce threatened to jump off the 10m-high bridge.

A senior officer then negotiated with him over a loudspeaker but Bruce clambered over the bridge railing and became stuck in the steelwork support braces beneath the rail line.

It appeared the negotiators had successfully talked him out of jumping and encouraged Bruce to "hang in there, big fella" as a fire truck moved into position under the bridge with a view to lowering him onto the roof of the vehicle.

But with freakish timing, Bruce lost his grip just as the vehicle approached and slammed into the flat windscreen of the moving truck mid-fall.

Onlookers screamed as his limp body bounced and rolled to a stop on the dusty ground — but it turns out the bizarre event was a blessing in disguise.

Bruce was taken to Dubbo Base Hospital in a satisfactory condition and was found to have no broken bones or serious injuries, leaving emergency workers to conclude that the impact with the perspex screen of the truck may have saved his life.

Investigations are continuing.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on April 30, 2008, 01:10:34 PM
 aoaoaoaoao  "VEGEMITE is now a banned substance at the Beijing Olympics, following China's decision to stop the Australian team taking its own food to the Games.

In another example of the iron-clad control Beijing is trying to exert on foreigners, Games organisers have told Australia it must obtain all food from within China.

It is understood the Chinese have introduced the ban to maximise revenue for local food producers."

Bloody sabotage!!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on April 30, 2008, 01:17:00 PM
So this means the US team will also be banned from bringing anything with them?

Although I can understand them wanting to ban vegemite - that food is more potent and strength giving than steroids!  Merely fear of competition on then part of the Chinese.  But the effects of vegemite (ask Babe) are long lasting - and so the power will remain.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: contemporarydog on April 30, 2008, 03:06:59 PM
aoaoaoaoao  "VEGEMITE is now a banned substance at the Beijing Olympics, following China's decision to stop the Australian team taking its own food to the Games.

In another example of the iron-clad control Beijing is trying to exert on foreigners, Games organisers have told Australia it must obtain all food from within China.

It is understood the Chinese have introduced the ban to maximise revenue for local food producers."

Bloody sabotage!!

It's lucky for the British that there are specialist shops in BJ/SH selling marmite, then eh  agagagagag agagagagag agagagagag agagagagag agagagagag agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on April 30, 2008, 08:07:55 PM
So why isn't Marmite banned?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Noodles on April 30, 2008, 09:23:57 PM
They wouldn't dare bcbcbcbcbc bcbcbcbcbc
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on May 01, 2008, 12:05:30 AM
No use banning something that no one eats anyway :P
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on May 01, 2008, 03:14:57 AM
And it doesn't have the restorative powers of vegemite.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: contemporarydog on May 01, 2008, 03:24:12 AM
So why isn't Marmite banned?

Vegemite isn't banned.  It merely isn't (easily) obtainable in China.  On the other hand, I do know that a couple of places sell the real deal in Shangers and Beijing.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on May 02, 2008, 01:25:55 AM
This one is not a good one.

North Korea Heading towards famine.

http://www.planetark.com/avantgo/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=48189 (http://www.planetark.com/avantgo/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=48189)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Acjade on May 02, 2008, 01:36:10 AM
Ban Vegemite? OH yeah it's full of steroids. Or that's what the advertisers almost tell us, So why not?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on May 02, 2008, 02:46:15 AM
North Korea Heading towards famine.

This past month there have been food riots in Egypt, Haiti (where they also toppled the Government) and areas across Africa.  Big US names (Costco and Sam's) are limiting the purchase of rice and flour. 

A goodly portion of the blame for this is the rising oil prices, but one of the other problems is the increased use of ethanol (grain fuel).  The equation goes something along these lines....More Ethanol = Less Food (for people and/or animals).
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kcanuck on May 02, 2008, 03:31:08 AM
They're predicting dire consequences in Mexico since they are a corn consuming nation and since a large portion of edible crop will likely be sold for ethanol.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on May 02, 2008, 12:37:28 PM
A goodly portion of the blame for this is the rising oil prices, but one of the other problems is the increased use of ethanol (grain fuel).  The equation goes something along these lines....More Ethanol = Less Food (for people and/or animals).

Even better.  Ethanol usage is driving corn prices are up, so a lot of US acreage is being converted from soybean production to corn.  This raised the price of soybeans.  In Brazil, areas used for cattle grazing were converted to soybean production.  This is causing cattle ranchers to start doing the slash and burn routine on more rainforest.

So what we have is a "green biofuel" leading to tropical rainforest destruction. asasasasas
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on May 05, 2008, 10:25:48 PM
Frankly, old bean, Australia should go to the mat on this one.  Can your athletes control their own diet or not?  Chinese food merchants can survive without a few hundred extra mouths.  Outrageous.


Sadly, Lotus, this could very well go unnoticed as "yet another North Korean crisis".  I hope I'm wrong.

The world's food supply problem continues to grow.  I'd have never thought it would go this far;  I wonder how much nastier it'll get.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on May 07, 2008, 01:21:08 PM
The world's food supply problem continues to grow.  I'd have never thought it would go this far;  I wonder how much nastier it'll get.

I hear that shares of th Soylent Corporation are up 20% in the last month.  Also, Donner's Catering says they are getting booked for a lot of parties.
 axaxaxaxax
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on May 09, 2008, 01:57:00 AM
Quote
BOISE -- A ValleyRide bus driver has been placed on administrative leave after a 14-year-old boy accused the driver of calling him a racial slur before kicking him off his bus last Friday.

"Hey, kid. Yer a racial slur! Get offa my bus!" ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Fugu on May 09, 2008, 11:30:06 PM
Kiwi does it again...

From the Sydney Moring Herald:

Desperate robber hides $2000 in his bottom
May 9, 2008 - 4:41PM

When it came to stashing his stolen cash, bank robber Michael Linn chose a very dark and unusual place... up his bottom.

But the rustling sounds coming from down below that gave him away when police quizzed him, a court heard.

The 36-year-old jobless New Zealander admitted robbing the BNZ Cromwell branch bank in Central Otago of around $2000 on April 3.

Police prosecutor Sergeant Tom Scoullar told Alexandra District Court said Linn had pressed the buzzer to get into the bank and pulled a green hand-knitted balaclava over his face.

After a staff member filled a bag with money, Linn had apologised, saying: "I'm sorry miss, I didn't mean to frighten you but I'm very, very desperate."

Linn drove to the lakefront, removed his clothes and set them alight using petrol and paper from his car, Mr Scoullar said.

Witnesses who saw the fire called firefighters. Construction workers nearby got there first and, using shovels, rescued the clothing and papers, some of which had Linn's name and address on them.

When he was taken to the Queenstown police station, he said he had given the money to an associate.

Police noticed some rustling sounds from Linn's bottom area and on closer inspection a roll of cash was found protruding from Linn's anus, the full amount of cash taken in the robbery.

The money will be destroyed.

Linn was remanded in custody until June 5 for sentence.

The Southland Times


This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/05/09/1210131248617.html
 


 "The money will be destroyed." afafafafaf afafafafaf

 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on May 10, 2008, 01:04:55 AM
Desperate robber hides $2000 in his bottom
May 9, 2008 - 4:41PM

When it came to stashing his stolen cash, bank robber Michael Linn chose a very dark and unusual place... up his bottom.

The money will be destroyed.


Well!!! aoaoaoaoao I should hope so!! aoaoaoaoao
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on May 10, 2008, 10:11:10 AM
That was a crappy place to try to hide money.   cccccccccc
 bpbpbpbpbp
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on May 10, 2008, 07:19:08 PM
What you never saw Papillion?  Besides ain't that where you get your lesson plans?  ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on May 10, 2008, 11:05:21 PM
14000 RMB up the piyan?  kkkkkkkkkk
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on May 12, 2008, 11:23:03 PM
On a more serious, sadder note.....Pig-headed stupidity and cruelty are not limited to any one nation.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/05/12/asia/AS-GEN-Myanmar-US-Military.php

It's been over a week since Myanmar (Burma) suffered from a direct cyclone strike, killing several thousands in the coastal regions, and leaving many more without homes or clean water or food.  Estimates are that the death toll will reach around 100,000.  Some even put the possible toll at 216,000.

What does their government do?  It forbids foreigners from coming in to aid the survivors. Then it goes ahead and holds a referendum on a point in their constitution. aoaoaoaoao llllllllll llllllllll
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on May 12, 2008, 11:54:14 PM
Yes, well, that's what military junta's do. They're not out to take care of their people. They don't care a jot for the victims of a natural disaster. They do not much care for a bunch of volounteer foreigners coming to the rescue.
And what can this glorious world do about it? This wonderful world where you can find organizations with such ostentatious names as the United Nations? Nothing. Bugger all. Oh yes, I forgot, they can threaten with sanctions...that'll have those tyrants in uniforms quivering in their boots...NOT!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on May 13, 2008, 10:40:56 PM
The Goodyear Blimp was floating in the skies above Jinan today. mmmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmmm
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Shroomy on May 13, 2008, 11:33:54 PM
Actually, that would be one of the Goodyear Blimps.  There is a fleet.  They fly up and down the coast of California where I live and often overnight at the airport about a half-mile from my house.  They're really noisy, which I never expected.  Why would a blimp be in Jinan?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: adamsmith on May 14, 2008, 12:57:01 AM
The ole blimp was here in Wuhan 2 weeks ago - perfect timing for me as I was giving my marketing class a lecture on promotions as he took off over my campus - great example
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on May 14, 2008, 07:23:21 PM
 5 university staff linked to bribes
(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-05-14 07:11

Five people in charge of university admissions in Hunan province are allegedly involved in a corruption case, only weeks ahead of the national college entrance examination, the Oriental Outlook weekly said Tuesday.

Ma Lihuang, a section chief who oversees student recruitment and employment at Xiangnan University, was recently "taken away" by members of the procuratorate in Changsha, a likely sign of an impending prosecution.

He is accused of having abused his power in selling university places for personal gain, the weekly, which is affiliated to the Xinhua News Agency, said.

Zhou Xianghui, a section chief of Hengyang Normal University and three section chiefs of three other universities in the same province are also accused of the same offense.

The three and their universities were not named.

Ma has been described as a "star worker" for his "outstanding contributions" to the university, Wang Xiaocheng, deputy head of the Xiangnan University, was quoted as saying.

"He (Ma) has the admission power and therefore holds the purse strings. He wields much power," Wang said.

Ma is alleged to have sold places to unqualified students, those who know they will score lower than other students in the entrance examination.

A student who declined to be named, was quoted as saying that after two consecutive failed attempts to qualify for a university place, he managed to gain a place at Xiangnan University after his family gave Ma an unspecified sum of money.

The Oriental Outlook report said the exposure of Ma and Zhou might be just the "tip of the iceberg". It mentioned another alleged corruption case involving more than 20 people connected with education in the province.

Guo Jianguo, an official with the Hunan provincial education department, said policy loop-holes must be addressed to weed out the corrupt.

"The practice to allow universities to enroll students with comparatively lower qualifications must be stopped," Guo said.

The college entrance examination will be held from June 6-8. In Hunan, about 600,000 students will sit for it, a record high.

Last year, 520,000 students took the examination. The enrollment rate is forecast to be about 60 percent.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: old34 on May 14, 2008, 11:41:16 PM
Why would a blimp be in Jinan?

I think it's a tire promotion. It came to my town last year. If you bought a set of premium Goodyear tires, you were entered in a raffle and raffle winners were given blimp rides around the city and lake. They sold a lot of tires to the black Audi set that week.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on May 15, 2008, 01:55:05 PM
Nice to see they know what's important in life. agagagagag

****

Australian fined for buckling in beer, not child

Associated Press Tue May 13, 2:57 PM ET

DARWIN, Australia - An Australian man has been fined after buckling in a case of beer with a seat belt but leaving a 5-year-old child to sit on the car's floor, police said Tuesday.

Constable Wayne Burnett said he was "shocked and appalled" when he pulled over the unregistered car Friday in the central Australian town of Alice Springs.

The 30-can beer case was strapped in between two adults sitting in the back seat of the car. The child was also in back, but on the car's floor.

"The child was sitting in the lump in the center, unrestrained," Burnett told reporters Tuesday.

"I haven't ever seen something like this before," he said. "This is the first time that the beer has taken priority over a child."

The driver was fined 750 Australian dollars — about $710 — for driving an unregistered and uninsured vehicle and for failing to ensure a child was wearing a safety belt.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on May 15, 2008, 01:58:10 PM

 acacacacac   Wow man, groovy flowers.   zzzzzzzzzz

****

 Japanese city finds opium poppies grown for festival

AFP Wed May 14, 1:47 AM ET

TOKYO (AFP) - A Japanese city has been forced to destroy thousands of flowers grown for a local festival after a police officer noticed they were illegal opium poppies, an official said Wednesday.

About 100 officials were mobilised in Shimotsuma City north of Tokyo to pluck and burn the one-hectare (2.47-acre) field of lilac-coloured papaver setigerum poppies, according to the city official.

The flowers were grown by volunteers using seeds imported from abroad, she said, adding that the city was checking how the seeds had got into the country.

"A small number of them had been spotted since a few years ago but nobody ever realised they are a banned type. We are so surprised," she said.

The Shimotsuma flower festival draws 2,000-3,000 visitors every year, according to the city.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on May 15, 2008, 02:00:24 PM
I think they've finally solved the energy crises and saved us all.  afafafafaf

****

Solar bra brings conservation closer to the heart

Reuters Wed May 14, 10:31 AM ET

TOKYO (Reuters) - Ladies, take your battle for the environment a little closer to your heart with a solar-powered bra that can generate enough electric energy to charge a mobile phone or an iPod.

Lingerie maker Triumph International Japan Ltd unveiled its environmentally friendly, and green colored, "Solar Power Bra" on Wednesday in Tokyo which features a solar panel worn around the stomach.

The panel requires light to generate electricity and the concept bra will not be in stores anytime soon, said Triumph spokeswoman Yoshiko Masuda, as "people usually can not go outside without wearing clothes over it."

But it does send the message of how lingerie could possibly save the planet, Masuda said, adding that the bra should not be washed or sunned on a rainy day to avoid damaging it.

Being eco-friendly is now fashionable in Japan, and the "Solar Energy Bra" follows the company's other green-themed undergarments that include a bra that turns into a reusable shopping bag and one that featured metal chopsticks to promote the use of reusable chopsticks.

"It is very comfortable and I can really feel involved in eco-friendly efforts as well," model Yuko Ishida said.

(Reporting by Takanori Isshiki; Writing by Yoko Kubota; editing by Miral Fahmy)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: adamsmith on May 15, 2008, 06:40:02 PM
The itialians had created a solar powered jacket for those same reasons, but I kind of like the bra idea better. It could have some interesting conontations for some of these young ladies working in the offices. they could use them to recharge many different types of batteries.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on May 15, 2008, 10:05:33 PM
Takes the interest out of those nippy, winter mornings!!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on May 17, 2008, 01:55:08 AM
But in the process, won't the ladies get a.... TAN?  aoaoaoaoao
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on May 17, 2008, 02:31:12 PM
Giant Pythons Invade Florida
AFP 
 

 May 16, 2008 -- Giant pythons capable of swallowing a dog and even an alligator are rapidly making south Florida their home, potentially threatening other southeastern states, a study said.

"Pythons are likely to colonize anywhere alligators live, including north Florida, Georgia and Louisiana," said Frank Mazzotti, University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences professor, in his two-year study.

The pythons thriving in Florida are mostly Burmese pythons from Myanmar that were brought over as pets and then turned loose in the wild.

From 2002-2005, 201 of the beasts were caught by state authorities, but in the last two years the number has more than doubled to 418, Mazzotti said in his study published on the university Web site.

The largest python caught so far in Florida measured 16.4 feet and weighed 154 pounds.

Mazzotti said the serpents, despite their awesome size, are not poisonous, but are excellent swimmers and able to cover great distances in little time. Some, trapped and released with radio transmitters, swam 37 miles in a few hours.

Highly adaptable, pythons prey on cats, dogs, hares, foxes, squirrels, raccoons and even alligators, allowing them to thrive in a variety of environments.

After populating the Florida Everglades -- a vast marshland -- where it is estimated they number 30,000, the giant python is now spreading across the rest of the peninsula.

"Females may store sperm, so they can produce fertile clutches for years. And a 100-something pound snake can easily be producing 60, 80 eggs a year," said Mazzotti, adding that the reptile could eventually populate the entire southern United States.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on May 17, 2008, 03:41:39 PM
Double amputee Pistorius wins Olympic appeal

South African Paralympic champion Oscar Pistorius has won an appeal at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) that has given him an Olympic Games lifeline.

The disabled 21-year-old sprinter runs on specially adapted carbon fibre blades after having his legs amputated below the knee.

The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) had banned the 400 metres runner from all competitions involving able-bodied athletes because of claims that the artificial legs he uses give him an unfair advantage.

However, CAS ruled against the IAAF decision.

"As you can imagine I have been struggling to hide my smile for the past half an hour," Pistorius told a news conference.

"Now I can definitely say the truth has come out. I have the opportunity once again to chase my dream of the Olympics if not 2008, in 2012."

After CAS's ruling, Pistorius' participation in the able-bodied events in Beijing will depend on him achieving the minimum Olympic qualifying time of 45.95 seconds, or 45.55 if another South African runs less than 45.95.

Pistorius' personal record is 46.46.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on May 18, 2008, 02:24:34 PM
At last, we can solve the giant alligator problem with giant snakes.  bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on May 18, 2008, 02:46:11 PM
And now we have geckos in chicken eggs.

Gecko in egg 'must have crawled up cloaca'



The Egg Corporation says this gecko must have entered the chicken's cloaca. (ABC News: Jack Kerr)

The Australian Egg Corporation has expressed surprise at the discovery of a gecko inside a chicken egg.

Darwin doctor Peter Beaumont was cooking dinner when he cracked open the egg and found the dead gecko inside the shell.

Health authorities say the discovery is nothing to be alarmed about and it is being examined at a laboratory.

The research and development program manager with the Egg Corporation, David Witcombe, says he has never heard of such a case before.

"Certainly the gecko wouldn't have been ingested by the bird. It would be physically impossible for it to make its way from the digestive tract into the area where the egg's formed.

"So it's a case of the gecko actually making its way through the cloaca of the bird and onto the developing egg."

Tags: offbeat, science-and-technology, animals
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on May 18, 2008, 05:00:12 PM
Baggy green replaced by VB blue
By WWOS Staff
12:00 AEST Sun May 18 2008

Cricket Australia has been accused of selling out on the famous baggy green after Australian players wore a sponsors cap in a tour match against Jamaica.

Former Australian player Greg Matthews has told News Limited publications that he would never have abandoned the traditional baggy green cap in favour of a sponosors cap.

"Money talks," Matthews said. "You're selling your pride, selling the baggy green. It just cheapens things.

"If someone said to me I had to wear a VB hat, I'd tell them to piss off," he continued emotionally.

Cricket Australia's public affairs manager, Philip Pope, said that the decision was made for the sake of uniformity, with commercial considerations not coming into it.

Players receive a baggy green cap when making their Test debut, so not all tourists have one. Brad Haddin was the only player in the side facing Jamaica who hasn't made his Test debut.

Greg Matthews replied that every player on tour should be entitled to wear the traditional headwear.

"They're making someone feel not as important because, what, they haven't played Test cricket?" he said.

"They're saying you're not an equal to the bloke you're sharing a dressing room with, an aeroplane with, that you're going out to bat with, that you're walking on the field with."

Former Australian Test captain Kim Hughes said he couldn't recall a precedent.

"The only alternative was the floppy wide-brimmed hat, always with our coat of arms on it," he said.

Keith Stackpole said he was disappointed.

"There are certain things that should be sacred," he said. "You are representing Australia, not VB."
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on May 18, 2008, 05:22:10 PM
Totally disgusting!! ....although I played for Australia wearing the VB Tee-shirts provided for the team! afafafafaf
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on May 18, 2008, 06:18:45 PM


The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) had banned the 400 metres runner from all competitions involving able-bodied athletes because of claims that the artificial legs he uses give him an unfair advantage.


Well, does it?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on May 19, 2008, 02:33:50 AM
Obviously the IAAF thinks it does, although it seems they were rather narrow-minded in their examination of the evidence. The CAS oveturned the ban, so they weren't persuaded by the arguments the IAAF made. I'm not an engineer, but if I had to guess, I'd say that if artificial legs give Pistorius an unfair advantage, we should make all runners go barefoot. And swimmers swim naked.  afafafafaf
Raoul, I didn't know you were such a fan of Greco-Roman wrestling.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on May 19, 2008, 04:49:13 AM
His best times aren't qualifiers yet - so he has to actually reach the standard first.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on May 23, 2008, 07:12:16 PM
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23742593-28737,00.html (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23742593-28737,00.html)

VERY interesting article - but too long to copy.  Looks at public response to the earthquake, but also gives an interesting view of NGO's here and a touch of very interesting T't information.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on May 28, 2008, 10:57:13 PM
According to CNN, Sharon Stone, whom we all know is famous for her highly intellectual movies, stated in Cannes that this recent earthquake in China was the result of bad karma, primarily gotten by China's stance on The Roof of the World.
Yeppers, Mrs. Stone, bad karma, that was it. Indeed. What an intelligent and astute observation.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on May 28, 2008, 11:09:34 PM
My brother made a similar comment a couple of weeks ago.  llllllllll I slapped him down right quick.  cbcbcbcbcb cbcbcbcbcb Told him it was the minority people not the han that got the brunt of the losses.  My bro, like some others can be so bigoted.  bibibibibi However, if two people said it, others probably did too.  Not good!!! asasasasas llllllllll llllllllll
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on May 28, 2008, 11:17:55 PM
I've got Google Alerts working for me. 

They are reporting that China will relax their One Child policy for Sichuan Province, and will not put any limits on the number of orphans who can be adopted by families. bfbfbfbfbf

There are also therapists heading inland to help the survivors through PTS (Post Traumatic Stress) Disorder. bfbfbfbfbf
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on May 29, 2008, 02:12:38 AM
What's worse re the Stone comment is that the students are reporting it to me that she said that all the Chinese should have been killed in it!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on May 29, 2008, 02:37:17 AM
Chinese whispers...gotta love them. I wonder if Mrs. Stone considered New Orleans, Myanmar and other places when she made that comment?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on May 29, 2008, 04:39:03 AM
...??...AIDS and gays...??...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on May 29, 2008, 04:46:56 AM
As I recall, religious zealots and even some politicians did call AIDS God's way of punishing homosexuals...which leads to the question of what everyone else did wrong to have to endure Elton John?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on May 29, 2008, 03:41:16 PM
(activating fake Jamaican accent) Hey mon, forget about that stupid woman named Stone and get really stoned, compliments of those really nice people in Japan.   zzzzzzzzzz


Tue May 27, 11:07 AM ET

TOKYO (Reuters) - One of the travelers who arrived at Tokyo's Narita airport over the weekend may have picked up an unusual souvenir from customs -- a package of cannabis.

A customs official hid the package in a suitcase belonging to a passenger arriving from Hong Kong as a training exercise for sniffer dogs Sunday, but lost track of both drugs and suitcase during the practice session, a spokeswoman for Tokyo customs said.

Customs regulations specify that a training suitcase be used for such exercises, but the official said he had used passengers' suitcases for similar purposes in the past, domestic media reported.

"The dogs have always been able to find it before," NHK quoted him as saying. "I became overconfident that it would work."

Anyone who finds the package should contact Tokyo customs as soon as possible, the spokeswoman said.

(Reporting by Isabel Reynolds; editing by Sophie Hardach)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on May 29, 2008, 09:24:44 PM
Right, and who is going to call the Customs official and hand over free weed?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on May 30, 2008, 12:17:44 PM
I'm jealous that someone came up with this idea before I did.   bibibibibi


HK, China customs crack high-wire smuggling act: report

AFP  Thu May 29, 3:35 AM ET

HONG KONG (AFP) - Hong Kong and Chinese customs have cracked an audacious smuggling operation that saw millions of dollars in goods ferried across the border along a long cable, officials and reports said Thursday.

Sixteen people -- four from Hong Kong and 12 from China -- were arrested and electronic goods, including computer accessories and mobile phones, worth more than six million Hong Kong dollars (0.8 million US) were seized.

"The ring was suspected of smuggling high-value electronic goods and computer accessories across the Sha Tau Kok river to the mainland," Hong Kong's customs department said in a statement.

A 300-metre-long cable was suspended between a house in rural Hong Kong and a high-rise building in the Chinese city of Shenzhen, allowing smugglers to move goods into the mainland using an elaborate pulley system, the South China Morning Post reported.

"There were many ways of smuggling in the past, such as by underground drains," the report quoted Leo Sin, head of Hong Kong's customs intelligence co-ordination group, as saying.

"But this is the first time we have found wire being used for smuggling."

The cable was shot across the border using a crossbow and the goods were ferried across at night in black plastic bags, the report said.

The syndicate had been operating for two or three weeks, the report added.

Hong Kong and mainland China run independent legal and taxation systems, and smugglers often try to take advantage of different prices and tax rates to smuggle goods either in or out of China.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: contemporarydog on May 30, 2008, 12:57:50 PM
Quality!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: contemporarydog on May 30, 2008, 03:49:33 PM
I know we have to take the UK's Daily Wail with a pinch of salt, but this (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1022915/Middle-classes-losing-faith-rude-police-soft-targets-instead-real-criminals.html) article is quite alarming.

Basically a lot people in the uK are getting sick of the way that the police are always harrassing people over relatively minor 'crimes' while real scumbags/knifers/rapists/etc get off more or less scot free.

Quote
Middle classes losing faith in 'rude' police who go for soft targets instead of the real criminals

The middle classes have lost confidence in the police, a stark report has warned.

They fear they have been alienated by a service which routinely targets ordinary people rather than serious criminals, simply to fill Government crime quotas.

The attitude of some officers has also led to spiralling complaints about neglect of duty and rudeness.

Enlarge    The report warns that the middle classes have been alienated by a service which targets ordinary people rather than serious criminals

The report from the Civitas think-tank says incidents which would once have been ignored are now treated as crimes  -  including a case of children chalking a pavement.

Its author, respected journalist Harriet Sergeant, says she was also told of a student being arrested, held for five hours and cautioned for keeping a London Underground lift door open with his foot.

The report warns that a generation of young people - the police's favourite soft targets - are being criminalised, putting their future prospects at risk.

Journalist Harriet Sergeant is the report's author and she says that a generation of young people are the police's favourite targets
Some offences being prosecuted are now so minor that senior officers have even begun talks with the U.S. authorities to prevent such a 'criminal record' stopping decent citizens obtaining a visa to cross the Atlantic.

Meanwhile responses to crimes such as burglary are slow and statements given by victims of serious crime are often left lying idle for months, the report warns.

An apparent emphasis on motoring crimes is another negative factor.

Miss Sergeant warns: 'The loss of public confidence is a serious matter.

The police cannot police without the backing of society. Without trust and consensus it is very difficult and costly to maintain law and order.'

Her report says: 'Complaints against the police have risen, with much of the increase coming from law-abiding, middle-class, middle-aged and retired people who no longer feel the police are on their side.'

In 2006-7, there were 29,637 complaints - the most since records began 17 years ago.

Miss Sergeant said this was due in part to the law-abiding middle-classes becoming upset by the 'rudeness and behaviour' of officers.

The report details how officers are expected to reach a certain number of 'sanction detections' a month by charging, cautioning or fining an 'offender'.

\Arresting or fining someone for a trifling offence - such as a child stealing a Mars bar - is a good way of hitting the target and pleasing the Home Office.

Amazingly, the chocolate theft ranks as highly as catching a killer.

Miss Sergeant says performance-related bonuses of between £10,000 and £15,000 a year for police commanders depend partly on reaching such targets.

This leads them to put pressure on frontline officers to make arrests for the most minor misdemeanours.

Officers said at the end of a month, when there was pressure to hit the target for that period, they would pursue young men as the most likely 'offenders'.

'Crimes' investigated by police have been criticised by the middle classes

Offences could include scrawling a name on a bus stop in felt-tip or playing ball games in the street.
One officer was so concerned he told his teenage son to be careful at the end of each month.

The pamphlet, parts of which were serialised by the Daily Mail earlier this year, says the police themselves are angry at the way they have to 'make fools of themselves'.

There were high levels of 'bitterness and frustration' and the targets were 'bitterly resented'.

One officer told how he was pressed to charge children playing with a tree with 'harassment'.
The same offence was used against a drunken student dancing in flowerbeds, who aimed a kick at a flower.

While some of the examples may be antisocial behaviour, it's ridiculous that there are people being knifed in London and the police seem powerless to do anything about it.

Then there was an even more ridiculous case of a woman who had a paddling pool in her garden and got told it was illegal to have it unless she hired a lifeguard.  I kid you not.

And we call China the Big Silly...

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on June 02, 2008, 11:38:10 AM
Just in time to help the London police quota for the end of May...

Transport chaos as Londoners party on Tube before alcohol ban

Sat May 31, 7:09 PM ET

LONDON (AFP) - The London transport system was heavily disrupted late Saturday as thousands of revellers held an unauthorised "drinks party" on underground trains before an alcohol ban went into effect.

The key Circle Line which serves some of the capital's most exclusive districts was shut down as thousands of people gathered for a booze-up on Tube trains after being rallied by social networking websites.

"There are problems on the Circle Line and it has been stopped," a London Transport Police spokesman said.

David Mudkips, a 25-year-old computer programmer, described the experience on one of the trains packed with revellers as: "Like rush hour but fun. There were people's sweaty armpits in my face but I didn't care because I was drinking."

Police made at least six arrests as the behaviour of the crowds became increasingly boisterous.

Thousands of people had signed up for the party on Facebook sites with names like "The Booze Tube" and "One Final Tube Booze Party".

From Sunday, anyone caught drinking from, or even carrying, open containers of alcohol will be ejected from trains and buses.

Newly elected London Mayor Boris Johnson introduced the alcohol ban in one of his first acts in office.

Johnson said: "I firmly believe that banning the drinking of alcohol on London's public transport will create a better travelling environment for all Londoners and that if we drive out anti-social behaviour and so called minor crime then we will be able to get a firm grip on more serious crime."

The ban has been criticised by the railworkers' union RMT as another burden on its overworked members.

The union's general secretary Bob Crow warned it could put staff in greater danger of assault.

"Violence against Tube staff is already a major problem, particularly from people who have been drinking, but now our members will be expected to approach people drinking and stop them or even remove them from the train or station," he said.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on June 03, 2008, 01:26:35 AM
Oh oh Eric, watch out!

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - An apparent car bomb exploded outside the Danish embassy in Pakistan's capital on Monday, killing at least five people and wounding dozens more, officials and witnesses said.

The blast echoed through Islamabad and left a crater more than three feet deep in the road in front of the embassy. Shattered glass, fallen masonry and dozens of wrecked vehicles littered the area. A plume of smoke rose above the scene as people, some bloodied, ran back and forth in a state of panic.

The explosion appeared to be a car bomb, police officer Muhammad Ashraf said. Someone parked a car in front of the embassy and it exploded at around 1 p.m, he said.

Officials at two hospitals reported at least five people — including two policemen — were killed and 32 wounded in the blast.

Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller said the explosion killed a male Pakistani custodian at the embassy and seriously injured a handyman. Two office workers were also injured, Moeller said.

He condemned the attack as "totally unacceptable."

"It is terrible that terrorists do this. The embassy is there to have a cooperation between the Pakistani population and Denmark, and that means they are destroying that," Moeller told Denmark's TV2 News channel.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri recently called for attacks on Danish targets in response to the publication of caricatures in Danish newspapers depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

Denmark has faced threats at its embassies following the reprinting in Danish newspapers of a caricature depicting the Prophet Muhammad. Muslims generally consider depicting the prophet to be sacrilegious and Islamic militants had warned of reprisals.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on June 03, 2008, 01:35:08 AM
Yeah, yeah, my boss is all jittery about it. I had to finish a most delightful conversation with Bugalugs to go deal with the issue.
I really could not care less. So they blew up a bomb near the Danish embassy. Big whoop. That's what we get for being so deliriously stupid to publish satirical drawings of Muhammed, twice! If you come across a rattlesnake, the prudent person does not prod it with a stick, because it would be stupid, same thing goes for pissing of that little group of fanatic zealots called Islamists.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on June 04, 2008, 11:58:25 PM
Exit interview
China and the West
A Chinese ambassador's unique Canadian experience
Last Updated: Monday, June 2, 2008 by Ira Basen CBC News

It was the summer of 1973 and the slumbering Chinese giant was slowly awakening. At home, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was in its seventh year. Many of its murderous excesses were still to come. Internationally, China was beginning to open its doors to the world.

In this, Canada was leading the way. It officially recognized the People's Republic in the fall of 1970. Fifteen months later, U.S. President Richard Nixon made his surprise visit, unexpectedly toasting Chinese leaders in Beijing's Great Hall of the People.

Then, on May 1, 1973, nine Chinese students arrived at Ottawa's Uplands airport and made history. They were the first students from Communist China to ever study at a North American university.

Ira Basen, centre, with two of China's first foreign exchange students in Ottawa in 1973: Zhang Yuan-Yuan (left) and Yuan Hsiao-Ying. In an exchange agreement, nine Chinese students would study in Canada and a group of Canadian students would be given the extraordinary opportunity to attend university in China.

Carleton University was the chosen destination for the Chinese students, possibly so they could not stray too far from the watchful eye of the embassy in Ottawa.

I was an undergraduate student at Carleton in 1973, looking for a summer job, and while I knew almost nothing about China, I was fortunate enough to be hired by the university to help these exchange students get acclimatized to Canadian life and prepare for the academic year to come.

It was an experience that changed all our lives.

Stereotypes undone
Like most Canadians, the only image I had of Chinese students then was of the millions of fanatic young people roaming the countryside holding high their little red books containing the collected wisdom of Chairman Mao and railing against "capitalist roaders."

But these students, five men, four women, all in their early 20s, were nothing like the stereotypes, except perhaps for their clothes. Their baggy, blue cotton "Mao jackets" or more formal suits and ties caused them to stand out wherever they went in Ottawa that summer.

Clearly, their selection was not random. They were all bright, reasonably proficient in English and had participated in the Cultural Revolution, spending time working in the countryside with "the people." But they were also modest, unfailingly polite, eager to learn and, while supportive of their government, relatively apolitical and candid about the failings of their own economy.

We spent the summer attending lectures on history, literature, art, economics and philosophy, and discussing ideas they had never been exposed to. We went to movies, art galleries, museums and concerts and learned the intricacies of eating Western food with a fork in a university cafeteria.

Their lack of knowledge about the West was occasionally staggering. In the summer of 1973 they were still unaware that a man had walked on the moon four years earlier.

Several months later, I went off to graduate school and lost track of these students, though I often wondered what became of them. That question was answered a couple of years ago when I saw that one of them, Lu Shumin, was back in Ottawa. This time, though, he was the Chinese ambassador to Canada.

Ambassador Lu
It turns out Lu had returned to Ottawa once before, in the late 1970s, to work as a translator at the Chinese embassy. He then began his climb up the diplomatic ladder, with postings in Australia and Washington, before becoming the ambassador to Indonesia in 2002.

Lu Shumin, the ambassador to Canada from the People's Republic of China in a November 2006 photo. (Jonathan Hayward/Canadian Press)
Three years later, he was back in Ottawa, this time to oversee the embassy that had overseen him 30 years earlier. It should have been a relatively easy posting, a chance to reconnect with old friends and oversee a now burgeoning trade relationship between the two countries. But it didn't quite work out that way.

When Stephen Harper became prime minister in February 2006, he ended years of quiet, behind-the-scenes diplomacy with China by openly declaring that he would not sell out those fighting for human rights "to the almighty dollar."

Harper's government publicly clashed with the Chinese over T, Taiwan and imprisoned dissident Huseyin Celil as well as the persecution of the religious sect Falun Gong. The prime minister even declared in Parliament that there were a thousand Chinese government agents in Canada involved in industrial espionage, a charge angrily denied by the embassy.

Exit interview
Two months ago, relations hit a new low as many Canadians were outraged by the scenes of Chinese troops cracking down on supporters of the Dalai Lama on the streets of T.

The Harper government condemned the Chinese administration. At the Chinese embassy in Ottawa, ambassador Lu responded with a public relations offensive of his own that was extraordinary for a Chinese diplomat: He made himself available for interviews to the Canadian media and even invited reporters to the embassy for a news conference where he railed against the "Dalai clique" and the Tan "splitists," whom he compared to the Nazis.

He came across as an articulate but not particularly sympathetic defender of the Chinese position.

A few weeks later, the Chinese government announced that Lu Shumin's time in Canada was coming to an end. One Ottawa newspaper announced the news with the headline "Embattled Chinese Ambassador Lu Shumin to Return Home."

Lu Shumin, far right, as an exchange student with the Kealey family of Ottawa in 1973. He would later become China's ambassador to Canada. (Courtesy Kealey family)
I had visited with Lu a couple of times since his return to Ottawa and when I heard about his impending departure I asked him if he would care to do an "exit interview," to reflect on the end of his 35-year association with Canada.

He didn't appear "embattled" when I met him late one afternoon at the embassy in Ottawa in early May 2008. Earlier in the day he had been honoured at a luncheon hosted by the federal minister of international trade, David Emerson, where all the correct words were exchanged. Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day had attended a farewell reception at the embassy just the previous week.

Lu said his departure was simply part of the normal diplomatic rotation and not related to his problems with the Canadian government or his openness with the press. As a diplomat, you have to be prepared to pull up stakes every few years, he said. But he admitted that this move left him with feelings of "sweet sorrow.

"I feel very satisfied that I have very many friends here and that is the most precious thing I cherish."

Crossing centuries
I asked Lu what stood out about his arrival in Ottawa 35 years earlier. His reply was that he and the other students felt as if they had arrived in a different universe, so great were the differences between 20th century urban Canada and what was effectively still a 19th century peasant society.

Even crossing an Ottawa street back then was an adventure. "When you looked at people here living in much larger houses and they could go anywhere in their cars, that was certainly a striking contrast. Back home we were all on bicycles and a home was maybe one room with three generations of a single family all under one roof or maybe in one or two rooms."

By the time Lu returned to Canada in 2005, the streets of Ottawa had gotten busier, but the changes here were insignificant compared to the transformation that China had undergone.

The capitalist roaders who had been denounced during the Cultural Revolution were now being hailed as economic saviours. And that was not all that was different.

"I can remember when I was in Carleton," he recalls, "we would go to the grocery store to buy something. There were some things made in China but it was always low grade. But now it's different. You go to the shops and if you want to find something that is not made in China it is very difficult and the quality is high grade."

Lu is clearly proud of the economic progress China has made over the past three decades. But he also understands it has resulted in some significant changes in the way Canadians view his country.

In the 1970s, it was easy for people in Canada to cheer for the Chinese, to hope that out of all their political turmoil they would find a way to provide food, clothes and shelter for hundreds of millions of people living in abject poverty.

But now that China has become an economic powerhouse, it is often no longer seen as the sympathetic underdog. Instead, many here see it as contributing to Canada's economic woes, a low-wage magnet attracting manufacturing jobs once held by Canadians.

The good life
Lu Shumin thinks that criticism, as well as many of the others levied against China today, is unfair.

Time and again he returns to the same two refrains: The first is that there can be no double standard. Canadians cannot argue that it is okay for them to have high-paying jobs and drive their cars wherever they want while denying the same rights to the Chinese.

And second, Canadians are uninformed about his country. If they would take the time to learn the facts about T, Darfur, the environment, human rights and all the rest, they would arrive at different conclusions, he argues.

I suggest to him that one of the things that Canadians find most puzzling about China today is how the government seems to overreact to almost every situation.

Neither the Dalai Lama nor Taiwan nor Falun Gong appears to pose any real threat to the Chinese leadership, yet Beijing behaves in every case as if it did. "It's like hitting a fly with a sledgehammer," I tell him.

He responds that a better understanding of Chinese history and development might lead me to the opposite conclusion, that China continues to be threatened by forces that are trying to destroy it and that the government must protect the human rights of the majority by dealing firmly with those groups who are trying to tear the country apart.

"But," I ask him, "isn't the tough response out of proportion to the actual threat?"

He smiles, "There was a riot after the hockey game in Montreal and even the police had to come out and arrest the rioters. Do you think that is kind of tough? I think it is not whether it is tough or not, it is law enforcement and the measures taken by the government were appropriate to what has happened."

Goodbye to the past
After our interview ended, Lu presented me with a Beijing Olympic pin. Three days later, he and his wife, whom he met 30 years ago while she was an exchange student at York University, left Ottawa for the Special Administrative Region of Macao, where Lu was to take up his new posting.

His return to Ottawa had clearly not gone as smoothly as he had anticipated. It's unlikely he will ever be back in any official capacity.

He had arrived in the 1970s amidst the heady optimism of China's opening up to the world. He leaves this time having experienced the more sober realities of the political and economic differences that have emerged between the two countries.

His relationship to Canada was unique. Most diplomats come to Ottawa with only a passing knowledge of this country and its people. Lu Shumin was different.

This was, in many respects, his second home, a place where he had his eyes opened to the possibilities of the Western experience.

He readily acknowledges that he will miss us. The many Canadians he befriended over the past 35 years will clearly miss him as well.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on June 13, 2008, 05:47:59 PM
Aid in and out.


China's secret Pacific aid hike

 Sian Powell | June 12, 2008

GROUND-BREAKING Australian research has uncovered the extent of China's secretive aid program in the Pacific - estimated to have grown almost nine-fold since 2005, to $US293million ($309 million) last year.

Lowy Institute research associate Fergus Hanson, who has spent months delving into China's aid program, said yesterday that although China received $US1.76 billion in assistance in 2005, the nation had been busily pledging and disbursing aid around the world, particularly in the Pacific.

"The main driver of Chinese aid to the region remains halting and reversing diplomatic recognition of Taiwan," Mr Hanson told a Lowy Institute audience in Sydney yesterday. "China regards Taiwan as a renegade province, and has for several decades waged a largely successful battle to wrest diplomatic recognition from 'the other China'. This battle remains particularly intense in the Pacific."

China aids eight developing Pacific Island Forum nations that recognise its sovereignty - the Cook Islands, Fiji, Micronesia, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu.

Mr Hanson, formerly a Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade diplomat, said China's aid program was wrapped in secrecy. This had unfortunate consequences, including fuelling suspicion among nations getting the aid, inhibiting donor co-ordination and undermining efforts to promote good governance and accountability.

Much of the Chinese aid went into infrastructure projects, which could "have high maintenance costs and be poorly designed for local conditions".

The projects were funded with concessional loans, which increased the Pacific states' debt, Mr Hanson said, and the Chinese funds were often allocated to Chinese contractors, who used Chinese labour to build the projects, cutting flow-on benefits to the local economies.

The projects were often poorly targeted and included large houses for the heads of state and chief justices.

Mr Hanson said a combined courthouse and police headquarters in the Cook Islands was built with the signage in Mandarin, making repairs difficult, and a television tower in Niue was constructed with materials unsuited to Pacific conditions, and would have to be rebuilt.

He concluded that China's aid budget for pledged aid projects in the Pacific was $US33million in 2005, grew to $US78million in 2006 and then to $US293million last year.

He said this was more than New Zealand's aid budget for the Pacific, but was less than Australia's, which was $US560million in 2006-07.

But Mr Hanson said the $US293million estimate included several large multi-year loans, which could artificially inflate the aid totals.

He concluded that a realistic estimate of Chinese aid in the Pacific, excluding concessional loans, was between $US100million and $US150 million.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on June 13, 2008, 09:33:22 PM
If Australia had the brains that New Zealand has, there would be no gaps for the Chinese to jump into, in the South Pacific! Australian Governments have been patronising the Pacific for yonks. Ratbag Ruddock even told the Pacific Islanders that if they sunk because of global warming, they would still have to stand in line at the Immigration Counter.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: contemporarydog on June 17, 2008, 05:33:25 PM
2012: the year the interweb ends

http://ipower.ning.com/netneutralityold

:(  asasasasas asasasasas asasasasas
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on June 18, 2008, 03:45:10 PM
And to think of all the time the conspiracy theorists wasted on Roswell when it's really the Chinese reverse engineering the alien technology.   xxxxxxxxxx

****

 Chinese company develops 'UFO': report

Tue Jun 17, 6:04 AM ET

BEIJING (AFP) - A Chinese company has developed a prototype flying saucer that can hover in the air and be controlled remotely from afar, state press said Tuesday.

The aircraft is 1.2 metres (four feet) in diameter and is able to take off and land vertically and hover at an altitude of up to 1,000 metres (yards), Xinhua news agency said.

The unmanned disc is driven by a propeller and can be controlled remotely or sent on a preset flight path, it said.

Its top speed is 80 kilometres (50 miles) per hour, it added.

It took the Harbin Smart Special Aerocraft Co Ltd 12 years and 28 million yuan (4.1 million dollars) to develop the prototype craft, which is designed for aerial photography, geological surveys and emergency lighting, the report said.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on June 18, 2008, 07:47:13 PM
What about all of the remotely controlled toy planes currently flitting about??
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on June 19, 2008, 10:55:41 PM
What's happening in Canada??

""Sixth human foot washes up to shore

June 19, 2008 - 7:19AM


Another human foot - the second this week and the sixth in a year - has washed ashore off the coast of British Columbia in Canada.

Sergeant Mike Tresoor said a citizen reported finding the foot, which appeared to be a right foot, on a beach on Tyee Spit on Canada's Pacific coast. No other remains were found.

It is the latest in a bizarre and deepening mystery, which began when the first foot was found nearly a year ago on Jedidiah Island in the Strait of Georgia.

Within days, another right foot was found inside a man's Reebok sneaker on nearby Gabriola Island and the third was found in the same area, on the east side of Valdez Island in early February.

The fourth foot was found May 22 on Kirkland Island in the Fraser River, only about a mile away from the site in Ladner, along the same river, where the fifth foot was found on Monday.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said the remains of the latest foot were found inside a size 10 black adidas running shoe.

Sergeant Tresoor said major crime investigators from the Campbell River detachment, with staff from the coroner's office, went to the scene to investigate.

"The object will ultimately be examined by a forensic pathologist in attempts to determine the source of the foot and if it is related to other feet recently found," he said in a statement.

On Tuesday, the chief coroner of British Columbia, Terry Smith, said DNA profiles have been obtained from the first three of the feet.

He said that so far the DNA samples taken from the feet have not been able to be matched with any known samples to determine identities.

He and others have already put forth the hypothesis that the feet have washed ashore because they were encased in buoyant running shoes.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have said there's no evidence the feet were severed or removed from the victims' legs by force.

Curtis Ebbesmeyer, an oceanographer based in Seattle, said when a human body is submerged in the ocean, the main parts such as arms, legs, hands, feet and the head are usually what come off the body.

He said his theory is that the feet came along as a result of an accident that might have happened up along the Fraser River, that washed down and spread out along the Straight of Georgia.""
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on June 20, 2008, 04:22:29 AM
Killjoys!! Partypoopers! Puritans! They're taking all the fun out of things...

BEIJING, China (CNN) -- What's in a name?


Westerners are more accustomed to names that describe the ingredients and how they are cooked.

 Local dishes like "Husband and wife's lung slice" or "Chicken without sexual life" conjure lots of furrowed eyebrows on famished foreigners.

So, with the Olympics a few short weeks away, China is giving its cuisine a linguistic makeover.

It is proposing that restaurants change the names of exotic, but bizarrely named, delicacies to make them more delectable for the estimated 50,000 visitors arriving in August for the Summer Games.

The appetizer "Husband and wife's lung slice" is taking on the more appetizing "Beef and ox tripe in chili sauce."

Don't Miss
Torch security heavy in China's Xinjiang
The look of luxe in Beijing
In Depth: Beijing Olympics
"Chicken without sexual life" has been transformed into "Steamed pullet."

The government has put down more than 2,000 proposed names in a 170-page book that it has offered to Beijing hotels, according to state media.

"Thanks to the pamphlet, we do not have to struggle to come up with the English translations of dishes any more, which is usually time consuming," a senior manager at the four-star Guangzhou Hotel in downtown Beijing told the Xinhua news agency.

The Chinese say the names of their dishes focus more on appearance than taste or smell. But Westerners are more accustomed to names that describe the ingredients and how they are cooked -- such as pot roast.

The government realizes local names are a matter of taste, but don't want them to get lost in translation.

Hence, the spicy Sichuanese dish "Bean curd made by a pock-marked woman" has been bestowed the more palatable "Mapo tofu."

Not everyone is pleased.

"The process of standardizing a menu translation is a double-edged sword," wrote columnist Raymond Zhou in the China Daily newspaper. It "removes the ambiguity and unintended humor" and "takes away the fun and the rich connotation.

"It turns a menu into the equivalent of plain rice, which has the necessary nutrients but is devoid of flavor."
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on June 20, 2008, 12:46:00 PM
.
The Chinese say the names of their dishes focus more on appearance than taste or smell.

Hence, the spicy Sichuanese dish "Bean curd made by a pock-marked woman"

The mind boggles!!!!! aoaoaoaoao
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on June 20, 2008, 01:12:20 PM
They seem to have missed the point of bad translating. It's a literal thing, and no-one bothers searching for the most appropriate word. First one that comes up will do! For example, "Jack" is often translated into "Left Bower"......hence, on the drinks menu will be "Left Bower Danni"...........
I'm sure that "husband and wife" has only a miniscule connection to "beef and ox", and "lung" has naught to do with "tripe".
I bet the Chinese don't read it as "Chicken without sexual life".
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on June 20, 2008, 01:23:08 PM
No - my Chinese mates laugh at that translation as well.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on June 25, 2008, 08:13:10 PM
http://apcmag.com/top_10_reasons_to_hate_the_iphone_3g.htm
Top 10 reasons to hate the iPhone 3G
   
Dan Warne25 June 2008, 10:38 AM (5 hours 13 minutes ago.)

Is the iPhone 3G really deserving of the nickname Jesusphone?

Sure, the iPhone 3G is a groundbreaking phone. There's a lot to love about it… the amazingly easy-to-use touchscreen interface, amazing video playback, a big, bright, high contrast, high-resolution display that's the best of any smartphone on the market, and a web browser that's as good as any you'd use on a desktop computer. Not to mention Apple's new MobileMe service which will provide over the air syncing of your email, contacts, calendar, tasks and photos with your home or office computer — no plugging in required.

But there are a lot of big disappointments with the iPhone 3G too. Some of them are stubborn commercial decisions Apple has made; others look like oversights, and others are fundamental flaws in the design of the phone itself.

Think I don't know jack? Before you post an angry comment, read through the 10 points and then tell me what you think.

#1 No upgrade to the camera

The camera in the first-gen iPhone was only two megapixels with no flash. "Fair enough," I thought… "it's a first-gen product. They have to leave themselves room to move for the upgrade they'll surely put into the next-generation iPhone." No such luck. The camera in the iPhone 3G is exactly the same as the first-gen one. Still stuck at two megapixels. Still unable to cope in low-light and still no flash. Oh, and there's no video recording capability either, even though this has been found on phones for the last five years or so.

Scorecard
iPhone 3G: 2 megapixel camera, no flash, no video, no optical zoom
Other phones: up to 5 megapixel cameras, optical zoom, lens-based autofocus, flash.
Verdict: Smackdown by other phones.

#2 No Adobe Flash support


Undeniably, the iPhone has the best web browser of any phone on the market. But when you hit a web page with Adobe Flash in it, you'll just get an empty space with a 'missing plugin' icon. Apple says Flash would run too slowly on the iPhone, but in reality, it's probably more to do with Apple wanting to promote its competing web app development technology, Sproutcore.

Apple realises the 'mobile web' is at a tipping point… if it can get enough momentum behind developers coding sites specifically for the iPhone, it will help sales of the iPhone along in the long term. (That said, unlike Flash, Sproutcore is an open standard that theoretically works in any web browser that supports Javascript, so it could be widely supported by all handset makers if their phone web browsers got better.)

For a laugh, check out Steve Jobs demonstrating the web browser on the iPhone. When he views The New York Times, up pops the 'missing flash' icon.

Scorecard:
iPhone: no Adobe Flash support
Other smartphones: Flash Lite support, or full Flash support on Windows Mobile.(Admittedly Flash support on other phones isn't great either, but then, they're not running a full computer operating system like the iPhone is, where it would be trivially easy to port Flash across to run on it.)
Verdict: Other phones win by a narrow margin.

#3 No instant messaging

Despite the fact that the iPhone comes with unlimited data plans (in the US at least; Australian plans haven't yet been revealed) Apple has hobbled the iPhone's ability to do instant messaging.

Rather than sending instant messages over the internet to friends, the iPhone sends them by SMS. Since Apple has great instant messaging software for Mac called iChat, this is undoubtedly a concession to phone companies. SMS is widely considered to be the most expensive data service in the world, with each message only 165 characters long but charged by phone companies at around 20c per message. Multiplied out, that equates to 1.3 million dollars per gigabyte of SMSes. (By comparison, Aussie mobile network Three offers 1GB of high speed internet usage for $15.)

Oh yeah, and forget about chatting to someone who's sitting at a computer using the iPhone. Heaven forbid you might want to chat to someone using MSN/Windows Live Chat, Google Talk, AIM, ICQ, Facebook or any of the other popular chat protocols.

Hopefully, this ludicrous situation will be plugged by third-party application developers who will develop internet-based chat clients for iPhone. However, Apple has said that it will not allow applications to run in the background on the iPhone; instead, the developers must run an internet-based service, send a message to Apple servers, which will then send a message to the iPhone to alert the user to open the app. Yes, it may save battery life on the iPhone, but no, it's not exactly convenient.

On a Blackberry, the Blackberry Messenger just sits quietly in the background. If your phone is on, so is Blackberry Messenger. It's 100% reliable. It doesn't send messages using a stupid method like SMS. It uses the Blackberry's unlimited internet access. And yes, Blackberries do have good battery life.

Scorecard:
iPhone 3G: SMS is the only way to instant message people.
Other smartphones: A large variety of instant messaging software that can send messages using the internet capability of the phone.
Verdict: iPhone is shamed by other phones.

#4 Totally impractical for international travel


The iPhone downloads full emails, attachments and all, when you view them on the iPhone. If someone sends you an email with several megabytes of photos attached, that's how much data has to be downloaded by the iPhone. That's fine if you're in your home country and have an unlimited data plan. But go to another country and see how much it costs you — you can expect to pay up to $20 per megabyte. Your roaming charges will soon be running into hundreds of dollars.

Not to harp on about the Blackberry, but when you roam with one of them, it's quite cheap, because the Blackberry servers downscale images to perfectly fit the size of the Blackberry screen before sending them — a huge saving in data transfer charges, and messages are heavily compressed before transmission, etc. In fact, even heavy Blackberry users may be surprised to learn that they use less than 5MB of data per month.

Scorecard:
iPhone 3G: It's the data equivalent of the gas guzzling SUVs that GM suspended production of this week.
Other smartphones: Well, there are certainly other data guzzling phones. But Blackberry is a perfect example of a smartphone that's made for roaming.
Verdict: Blackberry wins

#5 Not compatible with Bluetooth car kits or headphones


Apple has Bluetooth wireless in the iPhone, but it only works with a handful of wireless headsets. Forget talking handsfree on Bluetooth car kits or using the iPhone with stereo Bluetooth headphones. You could expect those sorts of features from the world's leading music player, but not the iP… oh, wait.

Considering Apple wants the world to take the iPhone seriously for its phone capabilities, it's truly incredible that it has hobbled the Bluetooth audio capability so much. Could it be because it wants to make money from car equipment manufacturers who build an iPod dock connector into their car stereos?

Caveat: this comment is based on what we know about pre-release versions of the iPhone 2.0 software. It's possible Apple will have fixed this in the release version of the iPhone 3G.

Scorecard:
iPhone 3G: only works with Apple's mono Bluetooth headset and a handful of other companies' similar units. No support for Bluetooth stereo or in-car Bluetooth handsfree.
Other smartphones: many support stereo Bluetooth for streaming to headphones or a stereo, and most models work with Bluetooth car handsfree units (though there are still compatibility glitches between brands, admittedly.)
Verdict: Other phones win

#6 No cut and paste

This one is truly hard to understand. Apple brings out one of the world's most advanced smartphones in terms of user interface, and somehow forgets to put in cut and paste... probably the only smartphone on the market that doesn't have it. The mind boggles. (Also something that Apple could conceivably fix by the time the iPhone 3G is released… here's hoping.)

Scorecard:
iPhone 3G: No cut and paste.
Other smartphones: Well, yeah, duh. They have cut and paste.
Verdict: Decisive victory for other phones.

#7 Non user-replaceable battery

It's a sad fact about rechargeable batteries: the first time you recharge them, their maximum capacity degrades. After a few hundred recharges, their capacity is down to something like half their original capacity. Normally, this is annoying, but manageable — you just swap the battery out for a new one, or get a second battery and swap between the two of them until the first battery is toast.

Not so with the iPhone. Its battery is sealed up tightly inside the nearly-impossible-to-pry-open casing (believe me, I've taken the back off an iPhone and that sucker is not meant to come apart… Apple must be replacing the casing of iPhones it services). Apple will then install the battery for you (in the US it costs $US85.95) and post it back to you. Oh, and you can pay them extra $US30 for the privilege of renting another phone from them to use in the meantime.

Not only is this massively inconvenient, it's a cunning attempt by Apple to get people to simply buy a new iPhone when the battery finally dies. People will be asking themselves… "do I pay $105.95 to get my old iPhone battery fixed, or do I pay $199.00 to buy the latest and greatest model of iPhone?" I know which one I'd pick, and I bet that's central to Apple's business plan.

Scorecard:
iPhone 3G: Battery sealed inside the case. Costs a hundred bucks and considerable inconvenience to get it replaced.
Other smartphones: Well, yeah, duh. You just unplug the battery and put a new one in.
Verdict: Crushing loss to Apple.

#8 No MMS


So you've snapped a nice photo on your iPhone and you want to send it to a friend? You'd better hope they have email on their phone, because that's the only way you're going to be able to send it to them with the iPhone. For some reason, despite its ridiculous decision to force all instant messaging through SMS, Apple has totally left out MMS (picture/video SMSes) from the iPhone.

Scorecard:
iPhone 3G: No MMS support. You will send your photos using the Apple-authorised method, by email.
Other smartphones: Well, yeah, duh. They have MMS.
Verdict: Own-goal by Apple.

#9 No turn-by-turn navigation


Despite building a GPS satellite navigation receiver into the iPhone, Apple has stopped short of offering voiced, turn-by-turn navigation into the device. Yes, you can plot directions from your current position to somewhere else, and you can watch yourself as a little dot on the map, but have you ever tried doing that in a car? I have … on my Blackberry. I nearly crashed.

If you're thinking I'm being a bit overly critical (isn't it a "nice to have" feature than a necessity?) compare Apple to Nokia, which has been offering voiced, 3D, turn-by-turn navigation on its phones for a couple of years now. Having a Nokia N78 saved my bacon recently when I realised I was totally lost and didn't have a street directory with me. I also had a Blackberry with me that has 2D map routing similar to what's on the Blackberry, and it sucked, because it was like reading a map constantly while driving.

Scorecard:
iPhone 3G: No voiced, 3D turn-by-turn navigation.
Other smartphones: OK, so it's not a standard feature on all phones. But Nokia, which has over 50% market share in Australia, has been shipping it with its phones for the last couple of years.
Verdict: Nokia wins.

#10 Stunning hypocrisy

At Apple's last presentation on the iPhone (March 6th 2008), Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller ridiculed market leader Blackberry for the complexity of its push email service, pointing out that your messages have to pass through a RIM messaging server and a network operations centre before they're sent out to your phone. Plus you have to pay extra for the service.

With the iPhone 3G, Apple introduces MobileMe, a service that … passes your email through an Apple messaging server before it is sent through to your phone. And it costs $AUD119 per year extra. Spot any similarity with the Blackberry business model?

It seems stunningly hypocritical for Apple's to criticise the technology of the market leader in the US smartphone space, then adopt the same technologies in its own product. On the other hand, I'm glad it has… but I'm flabbergasted at Apple's audacity in working on a service while at the very same moment criticising others for doing it.

Scorecard:
iPhone 3G: made by a company dominated by self-serving hypocrites.
Other smartphones: let's be honest... made by companies dominated by self-serving hypocrites.
Verdict: Apple is on even footing with other handset makers. Welcome to the industry!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on June 26, 2008, 02:08:42 AM


Bush Government Sues To Make Testing Meat Illegal
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 05.12.08
Food & Health (food)

In most free countries, the Government and its agencies try to raise standards and make food healthier. Not in America. Creekstone Farms wanted to test every one of their cows for mad cow disease, to satisfy demand from overseas customers.

Except that they are not allowed to; the USDA guidelines only test 1% of cows. Creekstone went to court for the right to test all of their cows and won at a lower level, but the Bush Administration is appealing it, saying that "more widespread testing does not guarantee food safety and could result in a false positive that scares consumers."

What kind of government goes to court to stop testing done voluntarily by a company? Perhaps one that listens to large meatpackers who oppose wider testing because, according to AP, "consumer pressure would force them to begin testing all animals too. Increased testing would raise the price of meat by a few cents per pound."

Lawyers for Creekstone say "This is the government telling the consumers, `You're not entitled to this information.'" The Chief Judge on the Court of Appeal seems to agree: "All they want to do is create information," Chief Judge Sentelle said, noting that it's up to consumers to decide how to interpret the information.

No wonder people don't have faith in their food supply, when the government makes it illegal to even test it"

Steak and tomatoes are off the menu, Raoul!!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on June 26, 2008, 03:24:12 PM
Yea, open accountable government!


Hu Jintao answers to people online for first time

Rowan Callick | June 21, 2008

A CHINESE leader yesterday communicated with some of the country's 221 million "netizens" directly for the first time.

President Hu Jintao, on a visit to the People's Daily, answered questions posed on the newspaper's Strong China Forum, which receives 23,000 postings and 1.4million web page hits daily.

Given brief notice that the President would be online, readers asked: "How are you fighting corruption?", "What do you think of democracy in Taiwan?" and "What is your answer to the oil crisis?".

He greeted them with: "Hello, my friends!" Mr Hu said that although he was too busy to surf the web every day, he liked to go online, especially to read news.

"Through the web, I also want to know what netizens are thinking about and hope to get some advice for the Government and the party," he said.

Mr Hu told Little Flaming Dragon: "The web is an important channel for us to understand the concerns of the public, and to assemble its wisdom."

But after explaining that time constraints prevented him responding to any questions except with generalisations about the web, he signed off.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on June 27, 2008, 02:17:30 PM
Tell your students!


Call to let foreign postgrads stay


Guy Healy | June 25, 2008

FOREIGN higher degree research students should be given preferential residency treatment to counter the deepening researcher shortage, University of NSW deputy vice-chancellor Les Field has said.

The idea of adding foreign masters and PhD students studying in Australia to the federal Government's Migration Occupations in Demand List was contained in UNSW's submission to the Government's innovation review.

With leading submissions identifying a shortfall of 19,000 scientists and engineers during the medium term, Professor Field told the HES it had become necessary to tap highly skilled migration in defined areas of anticipated academic skills shortages.

"About 30 per cent of our higher degree research students are from overseas and are steadily increasingly, in contrast to domestic PhDs, who are slowly declining (in number) due to competition from employment," he said.

Professor Field described UNSW's research intensive environment for postgraduates as incredible. "But most overseas postgraduates are forcibly repatriated within weeks, often days of them ending their degrees, in contrast to countries such as New Zealand (that) capitalise on the high level training they have invested in," Professor Field said.

The tertiary qualifications of overseas higher degree research students should be given a weighting under the MODL to encourage such students, especially PhDs, to remain in Australia, he said.

The Australian Research Council's submission also highlighted how mobility enhanced skills development and the building of co-operative networks.

It welcomed the Government's recent opening of key fellowships and awards to foreigners.

"Also desirable is a visa system that, while ensuring that entry requirements are met, makes it easier for higher education institutions to welcome into this country staff and students from overseas," it said.

However, the ARC warned that success rates for some of its flagship schemes were at, or close to, historically low levels.

Spokesmen for the two federal departments that run the MODL -- immigration and education -- said university researchers couldn't be added to it at present because the occupation wasn't on the government's Skilled Occupations List.

However, the Government was reviewing the MODL's occupations and it had no firm view on the inclusion or exclusion of any occupations during the review consultation period, the spokesman for the Department of Immigration and Citizenship told the HES.

 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on June 27, 2008, 03:33:56 PM
Oh dear.  Side effects.


Fuel costing brothels their regular trucker clients

Chris Ayres, Los Angeles | June 27, 2008

THE oldest profession is one of the few sectors that is generally immune to global economic problems. But high oil prices are another thing, especially when many of your regular clients are truckers.

According to the Nevada Brothel Owners Association, revenue for US houses of ill repute has dropped by 20-45per cent since the energy crunch began - the worst economic crisis in prostitution in almost half a century.

"Old George or Jimmy out there, he's got to take care of Momma and the groceries first, and he's got to take care of fuel costs, and he's got other expenses, and he may not have much left over for having a good time," association director George Flint said.

At the Stardust Ranch in eastern Nevada, so many girls have been made redundant that only two still work there, despite the management offering incentives such as free showers, overnight parking and coffee.

At other brothels in the Nevada desert - where licensed brothels have been legal since the silver mining boom of the 1800s - petrol discount schemes are being introduced.

Some have abandoned financial negotiations between customers and girls and are offering flat-rate, no-haggle services, advertised online. At the Shady Lady Ranch, a 40-minute session is being promoted for the discount price of $US175 ($183).

Next month, customers will receive a $US50 petrol voucher if they spend at least $US300, or a $US100 voucher if they spend $US500.

Truckers are the ideal customers for brothels. Bored, a long way from home and with nothing much to spend their money on while on the road, they are often tempted by the prospect of the intimate company of women.

But fuel bills for truckers have risen by two-thirds in the past year, and many brothels are several hours' drive outside metropolitan areas because of licensing restrictions.

Politicians have tried to help. A ban on advertising was lifted last July, allowing brothels to put up billboards in cities such as Las Vegas, where prostitution is illegal.

President George W.Bush's tax refund cheques have also been helpful. At the Moonlite Bunny Ranch, the first 100 customers who showed up with their tax refunds were offered special deals.

'You bring your $US600 cheque in, and we give you the $US1200 George Bush party: three girls and a bottle of champagne," owner Dennis Hof promised.

The Times

Quote
offering incentives such as free showers
  You mean they had to pay for the showers before??  I wonder how many truckers bothered??
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on June 30, 2008, 12:29:19 AM
OK.  So I have Google giving me updates and Alerts on stuff.  Today's crop yielded these interesting articles.

First, a report on Iraqi (paralympic) competitors to Beijing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/world/middleeast/29paralympic.html?_r=1&ref=middleeast&oref=slogin


The second was on the economic fallout in India, from the earthquake in China.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Business/Indian_silk_industry_hit_by_China_quake/articleshow/3177116.cms



And apparently, the tourism industry in and around BJ is hurting! big time!  Hotels occupancy is down 15-50% over last year.  And not looking to improve as much as was promised for this Summer Event.

Hhhhmmmm....... Seems furriners don't like what they're seeing/hearing about snowstorms, protests, earthshakes nor new visa hassles.  Guess they're figuring that there are better places to go $pend their fund$.







Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on June 30, 2008, 01:00:05 AM
I'm not sure how many people would be put off by acts of nature, that wouldn't be one of my considerations, given that every country has these little occurrences.  But - dumb visa rules?  Too right!

Someone needs to tell Hu Jin Tao.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on June 30, 2008, 01:24:19 AM
I'm not sure how many people would be put off by acts of nature, that wouldn't be one of my considerations, given that every country has these little occurrences.  But - dumb visa rules?  Too right!

Someone needs to tell Hu Jin Tao.

It ain't only just the one or two natural occurrences alone, LE.  It's the whole flaming package that's off-putting. 

Oh, and it seems that some of top-level BJ hotels (having already tripled their normal rates in honour of the Summer Event) still have lots of/way too many unbooked rooms still available.  They may even have to end by lowering their (inflated) rates aoaoaoaoao
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on June 30, 2008, 05:08:41 AM
Why do I suddenly foresee an increased demand for deaf mistresses???

******

Corrupt officials betrayed by pillow talk

Thu Jun 26, 11:56 AM ET

BEIJING (Reuters) - Anti-graft authorities in a southern Chinese city are questioning mistresses of suspected corrupt officials and finding the information is paying off prettily, state media said on Thursday.

Mistresses and "second wives" are common among government officials and businessmen in China and are often blamed for driving officials to seek money through bribes or other abuses of power.

"At least 80 percent of corrupt officials exposed in Dongguan had mistresses who gave us important information that we did not possess," Zhou Yuefeng, deputy director of the industrial city's anti-graft bureau told the China Daily.

He declined to give details.

Besides having mistresses, Zhou said receiving bribes in the form of share dividends was also common among corrupt officials in Dongguan.

"Our focus this year will be on the taxation and medical departments." he said. "However, that doesn't mean we won't be looking at corruption in other areas."

A report by China's top prosecutor's office last year said that of 16 provincial-level officials punished for serious graft in the previous five years, most were involved in "trading power for sex," along with gambling, money-laundering and shady land sales to developers.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Ruth on June 30, 2008, 05:07:24 PM
Dongguan  aoaoaoaoao  but, but, but...

Glad they are cracking down.  Could the movie title be, 'Revenge of the Mistresses'?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on July 01, 2008, 02:23:00 AM
Give this boy a medal. Instead of locking up their children and molly-cuddling them, parents should take a hint from this awesome kid. Instead of the trite, stupid "Jamie, if a stranger tells you he has candy in his van, run away" routine, it should be, "Jamie, when you beat up perverted sick pedophiles, you must not kill them, only severely maiming is allowed. Otherwise, no dinner or TV!" This kid is a hero. The article is from Austrian News.

The convicted sex offender was allowed to work as a pool monitor...WTF!!! It's a loony hatch out there.

11-year-old boy smacked up 24-year-old child abuser
by admin June 27th, 2008 in Crime
A 24-year-old previously convicted sex offender broke into a guesthouse during the night, where a whole school class found a place to sleep during an excursion week.

The man was searching a boy for his sexual pleasure. He found his victim in an 11-year-old pupil, who returned from the toilet.


He did not know that the 11-year-old is a very talented karate fighter. When he tried to overwhelm the little boy, he was surprised by his brillant skills in martial arts.

The child abuser was seriously smacked up by the 11-year-old boy. After that he was able to escape out of the window.

His getaway was not crowned with success. After a short while he was found by the police and brought into the prison in Graz.

The sex offender already was in prison because of his sexual preferences. He was sent into freedom after a short while, and allowed to work as a pool supervisor[!]. Now he is in prison again. But for how long?

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on July 03, 2008, 01:05:35 AM
Pleased I didn't have to clear this one up.

Canada Truck Crash Stirs Up 12 Million Angry Bees


CANADA: July 2, 2008


OTTAWA - How do you deal with millions of upset bees? Very carefully.


A truck containing 330 crates of bees, about 12 million of them altogether, overturned on a major highway near the town of St Leonard, New Brunswick, in Eastern Canada on Monday, setting free thousands of irritated stinging insects. Police sealed off the vehicle and called for expert help with the millions that were left inside.

"Trying to unload 12 million agitated bees out of the back of a truck would not be a good situation," said Derek Strong, a local spokesman for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

A team of beekeepers arrived and poured smoke into the truck to calm down the bees, which will be moved later in the day. Police said there was no general danger to the public.

"If there's anyone in St Leonard who is allergic to bees, we're recommending they leave town for a couple of hours," Strong told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on July 03, 2008, 01:12:12 AM
Very rarely has a simple car crash created such a buzz...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Schnerby on July 03, 2008, 01:53:47 AM
 bkbkbkbkbk

It's quite rare that I lol, so to speak.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on July 03, 2008, 09:25:21 AM
Apparently, the Chinese earthquake was a "rare type".  Thank Gooodness!!

http://www.livescience.com/environment/080630-china-quake-rare.html
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on July 03, 2008, 12:30:27 PM
And now we find out that things are looking positively (Old Testament) Biblical for Ole PRC bibibibibi


http://www.latimes.com:80/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-locust3-2008jul03,0,5361489.story
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on July 03, 2008, 02:27:44 PM
I really liked this line:

Quote
Among the Internet search terms restricted in recent months include those linking the earthquake to the curse of heaven, the anger by the heaven or the change of dynasty.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on July 03, 2008, 02:40:28 PM
I thought linking the 5 mascots to the 5 different major problems also interesting.  That could spread fast amongst the populace too.


The one about the earthquake won't load for me.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: china-matt on July 05, 2008, 12:29:51 AM
Toilets...Beijing...cleanliness... I'm in disbelief:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/olympics/2008-07/04/content_6817886.htm
Now bring them to the rest of China!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: cheekygal on July 05, 2008, 12:37:05 AM
Well, hopefully they really did clean the toilets in Beijing! Cause when I was leaving yesterday, even the airport toilets weren't 100% clean  bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mister Barfly on July 06, 2008, 06:10:59 PM
I cant beleive only 8000 workers have been trained to keep the toilets clean, they have a shit job on their hands, so to speak.  They are never going to stay clean for long and toilet paper wont last long either.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on July 08, 2008, 09:43:17 PM
B.C. model working in Shanghai found dead

A young model from Saltspring Island, B.C., was found dead in Shanghai, China, her friends told CBC News on Monday.

Diana O'Brien, 22, had been in China since mid-June after landing a contract with a modelling agency in Shanghai.

RCMP confirmed Monday that they notified a Saltspring Island family of a death but refused to divulge any details or say whether the young woman was a victim of a homicide. Police said they are investigating her death.

"As of yet, the Chinese police are reluctant to divulge any information as it is an ongoing investigation and they must wait for results of an autopsy," Jesse Blanchette, one of O'Brien's friends, told CBC News.

Police in Shanghai had also started a murder investigation of their own but have not said how O'Brien was killed, her friends said.

O'Brien told to dance on podiums: friends

Several of O'Brien's friends, including her boyfriend, gathered at her Saltspring Island home Monday, after learning of her death.

O'Brien had told friends she didn't like working in Shanghai and had bought an airline ticket to return to B.C. in two weeks, after finishing her last assignment.

O'Brien told friends that she did legitimate modelling work but was also asked to dance partially nude for elderly men.

"She thought that was weird. It was right to one of these bars ... the agency had her dancing on the podiums," Brittany Brown, one of O'Brien's friends, said Monday at O'Brien's house.

Brown said friends called various government agencies to try to find out what happened but "no one has called back.

"We need to get to the bottom of things and have some justice served for her and protect other girls from the same thing happening to them," Brown said.

O'Brien began modelling locally more than a year ago and a stint in Milan was her first big break, friends said.

O'Brien was one of 27 female international models listed on the website of Barbara Coultish Model Management, a Victoria-based modelling agency. She just finished three months of modelling in Milan and was in Shanghai this summer on contract work, according to the website.

A spokesperson for the agency refused an on-camera interview with the CBC but said nothing like this has ever happened in its 27-year business in the modelling industry.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on July 09, 2008, 03:50:20 AM
Cue John Williams fanfare...is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's Super Bishop!
Women can't hold leading positions in the Church because Jesus was a raging misogynist would not approve...errr...according to what gospel exactly? As I recall, one very important figure in the Messiah posse was a woman.
It is, to me anyway, highly amusing that I spend most of my time translating articles about how Christian Europeans rail and rant against Islam as a religion that oppresses women and does not treat them as equals. "Let he who is without sin throw the first stone"...I read that somewhere...some minor character in the Bible said it...not an important chap or anything.


CNN) -- The Vatican said Tuesday it regrets the decision by the Church of England's governing body to allow the ordination of women as bishops.


General view of the Synod Assembly Chamber during the General Synod Session.

 The move by the Anglican Church's General Synod "is a rift to the apostolic tradition" of ordaining only men as bishops, the Vatican said in a statement, and is another obstacle to reconciliation between Anglicans and Roman Catholics.

"This decision will have consequences on the dialogue which had brought good fruits," the Vatican statement said.

The General Synod passed a resolution Monday night that allows women to become bishops, acting over the objections of traditionalists who argued that Jesus only wanted men in leadership positions.

Some traditionalists have threatened to abandon the Anglican Church for the Roman Catholic Church if women become bishops. Several hundred Anglican priests made that move when women were first ordained 16 years ago.

The synod narrowly rejected a proposal for "super bishops," which would have allowed parishes opposed to women bishops to opt out. Opponents argued the plan would be insulting to women bishops.

The Church of England has about 114 bishops. They supervise parishes in Britain.

The final hurdle for the consecration of women bishop is expected next February with a vote on a "code of practice" intended to protect people who as a matter of theological conviction will not be able to receive the ministry of women as bishops or priests."

The first consecration of a woman bishop could potentially happen in 2015.

The theological debate over women bishops has centered over the question "What would Jesus do?"

The traditionalists argued that bishops must be men, as were Jesus and his apostles.

Retired Canon Alan Duke, a longtime supporter of women in church leadership posts, said those arguments "simply do not stack up."

Duke said that while Jesus named no female disciples, he used and valued woman in radical and different ways for his time.

"He was hardly going to choose women and send them into a situation where they might have been in grave risk," Duke said.

Christina Rees, with the pro-women lobby Women and the Church, described what was at stake as "an acceptance by the Church of England of women on equal terms as men in the ordained ministries."

David Holding, a traditionalist church member, said he does not object to women bishops, but "there must be a proper provision made for those who can't go along with it."

The lack of a provision to allow traditionalist choose to be under a "super bishop" instead of a woman raises concern that a schism could develop in the Church of England.

Duke described "an awful lot of bluster" but doubted there "will be a mass exodus."
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on July 09, 2008, 04:18:19 PM
The Roman Catholic Church's "tradition" of only ordaining of era goes back to Pope Gregory the... um, 3.1426th, who banned women from the pulpit, likely as a way to break the Goddess-based traditins of European cultures.  I see nothing in that article arguing against the wisdom of ordaining women, except "We shouldn't in the future because we don't now."

Perhaps those black-clad hermits should climb down into the world and walk around with the rest of us.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on July 18, 2008, 04:17:57 PM
Keeping it harmonious!


Quote
Five-ring circus

Jul 17th 2008
From The Economist print edition
A weekly round-up of news from the Forbidden Citius, Altius, Fortius

The Chinese authorities are taking no chances: 100,000 troops, anti-aircraft missiles, checkpoints ringing the city. Beijing’s Olympics, they say, are the most threatened by terrorists in history. Evidence for this is thin. China says it has arrested 82 “suspected terrorists” in the western region of Xinjiang for allegedly plotting to sabotage the games. On July 9th two terrorists were reportedly executed there. A day earlier police killed five people in a raid on a “holy-war training group” in the region’s capital, Urumqi. The suspects “wielded knives”, a police spokesman said. Not exactly dirty bombs, but you have to start somewhere.

What worries Chinese officials is the risk of yet more political embarrassment after a round-the-world tour of the Olympic torch was dogged by protests. Even slogans on T-shirts make them fret. Spectators at the games have been banned from wearing “I love China” T-shirts (lest, presumably, anyone thinks they can get away with “I love T”). Under pressure from foreign television networks, the government has reversed its ban on live broadcasts by the foreign media from Tiananmen Square, the city’s most sensitive site. But it is insisting on limited hours and no invited guests—ie, no dissidents.

Officials say that, notwithstanding Beijing’s semi-permanent shroud of haze, air quality is improving and should get even better. For two months, beginning on July 20th, drivers will only be able to use their vehicles on alternate days depending on their licence-plate numbers. The city plans this month to open two new underground-railway lines and a rail link to the airport, which could help reduce car traffic further. The worst-polluting factories in Beijing and its environs are being ordered to cut production or stop work altogether.

But who is to say if the air will be good enough for endurance events such as the marathon? An environmental official was quoted in the Hong Kong press, claiming air pollution had been exaggerated: “We don’t need any independent party to help us monitor our air quality during the event.” Unconvinced, some Olympic teams are staying away from Beijing until the last minute.
Doggone!

“If visitors ask for it to be served, we will dissuade them.” Xiong Yumei, deputy director of the Beijing Tourism Bureau, referring to the city’s ban on Olympic-designated restaurants serving dog-meat, a common dish. Other restaurants can keep dog on the menu if they insist, but have been advised to drop it.


Locals travelling to Beijing, starting on the 20th July, will have to show ID to book train tickets and the tickets will have some form of ID on them to verify that the traveller is the buyer.  No-one with a criminal record of any form will be allowed to travel to Beijing.

Soon no liquids will be allowed to be carried on the underground - so no-one will be able to carry water or tea with them.

It's all good fun!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on July 19, 2008, 02:26:22 AM
"Air pollution isn't that bad.  And no, you may not measure it."  Retards.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on July 19, 2008, 10:49:32 PM
Dutch-Chinese relations now take a nose dice!


Baby panda chokes to death on milk

    * Font Size: Decrease Increase
    * Print Page: Print

From correspondents in Amsterdam | July 19, 2008

A BABY panda adopted by a domestic cat at Amsterdam's Artis zoo has died after choking on the milk of its foster mother.

"The little one was discovered lifeless on Thursday morning," the zoo said in a statement.

"A post-mortem revealed that its windpipe was filled with milk. It had choked to death."

The red panda cub was born on June 30, but was rejected by its own mother, along with a sibling who died shortly afterwards.

It was adopted by a zoo employee's pet cat who suckled the newborn with its own four kittens.

"The cat had just had kittens and accepted the baby panda as a foster child," said the zoo statement.

"As far as we know, this was the first time that a cat has adopted a baby panda."

Red pandas, which are only slightly larger than domestic cats, are an endangered species found mostly in the eastern Himalayas. Many zoos worldwide have breeding programs as only about 2500 red pandas remain in the wild today.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on July 20, 2008, 08:24:45 PM
A Chinese reality show Boys and Girls is being filmed on the Gold Coast (near Brisbane,Australia)During last week, contestants herded sheep,made damper and learned to surf.Sea World dolphins presented the loved-up couples with engagement rings. aoaoaoaoao.
According to my newspaper,one can see Chinese reality TV footage at thesundaymail.com.au.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on July 20, 2008, 11:03:07 PM
"made danmper"..duibuqi, wo bu dong.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on July 21, 2008, 12:19:50 AM
"made danmper"..duibuqi, wo bu dong.


You expect to teach English in China? Tsk tsk.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on July 21, 2008, 12:38:06 AM
"made damper"..duibuqi, wo bu dong.

Damper is an Australian form of soda bread, used by stockmen (sheepherders or "cowboys").
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on July 21, 2008, 12:51:51 AM
Quote
stockmen (sheepherders or "cowboys")

The proper term is jackaroo or jillaroo.  ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on July 21, 2008, 05:32:29 PM
Be careful in bars!

British government denies Chinese 'honeytrap'09:00 AEST Mon Jul 21 20082 hours 30 minutes agoAFPVIEWS: 0| FLOCKS: 0| 0 comments so farPrime Minister Gordon Brown's office confirmed on Saturday that an investigation was launched after an aide to the premier lost his BlackBerry mobile device while on a trip to China in January.

Downing Street denied, however, a report in The Sunday Times newspaper that the aide had been the victim of a "honeytrap" by Chinese intelligence agents, and said the BlackBerry had instead been lost at an "evening event" and added that security was not compromised.

"It is correct that a member of Prime Minister's Office lost their BlackBerry during a visit to China in January, however not in the circumstances described in the story," Brown's office said in a statement.

"The BlackBerry was lost at an evening event attended by the member of staff and others from the official party.

"This was reported immediately and mitigation measures were put in place -- an investigation has subsequently taken place. There was no compromise to security."

The Sunday Times had reported that the aide, who was not named, was picked up by a Chinese woman who approached him at a Shanghai disco, and agreed to go back to his hotel with her.

According to the weekly, which cited an unidentified senior official, the aide reported his BlackBerry, a mobile phone that can also be used to make and receive e-mails, missing the following morning.

A senior official was quoted in the paper as saying that the incident had all the hallmarks of a honeytrap by the Chinese government.


Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on July 22, 2008, 04:36:26 AM
Beijing's blue skies show air may be clearing

By China correspondent Stephen McDonell

Posted Mon Jul 21, 2008 11:00am AEST
Updated Mon Jul 21, 2008 11:16am AEST
Residents and Olympians alike hope the air will be clear for the Games.

Residents and Olympians alike hope the air will be clear for the Games. (Getty Images: China Photos, file photo)

    * Video: Wheel progress: Beijing is going all out to clean up it's air. (ABC News)

Beijing's battle with air quality and traffic congestion has stepped up a notch as it tries to clean up the city's air for the Olympic Games next month.

The sky was blue in Beijing over the weekend and people were starting to say that the air pollution reduction methods in place for the Olympics might just work.

Factories have been closed, three new subway lines opened and traffic bans put in place.

Private cars have now been banned from driving every second day, using an 'odds and evens' number plate system.

Government officials say this will take 45 per cent of Beijing's 3.3 million private cars off the road during the Olympic period.

Traffic was also flowing freely around the normally congested city. Many locals will have to change their transport habits if they want to get to work today, but most don't seem to mind.

"It's really not convenient, but we do understand and support the restrictions," one man said.

"It's not a problem; we should all make a contribution to the Olympics," a woman added.

Private companies have been asked to adjust working hours during the Olympics, so people start and finish at staggered times instead of the normal rush hours.

Factory shutdowns have also commenced. Polluting industries will remain closed for two months to reduce emissions.

Travelling without the car

Probably the key piece of infrastructure which the Olympic Games will leave Beijing is the expanded subway.

Over the weekend, three new lines opened, including the services to the airport and the Olympic stadium. The subway now runs for 200 kilometres, with 160 stations.

Meng Fanyu is a Communist Party official and subway worker.

"The subway system is convenient, non-polluting, fast and safe. It's good for Beijing to reduce both air pollution and the use of the car," he said.

Even with the new subway lines, Beijing's buses will take up most of the slack of the millions of extra commuters who will need to travel around this enormous city without their cars.

The other option is to go for a blast from the past and get back on board the trusty Chinese pushbike - the bike lanes are still there, although they're becoming ever-smaller.

But bike shop owners say the new car restrictions have meant an increase in sales.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on July 22, 2008, 05:02:13 AM
The sky was blue for one day. mmmmmmmmmm
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: china-matt on July 22, 2008, 05:29:29 PM
I saw blue sky once in Beijing during my two trips there.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on July 24, 2008, 09:54:50 PM
I think I would be scared if strangers walked up to me in the street, beaming with joy and proceeded to inform me that I am great. It's obviously true but still somewhat on the wrong side of spooky.


Olympic etiquette: 'Eight don't asks'Story Highlights
Propaganda department of Dongcheng district put together advice

Locals instructed not to ask about age, salary, love life, political views

Locals recommended to use phrases like "You are really great"

Posters are part of government measures to clean up China's image

Next Article in World »


 Read  VIDEO
     
BEIJING, China (AP) -- Questions about salaries are out. Ditto queries about the age of a foreigner visiting Beijing for the Olympics. And an inquiry about someone's love life? Forget it.


A foreigner takes a snapshot at the Tan Buddhist Lama Temple in Beijing on Wednesday.

 These are part of the "Eight don't asks" displayed on posters in a central Beijing district that give conversational etiquette guidelines to residents for when they meet foreigners or disabled athletes during next month's Olympics.

The advice on Chinese-language posters was put together by the propaganda department of Dongcheng district to educate residents on how to properly welcome visitors during the Olympics, a spokeswoman for the district said.

Dongcheng includes Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. It is also the location of the Beijing Workers' Gymnasium, the boxing venue for the August 8-24 Olympics.

One poster focuses on "etiquette when communicating with foreigners." Locals are instructed not to ask foreigners personal questions about their age, salary, love life, health, income, political views, religious beliefs or personal experiences.

"It's normal for Chinese to ask people they just met such questions, but foreigners respond negatively to such questions," Beijing municipal government spokeswoman Wang Zhaoqian said Wednesday.

"By educating locals, we hope that they will become more socially sensitive when communicating with visitors," she said.

Don't Miss
Author: '60 Olympics changed world
China tightens Olympic security
Special: Beijing 2008
Play: Olympic game
Join: Beijing 2008 Fan Zone
Another poster gives advice on talking to disabled people. Locals are told not to use phrases such as "It's up there," or "It's over there" when talking to anyone who is visually impaired, and to avoid phrases such as "It's behind you" to physically impaired athletes.

Instead, locals are recommended to use phrases such as, "You are really great," or "You are wonderful."


In May, Beijing organizers apologized for a training manual issued to thousands of Olympic and Paralympic volunteers following complaints about inappropriate language used to describe disabled athletes.

The posters are part of wide-ranging measures the government has taken to clean up China's image during the Olympics. China's communist government and Beijing Olympic organizers have been conducting sweeping campaigns to get citizens to wait patiently in line, stop spitting and improve their driving habits.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on July 24, 2008, 10:45:50 PM
Fucking idiots.

Foreigners respond negatively only because the context is wrong.  Every person in the entire world, regardless of country, colour or creed, responds negatively when the context is wrong.

Simple example that works for whitey.  Someone walks up and asks, "What's your name?"  Comes off as aggressive.  But someone walks up and says, "Hi, my name's Tiddles, what's yours?"  Everything's peachy.  The extra words create a non-yellow person's English language context.

When people talk about teaching culture in language classes, they should be throwing in simple things like that, like giving equal information before asking, like balance of cultural sense of personhood.  And so on.


Or everyone could just stop pretending that visitors are freakish.  You know the idea that only guilty people suspect everyone else?  What does it mean that Chinese look at everyone else as monsters?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: James the Brit on July 25, 2008, 12:39:33 AM
Those posters about what you should or shouldn't say are all good and that, but do you really think the homies will care?

I mean it's forbidden to spit, you are supposed to stop at a red light, cross a road on a zebra crossing, have a shit in a toilet (not on the street)...
We all know that some homies (I'm not saying all) don't give a toss about any of those rules. Why would it be any different now?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on July 25, 2008, 12:47:25 AM
"The posters are part of wide-ranging measures the government has taken to clean up China's image during the Olympics. China's communist government and Beijing Olympic organizers have been conducting sweeping campaigns to get citizens to wait patiently in line, stop spitting and improve their driving habits."

Oh, I think some will care. I mean, there is a certain the-loonies-have-taken-over-the-asylum sense to China, but there is also the kind of fear that only a totalitarian regime can instil in people. But the posters crack me up. "Wait patiently in line"??? Oh, my aching sides....improve driving habits.....ouch, ouch, must stop laughing....Why should China change just because a bunch of big-nosed, round-eyed pale ghosts (which, as far as I know, sums up how we laowai were perceived by the Chinese for centuries) decides to have a spot of five-a-side in Beijing? What will they think of next? Posters claiming that the signs in lifts stating that only 10 people are allowed in them are rules, not loose guidelines? They're taking the fun out of China.
 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on July 26, 2008, 06:25:30 AM
http://nyhederne.tv2.dk/article.php/id-13531954.html


This is just too weird. Allow me to sum um the article, as it is in Danish. In Fenzhang, China, a pig was born with the head of a monkey. It sort of jumps around and scares people.
The picture in the article says it all.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Acjade on July 26, 2008, 06:39:13 AM
Like cloning or just an ugly baby?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on July 26, 2008, 07:32:27 AM
http://nyhederne.tv2.dk/article.php/id-13531954.html


This is just too weird. Allow me to sum um the article, as it is in Danish. In Fenzhang, China, a pig was born with the head of a monkey. It sort of jumps around and scares people.
The picture in the article says it all.

Had a good time when you visited Fenzhang didn't you Eric.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on July 26, 2008, 07:57:57 AM
No, Acjade, this is an actual freak of nature. No cloning or a baby. A sow gave birth to nine piglets and one looked like that. I'm not eating zhu rou in China ever again....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on July 26, 2008, 08:44:28 AM
In Fenzhang, China, a pig was born with the head of a monkey......The picture in the article says it all.

Seems more like an unformed Siamese twin to me.  You know.  Like a two-headed (two-faced) child.  A real Ripley's picture!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on July 26, 2008, 10:19:46 AM
AMonk, the thing has cloven hoofs!!! What I find decidedly horrible is that the people did not just smother the poor creature.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on July 26, 2008, 12:49:52 PM
But, Eric, pigs do have split (cloven) feet. bibibibibi  Check it out.....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on July 26, 2008, 07:24:48 PM
Yes, I know this. I tamed one once. It's just that the cloven feet makes it look very little like an unborn siamese twin and more like something Dr.Moreau and Dr.Frankenstein might have made after a particularly wet evening.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Acjade on July 26, 2008, 10:04:13 PM
A Uighur Islamic separatist group has taken credit for a deadly bus bombing in Shanghai in May and warned of new attacks in China during the Olympics, a group monitoring threats by extremists on the internet said today.

In a video statement, Commander Seyfullah of the Turkestan Islamic Party claimed credit for several attacks.

They include the May 5 Shanghai bus bombing which killed three; another Shanghai attack; an attack on police in Wenzhou on July 17 using an explosive-laden tractor; a bombing of a Guangzhou plastic factory on July 17; and bombings of three buses in Yunnan province on July 21.

Three people were killed by the explosion on the crowded bus in Shanghai on May 5, police and witnesses said.

The morning traffic rush hour attack in northwest Shanghai also left 12 people injured.
At the time, authorities attributed the blast to flammable materials carried by a passenger.

But Seyfullah said the blast was the work of his group and warned of more explosions to come.

"Through this blessed jihad in Yunnan this time, the Turkestan Islamic Party warns China one more time,'' Seyfullah says in the video dated July 23, according to a transcript from the Washington-based Intel Centre.

"Our aim is to target the most critical points related to the Olympics. We will try to attack Chinese central cities severely, using the tactics that have never been employed.''.

The warnings come just a day after Chinese police claimed they cracked a terrorist cell planning to attack Shanghai Stadium, the venue where the Australian men's soccer team will open its Olympic campaign on August 7.

Australian Olympic Committee spokesman Mike Tancred said it took any terrorist threat "very seriously'' but remained confident in the Chinese government's security plans for the Games.

"The safety of the athletes is paramount to us and there is a security force of 110,000 in China so we are not concerned about any terrorist threat in this country,'' he told AAP from Beijing today.

"We think with the size of the force they have and the knowledge they have, we think they will counter any terrorist problem that might arise.

"There is a very strong presence in the streets in Beijing with the army and the police. There are people that are stationed throughout the Olympic precinct 24 hours a day and I really can't see how any terrorist is going to crack the Chinese defences.''

Australia is sending a team of more than 430 athletes to the China for the Olympics and they will be supported by a staff of 319 officials, including a medical team of 75.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Acjade on July 26, 2008, 10:06:40 PM
According to global intelligence analysts Stratfor, the Turkestan Islamic Party is another name used by the Islamic Party of East Turkestan (ETIM), an ethnic Uighur and Muslim separatist group seeking to create an independent state out of China's westernmost, heavily Muslim Xinjiang province.

The United States, China and other countries have designated ETIM a terrorist group.

Beijing is wary of ethnic Uighur Muslims living in Xinjiang, who maintain an ethnic identity distinct from the Chinese and have struggled to re-establish the independent state of East Turkestan since their homeland became part of China in 1955.

Rights bodies say the Chinese government is cracking down on them under the pretext of fighting terrorism.

On June 27, Seyfullah released a five page statement, citing a long list of grievances against the Chinese government and calling for attacks on the Olympic Games and other targets in China.

The statement said the use of biological weapons would be permissible and that suicide bombers were ready and willing to carry out operations throughout the world.

"After receiving the order, asking Allah's continual help in this matter, the military commander has made the order to all brothers and sisters in every corner of the world, to move to the action phase,'' Seyfullah argued.

"These brothers and sisters have been waiting for the order and these brothers and sisters are volunteers who would commit suicide bombing when it is time for it.''

The separatist leader went on to urge attacks on Chinese officials, declaring readiness to kill the top leaders, soldiers, police, prison wardens, and accomplices.''

AFP

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on July 26, 2008, 10:29:55 PM
Yeah...going up against the country with the largest army in the world...splendid idea. Especially since China is internationally famous for taking a calm, collected and peaceful approach to people and groups threatening state security.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: James the Brit on July 26, 2008, 11:29:35 PM
 bkbkbkbkbk
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on July 29, 2008, 02:44:01 PM
YES YES YES - finally!!  Another smear of shame removed from our face.


Mandatory detention ... changes flagged (AAP: Mick Tsikas)

Refugee support groups are welcoming planned changes to the policy of mandatory detention for asylum seekers.

Minister for Immigration Chris Evans is today expected to announce several reforms including a new emphasis on only detaining those posing a security or health risk to the community.

The change will mean that it will be up to the Immigration Department to argue why a person should be kept in detention.

Under the changes asylum seekers denied a visa will be offered legal assistance and efforts will be made to shorten detention periods.

The announcement will include the temporary closure of the $400 million detention centre built on Christmas Island by the Howard government.

On ABC1's Lateline, Dr Graham Thom from Amnesty International said this will bring Australia into line with other western democracies.

"We are certainly hoping that most of the people in detention will be released," he said.

"The vast majority are either asylum seekers or visa over-stayers.

"This is a very fundamental change because really for the last 15 years Australia has reserved the right to mandatorily detain somebody simply based on their lack of a visa and wanting to keep them in detention for as long as possible."

Dr Thom expects the new refugee policy will mirror those of other western democracies.

"Hopefully these changes will bring Australia in line with other western democracies and into line with our international obligations," he said.

       
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on July 29, 2008, 11:50:04 PM
Good on Oz.  While I recognise their right to control immigration, there has to be a better way than building gigantic prisons for the crime of being in Australia, which-

...Naw, too easy.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on July 30, 2008, 12:59:53 AM
Beijing gets mixed review from Greenpeace
Last Updated: Monday, July 28, 2008 | 3:04 PM ET
CBC News

The Beijing Olympics received a mixed review of its environmental initiatives from Greenpeace just days before the Games begin.

In a report issued Monday, Greenpeace praised Beijing for achieving and in some cases surpassing original environmental goals, but also criticized the host city for missed opportunities to create a better short-term and long-term environmental Olympic legacy for the city.

Furthermore, the organization said, China's efforts were hampered by a lack of policy transparency and independently verified data.

Greenpeace based its assessment of Beijing's environmental initiatives for the Games on two public reports by the United Nations Environmental Program and the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG).

"Greenpeace's ability to conduct its own comprehensive independent evaluation was constrained by limited access to Olympic venues and comprehensive data," the report says.

"Some crucial data needed to comprehensively assess the Olympics were unavailable."

In the report, Greenpeace focused on six key environmental areas: air quality, energy use/climate change and refrigerants, transportation, water, forestry, and toxics and wastes.

Beijing received kudos from the organization for energy-saving technology in Olympic venues, stricter vehicle emissions standards and expanded public transport.

But in other areas, Beijing's air quality still falls short of international standards, the report said.

The city's measures of PM10 — particulate matter 10 microns in diameter, about a seventh of the thickness of a human hair — have consistently stayed above Chinese national standards and stricter World Health Organization standards, Greenpeace said.

Lo Sze Ping, Greenpeace China's campaign director, told a news conference Monday that Games organizers and "sports teams from the various countries have reason to be concerned."

"In the event PM10 conditions cannot meet with national standards and WHO standards, then there are reasons for different parties to suggest that certain events be delayed," Lo said.

For four days now, Beijing has not experienced a "blue sky day," when the air pollution index stays below the national standard for "good air quality."

Beijing did not even officially collect statistics on smaller particulate matter and ozone, pollutants that worry health experts, Greenpeace said.

"Beijing has also missed a golden opportunity in using the Games as a platform to implement more ambitious initiatives," Lo said.

Greenpeace's report also recommended that Beijing:

- Continue to tackle air pollution through strictly regulating vehicle emissions standards and to set an example for other Chinese cities.
- Continue to upgrade industrial technologies and to push them toward clean production.
- Widely promote renewable energy technology used at Game venues across the city, such as solar lighting and geothermal heating.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on July 30, 2008, 03:33:24 PM
I don't think it is just the frog that can do this in China!

Chinese frog has tuneable ears

Tuesday, 29 July 2008 Jennifer Viegas
Discovery News
Odorrana tormota frog

The frog's unusual ears and ultrasonic calls allow it to communicate in noisy environments (Source: Albert Feng)

Just as humans tune into their favourite radio station, an unusual frog from China can shift its hearing from one frequency to another in order to selectively choose what it hears.

Known as the Concave-eared Torrent Frog, Odorrana tormota, is the only known animal in the world that can manipulate its hearing system to select particular frequencies, according to a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Humans appear to possess a modicum of control, but our system is slow compared to that of the frog and we cannot, with precision, tune our ears to match sounds.

The researchers believe the rare amphibian likely evolved its hearing talent out of necessity, since its environment is so noisy.

"Their calling sites are on the steep banks of a fast-flowing body of water - the Tao Hua Creek (at Huangshan Hot Springs in central China)," says co-author Professor Albert Feng from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Feng says the site is especially noisy after spring showers, pointing out that humans often cannot hear well over heavy rains either.

"We pretty much have to shout at one another," he says.

The frog doesn't shout, but it instead sings like a bird either in audible chirp-like frequencies or by emitting very high-pitched ultrasonic sounds.
Transparent ears

Curious as to how the amphibian could hear these different vocalisations, Feng and his team analysed the frog's hearing system, which wasn't too challenging since the frog's eardrum is completely transparent.

The scientists used a laser to measure the eardrum's vibration, and noticed that while it could respond to both audible and ultrasonic sounds, sometimes the eardrum's sensitivity to ultrasonic noise mysteriously disappeared.

Further investigation determined the frog actively opens and closes two narrow channels known as the Eustachian tubes, which connect the pharynx (part of the neck and throat) to the left and right middle ears.

When open, the tubes couple the frog's left and right ears, making them sensitive to audible sounds from all directions. When closed, their ability to pick up ultrasonic frequencies kicks in.

"We said, 'Woah! This is bizarre.'" Feng says. "In all textbooks on sound communication and hearing in frogs, it is plainly stated that the Eustachian tubes are permanently open."

Amazing accuracy

The ability to tune into specific frequencies at will isn't the frog's only claim to animal fame.

It possesses recessed ears instead of ones that, like those of most other creatures, are located on the body's surface. It can also localise sound with astonishing precision.

With an error of less than 1%, males of this species leap directly toward calling, wooing females, with a level of accuracy never before observed in frogs.

"On the one hand, I am surprised that any frog can open and close the Eustachian tubes," says Professor Carl Gerhardt from University of Missouri.

"But on the other hand, I am not too surprised that this frog does it because it is also the first to be shown to have ultrasonic hearing and calls with ultrasonic components."

The frog's unique hearing system is already being used as a model for "intelligent" hearing aids that can spatially separate sounds, process them the way that human brains do, and boost sound signals of interest, such as differentiating background noise from that of a desired conversation.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: BubbaBait on July 30, 2008, 06:16:21 PM
It is not unique.

I have a girl friend who does that.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on July 30, 2008, 09:00:10 PM
I have a female parental unit who can do the same.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on July 30, 2008, 09:02:57 PM
I have found that the majority of fellas can tune out any other frequency when watching sport.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on July 31, 2008, 03:41:56 AM
Actually we can',t that's why we really want all of you shut up while we're watching.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on July 31, 2008, 11:28:39 PM
Stil, expect a bill from Apple.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on August 01, 2008, 12:36:47 AM
There's a "Bill" at Apple?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mr Nobody on August 06, 2008, 02:18:35 AM
I thought bill was with microsoft?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: cheekygal on August 10, 2008, 04:32:07 AM
Russia is in a military conflict with Georgia.  bibibibibi This is just what we need the most.  aoaoaoaoao
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on August 10, 2008, 08:55:51 AM
Yeah, so I read.  Russia is bombing targets inside Georgia, who have shot a few planes down.  Nasty implications here.  Where's the rest of the world in this?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on August 10, 2008, 09:02:06 AM
... Where's the rest of the world in this?

At the Games in Beijing. 


Actually, Putin has left BJ and headed to the Georgia-Russia border.  Don't know if he thinks a close-up visit will help solve tensions, but he's gone there.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on August 10, 2008, 09:03:41 AM
50-year old (US) comedian Bernie Mac died at 2:00 am of pneumonia complications. 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Spaghetti on August 10, 2008, 10:04:43 AM
50-year old (US) comedian Bernie Mac died at 2:00 am of pneumonia complications. 

I was not a fan in the sENse that I can tell you much about his work. I did hear him in interviews and found him charismatic and I enjoyed his work in a couple of films. He was quite entertaining in the film adaptations of Charlie's Angels.

50 is far too young. It reminds me of a very talented comedian named Robin Harris who also died way too young. I was a fan of Mr. Harris. Just as he was about to break into the mainstream he died of heart failure. Younger than 50, I believe. Now I am also reminded of Richard Jeni, who took his own life at an early age. It's all too sad. All three men brought smiles to many people.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Wags on August 10, 2008, 05:40:07 PM
Found this interesting item, I know I google is getting more popular so:

Quote
Google 'gadgets' called gateways for hackers

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/08/09/2329850.htm (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/08/09/2329850.htm)

I choose to insert this relevant choice tidbit here:
Quote
"I could force you to download child porn or send subversive material to China," Mr Hansen said. "The exploitation is almost limitless. Google has to fix it."
aoaoaoaoao
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: cheekygal on August 10, 2008, 08:15:13 PM
If it was US attacking Georgia, by now that would become the only news all over TV besides Olympics.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on August 10, 2008, 10:11:15 PM
I agree.  How is the world ignoring this?  Georgia's a middle-sized, advanced country with a military to match.  This should be one of the biggest news stories of the year.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Ruth on August 10, 2008, 10:20:43 PM
I also agree.  This is very serious.  I must admit I don't know much about the history, but I'm finding daily updates on the current situation on internet news sites.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on August 11, 2008, 07:44:57 AM
It's been reported quite a lot on CNN. Apparently, Georgia just called a one-sided truce.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: James the Brit on August 11, 2008, 07:47:55 AM
Team GB won a gold medal today.  agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: cheekygal on August 11, 2008, 03:39:14 PM
Let's hope this madness ends before more people die.  bibibibibi And it affects the world's economy. Apparently Euro fell towards US$.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on August 11, 2008, 04:02:36 PM
Truce is not working - Gori is under heavy attack. This report from the ABC 30 minutes ago.

United States Vice-President Dick Cheney has called Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili to say "Russian aggression must not go unanswered," the vice-president's office said.

The United States has accused Russia of seeking regime change in Georgia as the US pushes the UN Security Council to call for a ceasefire in the widening, bloody Caucasus conflict.

The simmering conflict between Russia and its small, former Soviet neighbour Georgia erupted late on Thursday when Georgia sent forces into South Ossetia, a small pro-Russian province which threw off Georgian rule in the 1990s.

Moscow said 2,000 civilians were killed and thousands made homeless in a "humanitarian catastrophe" but there has been no independent confirmation of the number of dead and wounded throughout the region.

Russia, which has accused Georgia of "genocide" in South Ossetia, had provided support to the separatists and acted as a peacekeeper in the province, responded to Georgia's invasion by pouring troops and tanks south through the Caucasus mountains into South Ossetia to drive back the Georgians.

Russian troops and tanks took control of Tskhinvali, the region's devastated capital, early on Sunday after a three-day battle.

Georgia offered Russia a ceasefire and peace talks on Sunday after pulling troops back from rebel South Ossetia's capital, and mediators began a mission to end the internationally condemned fighting.

However, some fighting still gripped parts of the Caucasus region and Russia demanded an unconditional Georgian withdrawal.

The conflict has alarmed the West, which views Georgia as a valuable, if volatile, ally because of its strategic location on an energy transit route carrying oil from the Caspian to Europe.

Mr Cheney's office said in a statement that "the Vice-President expressed the United States' solidarity with the Georgian people and their democratically elected Government in the face of this threat to Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity".

It said Mr Cheney told Mr Saakashvili that "Russian aggression must not go unanswered, and that its continuation would have serious consequences for its relations with the United States, as well as the broader international community".

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner arrived in Tbilisi at the head of an international team of mediators, the first top level diplomatic mission to fly to the region in an attempt to stem the bloodshed. It was due to move on to Moscow on Monday.

After meeting Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, Mr Kouchner said a "controlled withdrawal of the troops" was his main priority.

"Coming back to the table, negotiations, peace talks, a political solution. That's it. Easy to say, very difficult to do," Mr Kouchner said.

Mr Saakashvili appeared smiling but dishevelled to meet Mr Kouchner, before showing him the night-time view of Tbilisi from a hillside.

"It is the most surreal world crisis I could ever imagine," the Georgian leader told reporters.

Devastation

Russian television showed what it said were pictures from Tskhinvali of burnt-out buildings, wounded civilians receiving medical treatment in dilapidated basements and weeping mothers complaining of a lack of food and water.

"It started with severe bombing with artillery and planes and helicopters. Our boys, with their guns, could do nothing," resident Alla Dzhiloyeva told RTR state television by phone.

"They bombed us so may times all the houses are destroyed ... on one street there is only one wall left."

Pictures on NTV television showed Tskhinvali's main hospital in ruins and most of its 200 patients crammed into the basement.

Patients, many wincing, underwent treatment on tabletops in what looked like unsanitary conditions.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin cut short his visit to the Olympics on Saturday and flew to a field hospital in North Ossetia, visiting wounded troops and evacuees, and denouncing what he termed Georgia's "crimes against its own people".

Potentially widening the conflict, Sergei Bagapsh, the leader of Abkhazia, another separatist region on Georgia's Black Sea coast, said he had ordered 1,000 troops to push Georgian forces out of the Kodori Gorge, a strategic pocket of territory.

- Reuters
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: fox on August 12, 2008, 05:25:28 AM
And it affects the world's economy. Apparently Euro fell towards US$.

currency prices fall and rise all the time. its no big deal, that drop was about 300 pips which is only about a third more than the usual daily range.
 i trade it.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on August 12, 2008, 04:39:18 PM
It's serious - but so is the coup is Mauritania, the Israelis telling the Eritreans to leave Tel Aviv, the starving IDPs in Yemen, the flooding in Chad, the starving in Ethiopia, the increase in weapons in Kenya ....

Endless.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 12, 2008, 09:24:20 PM
Wearable beer belly and wine bra: (http://www.reuters.com/news/pictures/slideshow?collectionId=1983&galleryName=All%20Collections#a=12)

(http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/4160/12rtx74gchv3.jpg) (http://www.imagehosting.com/)

Free beer goggles with every purchase!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on August 16, 2008, 12:57:52 AM
It's serious - but so is the coup is Mauritania, the Israelis telling the Eritreans to leave Tel Aviv, the starving IDPs in Yemen, the flooding in Chad, the starving in Ethiopia, the increase in weapons in Kenya ....

Endless.

Russia and Georgia are AT WAR.  Russian tanks are battling Georgian tanks.  Both countries are nuclear powers. 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on August 16, 2008, 01:17:15 AM
B.C. teacher sentenced to more than 3 years for sexual abuse of Thai boy
Last Updated: Friday, August 15, 2008 | 1:08 AM ET CBC News

A British Columbia teacher who admitted he sexually abused a 13-year-old boy in Thailand and photographed the offence was sentenced Friday to three years and three months in a Thai prison.

Christopher Paul Neil sits in a cell at a criminal court in Bangkok in June. (Apichart Weerawong/Associated Press)
Christopher Paul Neil, 33, of Maple Ridge, B.C., who worked as a teacher in different parts of Asia before his arrest last October, avoided a possible six-year, six-month sentence by pleading guilty in May. He was also sentenced to pay a fine of 60,000 baht, or about $1,700 US.

"OK," was Neil's only comment to reporters after the verdict was read. His interpreter said Neil, dressed in a prison uniform and wearing ankle chains, would not appeal.

During the trial, Neil admitted that he took the photos, but said he did not post the pictures online.

He pleaded not guilty in early June to similar charges involving the teen's brother, who was nine years old at the time of the alleged offence. He faces up to 20 years in that case, which goes to trial on Oct. 7.

Neil was the subject of an international police search last year after Interpol released censored photos of him allegedly engaging in sexual acts with young boys from different parts of southeast Asia, including Cambodia and Vietnam.

The photos were found online in 2004, but the face of the perpetrator was digitally obscured by a swirl shape. Interpol unscrambled the images with the help of German police computer experts three years later, and circulated the pictures publicly.

Hundreds of tips were received and Neil was arrested 11 days after the Interpol appeal was launched.

Neil taught at various schools in Thailand, South Korea and Vietnam since at least 2000.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on August 16, 2008, 02:22:17 AM

Russia cluster bombed Georgia - claim

From correspondents in Tbilisi | August 15, 2008

INTERNATIONAL rights group Human Rights Watch said today it had evidence that Russian aircraft had dropped cluster bombs on Georgia, including the flashpoint city of Gori, killing at least 11 civilians.

The New York-based non-governmental organisation said the dead included a Dutch journalist and that dozens more had been wounded.

Human Rights Watch said its researchers had spoken to doctors and victims and had examined photographic evidence that led them to conclude cluster bombs had been used in Gori and the nearby town of Ruisi, south of South Ossetia.

"Cluster bombs are indiscriminate killers that most nations have agreed to outlaw,'' said Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch, in a statement.

"Russia's use of this weapon is not only deadly to civilians, but also an insult to international efforts to avoid a global humanitarian disaster of the kind caused by landmines.''

Dropped from aircraft or fired from artillery, cluster bombs explode in midair, scattering bomblets. They pose a lasting threat as many bomblets fail to explode on impact and act as landmines.

A landmark international convention banning cluster munitions was formally adopted by 111 countries in Ireland in May in a move that organisers hoped would stigmatise the lethal weapons as much as landmines.

Russia and Georgia did not take part.

"This is the first known use of cluster munitions since 2006, during Israel's war with Hezbollah in Lebanon,'' said the rights group.


It might be a war - or invasion - but it is pretty unlikely that either side will use their nuclear capabilities.

This article is really interesting, but as it is in "The Economist' it needs to be read pretty quickly.
http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_ID=11920992 (http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_ID=11920992)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on August 16, 2008, 02:33:13 AM
Oh dear, war, pestilence, famine, false degrees and other horrible things...

Here is some lighter news...

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/08/14/bigfoot.body/index.html


Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: cheekygal on August 16, 2008, 05:19:46 AM
:-( It is so sad. I hope this whole war nonsense stops soon. We really really don't need this show off of powers and allies involvements.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on August 16, 2008, 06:16:50 AM
I like how Bush has accused Russia of bullying Georgia. Right then, becaue illegal wars, sanctioning the use torture, dispensing with habeas corpus and other irritating judicial mumbo-jumbo is something nice, civilized and intelligent people do...If ever there was an instance of the pot calling the kettle black this is it.
You would think that we, as a race, had evolved enough by now to start solving conflicts with words and not bullets.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: James the Brit on August 16, 2008, 06:18:38 AM
B.C. teacher sentenced to more than 3 years for sexual abuse of Thai boy
Last Updated: Friday, August 15, 2008 | 1:08 AM ET CBC News

A British Columbia teacher who admitted he sexually abused a 13-year-old boy in Thailand and photographed the offence was sentenced Friday to three years and three months in a Thai prison.

Christopher Paul Neil sits in a cell at a criminal court in Bangkok in June. (Apichart Weerawong/Associated Press)
Christopher Paul Neil, 33, of Maple Ridge, B.C., who worked as a teacher in different parts of Asia before his arrest last October, avoided a possible six-year, six-month sentence by pleading guilty in May. He was also sentenced to pay a fine of 60,000 baht, or about $1,700 US.

"OK," was Neil's only comment to reporters after the verdict was read. His interpreter said Neil, dressed in a prison uniform and wearing ankle chains, would not appeal.

During the trial, Neil admitted that he took the photos, but said he did not post the pictures online.

He pleaded not guilty in early June to similar charges involving the teen's brother, who was nine years old at the time of the alleged offence. He faces up to 20 years in that case, which goes to trial on Oct. 7.

Neil was the subject of an international police search last year after Interpol released censored photos of him allegedly engaging in sexual acts with young boys from different parts of southeast Asia, including Cambodia and Vietnam.

The photos were found online in 2004, but the face of the perpetrator was digitally obscured by a swirl shape. Interpol unscrambled the images with the help of German police computer experts three years later, and circulated the pictures publicly.

Hundreds of tips were received and Neil was arrested 11 days after the Interpol appeal was launched.

Neil taught at various schools in Thailand, South Korea and Vietnam since at least 2000.

Sad, very sad. Will he be prosecuted in Canada as well, when he gets back?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on August 16, 2008, 02:41:13 PM
Good sabre rattling:  What will Washington do?


Moscow warns it could strike Poland over US missile shield
· US condemns 'bullying' of Georgia
· Russian general threatens nuclear attack

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/15/russia.poland.nuclear.missiles.threat (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/15/russia.poland.nuclear.missiles.threat)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on August 16, 2008, 04:02:19 PM
Who says the Courts are always on the woman's side?

Man wins court order to stop girlfriend cutting off his penis
Article from: Northern Territory News
August 15, 2008 09:55am

A MAN has been granted a court injunction to stop a woman trying to cut off his penis.
Tony Goodchild, of Darwin, was granted the domestic violence order against his former girlfriend.

He told Darwin Magistrates Court the woman was trying to hunt him down and threatening to "cut his penis off''. The unusual application caused laughter in the courtroom, reports The NT News.

But Mr Goodchild -- who was shaking and carrying two backpacks during the hearing -- said he had been in hiding in a city park from his ex since she had "bashed'' him up.

Read the full report here.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on August 18, 2008, 10:20:28 PM

Quote
Texas school district letting teachers carry guns

    * August 18, 2008 - 3:20PM

A tiny Texas school district will allow teachers and staff members to carry concealed firearms to protect against school shootings when classes begin this month, provided the gun-toting employees follow certain requirements.
http://www.theage.com.au/world/texas-school-district-letting-teachers-carry-guns-20080818-3xf7.html (http://www.theage.com.au/world/texas-school-district-letting-teachers-carry-guns-20080818-3xf7.html)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on August 18, 2008, 10:26:46 PM
That's just wonderfully insane. Instead of taking drastic measures to keep student's with guns out of schools, they just ensure that teacher's can shoot back. Amazingly stupid. "Hello, I'm Mr. Johnson, your new English teacher and this is my high-powered sniper rifle loaded with armour-piercing bullets. Now, let's discuss Hamlet"....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on August 18, 2008, 11:53:02 PM
I'll bet they'll check the stats on school shootings in a while, and discover the vast majority were done by students who swiped the teacher's gun.

More guns= more shooting.  I can't figure out how Yanks can't see this.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on August 18, 2008, 11:58:31 PM
Con, you're talking about a country who seems unable to realize that certain rules written down following a rather bloody and unpleasant conflict in the Eighteenth Century might be ready for a revision. I have always thought that America would be much more peaceful country if the founding fathers' had been dyslexic and written the amendment so it gave everyone "the right to arm bears".
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: cheekygal on August 19, 2008, 01:24:55 AM
It is very funny how apparently the media got the whole Russia-Georgia conflict wrong. I have talked to my mom and she said there wasn't anything like Georgia announcing war to Russia. And no one bombed Gori. Blah. Apparently Georgian president has turned the whole thing around. They had a press-conference in South Ossetia for foreign reporters and showed what exactly happened there so that no one says it was just a CLAIM.  bibibibibi Anyway, I am glad this whole mess is over.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on August 19, 2008, 01:34:52 AM
Musharraf Announces His Resignation
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on August 19, 2008, 05:49:43 PM
It is very funny how apparently the media got the whole Russia-Georgia conflict wrong. I have talked to my mom and she said there wasn't anything like Georgia announcing war to Russia. And no one bombed Gori. Blah. Apparently Georgian president has turned the whole thing around. They had a press-conference in South Ossetia for foreign reporters and showed what exactly happened there so that no one says it was just a CLAIM.  bibibibibi Anyway, I am glad this whole mess is over.

Really difficult to find out the truth.

Quote
GORI, Georgia (Reuters) - Russian aircraft dropped bombs on the Georgian town of Gori on Tuesday, injuring several civilians in all but deserted streets, a Reuters witness said.

"The bombs hit in front of us and beside us," a Reuters reporter driving through Gori in a vehicle said. "Several people were wounded and lying in the street. We got straight out of there."
Quote
A Dutch television journalist was killed overnight when Russian warplanes bombed the central Georgian city of Gori.

The television news station RTL reported on its Web site that its cameraman Stan Storimans, 39, was killed and correspondent Jeroen Akkermans was wounded in the leg in the attack. RTL said at least five people died in the Gori bombing.

At least two other journalists have been reported killed previously in the fighting between Georgian and Russian troops, now in its fifth day.

Gori was bombed overnight by Russian forces who have occupied the nearby Georgian separatist region of South Ossetia and on Monday advanced into Georgia proper. Gori was all but deserted late Monday after most remaining residents and Georgian soldiers fled.

Quote
Georgia announces full military mobilization

Originally published 03:28 a.m., August 8, 2008, updated 03:30 a.m., August 8, 2008

TBILISI, GEORGIA (AP) - Georgia's president is announcing a full military mobilization as Georgian troops have moved to regain control over the separatist province of South Ossetia.

Mikhail Saakasvhili says in a televized statement that his government will be calling up reservists as fighting is continuing to rage in South Ossetia's capital.

The move comes as the United Nations Security Council failed to agree early Friday morning on a statement drafted by Russia that would have called on Georgia and its separatist region in South Ossetia to immediately put down their arms.

Quote
Georgia's parliament approved a state of war across the country for the next 15 days, while Russia accused the West of contributing to the violence by supplying Georgia with arms.

And if only it were over.

Quote
Georgia sees little sign of Russian withdrawal
The Associated Press
Published: August 19, 2008
 
GORI, Georgia: Russia's military held onto crucial positions across Georgia despite announcing the start of a promised pullout after a brief war with the ex-Soviet republic at the heart of growing tension between Moscow and the West.

Around the strategic central city of Gori, the only movement seen by Associated Press reporters Monday was in the opposite direction — toward the Georgian capital. In the west, Russian forces continued to occupy a military base in Senaki and Georgian authorities said the Russians set off resounding explosions that blew up the runway there.

With Western leaders anxiously watching for a withdrawal and puzzling over how to punish Moscow for what they called a disproportionate reaction to a Georgian offensive targeting separatist South Ossetia province, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev defended Russia's actions and warned against any aggression.

"Anyone who tries anything like that will face a crushing response," he said.

The movements of Russian tanks and troops also seemed to taunt Georgia and its Western backers.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: cheekygal on August 20, 2008, 01:23:11 AM
Actually, Gori wasn't really bombed...  bibibibibi Oh well. They have signed now 6-step cease-fire pact. And the forces are being withdrawn from Ossetia now.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: joe.thinker on August 21, 2008, 04:49:58 AM
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7572298.stm
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on August 27, 2008, 08:13:11 PM
The grammar police no longer ride.


Grammar vigilantes 'vandalise' sign

August 25, 2008

A CAMPAIGN by two grammar vigilantes to correct mistakes on signs across America has come to an abrupt end after they were charged with vandalism for trying to rectify a spelling error at the Grand Canyon.

The founders of the Typo Eradication Advancement League (TEAL) have been banned by a court from correcting any publicly owned signs after trying to emend one on the Desert View Watchtower that, for seven decades, has drawn attention to an "emense westward view of the Grand Canyon". Oblivious to grammar, the prosecutors pronounced the sign "a unique historical object of irreplaceable value".


Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson, both 28, met in a creative writing class. The two graduates of the Ivy League Dartmouth College teamed up after Mr Deck, from Somerville, Massachusetts, had an epiphany in the shower. Misspellings on his shower curtain inspired him to try to make a better world by travelling the nation to correct errors with a fix-it kit of magic markers and correction fluid.


A star of high-school spelling competitions, he worked on Dartmouth's student newspaper and honed his editing skills in a temporary job at an academic publisher. He invited Mr Herson, then working in a bookshop outside Washington, to join him in a round trip of the United States.


Their goal, according to the TEAL mission statement, was to "stamp out as many typos as we can find, in public signage and other venues where innocent eyes may be befouled by vile stains on the delicate fabric of our language".


They found and corrected 231 signs with mistakes ranging from "birthday candell's" to a "Sweedish" berry drink and even discovered misspellings in neon lights in Las Vegas.


They quickly identified the apostrophe as America's greatest grammatical challenge. Their pet peeve is the number of car park signs warning that vehicles will be towed "at owners expense" - without an apostrophe.


The grammar vigilantes planned to take a day off when they visited the Grand Canyon on March 28 and found the hand-rendered sign inside the Desert View Watchtower. They covered up a misplaced apostrophe and painted it in its proper place with correction fluid. They also added an omitted comma. Reading on, however, they were appalled to discover what Mr Deck described as a made-up word: emense.


The sign was painted by Mary Colter, the architect who designed the rustic 1930s watchtower and other Grand Canyon landmarks. The authorities took a dim view of what they considered "vandalism" at a site listed in 1987 as a National Historic Landmark.


Mr Deck and Mr Herson were caught after recording their exploits on their website, which was seen by the police. The two admitted conspiracy to vandalise government property and were fined dollars 3,035 and banned from national parks or from modifying any public signs for a year.

- The Times
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Ruth on August 28, 2008, 12:24:34 AM
Those guys should come to China.  They'd have enough work to keep them busy until retirement age.

edit - Just had a thought:  Can you imagine some guy with a magic marker accosting people on the street to correct their t-shirts  ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: non-dave on August 28, 2008, 05:01:49 AM
You don't have to imagine... his name is Stil.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on August 28, 2008, 07:09:08 AM
Those guys should come to China.  They'd have enough work to keep them busy until retirement age.

edit - Just had a thought:  Can you imagine some guy with a magic marker accosting people on the street to correct their t-shirts  ahahahahah

I think I may have a new mission in life.   bfbfbfbfbf
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on August 31, 2008, 09:08:23 AM
ZOOM AIRLINES GOES KA-BLOOM!!!

The discount airline from the UK stopped running on Thursday.  Passengers have been left high and dry and many were stranded, as the last flights touched down and parked alongside runways.  The airline is now officially bankrupt and grounded.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: becster79 on August 31, 2008, 01:38:12 PM
Lotus, this HAS to be asked....so does that guy's penis have an AVO out on his ex ahahahahah ahahahahah??
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Ruth on August 31, 2008, 02:39:49 PM
AMonk, your tickets to China aren't with ZOOM airlines, are they?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on August 31, 2008, 08:41:36 PM
No.  Thank the Lord.  They're American Airlines. bfbfbfbfbf
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on August 31, 2008, 08:52:27 PM
Quote
American Pilot Arrested In UK, Suspected Of Drinking

An American Airlines pilot was arrested in Britain on Saturday on suspicion of being drunk before a scheduled flight to Chicago, the airline said.

A statement by the airline said the crew member was a relief pilot on the Boeing 767-300 with 198 passengers, meaning he was a backup to the captain and first officer. The crew member was not identified.

He was arrested on suspicion of being under the influence of alcohol after reporting for duty at Manchester Airport, the carrier said. A court appearance was scheduled for Monday.

American said in a statement it was investigating and would not provide additional details.

"Our primary concern is for the safety and comfort of our passengers and crews," the airline said. "American Airlines has strict policies on alcohol and substance abuse and holds its employees to the highest standards."

Flight 55 was due to arrive in Chicago shortly after 4 p.m. local time, three hours late. The plane was scheduled to stop in New York to supplement the crew.

Don't worry about it. I'm sure those things really fly themselves.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on September 02, 2008, 07:58:27 PM
Fantastic piece for discussion in class.  Let your classes go to town on this one.


Rail work damages 3000-year-old relics

From correspondents in Shanghai | September 02, 2008

A CHINESE construction company has severely damaged relics dating back more than 3000 years while building a section of a high-speed rail linking Beijing and Shanghai, state media has reported.

Work was halted on the section of rail in the eastern city of Nanjing and the company faces a fine of up to 500,000 yuan ($80,000) for ignoring warnings that the site contained ancient treasures, the China Daily said.

"These precious cultural relics absolutely must be excavated before construction continues," Nanjing's Cultural Heritage Bureau deputy director Yang Qinghua was quoted as saying.

"You can't just ignore them."

Nearly 2000 square metres of the site was damaged last week when the company shrugged off experts' instructions not to work on the area in China's ancient capital, Mr Yang was quoted as saying.

The incident is the latest battle between those seeking to drive China's explosive growth forward at any cost and those wanting to preserve the country's priceless historical heritage.

The site was identified in October after bones and pottery dating back to the Shang Dynasty (16th to 11th century BC) and the Zhou Dynasty (11th to 3rd century BC) were discovered there, Mr Yang said, according to the report.

Heritage officials initially told the company it would have to redirect the rail line, but company officials refused, saying the project was of national importance, Mr Yang was quoted as saying.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Ruth on September 02, 2008, 08:20:39 PM
Good one.  Thanks.  And what a pity...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on September 02, 2008, 11:37:05 PM
Resting in peace?


Bodies dug up for cash in scam

From correspondents in Hong Kong | September 02, 2008

HONG Kong cemetery officials took bribes to allow bodies buried in the overcrowded city to be dug up from temporary graves before they were fully decomposed, the city's corruption body says.

A total of 18 senior cemetery managers, tombstone contractors and funeral agents had been arrested in connection with the racket, the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) said.

"ICAC enquiries revealed that the arrested serving and former staff of Board of Management of the Chinese Permanent Cemeteries (BMCPC) had allegedly conspired together to solicit and accept monetary advantages from a number of tombstone contractors and funeral agents,'' it said.

"In return, the BMCPC staff were alleged to have allowed exhumation to continue improperly despite the fact that the human remains of the deceased were not fully decomposed.''

The case highlights the shortage of land in Hong Kong, where permanent cemetery plots are rare and costly.

Cremation is unpopular in Chinese culture, and many families choose to bury their dead in government-run cemeteries where they lease a plot for 10 years, after which the corpse is either cremated or re-buried in a smaller plot.

Cemetery supervisors are meant to bury the body for another six months if they find it has not fully decomposed.

But the ICAC investigation - codenamed "Mid-Summer Night'' --found this rule was being ignored if bribes were paid, so the sought-after plots could be cleared and re-leased.

In some cases, the supervisors were also alleged to have brought forward the date for exhumation in return for cash, the ICAC said.

The scam had been going on for up to two years with funeral agents and tombstone contractors offering substantial cash bribes, an unnamed source told the South China Morning Post newspaper. worth hundreds of dollars.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mr Nobody on September 03, 2008, 02:03:31 PM
I just got online to find a couple of articles for use in my "newspaper reading" class tomorrow and I find Lotus has done my work for me.

I am doing this for the next ten weeks. Please keep up the good work.

 bfbfbfbfbf agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Ruth on September 04, 2008, 05:41:31 PM
Quote
Sept. 3: Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin addresses the crowd at the Republican National Convention telling them she is not going to Washington to seek the approval of the media but rather to “serve the people of this country.”

Quote
When Republican Presidential nominee John McCain announced Sarah Palin as his choice for vice president — a younger, relatively inexperienced woman — the scenario seemed familiar. If you were watching ABC a couple years ago, it should. It’s essentially the backstory of Commander in Chief.

Geena Davis was great as president.  I say let's give Sarah Palin a chance.  It's time a woman was in control.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on September 04, 2008, 09:02:20 PM
Top nine ridiculous place names

Australia may boast some of the funniest sounding place names in the world, but it doesn't have a monopoly. Scattered across the globe are towns and villages with names so unfortunate that it's hard not to feel sorry for the locals.

But if you're looking for an amusing spot to add to your travel itinerary, these places are ideal for a visit, especially if you'd like your smiling mug captured on camera next to a silly sign.

Muff — County Donegal, Ireland
Undeterred by a name that conjures up all sorts of hairy images, tonnes of people have been crossing the border from Northern Ireland in recent years to relocate to this once-sleepy village. Despite the population explosion, Muff hasn't lost its traditional soul. Each year, during the first week in August, residents celebrate the Muff Festival, which includes all kinds of parades, parties, copious beer consumption and a raft of bizarre competitions, like JCB heavy vehicle driving, pig racing and lorry pulling events.

Twatt — Orkney Islands, Scotland
While unfounded rumours abound that this is Muff's twin town, the inhabitants of Twatt have become rather used to people laughing at them. This far-flung village off the north coast of Scotland featured at number four on the list of most vulgar sounding names in the book Rude Britain. Perhaps surprisingly, Bell End, Minge Lane and Cocks were ruled even cruder than Twatt, which also has a namesake on the Shetland Islands.

Whiskey Dick Mountain — Washington State, US
Mountaineering aficionados may dream of reaching the peaks of Everest and K2, but the humorous hiker heads to Whiskey Dick Mountain. A two-hour drive from Seattle, a 15km trail leads you through rugged desert area, blessed with rocky outcrops, hidden canyons and a blaze of flora and wildlife, until the 1200m-high summit appears before your eyes. People have been known to reward themselves at the top with a swig of Jack Daniel's whisky from their hip-flask.

Titty Hill — Sussex, England
Although it's just 40km from Portsmouth on England's south coast, Titty Hill feels like it's in the middle of nowhere. Surrounded by a patchwork of fields, the tiny hamlet consists of a couple of houses and a farm called, appropriately enough, Titty Hill farm. In a country that's well known for its wealth of silly place names, Titty Hill is within easy driving distance of Thong in Kent and Shitterton in Dorset, but a fair way from Wetwang in Yorkshire.

Gobblers Knob — Pennsylvania, US
Immortalised in the 1993 film Groundhog Day, Gobblers Knob in Punxsutawney is a place of pilgrimage for those wanting to hear if winter is finally over. German tradition holds that if the sun comes out on Candlemas, the precursor to Groundhog Day, the hedgehog (or badger) will see its shadow and six more weeks of the cold season will follow. When German settlers came to Pennsylvania they continued this tradition, using groundhogs instead of hedgehogs to predict the weather.

Dildo — Newfoundland, Canada
Dildo was founded in 1700 around fishing and whaling activities, with unsubstantiated rumours that its name came about because of the phallic-like shape of its harbour. Consistently named among the prettiest towns in Canada, it's recently become a magnet for tourists. Australians may already be familiar with Dildo as it was featured in the 'What the?' segment of Rove Live in 2006. The Dildo museum is popular for the replica of a 9.1m squid hauled from local waters in 1933.

Hell — Stordal, Norway
This pleasant Norwegian village hardly lives up to its dastardly name, especially in winter when, with temperatures as low as minus 20°C, Hell literally does freeze over. An easy train ride from the major city of Trondheim on Norway's fjord-peppered west coast, Hell was put on the map in 1990 when Mona Grudt, a green-eyed redhead, was the country's Miss Universe representative. She billed herself as 'the beauty queen from Hell' — and lost.

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch — Anglesey, Wales
Although there's an uninhabited hill in New Zealand called Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu, this Welsh town has one of the longest officially recognised place names in the English-speaking world. Locals claim that when translated from Welsh it means 'St Mary's church in the hollow of the white hazel near to the rapid whirlpool and the church of St Tysilio of the red cave'. Thankfully, it's also spelt Llanfairpwllgwyngyll and commonly known as Llanfair PG or Llanfairpwll.

Fucking — Tarsdorf, Austria
Arguably the world's most shockingly-titled town, Fucking — 30km from Salzburg and apparently named after a sixth-century local called Focko — has been the centre of much controversy in recent years. After souvenir hunters kept stealing the signs, local authorities arranged a poll to ask the townspeople whether or not they should change their name. The stubborn lot gave a two-fingered salute, and a four-letter word response, to that little idea.

Have you been to any places with 'off the wall' names?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on September 04, 2008, 09:59:46 PM
Nothing like those - but I like Mungallala and Muttaburra.  And I have been there. I'm pretty fond of Umagico as a name, as well as being a pretty magic setting (if it wasn't so hot).
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on September 05, 2008, 01:56:25 AM
Strangest name I've ever heard - Calgary.

Makes me shudder just writing it.  bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on September 05, 2008, 01:19:45 PM
Nothing fascinating yet for you Mr N - but I don't think the US ground attack in Pakistan will help that country or it's unstable gov't too much.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24294920-25837,00.html (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24294920-25837,00.html)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on September 08, 2008, 05:47:10 PM
Kim Jong Il dead since 2003: author
09:00 AEST Mon Sep 8 2008
2 hours 45 minutes ago

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has been dead for years and replaced by a number of look-alikes, a Japanese academic claims.

North Korea expert Professor Toshimitsu Shigemura, a professor of international relations, says Kim died of diabetes in 2003 and has been substituted by up to four body doubles ever since.

Driven by a fear of assassination, Kim allegedly trained his doppelgangers — one of whom underwent plastic surgery — to attend public appearances.

"Scholars don’t trust my reasoning but intelligence people see the possibility that it will turn out to be accurate," Fox News reported Professor Shigemura as saying.

"I have identified and pinned down every source."

Kim, 66, has not appeared in public for three weeks amid rumours he is seriously unwell.

While Seoul intelligence officials have said they believe he has diabetes and heart problems, they do not think he is near death.

But Professor Shigemura, from Tokyo's respected Waseda University, believes that Kim actually died sometime during a 42-day absence from public in September 2003.

He claims that whenever anyone is granted a face-to-face meeting with today's Kim, a senior official is always by his side "like a puppet master".

Professor Shigemura's claims, outlined in his book The True Character of Kim Jong-il, have been disputed by North Korean officials.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on September 08, 2008, 05:49:44 PM
Sweet for a southern hemisphere Fathers Day.

'Daddy' duck mystery baffles beachgoers
The small toy duck washed ashore carrying a poignant message.The small toy

It may not be the world's greatest mystery. Hercule Poirot has probably solved more dastardly who-dunnits. And the sleuths down at Sydney's police headquarters may have better investigations on their books.

But a small human drama was intriguing the people who walked along Sydney's Curl Curl beach yesterday.

There they found a tiny toy duck that had been washed ashore.

And on its yellow plastic was written in black ink the poignant words: "Dearest Dad Your always in our hearts Love always Renee and Mariss xxx ooo'.

As one of the beach-combers said: "It's like a modern day note in a bottle, I'd love to know the story of who cast it out to sea."

"It really makes you wonder who are 'Renee and Mariss' and what happened to their dad. I wonder how far it has come and if it was left for father's day."

Father's Day might seem the obvious answer - except that the duck had clearly been in the water for a long time, with tiny shells crushed into its beak.

So who are Renee and Mariss? Where is their Dad? Where did the duck get into the water and how did it reach Curl Curl?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on September 08, 2008, 07:51:09 PM

Hong Kong democrats retain key power

September 08, 2008

HONG KONG: Hong Kong's pro-democracy parties won more than one third of seats in weekend elections, retaining the key power to veto legislation in the city's legislature.
The groups won 23 of the 60 seats up for grabs in the Legislative Council, results showed today, following the poll billed as a key test for pro-democracy parties in the former British colony in the face of growing Chinese patriotism.

The parties had expressed fears they would slip below the crucial number of 21 seats - losing the ability to veto government legislation, which they successfully used in 2005 to block controversial constitutional reforms.

Hong Kong was promised universal suffrage for both its legislature and chief executive when Britain handed back the territory to China in 1997, but no specific timetable was set.

Only 30 of the 60 legislative seats were being chosen by the city's 3.37 million registered electors in yesterday's poll. The remaining 30 “functional constituencies” represent various business and industry interests chosen by select electorates.

Of the 23 seats won by the pro-democrats, 19 seats belong to the directly-elected geographical constituencies, while four seats were returned from the “functional constituencies.”

Their biggest rival, the pro-Beijing Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong, retained about 10 seats in the council, the results showed.

“The results do not change the current political landscape a lot,” said Ivan Choy, a political commentator at Chinese University.

“But the pro-democratic politician's support rate among voters has dropped from 60 to 50 percent, and this is something they should have a think about.”

At the last election in 2004, the democrats managed to grab 25 seats.

But the election also threw up some surprising results. The League of Social Democrats, a radical anti-government group, won three seats in the legislature.

The winners included Leung Kwok-hung, better known as “Long Hair”, who had expressed concerns that he would lose his seat after his victory in 2004.

“The success of the League of Social Democrats issues a warning sign to the government. They represent the grassroots' voice and are expected to take an aggressive, hardlined stance towards issues such as minimum wage,” said Choy.

Emily Lau, the first woman elected to the legislature in 1991, won back her seat by a narrow margin today. She accused the Beijing and Hong Kong authorities of “conspiring” to discourage the public to cast their votes.

Only 45 per cent of voters turned out yesterday, about 10 per cent lower than four years ago.

“The government is very afraid of a high turnout because it would mean that people want more democracy. It has been working overtime to make sure that people don't come out to vote,” she said.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on September 09, 2008, 03:07:32 PM
Daddy Duck mystery solved

Braving the chilly high seas, a tiny toy duck has travelled more than 30 kilometres up Sydney's east coast, before resurfacing in a poignant coincidence for a grieving family on Father's Day.

ninemsn published a story yesterday of a mystery yellow duck that was puzzling beachgoers at Sydney's Curl Curl beach on Sunday.

Like a modern-day message in a bottle, passers-by were intrigued by a heartfelt note written on the duck's yellow plastic.

"Dearest Dad Your (sic) always in our hearts Love always Renee and Marissa xxx ooo'," the message read.

Now, the mystery of the duck's origins has been solved.

Renee O'Neill told ninemsn it was she and her four siblings who had released the duck, along with a dozen others and her father’s ashes, off the cliff tops of Sydney's La Perouse on August 9.

The ducks were a tribute to their father Howard Knight, who had died in late July at the age of 59.

"I couldn't believe it when I saw the story, and especially that the duck had turned up on Father's Day," Ms O'Neill said.

"The meaning for all of us was different….I was a bit estranged from my father so for me it was about saying goodbye and expressing some of the things I had wanted to say but never did."

In a message posted on ninemsn's blog, another of Mr Knight's daughters, Susan, said the duck's discovery had "put the biggest smile on my face and brought tears to my eyes".

"It feels like he is sending a message back to us," she wrote.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: becster79 on September 10, 2008, 07:46:55 PM
Well, the big news is is that today is D Day, Doomsday, the Apocalypse, name your doom 'n gloom. We now have about 1 hour left.

I shall raise my mug of cheap, but tasty, imported Aussie coffee and oversized chocolate bar to ya'll and say it's been nice knowin ya agagagagag

(then I'm off to change my undies)

and if we're still here at 5.30 I'll be cursing that blasted choc bar and you can all  pppppppppp at me!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on September 10, 2008, 08:27:32 PM

Fears for hundreds in China landslide

September 10, 2008

BEIJING: A landslide in northern China has killed at least 56 people, with hundreds more feared trapped in the mud, mining sludge and rubble.
The landslide in Shanxi province on Monday also injured 35 people, the official Xinhua news agency reported today.

Xinhua quoted local government official Lian Zhendong as saying that rescuers had searched through 70 per cent of the rubble, though the report also said it was not known how many people were trapped under the mud.

But the People's Daily newspaper, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party, said hundreds could be missing.

The Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy said in a statement that the death toll could exceed 500 people.

The landslide at Tashan, a hill in Xiangfen county, knocked down a mine warehouse, trapping an unknown number of people inside, Xinhua said. A three-storey office building, a market and some houses were also destroyed, the report said.

A preliminary investigation showed that the landslide was caused by the collapse of a dam holding tailings from an iron mine, said Wang Dexue, deputy head of the State Administration of Work Safety.

“It is an illegal company that was using the abandoned dump to get rid of its production waste,” Wang said in an interview on state broadcaster CCTV's midday news show.

“The amount stored far exceeded the capacity of the space. In addition, there was a bit of rain and the collapse took place as a result,” he said.

Xinhua said several local officials had been fired for negligence. The owner of the Tashan Mine was detained, it said.

Rescuers said it was difficult to identify the victims as most of the mine workers were migrants from elsewhere in Shanxi, Chongqing and central Hubei province, the report said.

More than 1,500 police, firefighters and villagers searching through the rubble for survivors were hampered by rough terrain, poor telecommunications and heavy rain, Xinhua quoted Ding Wenlu, rescue headquarters chief, as saying.

The accident underscores two major public safety concerns in China: the failure to enforce protective measures in the country's notoriously deadly mines, and the unsound state of many of its bridges, dams and other aging infrastructure.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on September 17, 2008, 04:19:14 PM
And in other news, it's now against the law to follow God's instructions regarding spending time with one's dog.



Fla. police use Taser on nude man walking a dog

Mon Sep 15, 9:05 PM ET

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - A 40-year-old man walking his dog in the nude was Tasered by police when he refused to follow an officer's commands. David McCranie of the Tallahassee Police Department said an officer on patrol spotted the man shortly after 8 p.m. Friday.

The man was asked what he was doing and told the officer, "Allah told me to watch a Bruce Willis movie and walk the dog," McCranie said.

McCranie said using the Taser was the only way to subdue the man without having to hurt him. The man was then sent for mental-health evaluation and treatment.

Information from: Tallahassee Democrat, http://www.tdo.com
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on September 18, 2008, 12:35:51 PM
Quote

AUSTRALIAN paralympians celebrating success at the Beijing Games fell victim to dangerous drink-spiking at a Beijing bar.

It's been revealed a number of Australian paralympians had their drinks spiked in the Beijing nightclub while celebrating the end of their competitions.

The Australian Olympic Committee has confirmed a female athlete - believed to be an archer - fell ill while at the China Doll bar.

Reports have said another victim complained of suddenly feeling ill, vomiting and then passing out on a couch in the popular nightclub.

The attacks led to the AOC sending out a text message to all team members and staff warning them to stay clear of the bar before the final weekend of the games, when most celebrations would begin.

They're a bad lot in Beijing!!!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on September 23, 2008, 04:59:11 PM
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=635712

The appealing one-liner that has become a mainstay of the James Bond movies has been scrapped in the next thriller Quantum of Solace.

Daniel Craig will not once introduce himself as "Bond … James Bond" in the next Ian Fleming 007 movie due for release in November, despite the phrase captivating viewers for 46 years, The Independent has reported.

Director Marc Forster made the drastic omission because the producers and the starring actor Daniel Craig agreed with him that it didn’t work in the latest adventure.

"There was a 'Bond, James Bond' in the script … there are several places where we shot it as well, but it never worked as we hoped," he said.

"It's nice to be open-minded about the Bond formula. You can always go back to them later on."

Bond’s introduction is not the only popular element of the Bond films that has been scrapped in the latest installments.

Q, the creator of the spy gadgets that often helped Bond escape life-threatening moments — whose character has been played by John Cleese — was left out of the last film, Casino Royale.

Fans have speculated that veering away from the formula is a risky attempt to bring the agent with a license to kill into the 21st century.

But Graham Rye, who edits the online 007 Magazine said the Bond films have actually gone back to author Fleming's original vision — with less emphasis on Q and secretary Moneypenny.

"Rather than going away from Fleming I think the producers have gone back to him," he said.

"His announcing of himself had become a bit corny."
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: decurso on September 23, 2008, 06:16:29 PM
 Casino Royale was a complete reset for the franchise. They're definitely going for a harder edge with less humour and comic book type stuff.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Nolefan on September 23, 2008, 09:05:32 PM

I like the new direction... it's darker and seems quite a bit more authentic...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on September 24, 2008, 12:14:32 AM
It was about time Bond got rid of those stupid gadgets too. The invisible car was almost too stupid to bear.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on September 24, 2008, 12:58:35 AM
Cars? whatever. The important parts to any Bond movie are the birds.

Olga Kurylenko

(http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a197/Bissessar/OlgaKurylenko1.jpg)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on September 24, 2008, 01:13:18 AM
I remember watching an old cartoon featuring this character called Betty Boop or something. In it, these men watching her turned into wolves in suits, their eyes popped out of their heads and their tongues rolled out to be three times the length of their bodies. We need an icon like that.....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Shroomy on September 24, 2008, 03:11:46 AM
I remember watching an old cartoon featuring this character called Betty Boop or something. In it, these men watching her turned into wolves in suits, their eyes popped out of their heads and their tongues rolled out to be three times the length of their bodies. We need an icon like that.....

You want them to ask her if you can borrow her pink lingerie???  uuuuuuuuuu
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on September 24, 2008, 11:31:31 PM
Yowzers.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: teleplayer on September 26, 2008, 10:21:36 AM
Thanks for the Bond girl, Stil!!  afafafafaf

I've noticed we're (especially me) getting slack with our general news.

We've missed Qindao Beer Festival
http://www.cctv.com/program/cultureexpress/20080925/100862.shtml# (http://www.cctv.com/program/cultureexpress/20080925/100862.shtml#)

I always thought Shanghai was the "Paris of the East" for the lastest fashion set but not only am I wrong there, a rumor is afoot that Qingdao wants to be the fashionista hot spot over HK and Tokyo
http://www.cctv.com/program/cultureexpress/20080925/100865.shtml (http://www.cctv.com/program/cultureexpress/20080925/100865.shtml)
Please tell me that's not ETR under the "beautyberry" sign in picture #2?

And most importantly, last week, (I can't belive NoleFan didn't bring this up) we missed the annual Talk Like a Pirate Day (Sept 19)!
http://www.talklikeapirate.com/ (http://www.talklikeapirate.com/)
Is anyone still playing Pirates on face book?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on September 26, 2008, 11:47:46 AM

WE MISSED TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY!?!?!?!

NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

 aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Schnerby on September 26, 2008, 08:19:22 PM
Thanks, Stil. cbcbcbcbcb
I'm in class 'researching' and that little gem turned up.
My teacher is rather perplexed.  ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on September 26, 2008, 11:04:46 PM
Glad to be of help Schnerby

More Olga
(http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a197/Bissessar/OlgaKurylenko2.jpg)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: cheekygal on September 26, 2008, 11:08:30 PM
Stil are you sure its a Bond girl and not one of the bride.com subscribers? aoaoaoaoao
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on September 27, 2008, 01:26:20 AM
Stil are you sure its a Bond girl and not one of the bride.com subscribers? aoaoaoaoao

I'm not sure Cheeky, so i better check out bride.com

Thanks for the tip.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on September 28, 2008, 02:31:24 PM
Only in China!!!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1062577/The-great-heave-forward---Chinese-passengers-forced-push-broken-passenger-plane.html (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1062577/The-great-heave-forward---Chinese-passengers-forced-push-broken-passenger-plane.html)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on September 29, 2008, 05:11:56 PM
 ahahahahah Riot.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on September 29, 2008, 05:38:52 PM
 aaaaaaaaaa....FORMER prime minister John Howard has been awarded the Winston S Churchill Medal of Freedom at a ceremony in LA.
The American Freedom Alliance, an LA-based think tank, presented Mr Howard with the award for being "a strong ally of the United States". aaaaaaaaaa
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on September 29, 2008, 07:50:29 PM
Only in China!!!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1062577/The-great-heave-forward---Chinese-passengers-forced-push-broken-passenger-plane.html (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1062577/The-great-heave-forward---Chinese-passengers-forced-push-broken-passenger-plane.html)

Thank God for the 69ers. ahahahahah uuuuuuuuuu
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Spaghetti on September 29, 2008, 08:56:38 PM
aaaaaaaaaa....FORMER prime minister John Howard has been awarded the Winston S Churchill Medal of Freedom at a ceremony in LA.
The American Freedom Alliance, an LA-based think tank, presented Mr Howard with the award for being "a strong ally of the United States". aaaaaaaaaa

We live in bizarre times, George. In the first American presidential "debate," both Barack Obama and Skeletor McCain referred to Henry Kissinger with gushing respectability. Kissinger is wanted for war crimes and can barely leave the United States as a result (http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Kissinger/CaseAgainst1_Hitchens.html).  bibibibibi


We live in supremely strange times, sir.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: becster79 on October 02, 2008, 02:34:49 PM
The Phantom is dead  alalalalal alalalalal alalalalal ananananan


(from Courier Mail)
Theatre legend Rob Guest deadArticle from: Font size: Decrease Increase Email article: Email Print article: Print Submit comment: Submit comment Staff writers
October 02, 2008 06:45am

ACTOR Rob Guest - who found fame in his starring role in the hit musical Phantom of The Opera - has died in hospital overnight after suffering a large stroke.

Guest, who had been starring as the Wizard of Oz in hit musical Wicked, was rushed to hospital on Tuesday night with bleeding on the brain.

He died peacefully in hospital last night.

Early this morning, a hospital spokesperson said: "The family want the public to know he was surrounded by family and friends when he died''.

The former Phantom of the Opera star and host of 90s TV show Man O Man had been in a critical condition on life support.

Before the tragic incident, the English-born actor, 57, was relaxing at home with partner Kellie Dickerson when he started feeling unwell and collapsed at his computer.

Ms Dickerson, a musical director, was joined by Guest's mother and Wicked producer John Frost at the bedside of the former Phantom of the Opera star at St Vincent's Hospital.

Guest's children Christopher, 19, and Amy, 17, flew from Sydney yesterday with their mother Judy Barnes to be with him.

As Guest was fighting for life earlier yesterday, the family released a statement saying he was critically ill.

Mr Frost, a long-time friend, said the family was distraught at news of the stroke.

"It's that thing of not wanting to believe what's happening. We went in and held his hand and told him how much we loved him, and to be strong,'' he said.

Mr Frost said many in the cast of Wicked cried when he broke the news.

"I addressed the cast and I never have seen a cast fall apart like that in 35 years.

"(Guest) was such a father figure to the cast. He led the cast on this show. There's a lot of upset young people. The youngest cast member is 18 so they may not have had something like this happen before.''

Guest last played the Wizard on Sunday night.

There are no performances on Monday and Tuesday.

His place was taken last night by understudy Rodney Dobson, who had been playing the part of Doctor Dillamond.

Theatregoers were saddened when told he was ill.

"He'll be here in spirit,'' said Sacha George, from Tasmania.

"I bought tickets just to see him. I saw him in Phantom and he was just great.''

Hugh O'Brien, of Cairns, said he felt dearly for the cast, who had to carry on.

"I'm very disappointed he won't be here tonight because he's a fabulous performer. I listen to him in my car on the way to work.

"He's just the iconic Australian performer, so we wish him all the best.''

Pennie Briese, who travelled with her husband from Canberra to see the show, said she had been a fan since seeing Guest in Phantom.

"We've been travelling all day, so I had no idea. What horrible news,'' she said.

"He was the attraction for us to come tonight.''

Mr Frost said Guest did not have any known health problems and was not a heavy drinker or smoker.

"It's like you and I talking now and then `bang', in half an hour something happens.''

He said Guest was "doing what he loved to do'' in his role as the Wizard.

He played the Phantom in a record 2289 performances.

More recently he played Captain Von Trapp in The Sound of Music. He also starred in productions of Les Miserables and hosted the short-lived '90s TV game show Man O Man.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on October 03, 2008, 02:09:59 PM
Exploding sperm, stale chips - it's Ig Nobel

By Maggie Fox in Washington | October 03, 2008

A RESEARCHER who figured out that Coke explodes sperm and scientists who discovered that people will happily eat stale chips if they crunch loudly enough have won alternative "Ig Nobel" prizes.

Other winners included physicists who found out that anything that can tangle, will tangle and a team of biologists who ascertained that dog fleas jump farther than cat fleas.

The Ig Nobels honour real research, but are meant as a funny alternative to next week's Nobel prizes for medicine, chemistry, physics, economics, literature and peace.

Awarded by the editors of the Annals of Improbable Research, the prizes are based on published research, some intended to be humorous but often not. Usually the "honoured" researchers go along with the joke.

Deborah Anderson of Boston University Medical Centre and colleagues were awarded the chemistry prize for a 1985 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine that found Coca-Cola kills sperm.

She said she was serious in testing the soft drink because women were using it in a douche as a contraceptive and, later, to try to protect themselves from the AIDS virus.

"It definitely wouldn't work as a contraceptive because sperm swims so fast," she said.

But Coke made with sugar does kills sperm, probably because sperm soak it up. "The sperm just kind of explode."

The Ig Nobel committee made up a "nutrition prize" for Massimiliano Zampini of the University of Trento, Italy and Charles Spence of Britain's Oxford University, who tricked people into thinking they were eating fresh potato chips by playing them loud, crunching sounds when they bit one.

The biology prize goes to a French team that found dog fleas can jump higher than cat fleas, while the medicine prize was awarded to a team at Duke University in North Carolina who showed that high-priced placebos work better than cheap fake medicine.

Dorian Raymer of the Scripps Institution in San Diego and a colleague won the physics prize for demonstrating mathematically why hair or a ball of string will inevitably tangle itself in knots.

The peace prize was given to the Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology for adopting the legal principle that plants have moral standing and dignity. There is a website explaining this: http://www.ekah.admin.ch/en/topics/dignity-of-creation/index.html.

A team at The University of Sao Paulo in Brazil won a special archaeology prize for showing how an armadillo can mess up an archaeological dig.

The economics prize went to researchers at the University of New Mexico who learned that a professional lap dancer earns bigger tips when she is most fertile.

David Sims of Cass Business School in London won the literature prize "for his lovingly written study 'You Bastard: A Narrative Exploration of the Experience of Indignation within Organisations'," the committee said.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Spaghetti on October 04, 2008, 03:07:22 AM
Look out crocodile Hunter:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/10/03/australia.zoo.carnage.ap/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

Boy feeds Aussie zoo's animals to croc

 SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- A 7-year-old boy broke into a popular Outback zoo, fed a string of animals to the resident crocodile and bashed several lizards to death with a rock, the zoo's director said Friday.


The 30-minute rampage, caught on the zoo's security camera, happened early Wednesday after the boy jumped a security fence at the Alice Springs Reptile Center in central Australia, said zoo director Rex Neindorf.
apapapapap
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on October 05, 2008, 03:17:47 PM
Times are achanging!  The money or the history.  ahahahahah

Mao's personal plane up for sale

Posted Fri Oct 3, 2008 10:42pm AEST

Mao Zedong's personal aeroplane has been put up for sale by the owner of a shopping centre in southern China to make more space for parking.

Wang Zhilei, general manager of property developer Ridong Group in Zhuhai, a city in southern Guangdong province, confirmed the company had put the 46-metre-long plane up for sale.

"There are not enough parking spaces, so we decided to sell the plane," Mr Wang said.

But he would not comment further on prospective buyers or on the price Ridong was seeking for the plane, and referred to a report by the Southern Metropolis Daily, a Chinese newspaper.

Mr Wang told the newspaper that it was shop owners that had asked for the plane - which was purchased by the company in 1999 and put on display near the shopping centre - to be moved to make way for more parking spaces.

The jet is one of three that the Chinese airforce bought from Pakistan in 1969, according to the report.

One was given to Mao, the founder of modern China, the other was given to Lin Biao, Mao's heir apparent, and the third was reserved for the military.

But Lin's plane crashed in neighbouring Mongolia when he fled from China in 1971 after a failed coup to oust Mao.

The two remaining planes stayed in service until 1986, at which time Mao's personal plane was put on display in an airport in Beijing's suburbs until it was bought by Ridong Group.


http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/10/03/2381998.htm
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on October 09, 2008, 11:06:40 PM
Quote
The US state of Texas has banned fish pedicures over health and safety concerns, denying salon customers the opportunity to enjoy the sensation of hundreds of small fish nibbling away the dead skin from their feet.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/3161892/Texas-bans-nibbling-fish-pedicures.html (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/3161892/Texas-bans-nibbling-fish-pedicures.html)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on October 09, 2008, 11:08:41 PM
What does $315 billion look like?
http://m3.torispics.com/piles/?s=315billiondollars#nav-holder (http://m3.torispics.com/piles/?s=315billiondollars#nav-holder)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on October 10, 2008, 03:46:00 AM
Quote
The US state of Texas has banned fish pedicures over health and safety concerns, denying salon customers the opportunity to enjoy the sensation of hundreds of small fish nibbling away the dead skin from their feet.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/3161892/Texas-bans-nibbling-fish-pedicures.html (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/3161892/Texas-bans-nibbling-fish-pedicures.html)

That's terrible!! Let's hope that Chinese 'fish nibbling' places don't read this.  Especially as the article states NO person has been made ill from this.   

Texas allows people to carry guns, drive cars, smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol - all proven killers and stops fish nibbling???  bibibibibi bibibibibi bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on October 10, 2008, 05:56:57 AM
Quote
The US state of Texas has banned fish pedicures

I wouldn't think this would be a serious issue.  Very few fish have feet.
 axaxaxaxax axaxaxaxax axaxaxaxax axaxaxaxax
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Ruth on October 13, 2008, 09:48:47 PM
One of the big questions hanging over this summer's Games was whether the measures China took to clean up its polluted capital would work. After a few hazy days, the sun came out and banished the doubters. Now many are wondering if China will stick to its greener ways.

So far, the signs are promising. The country's leaders and Beijing residents were thrilled with the results of the green drive, and ordinary folks have clamored to keep some measures in place. No one is happier about this than Wan Gang, the father of China's green-car R&D program and the minister of science and technology. "The Olympics taught us all a good lesson," he says. "Now people all over the country have an urgent desire for a better environment." Such enthusiasm is helping him and like-minded leaders push for the adoption of clean-energy car technologies and other antipollution measures.

Chief among them are restrictions on the use of Beijing's 3.5 million registered automobiles. In the past, leaders hesitated to place permanent limits on private-car traffic because the increasingly assertive middle class squawked at such constraints. But the Games have helped shift attitudes, and now the city is unveiling new rules for a six-month trial, inspired by—though not as drastic as—the cutbacks that took 2 million vehicles off roads for two months during the Olympics and Paralympics. Under the new regulations, a third of government cars have been mothballed. As of Oct. 11, a fifth of official and private vehicles are barred from driving on weekdays. Municipal authorities will also begin phasing out hundreds of thousands of vehicles that exceed emission standards by Oct. 2009, a year ahead of schedule.

And soon the government is slated to unveil 1,000 clean-energy public-transport vehicles in 10 Chinese cities. Beijing introduced 23 fuel-cell cars, 470 electric vehicles and 102 hybrids during the Games, and drivers loved them. Wan says local officials and citizens are warming to the green vehicles, too. "The Olympics has been a time for demonstrating new kinds of high technology," he says. "It'll be just like people who have an old TV at home—they'll change it when they see a new LCD screen."

Another improvement has been in public transportation. Among Beijing's Games-related initiatives were a new subway line, an airport rail link and reduced bus fares. Such transit saw heavier use as drivers were forced off the roads. Bluer skies and fewer traffic jams have since persuaded more than two thirds of respondents in a recent survey to support the traffic controls. New rules will take 800,000 vehicles off the streets daily and require ordinary citizens to take public transport one day a week.

Of course, the battle is not over yet. Parts of the Olympics pollution crackdown can't be sustained on a permanent basis, such as shutting down construction sites and factories inside Beijing and closing some factories in neighboring provinces. That means pollution is likely to return in the coming months, if not to previous levels. Beijing's pollution index in August was the lowest in a decade—but it quadrupled in early October after Olympic traffic restrictions were relaxed. And private-car owners—and China's powerful auto industry—may vigorously protest the new regulations in hopes of persuading authorities to scrap them when the trial period ends next April.

Indeed, the backlash has already begun. Within two hours of the announcement of the new traffic restrictions on Sept. 28, thousands of Netizens posted complaints on the China's leading web portal, sina.com, grousing that the new measures discriminate "unfairly" against car owners. "There is still a debate over the vehicle ban, even though the government is determined to uphold the air quality, and is getting a lot of support from ordinary people," says Mao Shoulong, a public administration expert at Renmin University. This resistance is one reason Wan—who worked for 10 years at the German automaker Audi in vehicle development and strategic planning—has trained his sights on building cleaner cars, not banning them entirely. He says the government is "trying its best" to build on green vehicles introduced during the Games. If all public transport vehicles were switched to clean energy, Wan says, the sector would reduce fuel consumption by nearly 25-30 percent and cut emissions by a quarter. That could outstrip the benefits of halving the number of buses and taxis currently on the roads. In other words, it would let Beijingers keep their blue skies—and their beloved cars, too.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on October 13, 2008, 10:36:11 PM
Some 40% of female gas station employees in Metro Detroit are women, up from almost none a year ago. (Detroit News article)

Marijuana Issue Sent To A Joint Committee (Toronto Star headline)

Publicize your business absolutely free! Send $6. (Entrepreneur Magazine ad)

Gators To Face Seminoles With Peters Out (The Tallahassee Bugle)

Messiah Climaxes In Chorus Of Hallelujahs (The Anchorage, Alaska Times)

Married Priests In Catholic Church A Long Time Coming (The New Haven, Connecticut Register)

Governor Chiles Offers Rare Opportunity To Goose Hunters (The Tallahassee Democrat)

Would She Climb To The Top Of Mr. Everest Again? Absolutely! (The Houston Chronicle)

Governor's Penis Busy [should be "Pen Is"] (The New Haven, Connecticut Register)

Thanks To President Clinton, Staff Sgt. Fruer Now Has A Son

Clinton Places Dickey In Gore's Hands (Bangor Maine News)

Starr Aghast At First Lady Sex Position (The Washington Times)

Clinton Stiff On Withdrawal  (The Bosnia Bugle)

Long Island Stiffens For Lili's Blow (Newsday)

Organ Festival Ends In Smashing Climax  (San Antonio Times)

Rose Petroleum Jelly Keeps Idle Tools Rust-free (Chicago Daily News)

Textron Inc. Makes Offer To Screw Company Stockholders (The Miami Herald)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on October 15, 2008, 03:40:52 AM
This one TRULY had me crying with laughter!!


Geldof launches 'Bank Aid' as markets plummet

Sir Bob Geldof today launched a moving appeal to third world nations to 'give whatever you can' in the face of the ever worsening crisis in the western financial markets. The credit crunch, which has now come to dwarf the AIDS pandemic sweeping Africa, has, said Sir Bob, seen 'suffering on an unprecedented scale'.

Addressing an audience of peasant subsistence farmers in Ethiopia, he urged Africans to 'Give us your money. Pick up the phone and give us your f***ing money now. These people are losing their bonuses, their stock, their options… People are literally losing their liquidity right now and you have the power to stop it.'

The appeal follows a harrowing television report by Michael Buerk from a Wall Street wine bar, where thousands of economic refugees have ended up. They can't drink the water, and so are forced to drink the Pinot Grigio, despite the long term risks to their health. Many of their wives are painfully thin – this morning this woman walked forty miles on a Treadmaster, but has only eaten one lettuce leaf in three days.'

Meanwhile the people of Eritrea sent a television message to Washington, expressing their sympathy at the horrendous financial losses, and promising to return in its entirety all aid money received over the last twenty years. "It's impossible for us to imagine what it must be like to lose that much money" said one man, 'Literally, impossible.'     
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: decurso on October 15, 2008, 05:20:59 AM
 ararararar Lotus, if I didn't know you better I'd swear you made this up. What's next...third world African nations  gathering up their top recording artists to record benefit songs for starving rich people? A giant African charity concert to aid starving CEOs? Lord almighty... bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: decurso on October 15, 2008, 05:29:53 AM
 Oh shit. I just reread it again and realized it was clearly a joke. The Onion perhaps? I'm a little slow this time of night I'm afraid. Hilarious, though.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Ruth on October 15, 2008, 02:41:18 PM
It does help me put things into perspective, though.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on October 17, 2008, 04:35:04 PM
Quote
Aussies required to register online for US travel

 

October 17, 2008 - 12:29PM

Travellers from Australia, Japan, western Europe and a number of other countries must request authorisation to enter the United States on the Internet from January 2009, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said Thursday.

These countries are currently exempt from visa requirements to enter the United States for short visits under the Visa Waiver Program, and the new program will keep travel to the United States "visa free" for travelers from VWP countries.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/news/aussies-to-register-online-for-us-travel/2008/10/17/1223750294754.html (http://www.theage.com.au/news/news/aussies-to-register-online-for-us-travel/2008/10/17/1223750294754.html)


And from their website.......
Quote
If your electronic travel authorization application is approved, it establishes that you are eligible to travel, but does not establish that you are admissible to the United States under the Visa Waiver Program. Upon arrival to the United States, you will be inspected by a United States Customs and Border Protection officer at a port of entry who may determine that you are inadmissible under the Visa Waiver Program or for any reason under United States law.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Ruth on October 17, 2008, 05:07:03 PM
Ohmygosh.  They've gone nucken futs.

Shouldn't be any problem for you George, as long as you don't try to wear your qipao through customs.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Babe on October 17, 2008, 05:59:40 PM
Dear all,
At the moment, Donna and I are mailing brochures for our new project, “Focus On Skills”.
What we plan to do is:
1.   Provide advice for Organizations working with training in the development field.
 
2.   Work with organizations in the training and educational skills area
 
3.   Help Organizations to develop baseline studies of their skill levels and monitor the development of those skills
 
4.   Work with organizations, to help them develop high quality training packages and resources.

4.   Implement training packages for managers, employees and volunteers working in the field.
If any of you are interested in learning more, or would like to pass this information on, please let me know, and I will post you a brochure.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Tern Unstoned on October 17, 2008, 07:30:52 PM
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article4958778.ece

Just what you all need at this point:  news of the New China Internet Posse!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Ruth on October 17, 2008, 09:01:59 PM
Keeping the beat for CPR? Hum ‘Stayin’ Alive’
Study shows the disco hit helps bystanders remember lifesaving rhythm
 Most practitioners fail perform CPR aggressively enough, says researcher Dr. David Matlock. The recommended rate is about 100 beats per minute.
 'Stayin’ Alive’ really does keep people alive
  Oct. 15: The Bee Gees’ famous song is written to 103 beat per minute— perfect for teaching CPR, says The American College of Emergency Physicians. NBC’s Brian Williams reports.

Under most circumstances, it's best to keep the beat of the Bee Gees song “Stayin' Alive” out of your head, but heart specialists have come up with one good reason to remember: It could save someone's life.

Turns out the 1977 disco hit has 103 beats per minute, a perfect number to maintain — and retain — the best rhythm for performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or CPR.

A small study by University of Illinois College of Medicine researchers in Peoria has found that 10 doctors and five medical students who listened to the "Saturday Night Fever" tune while practicing CPR not only performed perfectly, they remembered the technique five weeks later.

“It’s a song everyone seems to know, whether they want to or not,” said Dr. David Matlock, the resident and researcher who led the study. He hopes further research will confirm its use in lay people trained in CPR as well.

Results of the study are set to be presented later this month at the annual meeting of the American College of Emergency Physicians in Chicago.

One trouble with CPR training, Matlock said, is that most practitioners, from trained medical professionals to people who take classes at the local fire department, fail to perform the potentially lifesaving technique aggressively enough.

“We stress that you have to push hard and you have to push fast,” he said. “If you don’t push hard enough and you don’t go fast enough, you don’t push that blood where it needs to go.”

A nudge from a song like “Stayin’ Alive” appears to help ensure that pace.

Participants in the study listening to the song performed CPR at the recommended rate, about 100 beats per minute. Five weeks later, without the music, they performed at 113 beats a minute, which is within an acceptable range, Matlock said.

Matlock stressed that the CPR-music connection was not his idea. The notion actually was suggested in 2005 by Dr. Alson Inaba, a pediatric emergency specialist at the University of Hawaii, after the American Heart Association came out with new guidelines for CPR.

“Both the message of the title and the mechanics of the music support the CPR message,” said Mary Fran Hazinski, a nurse at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital in Nashville and senior science editor for the heart association.

Performed quickly and accurately, CPR has been demonstrated to save lives when implemented in the first minutes after someone's heart has stopped, Hazinski said. It’s not necessary to have formal training, she added. People who witness an emergency should call 911 and then begin hands-only compressions.

“The important thing is that bystanders should do something rather than nothing,” she said, noting it could save tens of thousands of lives a year.

The idea of using a song to remember rhythm is appealing to Glenda Henry, 56, an office worker at the University of Illinois College of Medicine who wants to be prepared but worries about performing correctly in a crisis.

"I've taken CPR before, but I forget," she said. "But if someone teaches me with 'Stayin' Alive,' I could do it.'"

Neither Matlock nor the heart association have compiled lists of other CPR-friendly songs, though many popular tunes do have the appropriate beat. One suggested song has the right rhythm but the wrong message:

It’s “Another One Bites the Dust,” by Queen.

Everyone got that song in your head now?  You're welcome.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Schnerby on October 18, 2008, 01:54:58 AM
Gee, thanks.  llllllllll

I can tell myself it might save a life but that isn't going to make this an more pleasant...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: adamsmith on October 20, 2008, 07:06:00 PM
Boy, does that mean that if they put a proper washroom and shower in my apartment I can be rich?? bfbfbfbfbf bjbjbjbjbj


UN study says toilets can help combat poverty

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Installing toilets and ensuring safe water supplies where needed throughout the world would do more to end poverty and improve world health than any other possible measure, according to a new UN study.

 
"Water problems, caused largely by an appalling absence of adequate toilets in many places, contribute tremendously to some of the world's most punishing problems, foremost among them the inter-related afflictions of poor health and chronic poverty," said Zafar Adeel, director of the UN University's Canadian-based International Network on Water, Environment and Health, which released the study on Sunday.


Almost 900 million people around the world lack access to safe water supplies, and 2.5 billion people live without access to improved sanitation, according to UN figures.


Diseases due to poor water, sanitation and hygiene account for an estimated 10 percent of the total global burden of illness, and the total number of deaths attributed to poor water, sanitation and hygiene was over 3.5 million in 2002.


Simply improving domestic water supply, sanitation and hand washing with soap can reduce illness rates by more than 25 percent, researchers said.

Copied from yahoo news service.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on October 20, 2008, 08:22:29 PM
Yeah......someone who hasn't had anything to eat for a couple of days is really concerned about getting hold of a bar of soap for washing their hands......









Please note the sarcastic tone of voice
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on October 21, 2008, 12:33:14 AM
And do humans have the same problems?? 

Quote
Elephant unfit for wild after drug rehab

October 20, 2008

A CHINESE elephant who spent three years in rehab after animal smugglers got him addicted to heroin is not able to return to the wild despite being cured, state press reported.

Four-year-old Xiguang and three other elephants who the smugglers also captured had been taken to an animal protection centre on China's tropical island of Hainan to recover from their ordeals.

While they are all fit again, they are no longer able to live in the wild, Xinhua news agency cited an official with a wildlife park in southwestern China's Yunnan province where they are now residing.

"Three years of domestic life and a huge amount of rehabilitation medication has changed the physical situations, odours and habits of Xiguang and the other elephants,'' said Pan Hua, the park's deputy manager, according to Xinhua.

"They may become the target of attacks by other beasts if they are sent back to the wild. Some are easily irritable now and may hurt humans. They can't go back to the wild anymore.''

Xiguang became hooked on heroin after the animal smugglers laced bananas with the drug to capture and tame him, according to Xinhua.

Police caught the smugglers and rescued the elephants on the border between China and Myanmar in 2005, Xinhua said.

Xiguang was identified as having problems distinct from the other elephants because his eyes were always streamed with tears and he made continuous trumpeting noises, previous press reports said.

At the Hainan animal protection centre, his three-year rehab included regular doses of methadone five times stronger than required for humans trying to recover from heroin addiction, Xinhua said.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on October 21, 2008, 01:20:23 AM
What would Baden=Powell have said!!! kkkkkkkkkk kkkkkkkkkk

And what an opportunity for all of those dodgy scout masters. ahahahahah ahahahahah

Quote
Scouts to learn about sex

From correspondents in London | October 20, 2008

THE Scouts' famous motto of "be prepared" is being expanded to ensure young members know all about sex.
Under a set of new guidelines to be unveiled today, scouts will be taught about contraception, pregnancy tests and what do do if they believe they are being forced to have sex.

Scouts will also be taken on visits to sexual health clinics and given free condoms on trips.

While the new measures have outraged some traditionalists, the Scout Association argues they will help members resist peer pressure to start having sex before they are ready.

"We must be realistic and accept that around a third of young people are sexually active before 16 and many more start relationships at 16 and 17," chief scout Peter Duncan said.

"Scouting touches members of every community, religious and social group in the country so adults in scouting have a duty to promote safe and responsible relationships and, as an organisation, we have the responsibility to provide sound advice about how to do that."

There are about 400,000 scouts in Britain, 85 per cent of whom are boys.

But the new measures have alarmed some critics, who claim they will only encourage young scouts to have sex.

"This is not what parents expect of the Scout Association," Conservative MP Ann Widdecombe told The Daily Telegraph.

"They are sending their children off to a leisure activity, not for sex education.

"This is a matter for parents and they already find their role usurped by schools."

Chairman of pressure group Parents Outloud Margaret Morrissey, chairman of pressure group,
Parents Outloud accused the Scout Association of "trying to be politically correct".

"The last people you would expect to be making children sexually aware is the boy scouts," she told the Daily Mail.

"All the signs are that political correctness has got us in the situation we're in now where young people are trying to grow up too soon and can't cope with it.

"They're confused and do things they probably wouldn't have done if they hadn't had that information in the first place. "
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on October 21, 2008, 01:04:33 PM
Talk about being ever hopeful!!   ahahahahah ahahahahah ahahahahah ahahahahah


Russians rebuff McCain money plea

From correspondents in New York | October 21, 2008

JOHN McCain's US presidential election campaign has solicited a financial contribution from an unlikely source – Russia's UN envoy – but a McCain spokesman said overnight it was a mistake.

In the letter, McCain urged Russia's UN Ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, to contribute anywhere from $US35 ($49) to $US5000 ($7104)to help ensure Senator McCain's victory over Democratic rival Senator Barack Obama, currently ahead in voter preference polls.

"If I have the honor of continuing to serve you, I make you this promise: We will always put America – her strength, her ideals, her future – before every other consideration," McCain assured Mr Churkin.

Moscow's mission to the UN issued a terse statement on the Republican presidential candidate's letter, saying that the Russian Government and its officials "do not finance political activity in foreign countries."

A spokesman for Senator McCain, a long-time critic of Russia, had a simple explanation for the fundraising letter's arrival at the Russian mission in New York: "It was an error in the mailing list."

The letter was addressed to Mr Churkin and sported a McCain signature near the bottom.

Earlier this month, both Senator McCain and Senator Obama harshly criticized Russia for invading Georgia two months ago, but neither was willing to say yes when asked if Russia under Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was the "evil empire".

It is illegal for US presidential candidates to accept funds from foreign sources.

The McCain campaign accused Senator Obama earlier this month of not doing enough to screen for illegal contributors and asked US election officials to investigate.

Senator McCain has agreed to public financing for his campaign and therefore cannot accept funds from private donors.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Spaghetti on October 21, 2008, 09:01:16 PM
As a former Boy Scout, I smut admit that back when I was a young scout I enjoyed eating Brownies. You learn a lot from Scouting, you know? :lickass:
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on October 21, 2008, 09:18:50 PM
As a former Boy Scout, I smut admit

 ahahahahah ahahahahah ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Spaghetti on October 22, 2008, 12:06:21 AM
As a former Boy Scout, I smut admit

 ahahahahah ahahahahah ahahahahah

Freudian slip!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on October 22, 2008, 12:08:43 AM
 bfbfbfbfbf ahahahahah ahahahahah ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on October 22, 2008, 01:52:11 PM
Obviously, the people behind this move have listened to the wise words of Tom Lehrer.

ARTIST: Tom Lehrer
TITLE: Be Prepared


Be prepared, that's the Boy Scout's marching song
Be prepared, as through life you march along
Be prepared to hold your liquor pretty well
Don't write naughty words on walls if you can't spell

Be prepared to hide that pack of cigarettes
Don't make book if you cannot cover bets
Keep those reefers hidden where you're sure that they will not be found
And be careful not to smoke them when the scoutmaster's around
For he only will insist that they be shared
Be prepared

Be prepared, that's the Boy Scouts' solemn creed
Be prepared, and be clean in word and deed
Don't solicit for your sister, that's not nice
Unless you get a good percentage of her price

Be prepared, and be careful not to do
Your good deeds when there's no one watching you
If you're looking for adventure of a new and different kind
And you come across a Girl Scout who is similarly inclined
Don't be nervous, don't be flustered, don't be scared,
Be prepared
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on October 22, 2008, 01:54:17 PM
when I was a young scout I enjoyed eating Brownies.

As I understand it, a Cub Scout can only become a a Boy Scout after eating his first Brownie.   afafafafaf
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on October 22, 2008, 02:40:06 PM
Wow.  Economic cooperation.  Maybe there is some hope of avoiding a global economic failure.

******

Paulson lauds China cooperation amid market turmoil

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on Tuesday praised China's cooperation in taming global financial turmoil and urged the next U.S. president to continue an active economic dialogue with Beijing.

In his first major speech on China in two months, Paulson said he has held useful and constructive discussions with Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan on the turmoil rocking global markets.

"It is clear that China accepts its responsibility as a major world economy that will work with the United States and other partners to ensure global economic stability," Paulson said in prepared remarks to the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations in New York.

A advance copy of his remarks were released in Washington.

Paulson said the United States has demonstrated that it will "do what is necessary" to strengthen financial institutions, unlock credit markets and minimize the impact of financial instability on the broader U.S. economy. He urged other governments to do the same.

China is feeling strains from the global turmoil as well, but was expected to continue to be an important engine for global growth, Paulson said.

The next U.S. president should recognize this and engage China as a growth opportunity for U.S. companies, consumers, exporters and investors, he said. "A stable prosperous and peaceful China is in the best interest of the Chinese people, the American people and the rest of the world," he said.

Paulson said he hopes whomever wins the November 4 election will build upon progress that Washington and Beijing have made during the past two years by holding high-level talks called the Strategic Economic Dialogue (SED).

"Perhaps most importantly, the SED has established a new model for communication, enabling us to address urgent issues such as turmoil in our financial markets, energy security and climate change," he said. "I hope that the next U.S. president will expand on the SED to take U.S.-Chinese relations to the next level."

Before the credit crisis forced him to prop up faltering U.S. financial institutions, Paulson had made U.S.-China economic relations the centerpiece of his two-and-a-half-year term.

The former Goldman Sachs chief has made more than 75 trips to China during his career and launched the dialogue talks to try to tackle thorny issues such as America's ballooning trade deficit with China and what many U.S. firms and lawmakers viewed as an undervalued yuan.

While the talks mainly have produced agreements on air services, product safety and energy and environmental cooperation, they have coincided with a gradual rise in the value of the yuan against the dollar.

Paulson said the talks have been an "excellent forum" for discussing the yuan's value, but he refrained from urging that Beijing allow faster appreciation. "I am pleased that China has appreciated the RMB by over 20 percent since July of 2005," he said.

Paulson also urged China to continue with financial sector and capital markets reform despite the global turmoil that has shaken U.S. financial institutions to their foundations.

"Some in China look at the recent failures in our financial markets and conclude that they should slow down their reforms," Paulson said. "But their is a great opportunity for China to learn from our significant mistakes and move forward with reforms that have the potential to produce important gains for China and its people."

He said these include helping to rebalance China's growth to improve living standards for Chinese households, helping to allow monetary policy to tame inflation and encourage market-driven innovation.

(Reporting by Pedro Dacosta and David Lawder, writing by David Lawder; editing by Leslie Adler)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: china-matt on October 22, 2008, 07:20:05 PM
A Chinese lawyer wants to charge Microsoft with hacking Chinese computers in an effort to disrupt piracy of Windows. I actually think Microsoft's plan is pretty good--screw over the users and force them to buy the real thing.

"Software giant Microsoft has sparked a major controversy among millions of Chinese computer users with the nationwide launch Tuesday of its "Screen Blackout" anti-piracy program."

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-10/22/content_7126895.htm
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on October 23, 2008, 04:18:27 AM
Well - some justification for what we do...


Drinkers happy, smokers coping - survey

October 23, 2008

A FEW alcoholic drinks a day could make you one of the happiest people in Australia, but if you smoke, you're just coping with a hard life.

This is the message in the latest Australian Unity Wellbeing Index released today, which challenges findings that alcohol can have a negative impact on a person's life.

The index, based on a survey of 2,000 Australians in April, found that those who drink up to three drinks a day are far happier than those who never drink.

And the wellbeing of 18- to 25-year-olds - the key binge drinking demographic - remains high regardless of how many drinks they have.

The findings highlight some of the challenges facing public health officials in promoting safe drinking levels and curbing the burgeoning binge-drink culture.

They are also in stark contrast to the findings of research released by the Salvation Army this week, which found one in four Australians say alcohol has had a negative impact on them or their family.

Australian Unity Health group executive Amanda Hagan said the link between alcohol consumption and the wellbeing of 18- to 25-year-olds was particularly concerning.

"This is potentially troublesome for policymakers in their struggle with binge drinking,'' she said.

"It demonstrates the need to focus on the health and safety implications of binge drinking because this age group is not feeling an adverse impact on their wellbeing.''

Also, the survey found the wellbeing of older Australians reduced if they had more than three drinks a day.

The author of the Wellbeing Index, Deakin University Professor Bob Cummins, said one of the most intriguing findings was that people who did not drink at all had the lowest wellbeing of all drinking categories.

This was particularly marked for people in middle age, he said.

"This is not because we need alcohol to make us happy - but it could be a reflection of the social aspect of drinking,'' he said.

"It's possible that a fair proportion of people who don't drink at all might be those people who are also more isolated from social activities.''

The research also found a strong link between smoking and low wellbeing
.

Prof Cummins said people living in difficult circumstances were more likely to smoke.

"Therefore, it is more likely that smoking represents an outlet, a way of coping, rather than being the cause of people's low wellbeing,'' he said.

The index also reiterated the benefits of exercise on wellbeing, particularly in middle age.
Prof Cummins said those who did a moderate amount of exercise - three times a week - had enhanced wellbeing, but there was no added benefit to more frequent exercise.

"Middle age can be a stressful period of life when people are managing families, work and mortgages,'' he said.

"These findings suggest that both moderate exercise and moderate drinking can help people to cope.''
Story
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on October 24, 2008, 02:31:44 PM
A Chinese lawyer wants to charge Microsoft with hacking Chinese computers in an effort to disrupt piracy of Windows. I actually think Microsoft's plan is pretty good--screw over the users and force them to buy the real thing.

"Software giant Microsoft has sparked a major controversy among millions of Chinese computer users with the nationwide launch Tuesday of its "Screen Blackout" anti-piracy program."

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-10/22/content_7126895.htm

All it does is set the desktop background to black every hour.  I'd be surprised if there's not already a "background auto-reset" program available in the countries where this has been rolled out.

They should have changed the background to a big pic of Bill Gates.   ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on October 27, 2008, 09:51:25 PM
http://tools.cairns.com.au/photo_gallery/photo_gallery_popup.php?category_id=3825&offset=1

Ok....I am supposed to go to Australia for a wedding next year.....I wonder if I can buy a suit of armour on Ebay...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on October 27, 2008, 10:39:02 PM
Don't fret Eric. It was only a small bird!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on October 27, 2008, 11:33:19 PM
You didn't notice this one! ahahahahah ahahahahah ahahahahah

http://tools.cairns.com.au/photo_gallery/photo_gallery_popup.php?category_id=3511 (http://tools.cairns.com.au/photo_gallery/photo_gallery_popup.php?category_id=3511)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on October 27, 2008, 11:42:34 PM
OoooooooooooH yeah! Eric, these are the ones you need to watch for. They luvs Danish!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on October 28, 2008, 12:56:26 PM
I hope they still send over the Grenaches, the Cab Savs and Merlots for the non-Chinese wine drinkers. agagagagag



Wine researchers make Chinese taste discovery


Australian researchers believe they have cracked the key to the lucrative Chinese wine market, with a study of Chinese tastes.

The Australian Wine Research Institute found that most preferred Australian red wines over other international wines, and enjoyed light fruity flavours.

The Chinese export market is worth $64 million each year in Australia and has jumped by 20 per cent over the past year.

Research manager Leigh Francis says the findings could be invaluable to the local wine industry.

"It means they can tailor the wines potentially for the way they grow the grapes and make the wines to make sure they do actually have wines with the taste profile that consumers in China are seeking," he said.

"Wine makers were flying blind to some extent, before there would be some feedback from consumers but very little information was available on Chinese consumers, especially detailed information like this about the tastes and flavours that Chinese consumers appreciate."

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on October 28, 2008, 03:10:37 PM
http://tools.cairns.com.au/photo_gallery/photo_gallery_popup.php?category_id=3825&offset=1

Ok....I am supposed to go to Australia for a wedding next year.....I wonder if I can buy a suit of armour on Ebay...

Ericthered,just wait until you see the huge cockroaches they have up in the same area. If you are not going up north,you needn't worry about that bird eating spider or the huge roaches.If you are around Sydney, you will have to watch out for the funnel web spiders. The red back spider in Lotus Eater's reply,is found in most places.It is of the same family as the black widow I think. Enjoy the wedding! uuuuuuuuuu Will the reception be outside in the garden? uuuuuuuuuu ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on October 28, 2008, 06:54:34 PM
Eh..the whats-it?? What spider??? AAAAARRRGGGHHHHH.....Need to buy a tank, hermetically sealed tank that I can fold into a suitcase....Funnel what-now? I don't want to know...lalalalaalalalalala....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on October 28, 2008, 06:58:43 PM
Look, as long as you don't sit down, lie down, stand up, you'll be fine.  Australia is SAFE - really!!

Much safer than Korea right now:


North Korea threatens to turn South Korea into 'debris'


N Korea threatens south with anniliation | October 28, 2008

NORTH Korea today threatened to turn South Korea into "debris" unless Seoul stops what it described as a policy of confrontation.

"The puppet authorities had better bear in mind that the advanced preemptive strike of our own style will reduce everything ... to debris, not just setting them on fire,'' the North's military said in a statement.

"It will turn out to be a just war... to build an independent reunified state on it,'' it added.

The North warned that its army would take "a resolute practical action'' if the South continues its "confrontational racket,'' scattering anti-Pyongyang leaflets and conducting a smear campaign "with sheer fabrications.''

It said North Korea has a "more powerful and advanced preemptive strike of our own style as we have already stated before the world'' than that of South Korea.

"The advanced preemptive strike of our own style is based on a preemptive strike beyond imagination relying on striking means more powerful than a nuclear weapon.''

 What big sabres are you rattling???
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on October 28, 2008, 07:07:33 PM
Good explanation for concert behaviour.

Rowan Callick | October 28, 2008

DIANA Krall, the Canadian pianist and singer, one of today's greatest jazz drawcards, was held up on her way into a Beijing theatre earlier this month by a scalper, determined to sell her a ticket.

He was so insistent, she told the audience later, that he wasn't deterred even when she told him it was her show.

The sold-out concert was Krall's first in China.

She was outraged by the price he was demanding, but perhaps failed to realise she could have bargained him down. Rule of thumb in Chinese negotiations: start at one-third or one-quarter of the first asking price, and pay no more than half.

Krall was generous about the response of the audience. But as well as appearing to have caught Beijing throat, which caused her to cough throughout, she was a victim of the China concert syndrome.

China is increasingly on the map for international artists, even though as a market it remains promising rather than lucrative.

The party-state imposes a tax on every activity it knows about. In the case of cultural events, this greatly complicates costings and imposes a hidden burden on genuine supporters of the arts.

A substantial percentage of all tickets available at every venue usually has to be given by the promoter -- free of charge -- to the local Communist Party organisation, to the Culture Ministry or its regional offshoot that must ultimately approve every performance, and to the state-owned enterprise orgovernment agency that invariably owns the concert hall.

The Poly Theatre in Beijing, for instance, was developed by the People's Liberation Army and retains close military connections via the Poly Group.

This helps explain the ubiquitous huangniu, or scalpers. Tickets find their way into the hands of cadres who have no interest in the occasion. But someone in their family knows someone who knows someone who may be able to ensure some money winds its way back up that chain.

It also helps explain the sections of empty seats, usually the most expensive, near the front of the house, even at concerts where every ticket ostensibly was sold. They were "taxed" to officials who had no interest in attending.

This was the reason for the extraordinary divide between sections of the audience at Krall's concert. The hollering and applauding fans were overwhelmingly in the cheaper seats. The behaviour of those in the $240 seats was intriguingly different.

Many were children, some of them clutching light-sticks that they did not switch on. It was clear that many in that section of the audience had little notion of the music they had come to hear.

Perhaps they had seen the promotional photos of Krall and imagined that a blonde Canadian of about 40 must sing sentimental ballads in the vein of Celine Dion, the goddess of Chinese music fans, whose 1997 theme song from the movie Titanic, My Heart Will Go On, has yet to hit an iceberg in the world's most populous country.

Many of those in the $240 seats began to chat among themselves and soon they began to walk out in the middle of songs.

The tickets had been passed down to them for nothing: they did not particularly value the opportunity to hear world-class jazz, a musical idiom with which they could make no connection.

This strange setting for live music emanates from the desire of the Chinese Government, via its Culture Ministry and other agencies, and of the party via its propaganda department, to host concerts by international artists to boost the country's image, while insisting on controlling the content of all performances.

Even the Rolling Stones had to submit a playlist before their 2006 concert in Shanghai was approved. And classical music concert programs are combed scrupulously to weed out works with any religious element, such as Mozart's Requiem.

The conservative Chinese party-state also tends to distrust any event that draws crowds. Hence its extraordinary efforts to restrict the audiences for the Olympic torch relay and its advice to Beijing's laobaixing, or ordinary people, to stay at home and watch the Games on television.

Beyond the official parameters, though, large numbers of fans can be found for almost every type of music. And they are determined not to be railroaded out of their serious musical pleasures, which find no place in the popular media: Chinese TV, for example, despite its 40 or so channels, plays only middle-of-the-road American pop or patriotic melodies. Thus, when music enthusiasts are provided a rare opportunity to hear an exemplar of the genre they enjoy, they make sure the performer knows just how delighted they are.

Romanian soprano Angela Gheorghiu, singing in the Divas in Beijing concert series during the Olympics -- an outstandingly successful event organised by Australians -- was called back for six encores.

When Emma Kirkby sang 16th and 17th-century songs accompanied by a lute in the Forbidden City concert hall, a large group of Beijingers in their 20s hollered in delight, and the English soprano came to the edge of the stage after the show and engaged them in a discussion about music.

Another, smaller section of serious music audiences comprises older people, whose attention is reverential, veering on the religious.

Their stories are, of course, varied, but they mostly share the experience of having survived terrible times, especially during the Cultural Revolution, when their seemingly harmless pleasure in Western music threatened to gravely imperil them and their families. Their joy today at being free to listen to what they want to, for the most part, is moving and stands in stark contrast with the cadres' families with the free tickets in the stalls, who prefer to spend the time sending and receiving text messages on their mobile phones.


http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24561193-25837,00.html (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24561193-25837,00.html)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on October 28, 2008, 07:37:13 PM
This one I really like!  given that they have been arrested as spies, will the pigeons be tortured for information?  Will they be 'turned' to become double agents?  Will they be sentenced to death?  What will their last meal be?  Were they female pigeons - Mata Hari of the air??


Iran arrests 'spy pigeons' near uranium plant


October 21, 2008

TEHRAN: Security forces in Natanz have "arrested" two suspected "spy pigeons" near Iran's controversial uranium enrichment facility, the reformist Etemad Melli newspaper reports.
One of the pigeons was caught near a rose water production plant in the city of Kashan in Isfahan province, the report cited an unnamed informed source as saying, adding that some metal rings and invisible strings were attached to the bird.

“Early this month, a black pigeon was caught bearing a blue-coated metal ring, with invisible strings,” the source was quoted as saying of the second pigeon.

The source gave no further description of the pigeons, their current status nor what their fate will be.

Natanz is home to Iran's heavily-bunkered underground uranium enrichment plant, which is not far from Kashan.

The activity is the focus of Iran's five-year standoff with the West, which fears it aims to develop nuclear weapons. Tehran vehemently denies the charge.

Last year, Iran issued a formal protest over the use of espionage by the US to produce a key intelligence report on the country's controversial nuclear program.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on October 28, 2008, 08:15:15 PM
Lift your game fellas - you can't just rely on that great body!!



WHETHER a woman wants a quick fling or a long-term relationship, she's still likely to pick brains over a brawn. That's according to a study of university students.

Mark Prokosch at Elon University in North Carolina and his team filmed 15 college men performing a series of tasks, such as reading the news and catching a frisbee. The men also took an intelligence test. The videos were watched by 200 women, who rated the men's intelligence, looks and relationship appeal. The team found the smarter the man, the higher his appeal (Evolution and Human Behavior, DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2008.07.004).

Not only that, women proved to be good judges of intelligence: the scores predicted for each man generally matched his test results.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on October 29, 2008, 10:07:55 PM
Quote
A chocolate-flavoured body sex paint has been recalled from Australian shelves as authorities continue to crack down on melamine imports from China.

The paint, Boxer Lovers Body Pen Set, today joined the banned list alongside six other products including Cadbury Eclairs, Lotte Koala Biscuits, Kirin Milk Tea, Orion Tiramisu Italian Cake, Dali Yuan brand First Milk and White Rabbit Creamy Candy.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on November 01, 2008, 03:01:28 AM
And the concerns keep on coming!  Milk, eggs, fish ...


October 31, 2008

CHINA'S state-run press warned today a toxic chemical found in eggs and milk was likely being mixed into livestock feed, in the clearest official indication yet that other foods may be contaminated.
“The feed industry seems to have acquiesced to agree on using the chemical to reduce production costs while maintaining the protein count for quality inspections,” the state-run China Daily said in an editorial.

Authorities in the eastern metropolis of Shanghai have already ordered that more than 100 fish farming enterprises in the city be tested to see if their feed is tainted with melamine, the Shanghai Daily reported.

It was one of the first reports warning seafood may also be laced with the chemical that made headlines in August after authorities admitted it had been mixed into milk.

The contaminated milk resulted in the deaths of four babies from kidney failure and the sickening of 53,000 others.

Hong Kong authorities reported last weekend that melamine had also been detected in Chinese eggs, leading to concerns the chemical was much more prevalent in China's food chain than initially believed.

Melamine is an industrial chemical normally used to make plastics and can lead to severe kidney problems if ingested in large amounts by humans.

But, after an initial cover-up by Chinese authorities, it was eventually discovered that the chemical was being routinely mixed into watered-down milk to give it the appearance of being protein-rich.

Following the egg revelations, authorities are now investigating whether mixing melamine into livestock feed for the same reason is also a widespread practice.

“We cannot say for sure if the same chemical has made its way into other types of food,” the China Daily editorial said.

“We hope it has not. But if fodder can be confirmed as the source of contamination for both the eggs and milk, action must be taken to check how widespread the use of this chemical is in the fodder industry.”

Meanwhile, the Chinese company blamed for selling the original batch of tainted eggs to Hong Kong is suing its feed provider, according to the official People's Daily newspaper.

The brief report said an investigation by the company, Hanwei, found that livestock feed provided by Xinmin Mingxing company contained melamine.

Both companies are based in the northeastern province of Liaoning.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on November 01, 2008, 04:45:30 AM
Dash it and double dash it! Eggs??? Are they trying to ruin breakfast for me deliberately?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on November 01, 2008, 03:27:48 PM
Oh boy, we now are really into the meaty part of the US election.


Schwarzenegger mocks 'skinny' Barack Obama


From correspondents in Columbus, Ohio | November 01, 2008

MUSCLEMAN-turned-actor-turned-politician Arnold Schwarzenegger has called on Barack Obama to beef up his his policies - and his body - at a rally for Republican John McCain.

Mr Schwarzenegger, the Hollywood action hero who is now the Republican governor of California, delighted a crowd of several thousand at a McCain campaign event in Columbus, Ohio,
today by ridiculing both Obama's policies and his slender physique.


http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24585297-12377,00.html (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24585297-12377,00.html)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on November 01, 2008, 03:40:01 PM
Looks like the Olympics had some good side effects.

******

Olympics curbs Beijingers' spitting, queue-jumping: report

Fri Oct 31, 1:05 am ET

BEIJING (AFP) – Hosting the Olympics has made Beijing's notoriously rough-edged citizens more civil, with social scourges such as spitting and queue-jumping on the decline, state media reported on Friday.

A bizarre "civic index" that claims to record minute changes in Beijingers' manners has risen to 82.68 on a scale of 100, up 10 points from last year, the China Daily reported.

Based on a post-Olympics survey of more than 13,200 people and observations at more than 300 public venues, it found just 0.75 percent of respondents "spat wherever and whenever they wanted," down from 2.5 percent last year, it said.

"The most significant improvement was in the category of spitting," the newspaper said of the latest index, devised by Beijing's Renmin University.

Authorities in Beijing have in recent years conducted a range of campaigns to "civilise" Beijing residents, amid concerns they would embarrass the country when it hosted the Olympics in August.

Last year, in a speech marking the 12-month countdown to the Games, China's chief Olympic organiser, Liu Qi, warned the manners of Beijing residents could embarrass the host nation.

"We must carry out a campaign for a civilised environment and thoroughly resolve rampant spitting, dumping of garbage and other uncivilised behaviour... as over four billion people will be watching Beijing," he said.

These campaigns have included making one day a month a "no queue-jumping" day, while fines for spitting have been dished out and beggars kicked off the streets.

Another day each month was designated "Seat-Giving Day" to encourage people to give up their seats on trains and buses to those in greater need.

Following the campaign, queue-jumping was down to 0.67 percent, from an earlier 1.5 percent, the index found. Littering and seat giving also apparently improved.

Despite the latest index results, such behaviour is still commonly seen in the city.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: teleplayer on November 06, 2008, 12:21:42 PM
Not so much new news but confirmation of what so many here have posted many times.

Fulbright scholar who taught in Nanjing 1989-90 returns to Nanjing and posts differences he noted in "The Chronicle of Higher Education." It's title "Returning to Teach in China." http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2008/11/2008110501c.htm (http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2008/11/2008110501c.htm) 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on November 06, 2008, 03:20:53 PM
Not a bad article - and with 2 pieces of good advice -
Quote
The Chinese speak many different languages and dialects. English is not one of them. It is still advisable for anyone spending time in China to make an effort to learn some basic Mandarin Chinese. It makes life much easier and the locals do appreciate the effort.


Quote
Too many Americans believe that they can remake China. They engage in condescending behavior based on preconceived stereotypes or prejudices. Remember that you are a guest in a country with one of the oldest civilizations in the world and that you may need to make an effort not to become "the ugly American."

Although not just Americans, although in general they seem to be more vocal about how things should change.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Raoul F. Duke on November 06, 2008, 05:26:21 PM
Please. (Where's the eye-roll smiley?)
There are indeed some unpleasant specimens among the expat Americans, but I can't say that our fellow travelers are significantly less obnoxious than we are.

Spend a year as DJ in a multi-national bar some time. bibibibibi

We're just an easier target.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on November 06, 2008, 07:28:32 PM

Although not just Americans, although in general they seem to be more vocal about how things should change.

Not absolving any other nationality of this 'sin'!   kkkkkkkkkk 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Tern Unstoned on November 07, 2008, 01:01:48 AM
Yes.  Well, then ... Keep trying, Lotus.  Bound to eventually get it right, eh?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on November 07, 2008, 02:53:24 PM
Another one for ETR: Not just the spiders you need to watch out for.http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24615712-12377,00.html (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24615712-12377,00.html)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on November 07, 2008, 08:02:19 PM
Nah! ETR should be ok.He's bigger than a wallaby and the snakes usually don't eat humans. Err, ETR,perhaps you'd better leave your hat on just in case!  bfbfbfbfbf uuuuuuuuuu
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Spaghetti on November 08, 2008, 03:12:44 AM

Although not just Americans, although in general they seem to be more vocal about how things should change.

 bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on November 08, 2008, 01:29:31 PM
A better use for Tequila...........
http://www.physorg.com/news145255770.html (http://www.physorg.com/news145255770.html)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on November 08, 2008, 04:00:38 PM
Never be lost again!


Knicker twist over GPS lingerie

November 01, 2008

RIO DE JANEIRO: Lingerie maker Lucia Iorio says her new design targets the modern, techno-savvy woman, but the GPS-equipped Find Me If You Can line has raised the hackles of feminists who call it a 21st-century chastity belt.

The lingerie combo consists of lace bodice, bikini bottom and faux pearl collar, with the GPS device visibly nestled in the see-through part of the bodice next to the waist.

"This collection ... is a wink to women and a challenge to men because, even if she gives him the password to her GPS, she can always turn it off," Iorio said.

"She can be found only if she wants to.

"It's not a modern chastity belt. Some men think they can keep tabs on their girlfriends with it, but they're wrong."

Unconcerned with the controversy her new collection has raised, Iorio dismissed the global financial crisis and its adverse impact on luxury items sales. The GPS lingerie retails from $1200.

So how many has she sold?

Iorio admits to only a few customers, but is full of optimism.

"Some women are now interested in buying it for protection," she said, adding that in a violence-prone country such as Brazil her GPS lingerie should soon be selling briskly.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on November 09, 2008, 02:12:02 PM
This time a good woman lost the election.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/11/09/2414386.htm?section=justin (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/11/09/2414386.htm?section=justin)

I had a lot of respect for her policies and her way of doing things.

(You didn't know the Kiwis had a woman PM???   kkkkkkkkkk kkkkkkkkkk)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on November 09, 2008, 04:18:26 PM
Americans obnoxious?  That hasn't been the sentiment among the Suzhou crowd.  The only nationality with a bad rep here (apart from the Japanese, a knee jerk reaction among Chinese) seems to be the Germans.  And yes, it's hardly scientific: I know a good number of really cool Deutsch (sp?).

Coming soon: Tequila Diamondo ((TM).

Seems the NZ voters went with the party they thought would understand global economics.  I'd be interested to hear what our Kiwi members think.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on November 09, 2008, 05:13:02 PM
"Some women are now interested in buying it for protection," she said, adding that in a violence-prone country such as Brazil her GPS lingerie should soon be selling briskly.

At least they will find the body pretty quickly. bfbfbfbfbf

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on November 11, 2008, 07:21:11 PM
I have a vision of prisons being filled with walking frames and wheel chairs in the future!

Japan's geriatric crime wave
Fri, 11/07/2008 - 10:16am
As Japan's population ages, the country is facing the new and unexpected problem of senior crime:

The number of people aged 65 or older arrested for crimes other than traffic violations totaled 48,605 last year, up from 24,247 in 2002, the Justice Ministry said in an annual crime report. Elderly crimes rose 4.2 percent in 2007 from a year earlier, though the total number of people arrested fell 4.8 percent to 366,002.

Thefts, such as shoplifting and pick-pocketing, were the most common crimes committed by older people, the report said, citing low income, declining health and a sense of isolation as the main causes of the trend. Serious crimes such as murder and robbery were less prevalent among seniors than younger people.

The report said elderly crime is growing at a much faster pace than the population of senior citizens.

The rise in elderly crime has also forced many prisons to renovate their facilities and provide nursing care.
 

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Spaghetti on November 11, 2008, 11:11:59 PM
I have a vision of prisons being filled with walking frames and wheel chairs in the future!


Given the age of the perps, I don't think they'll be filled for long!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on November 11, 2008, 11:21:38 PM
Is the elderly care system so bad in Japan that the senior citizens have to commit crimes in order to be properly looked after??
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on November 11, 2008, 11:28:35 PM
Traditionally it has been the daughter or daughter-in-law in a family who will care for the parents.  Longevity in Japan is high - so they could be in jail a LONG time.  ahahahahah  But the changing social structure means that families can no longer take the same role, and the birthrate is declining (1.43 - not replacement levels).  So ... it causes problems.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Spaghetti on November 11, 2008, 11:43:41 PM
Is the elderly care system so bad in Japan that the senior citizens have to commit crimes in order to be properly looked after??

Yes. Sort of. The fact that Japan has one of the lowest birth rates among first world nations plays into this. It is insanely expensive to simply live in Japan, let alone raise a child. In the late eighties or early nineties I recall a surprisingly well supported government financial investigation in settling up a retirement colony somewhere in Europe.My memory is telling me, "Spain," but it has been a while. Politicians were considering shipping elderly out of the nation!

In the late nineties a niche business sprang up and the demand for Philippine caregivers were one option, complete with insurance subsidization to ease the burden of hiring caretakers.

In weirder, related news, the demand for over-40 porn in Japan emerged and it is one of the few, growing subgenres in the Japanese adult video business with numerous, fairly mainstream companies starting up 50+ lines, and not just for the straight crowd.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on November 12, 2008, 12:25:03 AM
There are also robot care-givers in Japan!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on November 12, 2008, 02:41:13 PM
After a night on the tequila (or baijiu!) take a sieve when you go to the bathroom!


Mexican scientists turn tequila into diamonds

From correspondents in Mexico City | November 12, 2008
Article from:  Agence France-Presse

MEXICAN scientists have turned the country's national tipple tequila into diamonds, and are seeking applications for their discovery, with the crystals too small to be used in jewellery.

The tequila diamonds could be used to "detect radiation, coat cutting tools or, above all, as a substitute for silicon in the computer chips of the future", said Miguel Apatiga, one of three researchers from the National Autonomous University of Mexico who made the discovery.

The scientists found that the heated vapour from tequila blanco, when deposited on a stainless steel base, could form diamond films.

They began experimenting some 13 years ago with synthetic diamonds - made by a technological process, as opposed to natural diamonds, produced by geological process - from gases like methane.

Later they produced diamonds from liquids, and then noticed that the ideal compound of 40 per cent ethanol and 60 per cent water was similar to the proportion used in tequila.

"One day I went to the campus shop and bought a bottle of cheap tequila. I used it under the same experiment conditions as for a test with ethanol and water and obtained positive results," Mr Apatiga said.

The diamonds formed were small crystals, too tiny to be used in jewellery.

"It would be very difficult to obtain diamonds for a ring," Mr Apatiga said.

But the scientists are investigating other applications for tequila diamonds.

"It's true that the fact it's tequila has a certain charm. It's a Mexican product and Mexican researchers developed the project ... but a businessman can say to me: 'Great, how pretty! But how can I use it?'" Mr Apatiga said.

After the first test with a common make of tequila blanco, the group is now studying more select tequilas to find the best to make the transformation.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on November 12, 2008, 03:55:53 PM
All in all, milk's another brick in the wall.   ahahahahah

China wants to make bricks from toxic milk: report
Tue Nov 11, 2:42 pm ET
BEIJING (AFP) – A south China city is considering using milk at the centre of a poisoned food scandal to make bricks as a cheap and clean way of disposing of the tainted products, state media reported Tuesday.

Guangzhou officials are looking into the viability of dumping the toxic products, found to have been tainted with the industrial chemical melamine, into furnaces that make bricks and cement, the Nanfang Daily reported, citing Wang Fan, director of the city's food safety office.

The plan comes after some Guangzhou garbage stations earlier this month poured tainted milk into rivers, triggering concerns the city's water supply would be contaminated, it said.

Using the milk products in the manufacturing process is estimated to cost 700 yuan (105 dollars) for each tonne of milk processed, more than 70 percent cheaper than burning it in garbage incinerators, earlier media reports said.

The reports said that burying the poisoned products was another alternative allowed by the government, at a cost of 200 yuan a tonne, but quantities would have to be limited to prevent soil pollution.

In China alone, four children have died and 53,000 have fallen ill after consuming milk or milk products laced with melamine, which can make the protein content appear higher.

Many countries and territories have banned Chinese milk and milk products in the wake of the scandal, one of many involving tainted Chinese-made foods.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on November 12, 2008, 09:47:33 PM
Quote
After a night on the tequila (or baijiu!) take a sieve when you go to the bathroom!

Proof that some people really don't read previous posts.
A better use for Tequila...........
http://www.physorg.com/news145255770.html

Posted Nov.  8
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on November 13, 2008, 02:21:09 AM
 amamamamam bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: teleplayer on November 13, 2008, 09:59:41 AM
Quote
After a night on the tequila (or baijiu!) take a sieve when you go to the bathroom!

Proof that some people really don't read previous posts.
A better use for Tequila...........
http://www.physorg.com/news145255770.html

Posted Nov.  8

One can only say this story puts new meaning to "a margarita on the rocks," sorry it was right there had to be said.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: teleplayer on November 13, 2008, 10:05:54 AM
All in all, milk's another brick in the wall.   ahahahahah

China wants to make bricks from toxic milk: report
Tue Nov 11, 2:42 pm ET
BEIJING (AFP) – A south China city is considering using milk at the centre of a poisoned food scandal to make bricks as a cheap and clean way of disposing of the tainted products, state media reported Tuesday.



This is better than pouring in the river where it would get into city water supplies and into food chain via fin and shell fish. I would think there would be little uptake into fruits and vegetables from soil but better safe than sorry.  Then again, is there so much of it per brick that one would need melamine containment just as we have asbestos containment when demolishing or renovating buildings in the future? Does the Middle Kingdom practice asbestos containment?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on November 13, 2008, 01:21:03 PM
M'kay me, now i'm not going to be able to eat bricks.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on November 13, 2008, 09:00:41 PM
UK unis are under pressure to keep the foreign students - even if they are plagiarising, cheating and can't speak English.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/7610576.stm (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/7610576.stm)


But we could also possibly see some retaliation for the expulsion of these students - will teacher here with fake quals be tossed out??

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/tyne/7722943.stm (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/tyne/7722943.stm)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on November 14, 2008, 01:24:28 AM
Thanks, LE, for the links to a good, thought-provoking read.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: teleplayer on November 14, 2008, 06:30:32 AM
UK unis are under pressure to keep the foreign students - even if they are plagiarising, cheating and can't speak English.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/7610576.stm (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/7610576.stm)


But we could also possibly see some retaliation for the expulsion of these students - will teacher here with fake quals be tossed out??

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/tyne/7722943.stm (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/tyne/7722943.stm)

Our fall 2009 graduate application season is about to get underway. We start in earnest second week in January. These articles give cause for thought, reflection on the GRE and TOEFL scandal in SE Asia from a few years back.  Given the paranoia of one of the new and anal-retentive faculty members on our admissions committee I'd be hesitant to let him see these but then again, I like to spin him up a bit.

Oh well, another season of comparing the personal statement to the email and deciding who wrote what. It's all in the job.

Thanks for the good reads LE.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on November 14, 2008, 08:34:29 PM
Who's in Nanning!! Nobody?? There's a new hotel just opened there......
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-11/07/content_7184564.htm (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-11/07/content_7184564.htm)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: teleplayer on November 15, 2008, 08:02:01 AM
Who's in Nanning!! Nobody?? There's a new hotel just opened there......
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-11/07/content_7184564.htm (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-11/07/content_7184564.htm)


"... the owner is a little worried the hotel might be perceived as a brothel."
You think?!?
Ah the joys of the "No tell hotel!" or is that "No tale hotel?" Guess that depends upon if there is a tale to tell about....no, won't go there.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: cheekygal on November 15, 2008, 09:29:01 AM
Not only China has product problems
http://www.fda.gov/oc/po/firmrecalls/johnsonjohnson11_08.html
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: teleplayer on November 16, 2008, 03:29:38 AM
Not only China has product problems
http://www.fda.gov/oc/po/firmrecalls/johnsonjohnson11_08.html

It's not who has problems. There can be the occasional manufacturing flaw and even sabbotage. It's how the companies and governments deal with it that is different. A problem found and/or reported and product was immediately recalled, not hidden until after the Christmas sales or after the American Football Superbowl, if you get the analogy. Big difference.

The difference too is in the regulation imposed and fines levied. But vigilance is required because greed exists everywhere and there are those who would cheat any and all they can ala ENRON and even the current Banking crisis. Half million dollar Christmas bonuses indeed!! There should be jail time.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Spaghetti on November 16, 2008, 11:30:52 AM
Hardly China scale. Speaking of China and the bricks, can we use the melamine bricks to pelt the Sanlu, etc. douche bags? That would be justice.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on November 16, 2008, 03:58:40 PM
Hardly China scale. Speaking of China and the bricks, can we use the melamine bricks to pelt the Sanlu, etc. douche bags? That would be justice.

For once, I find myself in 100% absolute agreement with Spaghetti.   agagagagag

I think we need to build a catapult and buy some of those bricks.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on November 16, 2008, 05:29:59 PM
An extract from "Smart money" in the Business section of Brisbane's "The Sunday Mail"
.... Further concern centres on a slowdown in China where many projects were shut down during the Olympics period. The effect is showing up in recent economic data. The country recently announced an Aus$800 billion-plus economic stimulus package,which will kick start its return to high consumption of commodities. China will have 700 million people urbanising in the next 30 years, so this is no short-term phenomenon.......
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on November 16, 2008, 06:10:03 PM
OOPS!

At least one person died and 16 were missing after the collapse of a partially built subway tunnel Saturday in eastern China, state media reported.

A 20-metre-wide section of road over the construction site gave way, trapping workers below, a local official in the city of Hangzhou said.

Nineteen people were hurt and taken to hospital, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

The cave-in created a huge crater in which more than 10 vehicles plunged, the local official said.

Xinhua said about 2,000 rescuers were struggling to pump water out of the tunnel and search for those who remained trapped.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: china-matt on November 18, 2008, 05:36:04 PM
One of my favorite words is officially a word. "Meh" has been entered into the dictionary. It's time to start teaching it to our students.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081117/ap_on_re_eu/eu_britain_new_word
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Spaghetti on November 18, 2008, 08:04:30 PM
Meh.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Spaghetti on November 18, 2008, 10:32:11 PM
This could possibly be the greatest film ever produced. Violent simians vs Sammo Hung - pound for pound the superior to Jackie Chan and still making good movies, compared to Chan, who hasn't made a good film since Drunken Master II, back in 1994. The only thing that could top it would be filming it in 3-D and a score by Dick Dale:


http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/film/news/e3i8d7762ca1514653d6903a3d420eabdf2


Quote
'War Monkeys' feature in works
Sammo Hung eyes starring role in Dark Horse film

By Borys Kit

Nov 18, 2008, 12:00 AM ET
Sammo Hung is negotiations to star in "War Monkeys," a horror comedy shaping up to be the biggest feature yet from the independent arm of Dark Horse Films.

UTA-repped Kevin Munroe ("TMNT") is in negotiations to direct the film for Dark Horse Indie.

The horror comedy follows two janitors who, during a Christmas holiday, get trapped in an underground research facility after accidentally unleashing military-trained Rhesus monkeys. Hung is one of the janitors who battles the rabid simians.

Cleve Nettles wrote the script, based on a story by DHI producer Chris Patton. Robert Sanchez is also producing.

"Monkeys, guns, explosions. As a genre freak, I couldn't ask for anything more," said Munroe, who became obsessed with the project after initially agreeing to read a friend's work.

"Monkeys" is eying an early 2009 start. The monkeys will be a combination of real monkeys, animatronic puppets and CGI.

Ruben Arizpe with partner Faith Zuckerman of Infinite Filmed Entertainment/7 Renegades Entertainment will produce and finance the project in association with an Asian co-production entity.

DHI recently celebrated an Emmy win for its John Landis-directed documentary "Mr. Warmth," based on the life of Don Rickles, and is gearing up to release "My Name Is Bruce," starring and directed by Bruce Campbell.

Hung, repped Blue Stone Entertainment, is a veteran of the Hong Kong kung fu scene, directing, acting and choreographing dozens of movies.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Tern Unstoned on November 19, 2008, 12:23:31 AM
....and if you can't make the opening of that one, try the back alley Cinema Feel Good just down the street, where "Whore Monkeys," a genuinely seminal work, starring Spurtin' Sammy Well Hung is playin' nightly to sold out, well raincoated  audiences. 

Scored by ---- who else? ---- Big Dick Dale!
The hits just keep a comin' ....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on November 21, 2008, 12:36:41 AM

Any Diabetics out there?? A new hope, maybe??

"Garlic chemical tablet treats diabetes I and II orally
 -- A drug based on a chemical found in garlic can treat diabetes types I and II when taken as a tablet, a study in the new Royal Society of Chemistry journal Metallomics says.

When Hiromu Sakurai and colleagues from the Suzuka University of Medical Science, Japan, gave the drug orally to type I diabetic mice, they found it reduced blood glucose levels.

The drug is based on vanadium and allaxin, a compound found in garlic, and its action described in an Advance Article from Metallomics available free online from today. The first issue of the new journal will be published in 2009.

In previous work they had discovered the vanadium-allaxin compound treated both diabetes types when injected, but this new study shows the drug has promise as an oral treatment for the disease.

Type I diabetes (insulin dependent) is currently treated with daily injections of insulin, while type II (non-insulin dependent) is treated with drugs bearing undesirable side-effects – the authors note neither treatment is ideal.

The researchers aim to test the drug in humans in future work."

Original article: Makoto Hiromura, Metallomics, 2009, DOI: 10.1039/b815384c
http://www.rsc.org/Publishing/Journals/MT/article.asp?doi=b815384c
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on November 21, 2008, 12:52:06 AM
Interestin' possibilities here.  Thanks for sharing agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on November 21, 2008, 12:56:29 AM
I use garlic tablets for blood pressure control.  This info therefore doesn't surprise me at all.   akakakakak
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on November 21, 2008, 06:36:11 PM
From Yahoo news:

BEIJING – China has acknowledged for the first time that more than 19,000 students died in the massive earthquake that struck Sichuan province in May.
The earthquake left nearly 90,000 people dead or missing, but the government had never said how many of the casualties were students. Their deaths caused protests and anger among parents, because of reports that many of the schools that collapsed had been built with substandard materials.
Wei Hong, the executive vice governor of Sichuan, announced the student death toll of 19,065 at a news conference Friday.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Spaghetti on November 23, 2008, 08:37:12 AM
Too bad the panda didn't swallow him whole:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081122/ap_on_re_as/as_china_panda_bites_student

Quote
BEIJING – A college student in southern China was bitten by a panda after he broke into the bear's enclosure hoping to get a hug, state media and a park employee said Saturday.

The student was visiting Qixing Park with classmates on Friday when he jumped the 6.5-foot (2-meter) -high fence around the panda's habitat, said the park employee, who refused to give his name.

The park in Guilin, a popular tourist town in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, houses a small zoo and a panda exhibit. It was virtually deserted when the student scaled the fence surrounding the panda, named Yang Yang, the employee said.

He said the student was bitten in the arms and legs. Two foreign visitors who saw the attack ran to get help from workers at a nearby refreshment stand, who notified park officials, the employee said.

The student was pale as he was taken away by medics but appeared clear-headed, he said.

"Yang Yang was so cute and I just wanted to cuddle him. I didn't expect he would attack," the 20-year-old student, surnamed Liu, said in a local hospital, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: non-dave on November 23, 2008, 03:14:53 PM
Another of Mother Nature's attempts to skim the top of the gene pool derailed by bureaucracy.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: china-matt on November 23, 2008, 04:15:17 PM
That's the third panda attack I've read about since moving to China. I was really hoping it was the same panda from the first two attacks, but it's not. I have great respect for caged animals that maul idiots.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on November 27, 2008, 03:46:50 PM
No more free lunches/dinners etc from your students!!

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-11/25/content_7235701.htm (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-11/25/content_7235701.htm)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on November 27, 2008, 03:49:05 PM
Oh dear!

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2008-11/26/content_7241165.htm (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2008-11/26/content_7241165.htm)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on November 30, 2008, 01:23:33 PM

Television crew filming AIDS documentary attacked in Henan, China
Article from: Agence France-Presse

November 30, 2008 08:09am

MEMBERS of a Belgian television crew described how they were violently attacked in the central Chinese province of Henan while making a documentary about AIDS patients.

Tom Van de Weghe, a journalist with Flemish radio and TV station VRT, told AFP he, an Australian cameraman and a Belgian assistant were set upon by eight men late on Thursday who forced them out of their vehicle.

"It was dark, we were hit many times, sometimes violently. They acted like animals," he said, adding they had been followed all day by two cars.

They were able to get away and escape to the airport but their attackers had taken their video tapes, money and personal possessions including a mobile phone, the journalist said.

The crew was working on a report on AIDS in Henan, where in the 1990s thousands of peasants were infected after selling their blood in a lucrative scheme organised by local civil servants who, keen to make money quickly, hadn't put in place the correct medical precautions.

Residents in the area told the VRT crew the attackers were acting for local officials and they had targeted a Chinese journalist and anti-AIDS activists.

The Foreign Correspondents' Club of China (FCCC) condemned the attack.

"This illegal and brutal act is a disgrace to Henan and to China," said Jonathan Watts, president of the FCCC. "If the Government is serious about the rule of law and opening to the media, the culprits must be caught and punished.

"There is enough evidence to identify the perpetrators. The central authorities should send a clear message that local governments must not use thugs to intimidate journalists."
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Spaghetti on November 30, 2008, 08:33:36 PM
"If the Government is serious about the rule of law and opening to the media, the culprits must be caught and punished.


Therein lies the reality. Serious? Law? Opening?  kkkkkkkkkk
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on December 02, 2008, 01:05:17 PM
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24737368-25837,00.html (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24737368-25837,00.html)

With a renewed focus on growth - does that mean that the already infinitesimal move towards environmental protection will be lost?

The call for a domestic consumer led recovery is being lost on most Chinese people i talk to.  They are talking about tightening their belts, saving more - not buying!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Ruth on December 02, 2008, 02:19:51 PM
Dongguan's getting famous:

"Battle at Chinese Nerf Factory Does Not, Sadly, Involve Nerf Weaponry
By Jack Loftus, 4:00 PM on Sun Nov 30 2008

The global recession has sparked riots at the Nerf factory in Dongguan, South China, but there are as-of-yet no reports of anyVulcan GF-25 cannon discharges. In fact, no foam weaponry of any kind was brandished during the tussle, which came to a head following layoffs and unpaid wages.

And unlike the riots that took place in Wal-Mart and Toys R Us stores in the States last Friday, there were no reports of fatalities. Just general bedlam:

The workers battled security guards, turned over a police car, smashed the headlights of police motorcycles and forced their way through the factory's front gate, Guo said. They went on a rampage in the plant's offices, damaging 10 computers, the company said."

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on December 02, 2008, 02:43:31 PM
That's a problem in China - the people don't have access to proper nerf weapons.

If nerf weapons are outlawed, only outlaws will have nerf weapons!   ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on December 03, 2008, 03:45:46 PM

294,000 Chinese children sickened by tainted milk

December 02, 2008
Article from:  Agence France-Presse

CHINA has dramatically raised the tally of children sickened by dairy products laced with the industrial chemical melamine to 294,000, more than five times the original figure.

The health ministry also said six babies may have died from consuming poisoned milk, up from a previous confirmed death toll of three.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24740912-25837,00.html (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24740912-25837,00.html)

And are we surprised at the increase in number?  Wonder what the real number is?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Spaghetti on December 04, 2008, 03:22:32 AM
They just offed some guy who had a bogus ant farm scheme that suckered people out of millions of dollars*. When are heads gonna be filled with lead regarding this Melamine nastiness?


*I'm not making this up, and it's U. S. millions
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: psd4fan on December 04, 2008, 03:24:59 AM
OH MY GOSH!

Do not order the Polish sausage in that restaurant!!!!
Or the Spotted Dick.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on December 05, 2008, 02:02:21 AM
There is an historical power struggle going on right now in Canada.  Rather than cut and paste some long articles I'll try to boil it down for y'all.

Canada is a parliamentary democracy, cut into 308 ridings, each of which elect a Member of Parliament (or MP).  After each election, the Governal General (GG- more on this job later) asks the leader of the party with the most votes to try and from a government.  If this party has a majority of the MPs in the House of commons, this is easy: while some may vote against some legislation, when it is a confidence vote (if the guv loses, an election must be called) they'll all get onside.

But for years we've had minority governments.  This is trickier: since the other parties have more MPs in total and thus more votes in the House, if they all gang up they can defeat motions and legislation that the governing party puts forth; they can even win a vote of no-confidence, and force an election.  But they have to be careful: if voters feel this has been done frivolously, we've been known to punish parties.

Our current leader, Stephen Harper of the Conservative party, has set a record as the longest serving minority government prime minister in our history.  He has clearly grown weary of of pussyfooting around the opposition, and when the largest other party, the Liberals, put up as leader one Stephane Dion, a compromise choice with all the charisma of asthmatic accountant, Harper pounced and called an election.  The timing seemed perfect: the Liberals wer strapped for cash, and the Conservatives spent a mint smearing Dion.  They looked headed for Harper's first majority government, and a far freer hand in running the country.

Then, 2 weeks before we went to the polls, the economic meltdown hit.  The direction of the campaign spun around: what are you gonna do in the face of this new crisis?  Amazingly the Conservative platform was: cut some spending and wait to see what happens.  While every other government put in a stimulus and/or relief package, Canada's government was proposing to basically do nothing.

The government's momentum was destroyed.  They increased their number of seats, but fell a mere 7 short of a majority.  Still, it was a strong hand to hold, since it would require unanimity among the opposition parties to resist anything the guv did.  What's more: their arch rival Liberals, the only other party that has ever held power, had garnered the fewest votes in their history; their leader was the least popular leader in parliament, and had agreed to step down at their next convention; and their purse was empty.  They were probably years away from being able to wage a strong campaign.

Now, to govern.  Recession looming; U.S. auto makers on life support, threatening hundreds of thousands of Canuck jobs (we account for 14 percent of of the Big 3's workforce); oil prices plummetting; and after all the pain, sacrifice and discipline to get our public debt under control and in the process of being paid off, probably deficit.

The throne speech, to kick off the new session, was simply incredible: it contained NO meaningful measures to deal with the financial crisis.  In stead they said they'd address it in their budget, due out in mid-January, and were completely secretive about what that would entail.

Much worse, they announced that they would save $30 million by cancelling the electoral subsidy.  This pays each party a buck fifty per year for every vote they got in the last election.  Now, it's easy to get campaign donations when you're in power, since everyone wants your goodwill; but when you're in opposition things are significantly tighter.  and like I said, the other parties are broke right now.  Without this money they couldn't put up any fight against the government at all.

It was a declaration of war.  The opposition parties, the Libs, the New Democratic Party (basically socialists) and the Bloc Quebecois (basically the Quebec separatist party), found the common cause without which they'd have never been able to see eye to eye.

The 3 leaders had a joint press conference, and announced that they had signed an agreement to form a coalition government- combined, they have enough seats in the House to form a majority.  Further, they had sent a letter to the GG informing her of their intentions, and placed this coming Monday as the date that they would table a motion of non-confidence.  "Mister Prime Minister, you have lost the confidence of the House of Commons.  We urge you, in the interest of your country, to accept this gracefully and step down."

The guv, thunderstruck, took the election fudning cut back, and introduced some token recession crisis measures, but clearly it was too late: the other 3 parties had despaired of working with the Cons and were determined to replace them. 

Now the GG has 3 options:

1. Grant the government's inevitable request for an election.  Normally this is a rubber stamp deal, but we just had an election a scant month ago, so it's expected that she will refuse.

2. Grant their next request, to "prorogue" the next session of parliament.  That simply means that they won't convene, therefore can't vote the government out.  Of course, this just delays the inevitable.

3. Appoint the coalition government.  To some of you, this would seem the obvious choice, since many countries have this happen regularly; but it has never happened in Canada.

The government is going to take option 2, and buy some time to mount a massive publicity campaign to drum up support for the Conservatives, and portray the coalition push as a coup (which it isn't), and a faustian bargain with seperatists (which it kind of is).

Our country, which is enviably prepared for a downturn (guv surplus, although the Cons pissed most of it away on tax cuts; total patriation of debt, i.e. Canuck banks hold it all; and strict investment laws that have kept firms from collapsing thus far)...

Is badly divided, when we can least afford it.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on December 05, 2008, 02:43:46 AM
WOW!!!

I hate Harper, I am a born and raised Liberal, but I don't like the Liberal leader either.  This could be real interesting!

Hope the general public aren't dumb enough to believe Harper's attempt at propaganda!! llllllllll
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Spaghetti on December 05, 2008, 04:29:27 AM
Interesting analysis, Con. Glad to see you back, too.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on December 05, 2008, 04:04:46 PM
Update: The PM requested, and the GG granted, a prorogue.  The House is closed until late January, when the government will promptly deliver their 2009 budget, complete with a plan for these troubled times.

Best case scenario: Harper will finally reach across the floor and work with the opposition, or at least clue them in as to the plan.

Worst case scenario: Harper will spend a month and a half explaining how the oposition are a bunch of communist, conniving, incompetent, jealous, whining traitors to their country, and that MAYBE he came on a tad too strong, but he's the only one we can trust.

My bet: Harper will ride the edge of the knife, experimenting with how little grace he can afford to show.  Opposition leaders will meditate on how many insults they can swallow in the interests of their country...

I'll go out on a limb: I want a compromise, but I don't think there will be one.  Election in the Spring.  Hope I'm wrong.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: decurso on December 05, 2008, 06:21:18 PM
 Have I mentioned how glad I am to not live in Canada anymore? This is FUBAR.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on December 06, 2008, 12:37:25 AM
I really don't want to see a spring election. I want to see a working government. Failing that, a reasonable facsimile. Whether we'll get it remains to be seen.
Harper has pretty much used up his 9 lives and blown his last chance to act like a prime minister. I don't think that Dion looks anything like a PM, but I do believe he has the integrity to act like one for a short time while his party chooses another leader and we as a nation dig our way out of this snow drift recession. Similarly, I don't think the coalition has what it takes to provide stable, long term governance. Just too many fundamental differences. I do believe that the pressures of political necessity and the lessons of recent history are enough to get them working together for the common good, at least in the short term. I don't think 18 months is too much to ask for.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Spaghetti on December 06, 2008, 06:18:31 AM
Oh, Canada!

 bibibibibi

And, in the holiday spirit: Florida man beats father with Christmas tree!

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iJi5Qhra5Jky8JXiniufnqjnvsvQD94R03AO0

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: psd4fan on December 06, 2008, 03:19:00 PM
Oh, Canada!

 bibibibibi

And, in the holiday spirit: Florida man beats father with Christmas tree!

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iJi5Qhra5Jky8JXiniufnqjnvsvQD94R03AO0


Now that's funny. Good thing it wasn't fruit cake cuz I think under any civilized law it's considered a deadly weapon. bababababa
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Spaghetti on December 06, 2008, 06:20:49 PM
Americans have the right to bare weapons invented only to murder, but they still don't have the right to live their lives without fear from the increasing danger of getting their asses smoked out anywhere*, anytime by goons brandishing said weapons, usually legally:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_travel/20081205/ap_tr_ge/travel_brief_guns_national_parks


*shopping malls, places of work and high schools are the latest, greatest hot spots!

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Spaghetti on December 08, 2008, 06:59:02 AM
Blighty does a GFW:

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Six-UK-ISPs-Block-Access-To-Wikipedia-99540

Quote
Six UK ISPs Block Access To Wikipedia
Child porn filtration gone awry...
10:36AM Sunday Dec 07 2008 by Karl Bode

According to notices posted by Wikipedia administrators, six British ISPs (Virgin Media, Be/O2/Telefonica, EasyNet/UK Online, PlusNet, Demon and Opal) are inadvertently filtering all access to Wikipedia after the site was added to an Internet Watch Foundation child-pornography blacklist. Those ISPs are using a few transparent proxies, and because Wikipedia's anti-vandalism system blocks users by IP address, every single user of those ISPs gets this message when trying to edit Wikipedia content:

Wikipedia has been added to a Internet Watch Foundation UK website blacklist, and your Internet service provider has decided to block part of your access. Unfortunately, this also makes it impossible for us to differentiate between different users, and block those abusing the site without blocking other innocent people as well.

This, and the very bizarre BBFC film censorship sure puts the nanny into governance.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: contemporarydog on December 09, 2008, 10:47:20 AM
I'm on Be and not getting anything like that when I try wiki...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Spaghetti on December 09, 2008, 06:22:08 PM
I'm on Be and not getting anything like that when I try wiki...

Did you read the article and can you access that Scorpions page? Perhaps going public changed things. I respect the fight against pedophilia, but there's a point when some "concerned" entities start to get Big Brothery and end up mucking about in shit that has absolutely nothing to do with such heinous crimes. Sometimes conveniently so, like the U. S. wire tapping malarkey that sprung up post 9-11.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Spaghetti on December 09, 2008, 06:23:50 PM
Not that anyone needed convincing that the U. S. education system is pretty fucked, but:

Quote
Teacher sorry for binding girls in slavery lesson

By JIM FITZGERALD – 3 days ago

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) — A white social studies teacher attempted to enliven a seventh-grade discussion of slavery by binding the hands and feet of two black girls, prompting outrage from one girl's mother and the local chapter of the NAACP. After the mother complained to Haverstraw Middle School, the superintendent said he was having "conversations with our staff on how to deliver effective lessons."

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gc0c1hB9MlLCLoAjdsaRHOWOraWQD94SR4I81
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on December 10, 2008, 09:17:41 AM
It's nice to know that some Chinese boys are really passionate when they kiss their girlfriends.  bjbjbjbjbj

********

The kiss of deaf - Chinese man ruptures girlfriend's eardrum

BEIJING (Reuters) – A young woman in southern China has partially lost her hearing after her boyfriend ruptured her eardrum during an excessively passionate kiss, local media reported Monday.

The 20-something girl from Zhuhai, in southern Guangdong province, went to hospital completely deaf in her left ear, the China Daily said, citing a report in a local newspaper.

"The kiss reduced pressure in the mouth, pulled the eardrum out and caused the breakdown of the ear," the paper quoted a doctor surnamed Li from the hospital as saying.

The woman's hearing would likely return to normal after about two months, Li said.

"While kissing is normally very safe, doctors advise people to proceed with caution," the paper said.

(Reporting by Ian Ransom; Editing by Nick Macfie)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on December 11, 2008, 05:20:19 PM
Want to make your girlfriend happier?  Put down those drinks and nibblies, get off that chair and go out exercising fellas -
Quote
REGULAR exercise is good for a man's sexual prowess, according to new research

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,24779453-36398,00.html (http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,24779453-36398,00.html)


Me - I loved the 2nd last paragraph!!! axaxaxaxax axaxaxaxax axaxaxaxax
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on December 15, 2008, 07:48:36 AM
Now I finally have a better explanation for waking up naked in alleys.   ahahahahah

*******

Ugandan men warned of 'booby trap'

KAMPALA (AFP) - Uganda's police warned male bar-goers to keep their noses clean after a probe found a gang of robbers had been using women with chloroform smeared on their chests to knock their victims unconscious.

"They apply this chemical to their chest. We have found victims in an unconscious state," Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID) spokesman Fred Enanga told AFP.

"You find the person stripped totally naked and everything is taken from him," he said. "And the victim doesn't remember anything. He just remembers being in the act of romancing."

Enanga, who explained that several types of heavy sedatives had been used, said he first came across the practice last year when an apprehended thief named Juliana Mukasa made a clean breast of the matter.

"She is a very dangerous lady," the official said.

While early investigations suggest that the gang may consist of dozens of members, the source of the sedatives remains unknown.

"We don't know exactly how they get these materials," Enanga added. "That is something that our investigations must crack."

He called on men, particularly travelling businessmen who tend to carry a lot of cash, to take caution.

"It's a serious situation and people have to be aware."
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: adamsmith on December 15, 2008, 01:55:08 PM
they must watch to much CSI in uganda. that was a case from season 5 i think - the case of the poisoned nipples.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: fox on December 15, 2008, 04:39:16 PM
Uganda's police warned male bar-goers to keep their noses clean after a probe found a gang of robbers had been using women with chloroform smeared on their chests to knock their victims unconscious.



traditionally men are known to fall asleep after not before lovemaking.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on December 16, 2008, 12:43:16 PM
I think I need to become a Cleavage Inspector - just to help defend the public against this sort of criminal activity.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on December 19, 2008, 06:51:29 PM
"A leading member of Melbourne's Chinese community has been fined $10,000 after his 12-year-old restaurant was closed in a state of "terrible" uncleanliness.

- Restaurant's 'terrible' filth
- Fines total $30,000
- Cockroaches, dirty equipment found"
http://www.theage.com.au/national/filth-bugs-cost-city-restaurant-owner-10000-20081218-71lv.html (http://www.theage.com.au/national/filth-bugs-cost-city-restaurant-owner-10000-20081218-71lv.html)

HA! Those Inspectors have never seen a REAL Chinese restaurant!! aoaoaoaoao
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on December 19, 2008, 08:06:58 PM
They just don't understand the concept of 'pollution as spice' do they??
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: china-matt on December 19, 2008, 09:12:46 PM
George, the problem was that the restaurant wasn't serving the pests to diners like they do here in Shenzhen.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on December 21, 2008, 01:12:18 AM
No failures allowed here!!


China will chase runaway investors


From correspondents in Shanghai | December 20, 2008
Article from:  Reuters

CHINA, hit by a slowdown in manufacturing from the global downturn, will pursue foreign investors who flee the country to escape failed business investments and debt.
China will ask foreign governments to help investigate and extradite the fugitives, especially in cases involving large sums of money, the Xinhua news agency said.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24829213-12377,00.html (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24829213-12377,00.html)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Spaghetti on December 21, 2008, 05:38:55 AM
Of course they aren't doing anything about the overwhelming, dominating majority of LOCAL investors who cut and run at this time. bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: non-dave on December 21, 2008, 02:17:07 PM
When you think "foreign investor" I'll bet you picture a white face?

I'm certain that the vast majority of foreigners referenced in the article will be HK/Taiwan ID'd folks or mainland Chinese who've picked up a new passport and come back to exploit the workers. Very, very, very few will be the classic westerner or an FT who pulled themselves up fro the gutter.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on December 21, 2008, 03:30:38 PM
The article named Koreans as the cut and run artists, but I've herd of others as well.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on December 21, 2008, 04:53:34 PM
Quote
but I've herd of others as well.
I've herd of cows and goats.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Spaghetti on December 22, 2008, 12:32:06 AM
The article named Koreans as the cut and run artists, but I've herd of others as well.

Having witnessed many Koreans express their views on China, this does not surprise me. It all goes back to the institutionalized and accepted notion of eugenics that is taught in Korean public schools, both as a science and as a cultural attribute.

Yeah, non-Dave. I'm guilty of thinking non-Asian westerners first, when I read that. bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: old34 on December 22, 2008, 02:33:11 PM
How to Help Finance a University's Expansion Program:

Using the students' private ID information, open online accounts and credit cards for the students. But don't tell them.

http://english.cri.cn/2946/2008/12/18/1781s434339.htm (http://english.cri.cn/2946/2008/12/18/1781s434339.htm)

The money quote from the school official:
Quote
He confessed the deal was in response to the bank's financial support of the university's expansion project, arguing, "it was reasonable to pay back the bank by registering a large number of credit cards."

Oh, and when a reporter comes sniffing around about the story, detain the reporter.

http://www.zonaeuropa.com/200812b.brief.htm (http://www.zonaeuropa.com/200812b.brief.htm) (Page down)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on December 22, 2008, 02:52:38 PM
The news has been around the uni for the last couple of weeks. As soon as the student got back to campus he hit the uni BBS.  According to my sources, the 'finance' department has been 'let go' - but there are also calls for the President to be fired.

In return for low interest loans, the uni agreed to ensure that students became ICBC customers - and this is how it was done!   ahahahahah ahahahahah ahahahahah

The FAO set our accounts with Communications bank so we could be paid via bank deposit - almost 12 months ago.  hasn't happened yet - still get paid in cash.  Ummm.....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: old34 on December 22, 2008, 03:36:44 PM
In return for low interest loans, the uni agreed to ensure that students became ICBC customers

Knowing you are a customer is a pre-requisite to being a customer.  ahahahahah ahahahahah ahahahahah

I switched campuses last year and now my pay comes from this campus. The first thing they did was tell me I had to open a bank account at China Construction Bank so they could direct deposit my pay there. I didn't want to do that as I have had the same ICBC account for 8 years AND ICBC has the only English language online banking. This was never a problem at the other campus. I gave them my ICBC account details and the pay went into that account.

But I was told here, the Finance department requires all teachers (Chinese and FT) to have a China Construction Bank account and they can only pay into that one. To make matters even more fishy, the account had to be opened at one particular branch office only. If you've had a Chinese bank account, you know that your account is tied to the branch office it's opened at. So if you have problems, such as your ATM card stops working, or you lose it, etc. you must return to the original branch to get things sorted.

So off we went (the FAO assistant and I) in a taxi by-passing at least a dozen CCB branches until 5 km later we arrived at a CCB branch office in the middle of the city. Not a main branch either. I now have a CCB account into which my pay is deposited every month-and no English language online banking so I can easily transfer it to my main account.
Oh, and there's no CCB branch office within walking distance of the campus. I have found only 1 CCB ATM machine on campus, and that at the far end of the campus. In between that 15 minute walk, I pass by a half dozen ATM machines from other banks. The problem? CCB charges a 7 RMB fee per 1000 RMB withdrawal from any other bank's ATM. So if I want to withdraw my pay and deposit it in my main ICBC account, it costs me nearly 50 RMB.

In short, I am a knowing CCB customer, though not happy about it. But at least the corruption here was transparent.  ahahahahah ahahahahah ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on December 22, 2008, 03:55:27 PM
The Communications Bank is on campus land - we can walk through the back door to reach it - so it's convenient, but.. still no money in it.  ahahahahah

You don't think the uni was being altruistic and helping the students out by doing all the work for them in establishing a credit card account, giving them an opportunity to build up a credit rating, linking them with a major banking institution at an early period in their career???

I thought it was jolly decent of them actually!! Such thoughtful, caring chappies, our admin.  ahahahahah ahahahahah ahahahahah ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: fox on December 23, 2008, 05:40:54 AM
accepted notion of eugenics that is taught in Korean public schools, both as a science and as a cultural attribute.

Wasn't Hitler into eugenics too?  But then again he was following what America was experimenting with at the time - taking it a step further and on a larger scale. I recall reading that America was into mass sterilisation of ethnic minorities and similar practices including segregation etc etc. all of which appealed to Hitler.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Spaghetti on December 23, 2008, 07:25:33 AM

Wasn't Hitler into eugenics too?  But then again he was following what America was experimenting with at the time - taking it a step further and on a larger scale. I recall reading that America was into mass sterilisation of ethnic minorities and similar practices including segregation etc etc. all of which appealed to Hitler.

Hitler definitely was, and the severity of which can easily be observed in history books. However,  to claim America - as in the whole nation - was conducting itself with a shared view towards eugenics post civil-war, is wholly inaccurate, and neither Germany nor America at that time (1930s and 40s)  - or even today - have had homogeneous societies. America's issues with racism are not necessarily the same as embracing eugenics as a social model, since they are not part of the nation's academic mandate, though many parts of the country once had infrastructure that legalized it and implemented it as a social norm, like the south and state-sanctioned segregation well into the early seventies, for example.

Our history books delivered to our public schools haven't emphasized eugenics since the slave days, and currently do not emphasize eugenics, nor do they in a manner which South Korean textbooks still do today.

I invite you to learn Korean and teach in a public school in South Korea and take a look at some of your elementary students' books. For further reference, check out how they explain the existence of ethnic Koreans in Asia. It's something Hitler probably would have envied had he the information in his day. It should be noted that the South Korean view of eugenics traditionally did not include extermination of other races, nor conquering of them. To the contrary, it was more about embracing isolationism from other races and cultures and sticking to its own, for the most part. That's a distinct difference, and one which places the prevalence of such thinking in Korea in a less dark (but no less disturbing) light when compared to Hitler-era Germany.

I also think bringing up America in this context weakens my point. Check our white house in late January for substantial proof that eugenics are not part of our educational system, nor our social structure beyond what the mouth breathers who read "The Turner Diaries" and wear white cloaks might preach under some rock. However, in South Korea, it's still being taught to children in their public schools.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on December 23, 2008, 09:43:26 PM
Our sense of history diverges, Spag.  My reading tells me that ALL Western countries dabbled in eugenics via sterilization back in the 30's.  It was considered a humane kindness to eliminate retardation, mental illness and other genetic weaknesses from the gene pool to prevent future misery.  This scientific hubris pervaded the spirit of the age.

... until Nazi Germany took it to a whole new level, actually killing people with genetic and even non-genetic traits... then later, as I seem to remember, "purifying" the human race.

In Canada there were a lot of tragedies resulting from a liberal use of sterilization without consent, primary among mental patients.

Did America really sterilize along ethnic lines?  I heard rumour of some dark experiment involving castration of black people, but never was able to verify it.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on December 24, 2008, 03:19:26 AM
WHOA! This just 9 minutes ago:

Troops head toward Guinea presidential compound
Buzz UpSendSharePrint
9 mins ago

CONAKRY, Guinea – Three tanks and dozens of armed soldiers are heading toward Guinea's presidential compound.
An Associated Press reporter saw the troops and tanks moving in the direction of the compound, which houses the office of the West African nation's prime minister.
The troops' allegiance was not immediately apparent.
But they appeared less than an hour after Prime Minister Ahmed Tidiane Souare announced in a state broadcast that he was inside his office and that his government had not been dissolved.
Junior army officers had announced a coup d'etat earlier Tuesday. They said the government had been dissolved hours after the death of longtime dictator Lansana Conte was announced.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

CONAKRY, Guinea (AP) — Guinea's prime minister contradicted reports of a military coup Tuesday, saying that his government had not been dissolved following the death of the country's longtime dictator.
Prime Minister Ahmed Tidiane Souare said in a state broadcast that he was speaking from his office and that his government "continues to function as it should."
A military-led group earlier announced on state radio and TV that there had been a coup in the West African nation, saying it had dissolved the government and constitution hours after the death of President Lansana Conte.
The mineral-rich but impoverished country of 10 million has been ruled by only two men since it gained independence from France a half-century ago, and it had long been predicted that a military coup would follow Conte's death.
Conte, who took power in a military coup after the death of his predecessor in 1984, died Monday night, the country's National Assembly president announced at about 2 a.m.
At around 7:30 a.m., a uniformed spokesman for a group calling itself the National Council for Democracy began broadcasting its announcement of the takeover on state-run radio and TV. A TV reporter identified the man as Capt. Moussa Camara. It was not clear if he was a leader of the coup or only a spokesman.
"The constitution is dissolved," said Camara. "The government is dissolved. The institutions of the republic are dissolved. ... From this moment on, the council is taking charge of the destiny of the Guinean people."
He said presidential elections will be organized shortly, but did not elaborate.
Camara ordered citizens to stay home. He also ordered the heads of the various branches of government to go immediately to the Alpha Yaya Diallo barracks for a meeting. Camara is believed to be an army captain stationed at the Alpha Yaya camp, which has been the seat of army mutinies against Conte's rule.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Spaghetti on December 24, 2008, 06:54:11 AM
Our sense of history diverges, Spag.  My reading tells me that ALL Western countries dabbled in eugenics via sterilization back in the 30's.  It was considered a humane kindness to eliminate retardation, mental illness and other genetic weaknesses from the gene pool to prevent future misery.  This scientific hubris pervaded the spirit of the age.

Now we're talking about eugenics beyond race and ethnicity and into malformaties and retardation. I definitely concede that.

I was missing the forest for the trees regarding eugenics as a whole, and focused on the racial and ethnic aspects that pervades Korean society. I was not referring to eugenics in relation to medical disorders.
Quote
... until Nazi Germany took it to a whole new level, actually killing people with genetic and even non-genetic traits... then later, as I seem to remember, "purifying" the human race.

Yes, indeed. Then there's the nefarious activities of the Haerbin 731 squadron of Japanese scientists during WWII that did things right out of the Mengele playbook. Sickening and all true.


Quote
In Canada there were a lot of tragedies resulting from a liberal use of sterilization without consent, primary among mental patients.


Disturbing and fascinating.

Quote
Did America really sterilize along ethnic lines?  I heard rumour of some dark experiment involving castration of black people, but never was able to verify it.

Perhaps during the slave days. It would not surprise me.

Now there's the court-ordered chemical castration of pedophiles in some American states. That's one of those, "I see both sides of the argument" situations, in favor of and being against it. I definitely don't fall on the "liberal" side of how pedophiles should be dealt with legally. That may be the only issue where I fall in line with conservatives.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on December 25, 2008, 02:01:27 AM
Quake Pig China's Animal of the Year (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24833568-25837,00.html)

December 22, 2008
Article from:  Agence France-Presse


A CELEBRITY pig that survived for 36 days buried beneath rubble in quake-hit southwest China has been named the nation's animal of the year, state press reports.

The pig won the award in an online vote after his ordeal earned him celebrity status and a plush life as the top attraction at an earthquake museum, the China Daily said in a weekend report.

The pig, known as "Zhu Jianqiang'' which means "Strong Pig'', shot to fame after he was discovered alive beneath rubble, 36 days after the magnitude 8.0 earthquake struck Sichuan province on May 12.

According to the Red Net forum, the website that held the online vote, the two-year-old pig "vividly illustrated the spirit of never giving up'' and has become a model for Chinese entrepreneurs'' amid the current economic downturn.

The pig survived on rainwater and a bag of charcoal during his ordeal and was sold to the Jianchuan Museum, which agreed to nurture him for the rest of his life as a reminder of the nation's resilience in disaster.

Now free from the worry of the slaughterhouse, the pig enjoys a cushy life at the museum, the report said.

"It's gotten fatter and lazier by the day,'' the paper quoted a museum staff member as saying.

"We used to take it out for a walk every morning and afternoon, but now it's too lazy, and too fat, to do it. So we're feeding it only twice a day.''



Four legs good.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Spaghetti on December 25, 2008, 04:28:40 AM
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Quake pig....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on December 25, 2008, 05:19:27 AM
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Quake pig....

Shaken, not stirred.   ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on December 25, 2008, 05:31:13 AM
And so determined to live for the harmonious society as an inspirational symbol.  Can't help but be moved!!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on December 25, 2008, 07:46:02 AM
I wonder if my brother-in-law is serving ham for Christmas dinner?   uuuuuuuuuu
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on December 26, 2008, 06:12:46 AM
Serves them right, damn child-killing bastards!

BEIJING, China (CNN) -- Sanlu Group, the company at the center of China's tainted infant formula scandal, has filed for bankruptcy.


Markets withdrew Sanlu milk powder in September after melamine was found as an additive.

 A court in Shijiazhuang, China, where the company is based, told CNN Wednesday it has received the bankruptcy application.

Baby formula produced by Sanlu -- previously one of China's leading dairy producers -- was first flagged in the scandal when it recalled about 700 tons of the powdered milk in September after discovering the product was contaminated with melamine.

The poisonings killed six babies and sickened 290,000 others, according to China's Xinhua news agency.

Melamine is commonly used in coatings and laminates, wood adhesives, fabric coatings, ceiling tiles and flame retardants. Some Chinese dairy plants have added it to milk products to make it seem to have a higher protein level.

Melamine is the same industrial contaminant from China that poisoned and killed thousands of U.S. dogs and cats last year.

Health experts say ingesting melamine can lead to kidney stones, urinary tract ulcers, and eye and skin irritation. It also robs infants of much-needed nutrition.

Sanlu could be taken over by Beijing Sanyuan Food Company or Wandashan Dairy, Xinhua reported.

Chinese investigators found melamine in nearly 70 milk products from more than 20 companies, according to then-quality control official Li Changjiang, who was forced to resign.

Thousands of tons of tainted milk powder were recalled, including pullbacks by Mengniu Dairy Group, China's largest milk producer, and Sanlu.

In addition to Li's ouster, the fallout from the scandal led to arrest of at least 18 people in September and new government safety measures.

New Zealand-based Fonterra, which owns a 43 percent stake in Sanlu, said the Shijiazhuang court issued the bankruptcy order against the Chinese company in response to a creditor's petition.

Under the court order, according to Fonterra, a court-appointed receiver will manage Sanlu and assume responsibility "for an orderly sale of the company's assets and payment of creditors" within six months.

"This bankruptcy order is not a surprise to us," Andrew Ferrier, Fonterra's CEO, said in statement. "We were aware that Sanlu was in a very difficult situation and faced mounting debts as a result of the melamine contamination crisis."
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Spaghetti on December 27, 2008, 10:34:39 AM
The People's Republic Of Australia? I know there's some strict film censorship down under, but a GFW, too?

http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20081226/ap_on_hi_te/tec_australia_internet_filter

Quote
SYDNEY, Australia - A proposed Internet filter dubbed the "Great Aussie Firewall" is promising to make Australia one of the strictest Internet regulators among democratic countries.

Consumers, civil-rights activists, engineers, Internet providers and politicians from opposition parties are among the critics of a mandatory Internet filter that would block at least 1,300 Web sites prohibited by the government — mostly child pornography, excessive violence, instructions in crime or drug use and advocacy of terrorism.

Hundreds protested in state capitals earlier this month.

"This is obviously censorship," said Justin Pearson Smith, 29, organizer of protests in Melbourne and an officer of one of a dozen Facebook groups against the filter.

The list of prohibited sites, which the government isn't making public, is arbitrary and not subject to legal scrutiny, Smith said, leaving it to the government or lawmakers to pursue their own online agendas.

"I think the money would be better spent in investing in law enforcement and targeting producers of child porn," he said.

Internet providers say a filter could slow browsing speeds, and many question whether it would achieve its intended goals. Illegal material such as child pornography is often traded on peer-to-peer networks or chats, which would not be covered by the filter.


There's a disturbing trend amongst western governments to use kiddie pron as a justification for widespread censorship. It cheapens the severity of the issue by using it as the reason to justify plain old Big Brotherism. I find it despicable when people use children or claims of concern for their safety as the ruse for their desire to censor. It's not nearly as grotesque as the very real crime of pedophilia, but it's still profoundly disturbing in its own, right.

England has recently engaged in this, and there is a push for it in America, too, but it hasn't yet reached the stages of internet firewalling the PRC, England and now, apparently Australia have enacted or are about to. The common justification behind this is the same, but I suspect it has more to do with wanting to crack down on civil liberties than in preventing crimes against humanity.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on December 27, 2008, 03:01:42 PM
So when your students tell you China NEVER uses it's military:
 
China navy mission makes neighbours nervous


December 27, 2008
Article from:  The Australian

GUANGZHOU: A Chinese navy anti-piracy task force set sail for Africa yesterday in the nation's first potential combat mission beyond its territorial waters in centuries.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24845277-2703,00.html (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24845277-2703,00.html)

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on December 27, 2008, 03:37:04 PM
The US Navy already announced that they are more than happy to have the Chinese Navy join the party.  agagagagag

Chinese destroyers vs. Somali pirates.  That should be a lot of fun to watch - for about 5 minutes.
 bcbcbcbcbc bzbzbzbzbz

Sounds like the pirates are about to sleep with the fishes.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on December 27, 2008, 04:27:28 PM
Hate to keep ragging on about sanlu, but this caught my eye in the paper this moring:
Quote
The dairy company Sanlu, based in Shijiazhuang, confirmed earlier this week that it was bankrupt.

Xinhua reported Thursday that Sanlu has 1.1 billion yuan ($160 million U.S.) of net debt and that a branch of the Shijiazhuang City Commercial Bank was the creditor that applied to a court to have Sanlu declared bankrupt.

It said the intermediate court in Shijiazhuang had accepted the filing. Xinhua said Sanlu owes a creditor 902 million yuan ($132 million U.S.) it borrowed earlier this month to pay for the medical treatment of children sickened after drinking the company's infant formula and for compensation of the babies' families.

Wang Jianguo, spokesman for the Shijiazhuang city government, said the money was given to the China Dairy Industry Association for medical care and compensation fees for victims, according to a transcript of a news conference he gave Thursday.

A woman who answered the phone Friday at the association refused to answer any questions.

The issue of compensation for the families of the children sickened or killed has become a sensitive one, with courts so far not accepting any lawsuits filed by the families.

Aside from the usual qualms about small fish being punished while the big sharks swim away scot-free, I get this nagging doubt about the compensation money. They put the company into a huge hole to get the compensation money, then where does the money go to? Looks like these guys have been studying American banking.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on December 27, 2008, 08:39:48 PM
So China and the West are cooperating to stamp out a growing threat of piracy...fascinating...last time that happened was 400 years ago. Those pirates are goners!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on December 27, 2008, 09:01:09 PM
Will the Chinese claim it was their superiority that enabled the West to finally stop the scourge of the sea?  Clearly it hasn't been able to be achieved without them!!  kkkkkkkkkk kkkkkkkkkk ahahahahah ahahahahah ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Pashley on December 28, 2008, 12:05:12 AM
China's joining a fairly large party.

Canadian frigate: http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/08/06/somalia.piracy/index.html

Indians, though they seem to need better target identification:
http://exiledonline.com/war-nerd-update-mother-ship-shrimp-boat-either-way-it%E2%80%99s-puree/
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on December 28, 2008, 02:21:46 AM
Sanlu bankrupt?  F'ing A! axaxaxaxax  The moral of the story: don't poison babies.

The world banding together to fight pirates? F'ing A!  Moral: don't hijack ships.  bcbcbcbcbc bababababa   bzbzbzbzbz
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Spaghetti on December 28, 2008, 02:41:30 AM
Looks like these guys have been studying American banking.

Given how much gold and currency China has invested in, we go full circle, because the American bankers certainly learned how to fudge the books like the Chinese.

The government should compensate the families, because their system let Sanlu go on with the abuse. Of course, there are people in Sichuan still waiting for compensation and ah and up since May...

Justice in China is similar to the easter bunny in the west. Pleasant idea, but it's not a reality.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Spaghetti on December 28, 2008, 02:43:27 AM
Sanlu bankrupt?  F'ing A! axaxaxaxax  The moral of the story: don't poison babies.

Bankruptcy is often the first step towards extinction, but it isn't always the case. Are the filing for protection?

Don't break open the champagne until Sanlu is actually extinct.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on December 28, 2008, 04:16:31 AM
Read the fine print (and weep), folks. The company isn't going under because they poisoned children, but because they borrowed tons of money to pay for treatment and to settle claims by families that lost children to their callous disregard for safety (and common sense). And now that money seems to have disappeared. Sorry folks. Them that has, gets. Them that hasn't, gets sick kiddies. The bankruptcy just wipes a brush over their tracks.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on December 29, 2008, 11:24:17 PM
 aaaaaaaaaa

This calls for assassins.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on January 06, 2009, 05:57:32 PM
TRULY SICK MAKING!!!

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24878783-601,00.html (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24878783-601,00.html)

"man of steel" ?????????

 aaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaa
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: old34 on January 06, 2009, 10:42:40 PM
It could have been worse. He could have given one to Pauline Hanson, too. ahahahahah ahahahahah ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on January 07, 2009, 06:51:45 PM
" The secret is out. The man who kept US president-elect Barack Obama out of Blair House - the security home near the White House - was none other than former Australian prime minister John Howard.

Last month the Obamas asked the Bush administration if they could move into Blair House a fortnight early to get their daughters settled at their new schools.

But the word came back that it was not possible because foreign dignitaries had been booked in.

Now the Washington Post has revealed that the only dignitary staying overnight on January 12 is Mr Howard."
Scumbags!......both of them!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on January 08, 2009, 12:58:55 PM
Need an quick way to lose some of those really bad ESL books???

*******

Indian teachers burn books to keep warm: report
Tue Jan 6, 3:24 pm ET

NEW DELHI (AFP) – A group of teachers in eastern India used books meant for poor children to light a bonfire to keep them warm, a report said Tuesday.

The teachers at a school in Bihar state sent students home over the weekend, citing the cold weather, and set light to the books, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.

Police have registered a case against the school principal and 16 others, the report said.

The cold weather has caused many schools in India to extend their winter break by at least a week.

Dozens of international and domestic flights to and from New Delhi were cancelled, delayed or diverted on Tuesday due to thick fog, while Indian railways said at least a dozen services had been cancelled.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: fox on January 12, 2009, 06:14:12 AM
naughty naughty  ....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7821747.stm
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on January 16, 2009, 07:40:40 PM
Mind your workplace manners -- it pays

Thu Jan 15, 9:48 am ET

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Manners maketh the businessman, with a global survey finding Americans and Britons to be the most easily insulted by lack of workplace etiquette, while Australians are among the most offensive.

The survey, by Australian-based international office space provider Servcorp, listed the top five most offensive workplace behaviors as not saying hello or good morning, not offering office guests a beverage, speaking loudly across the room, using swear words and taking calls on mobile phones.

The use of stationery without permission and asking colleagues about their personal lives were also deemed insulting.

The poll then revealed the United States and Britain to be the most sensitive nations in the world, despite 60 percent of respondents believing Japan has the strictest work etiquette.

English and American businessmen were also more easily offended than their colleagues in the Middle East, Japan and China, nations with cultural traditions spanning centuries.

Almost 25 percent of Australians, however, thought it was perfectly acceptable to swear -- something the majority of Japanese and Middle Easterners found deeply offensive.

Nearly all Australians polled also said they would not think twice about addressing their boss by their first name, something Chinese business people found very rude.

Australians also regularly talk loudly at work, take personal calls and ask too many personal questions, the survey showed.

"Being aware of potentially offensive behavior is a key factor to Australian business success abroad," Taine Moufarrige, Servcorp's executive director, said in a statement.

"Australians are very natural in their business style, perhaps more so than any other country in the world," she said, adding that the survey, which was sent to some 700 businesspeople in 13 countries, was commissioned to help Australians.

The survey found that although they are not easily offended, Australians were more ticked off than their international colleagues by business people who don't buy drinks and who don't offer guests beverages.

(Writing by Miral Fahmy; Editing by David Fox)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090115/lf_nm_life/us_jobs_manners (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090115/lf_nm_life/us_jobs_manners)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on January 20, 2009, 02:15:31 AM
Does this mean the system works?


China catches 1,000 cheaters during state exams
By CHI-CHI ZHANG, Associated Press Writer – Sun Jan 18, 11:57 pm ET

BEIJING – Nearly 1,000 people have been caught cheating on China's notoriously competitive civil service entrance exams, some with high-tech listening devices in their ears, state media reported Monday.
The official China Daily newspaper said in an editorial the number caught cheating was the largest ever for the exam.
Cheating during tests is common in the country of 1.3 billion people, where pressure to pass competitive national exams for entrance to universities and civil service jobs is intense. About 9.5 million young people take college entrance exams each year, but only one in four are eligible for college enrollment.
The cheaters had people feeding them information through wireless mini earplugs, and bought standard answers for the exams from outside companies, the official Xinhua News Agency cited the State Administration of Civil Service as saying.
About 775,000 people took the competitive civil servant exam last year to fill just 13,500 available positions. In some cases thousands were competing for more coveted positions, such as a ministry or a department with travel prospects, Xinhua reported.
Calls to the State Administration of Civil Service rang unanswered Monday.
There are no specific rules in dealing with cheaters in regards to civil servant exams, but they should face the harshest punishment, the China Daily said.
"Those who cheat in examinations for civil servants fall into the category of worst offenders and deserve the severest punishment," the editorial said. It said civil servants should be role models in moral integrity.
An earlier Xinhua report warning the public not to buy exam answers, said exam papers were state secrets and those caught leaking them faced three to seven years in prison.
China's civil service exam has been in place from imperial times and has long been seen as a stepping stone to social status and financial stability.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on January 23, 2009, 03:26:48 AM
Nice to see justice dished out to certain people who richly deserved it.  Some harsh prison terms (including some life sentences) and 2 people up against the wall.   bababababa

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28787126
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on January 25, 2009, 04:06:44 AM
Newspaper claims suspect transformed into a goat

Fri Jan 23, 6:07 pm ET

LAGOS, Nigeria – One of Nigeria's biggest daily newspapers reported that police implicated a goat in an attempted automobile theft. In a front-page article on Friday, the Vanguard newspaper said that two men tried to steal a Mazda car two days earlier in Kwara State, with one suspect transforming himself into a goat as vigilantes cornered him.

The paper quoted police spokesman Tunde Mohammed as saying that while one suspect escaped, the other transformed into a goat as he was about to be apprehended.

The newspaper reported that police paraded the goat before journalists, and published a picture of the animal.

Police in the state couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

Belief in black magic is widespread in Nigeria, particularly in far-flung rural areas.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on January 25, 2009, 10:01:49 AM
That wouldn't work in China.  They'd just cook and eat the suspect.   ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on January 26, 2009, 07:02:00 PM
Smoking is becoming even more difficult in Canada.   mmmmmmmmmm

Ontario law banning smoking in cars with children takes effect Wednesday

Keith Leslie, THE CANADIAN PRESS

20/01/2009 8:59:00 PM

TORONTO - It will be illegal in Ontario to smoke in a vehicle with a child present starting on Weedless Wednesday as the province joins Nova Scotia and several American states that have similar bans in place.

However, Ontario Provincial Police have said the ban won't be difficult to enforce because they already inspect vehicles for seatbelts and child car seats.

The Wednesday of National Non-Smoking Week is dubbed Weedless Wednesday and has been since government anti-smoking initiatives started in 1977.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on January 26, 2009, 10:19:53 PM
Stop smoking in cars with children?  Good idea.

Still, Ontario is the PC capitol of the world- well, finalists along with Singapore.  You have to wonder how much harder they can push people before the public has enough.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on January 28, 2009, 11:48:20 AM
They're a bit gullible in Denmark!
Woman exchanges Monopoly money for Danish kroner

Published: 26 Jan 09 10:15 CET

A woman in Denmark played a high stakes game last week when she successfully convinced a bank to exchange bills worth two thousand "kronor" in Swedish Monopoly money for a quantity of real Danish money
http://www.thelocal.se/17154.html (http://www.thelocal.se/17154.html)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on February 04, 2009, 03:42:15 PM
Great China earthquake may have been man-made

http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=great-china-earthquake-may-have-bee-2009-02-03 (http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=great-china-earthquake-may-have-bee-2009-02-03)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: synthette58 on February 04, 2009, 04:27:48 PM
indeed, but I think I'd be looking more at the HAARP project than dams i.e. earthquakes in Turkey, Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines etc etc.

http://www.haarp.net/
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on February 05, 2009, 10:05:30 AM
And now, a mutant Chinese version of the old 419 scam.

http://www.danwei.org/front_page_of_the_day/98-year-old_con_suspect_on_tri.php
http://shanghaiist.com/2009/02/04/99-year-old_becomes_oldest_beijinge.php
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: DaDan on February 05, 2009, 01:42:25 PM
Exploding mobile phone kills man in China
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/4452360/Exploding-mobile-phone-kills-man-in-China.html (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/4452360/Exploding-mobile-phone-kills-man-in-China.html)

A man has died after his mobile phone exploded, bursting an artery in his neck, it has been reported.

Local reports said that this was the ninth recorded cellphone explosion in China since 2002.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: synthette58 on February 06, 2009, 04:01:41 PM
Dang!
I had a brill video from YouTube with kiddies using cellphones to pop popcorn!! Danged if I can find the thing.
It was a total hoax of course.........

Funny what we'll fall for eh?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on February 08, 2009, 04:45:07 PM
China arrests man linked to deadly diabetes drug

The Associated Press

February 06, 2009

Police in China have arrested a man accused of distributing a shoddy diabetes drug blamed for at least two deaths, a state news agency said Saturday.

The medicine contained six times the normal amount of a chemical ingredient used to lower blood sugar.

It is blamed for killing two people and sickening nine others in the far western region of Xinjiang. The drug is believed to have been widely distributed throughout the country, though only Xinjiang reported problems.

Police have said Li Dong is the chief suspect in the case, Xinhua News Agency reported without giving details. He was arrested in northeastern Liaoning province early Saturday, Xinhua said, adding that Li's brother and another suspect were detained earlier.

A man who answered the phone at the criminal investigation department of the Liaoning police would not comment, saying he was not authorized to speak to the media. The phone rang unanswered at the Liaoning Public Security Bureau's propaganda department.

China has been hit by a string of cases highlighting its poor record in food and drug safety. Last year, at least six babies died and nearly 300,000 were sickened by infant formula contaminated with an industrial chemical that can cause kidney failure.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on February 08, 2009, 10:40:07 PM
A step in the right direction.

Did anybody kiss a bullet yet for the starving baby tragedy a few years back?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Papillon on February 10, 2009, 05:23:00 AM
The CCTV building in Beijing went on fire tonight. There's pictures of it on youtube/youku and it is completely engulfed in flames.  Can anyone say what happened?

There has to be a good chance it's firework related.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on February 10, 2009, 05:35:27 AM
Ooops! A little late.

Downtown Beijing to ban fireworks as of midnight Monday

Beijingers have been told to stop igniting and selling fireworks in the downtown areas as of midnight Monday, or face arrests, city authorities said.

The explosives will be banned within Beijing's Fifth Ring Road that encircles the urban areas, Beijing Fireworks Administration Office said in a statement Monday.

The office predicted this year's last "big bang" will last for two to three hours Monday night as citizens mark the traditional Lantern Festival, which falls on the 15th day of the first lunar month.

Beijing Public Security Bureau said it would tighten patrol after midnight and citizens who were caught lighting fireworks would be arrested and their names would be published on local newspapers.

In their last attempts to sell off leftovers, many firework vendors are offering "buy two, get one for free" or discounting original prices by 50 to 60 percent off.

Beijing's three fireworks wholesalers will collect vendors' unsold fireworks on Tuesday, but a handling fee about 20 percent of their market price is applicable, said Beijing Fireworks Co. Ltd. on its Web site.

It said the recollection of all fireworks would be completed within four days.

Meanwhile, citizens are encouraged to swap their leftover fireworks for fluffy toys, washing powder or other gifts at collection centers in their communities, the company said.

Fireworks are part of traditional celebrations marking the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday, which lasts until the Lantern Festival.

Total fireworks sales of this year have not been published. Yet on Jan. 26, the first day of the Chinese Lunar New Year, sanitation workers collected 2,268 tonnes of fireworks debris in downtown Beijing.

Source: Xinhua
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on February 10, 2009, 05:48:18 AM
Banned permanently or just until next fireworks time??

Apparently it was the building just around the corner from teh CCTV building.
 


Hotel adjacent to Beijing's new CCTV headquarters on fire
www.chinaview.cn 2009-02-09 22:12:26         Print

    BEIJING, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- A hotel adjacent to the new China Central Television (CCTV) headquarters in Beijing caught fire Monday night, witnesses said, and the blaze was still spreading after 10 p.m.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: old34 on February 10, 2009, 06:35:33 AM
That's a pretty big lantern:

Beijing Mandarin Oriental Hotel (via NYT)

[attachment removed for space reason by admin]
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on February 12, 2009, 02:12:09 AM
No building is more vulnerable to fire than one halfway through construction.  A few years ago in my hometown, a new downtown development caught fire, and tore through the unfinshed interior walls.  The fire was so hot that firefighters had to cordon off the area and let 5 or 6 city blicks burn themselves out.  A lot of people lost their new homes.

I've heard some theories about terrorism, arson for insurance and firebugs, bug I'll bet a fiver it was just a dumb accident.   
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on February 12, 2009, 04:58:35 AM
Looks like Con wins that fiver.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gsUgcHi1mA&feature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNzB8vT64GY&NR=1

It looks like it was fireworks.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: old34 on February 12, 2009, 06:02:18 AM
The building was still under construction and sheathed in that green mesh stuff they use ubiquitously here on construction sites. "To conceal the dragon" is how I've heard it explained to me.

Well, that stuff is flammable...as I guess they just learned. Watch the videos as the fire from the roof peels down the sides of the building.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on February 12, 2009, 06:34:23 AM
Old34, let me get this straight: they wrapped a half-built skyscraper in flammable plastic?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on February 12, 2009, 03:29:49 PM
You never seen this Con? In China, I've never seen an unfinished large building that wasn't covered in the green.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Spaghetti on February 15, 2009, 06:36:38 AM
That's a pretty big lantern:
http://raoulschinasaloon.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=92.0;attach=419;image
Beijing Mandarin Oriental Hotel (via NYT)

"Project Mayhem is going according to plan."
 ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on February 16, 2009, 04:48:30 AM
You never seen this Con? In China, I've never seen an unfinished large building that wasn't covered in the green.

Yes, but I never thought of it as kindling.  Some plastics don't readily burn...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on February 16, 2009, 04:55:19 AM
Those plastics are expensive.  The flammable ones aren't  bibibibibi agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: china-matt on February 17, 2009, 08:11:28 PM
Sad economic news for the er nai. The lesson here is, don't get in the car with the loser of a best mistress contest.  kkkkkkkkkk

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article/2009/200902/20090217/article_391306.htm
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on February 17, 2009, 10:40:25 PM
I just read that story to my g/f. She said everyone is stupid and got what they deserve. I can't be so callous. I can't even think of something flipint to say either. This schmuck just ruined countless lives, and ended one.

I hope nobody comes down too hard on the girls.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on February 21, 2009, 03:31:30 AM
C-Matt, here is the updated version of the story.
Quote
Best-teacher contest takes fatal turn at its finish

THE loser of a bizarre talent contest drove her former employer and the man's four other foreign teachers off a cliff in eastern China's Shandong Province in an apparent fit of anger, killing herself and injuring the others.

The survivors told police the crash was an accident, but a letter left by the dead woman revealed the details of an unusual competition gone awry. According to the document, the businessman was going to lay off four of his five foreign teachers due to financial trouble. The foreigners were allowed to vie for the remaining position by competing on their looks, their singing and speaking and their ability to drink alcohol, the Qingdao-based Peninsula Metropolis Daily newspaper reported yesterday.

The case dates back to December 6, when police in Qingdao received a report that a car had crashed through the guardrail of a mountain highway and plummeted into a deep valley. The female driver died at the scene while five others, including a man, were sent to a hospital.

Police thought at first it was simply a traffic accident involving friends on a leisure trip. But the parents of the dead woman, identified as a 29-year-old named Sweet Fanny Adams, told police that a man surnamed Fan was to blame.

Fanny Adams left behind a letter that claimed she and the four other foreigners were teachers at Fan's language academy. Fan met Adams in 2000 in a Qingdao restaurant where he mistook her for a waitress, the report said. The States-side native speaker reportedly became Fan's kindergarten teacher shortly thereafter and lived with him in a two-room apartment bought by the man.

Fan, a married entrepreneur, also kept another four foreign teachers - two of whom were his employees and two his former clients, the report said.

Fan introduced the five to each other, but none chose to break up with him, as each reportedly received 5,000 yuan (US$733) a month plus a rent-free apartment.

But business began to go bad, and Fan decided to lay off all but one teacher to save money, according to the newspaper report. To select the best one, he reportedly staged a talent show in a hotel last May, even inviting an instructor from a local modeling agency to be a judge, although Fan did not reveal his true purpose.

Adams was knocked out in the first round based on her looks, and a Ms Goldie Locks eventually took the crown after she won the drinking contest.

When Fan told Adams she had lost her position and he was selling her apartment, she decided to take revenge, the newspaper said.

The crash happened after Adams invited Fan and the other four women to tour Laoshan Mountain, a scenic site in Qingdao, before she returned to her home country.

Fan shut down his company after the crash, and his wife demanded a divorce after learning about his affairs. Fan later paid 580 yuan to Adam's family as compensation for her death. And the other four teachers went off on their own.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on February 21, 2009, 07:01:12 AM
A westerner named "Sweet Fanny Adams"?!? kkkkkkkkkk....to my understanding that's calling her "Sweet F**k All" aoaoaoaoao....only a bit more politely :wtf:
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Spaghetti on February 21, 2009, 07:36:26 AM
East South West North debunked the "er nai" contest article as a fraud.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on February 22, 2009, 03:14:51 AM
Amonk, that was my own little joke. I saw the 5,000 rmb and apartment and thought, "That's what we're supposed to be happy with. Now I know how the standard was set." In their scale of values, we're about as important (and expendable) as one of their mistresses. I also found the game-show style of evaluation remarkably similar to what I've experienced in China's schools. Surely I'm not the only one?
Given the context of my parody, I think SFA fits nicely. I just wish I had the presence of mind to change Fan to Mafan.   
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Nolefan on February 26, 2009, 05:24:39 PM

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-02/25/content_7512659.htm

there's something about Beijing and fires as of late... can't be a coincidence..  kkkkkkkkkk kkkkkkkkkk


Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Spaghetti on February 26, 2009, 06:32:09 PM
They're Doors fans. bpbpbpbpbp
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Spaghetti on March 02, 2009, 08:00:29 AM
Christopher Hitchens: Balls of Steel
http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/2009/02/christopher-hit.php


Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on March 03, 2009, 02:21:51 AM
Zhao C must change his name

http://tinyurl.com/ajrama
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: DaDan on March 03, 2009, 08:15:24 AM
Preimplantation genetics anyone?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7918296.stm (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7918296.stm)


offering would-be parents the chance to select traits like the eye and hair colour of their offspring.

But others might just want a boy with blonde hair.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on March 04, 2009, 12:35:11 AM
Good Lord.  Good news for some.  hhhhhhhhhh

I hope the government lands on them with both feet.  May they all die in car crashes before this practice spreads.




A lesser outrage: a mother can designate the father in the UK?  The father is whomever she says it is?  Men's rights take a direct hit.  If it's biologically mine, can the law deny it?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on March 04, 2009, 12:59:36 AM
Ugghhh...shudder... aaaaaaaaaa
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on March 08, 2009, 03:10:49 AM
9msn.com.au

Zimbabwean PM's wife dies in car crash  20:47 AEST Sat Mar 7 2009

Zimbabwe PM Morgan Tsvangirai has been injured and his wife Susan killed in a car accident.
More world news: Thai FM meets UN on Rohingya refugeesDalai wants 'Greater T': ChinaObama vows end to irresponsible budgetsRussia agrees to progress on disarmamentPalestinian PM Salam Fayyad resigns Car bomb kills 11 in Pakistan: policeTwo dead in Afghan suicide attackAfghanistan vote set for August 20Sri Lanka fighting kills 32 rebelsObama to reverse stem cell restrictions
Two daughters living in Australia of Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai will fly to their injured father's side after their mother was killed in a collision with a truck.

Susan Tsvangirai, 50, died on Friday when the car in which she and her husband were travelling collided with a truck carrying US aid on the outskirts of the capital of Harare on a decrepit road notorious for accidents.

The Tsvangirais' elder daughter, Vimbai, believed to be in her mid-20s, has reportedly been working for Sydney City Council.

Their second daughter Rumbidzai, aged about 23, an economics graduate of Perth's Murdoch University, appeared last year at a Perth rally in support of her father before Zimbabwe's elections.

Mr Tsvangirai may be released from hospital on Saturday or Sunday, said Dr Douglas Gwatidzo, head of casualty at the Harare hospital where the prime minister was being treated.

He said the prime minister had head injuries and chest pains, but was in stable condition.

State television showed pictures of Tsvangirai in a neck brace, which Gwatidzo said was being used to keep him comfortable.

"We might release him today or tomorrow," Gwatidzo said.

The Tsvangirais had six children in their 31-year marriage.

It has been reported their teenage twins, Millicent and Vincent, and a son Edwin, aged about 31, live in South Africa, while another son Garikai, aged about 28, lives in Canada.

Ian Makone, a secretary to the prime minister, said Tsvangirai was "very devastated by the death of his wife".

He said her children were flying to Zimbabwe from Australia and South Africa and funeral arrangements were being made.

Tsvangirai's party wants an independent probe of the car crash, a lawmaker said on Saturday.

"We will not get involved in any speculations until a full investigation has been conducted. Right now can't draw any speculations," said Eddie Cross, an MP from Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party.

"The party will insist on an independent investigation."

A US Embassy official said the truck involved was transporting medicine for AIDS patients donated by the US government.

State-run newspaper The Herald reported on Saturday that the two other people in Tsvangirai's car - the driver and a bodyguard - were also injured.

Mrs Tsvangirai was pronounced dead soon after arrival at a clinic about 40km from Harare, Makone said.

Britain and the United States, both supporters of Tsvangirai, sent condolences.

President Robert Mugabe spent about an hour at the hospital late Friday.

Tsvangirai, who turns 57 next week, was sworn in on February 11 as Zimbabwe's prime minister in a power-sharing deal meant to end almost a year of deadly stalemate with Mugabe.

The unity government was formed under pressure from neighbouring leaders who wanted Zimbabwean leaders to turn their attention to a growing humanitarian and economic crisis after years of rivalry between Tsvangirai and Mugabe, in power since independence from Britain in 1980.

Tsvangirai formed his Movement for Democratic Change a decade ago.

As it emerged as a serious political challenger, Tsvangirai repeatedly faced the wrath of Mugabe's ZANU-PF. He has been beaten and was once nearly thrown from a 10th floor window by suspected government thugs.

Zimbabwe has the world's highest official inflation rate, a hunger crisis that has left most of its people dependent on foreign handouts and a cholera epidemic blamed on the collapse of a once-enviable health and sanitation system.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Spaghetti on March 08, 2009, 04:06:13 AM
50: way too young.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Nolefan on March 11, 2009, 12:14:08 AM

oh boy... must have been a slow news days and a big baijiu lunch:

Quote
Best mistress competition in Qingdao was a fake story?

 Remember that incredibly entertaining (if somewhat morbid) story about a woman who lost a best mistress contest and then drove her lover and his four other mistresses off a cliff? Well, apparently it might have been complete fiction! Damn it!......

http://shanghaiist.com/2009/02/20/best_mistress_competition_in_qingda.php
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Spaghetti on March 11, 2009, 12:54:51 AM
Yeah, I made mention of it being bogus but failed to link to the debunking. It think Zhao Benshan needs to make this into a movie. get the Crazy Stone folks to lens it.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on March 11, 2009, 02:53:39 AM
Check out the readers' comments!
Quote
How did the Qingdao reader know it was fake?
<My answer? She was one of the other passengers in the car>
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on March 13, 2009, 07:07:01 AM
Why does steam come out of my vagina?? ??!? (http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AsxC4OdxquW3DT8LUR5r68LZxQt.;_ylv=3?qid=20090308204705AAwAMF1&show=3)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on March 13, 2009, 07:13:11 AM
.....because you're a RED HOT Mama?!? ...... :wtf: Sorry, I just couldn't resist.....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on March 13, 2009, 04:41:24 PM
Check out this pun, its certainly got some backs up here in China.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/world/asia/12beast.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

Any one know where i can buy one??

There is a herd of Grass Mud Horses*
In the wild and beautiful Ma Le Desert**
They are lively and intelligent
they are fun-loving and nimble
They live freely in the Ma Le Desert
They are courageous, tenacious, and overcome the difficult environment

Oh lying down Grass Mud Horse
Oh running wild Grass Mud Horse
They defeated river crabs*** in order to protect their grass land
River crabs forever disappeared from Ma Le Desert
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Schnerby on March 13, 2009, 05:02:24 PM
Apparently the toys are available. If you find out where, please let me know.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on March 13, 2009, 05:08:55 PM
Yes i would like one too, will have to have a look in the markets...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Schnerby on March 13, 2009, 05:35:51 PM
They're all over taobao. Just llama toys.

http://item.taobao.com/auction/item_detail-0db1-05d0cf792e9f6a4fc835a91af0d31ab4.jhtml?pm1=1 (http://item.taobao.com/auction/item_detail-0db1-05d0cf792e9f6a4fc835a91af0d31ab4.jhtml?pm1=1)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: old34 on March 13, 2009, 05:42:00 PM
Just walk into your local market and ask "Cao Ni Ma?"

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on March 13, 2009, 05:49:05 PM
Um... Pass lol
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on March 19, 2009, 06:50:33 PM
Okies Beware!!
"TULSA, OK -- The world's deadliest spider found in a Tulsa grocery store.  An employee at Whole Foods Market at 1401 East 41st Street found a Brazilian Wandering Spider wandering around in their produce section."
http://www.newson6.com/global/story.asp?s=10025233 (http://www.newson6.com/global/story.asp?s=10025233)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: paddyfields on March 19, 2009, 08:32:19 PM
Bra padding mistaken for pneumonia on X-ray
Quote
  A careless doctor told a woman she had pneumonia after an X-ray exam revealed a shadow that later turned out be just the padding in her bra.

The woman went to a doctor in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, after she caught a cold and started to cough. She also felt pain in her chest.

A doctor concluded she suffered from pneumonia after he saw the shadow in the lower part of her right lung.

After receiving a drip, however, she kept coughing acutely. Her boyfriend asked another doctor to give her another examination.

The second doctor saw the same ring shadow but realized it was not pneumonia. It turned out she just had a normal cold and the shadow was only the padding she added to the right side of the bra to make her breasts look even.

(Yangtze Evening News)

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: paddyfields on March 23, 2009, 02:02:25 AM
  Suzhou Creek becomes big barge gridlock
About 400 boats are stuck along the 3.7-kilometer Huajiang Road section of Suzhou Creek in Jiading District yesterday (20th March). The congestion was caused by Shanghai's increasing demand for infrastructure construction materials and rainy weather.
(http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk287/messon08/20090321_394974_01.jpg)


Photograph byChina Foto Press


http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article/2009/200903/20090321/article_394974.htm
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on March 23, 2009, 02:19:08 AM
Are you sure Con had nothing to do with it??
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on March 23, 2009, 02:28:24 AM
PF, that picture would make a good avatar-of-the-month.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Schnerby on March 23, 2009, 03:05:28 AM
I like PF's avatar. Every time there is a post with that sniggering dog I always think it's laughing at the content. Like there is some private joke and we're all missing it.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: paddyfields on March 23, 2009, 03:24:01 AM
I like PF's avatar. Every time there is a post with that sniggering dog I always think it's laughing at the content. Like there is some private joke and we're all missing it.

I like Georges dancing Chicken!

I could change my Avatar and use this Donald duck Avatar??
(http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk287/messon08/emoticon-cartoon-022.gif)


Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on March 24, 2009, 02:35:37 AM
I like PF's avatar. Every time there is a post with that sniggering dog I always think it's laughing at the content. Like there is some private joke and we're all missing it.

His name is Muttley. He flew with a bunch of villains trying to shoot down a messenger pigeon.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: adamsmith on March 24, 2009, 02:42:29 AM
wasn't that from penelope pitstop??
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on March 24, 2009, 04:25:07 AM
Naw, the villain there was Snively Whiplash, voiced by Paul Linde.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: paddyfields on March 24, 2009, 05:53:10 AM
wasn't that from penelope pitstop??


Dastardly_and_Muttley_in_Their_Flying_Machines  . Penelope Pitstop was written by one of the writers of Dastardly.....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: DaDan on March 24, 2009, 06:48:45 AM
I realize this news report will seem a tad  offtopic ....

NASA halts test of space station urine recycler

*Locking pin installed upside down on last spacewalk

*Urine recycling system shuts down during test run
  bibibibibi

http://uk.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUKB59730 (http://uk.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUKB59730)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: paddyfields on March 24, 2009, 01:02:20 PM
  Ringleader of major pyramid scam gets 15 years
By Jane Chen  |   2009-3-24 
THE mastermind behind Beijing's biggest pyramid scheme was sentenced to 15 years in prison yesterday for swindling 1.68 billion yuan (US$246 million) from more than 22,000 victims by promising high returns on an investment in trees.

Ringleader Zhao Pengyun, 39, was also fined 300.3 million yuan, the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People's Court ruled yesterday.


http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/?id=395284&type=National
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Schnerby on March 24, 2009, 02:29:58 PM
Nah, leave us Muttley. Wasn't there a character in Top Cat called Muttley. I seem to remember him sniggering a lot too.

... promising high returns on an investment in trees.

I hear trees are not a good place to store one's investments.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Nolefan on March 24, 2009, 08:39:44 PM

Here we go again... this time over medicine???  kkkkkkkkkk kkkkkkkkkk

Welcome to the big red monster where a good deal can cost you your life or your limbs

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-03/23/content_7604931.htm
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: paddyfields on March 27, 2009, 06:16:43 AM
  Appeal in Sanlu milk scandal rejected
Quote
A court in north China's Hebei Province today dismissed appeals by a brother and sister involved in the Sanlu milk scandal, upholding a death sentence for one and an eight-year jail term for the other.

In the appeal trial this morning, the Hebei High People's Court upheld the original verdict that charged Geng Jinping and Geng Jinzhu, brother and sister, with producing and selling poisoned food.

Geng Jinping was sentenced to death and deprived of political rights, and his personal property would all be confiscated.


http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article/2009/200903/20090326/article_395542.htm
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: paddyfields on March 27, 2009, 06:28:17 AM
Beware of the BaiJiu  jjjjjjjjjj
Quote
     4 dead, more than 10 sick after drinking liquor in Hubei
 PROBLEMATIC liquor in central China's Hubei Province had new victims, with one more died Tuesday night, bringing the death toll from three to four, local police said today.

Meanwhile, more than 10 others have been hospitalized as of Wednesday morning, up from five Tuesday.

These people drank bulk Baijiu, a grain alcohol, Monday and yesterday in Wufeng County. Preliminary tests showed the alcohol they drank contained a larger than normal amount of methanol.

The county government has issued a notice telling local residents not to drink bulk Baijiu and launched an investigation into the case.

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/?id=395428&type=National


Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Schnerby on March 27, 2009, 02:07:23 PM
See I thought it was ALWAYS a good idea not to drink baijiu.  aaaaaaaaaa
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: DaDan on March 30, 2009, 02:44:09 PM
cccccccccc Freedom of Expression!  cccccccccc

http://markmossasj.blogspot.com/2006/02/freedom-of-expression.html  (http://markmossasj.blogspot.com/2006/02/freedom-of-expression.html)

 cccccccccc  cccccccccc  cccccccccc



Mooning Deemed 'Disgusting' but No Crime in Md.

By Ernesto Londoño

Washington Post Staff Writer

Wednesday, January 4, 2006; B01


Acquitting a Germantown man who exposed his buttocks during an argument with a neighbor, a Montgomery County Circuit Court judge ruled yesterday that mooning, while distasteful, is not illegal in Maryland.

"If exposure of half of the buttock constituted indecent exposure, any woman wearing a thong at the beach at Ocean City would be guilty," Judge John W. Debelius III said after the bench trial, reversing the ruling of a District Court judge.

Debelius made clear his disdain for the defendant, calling the alleged act "disgusting" and "demeaning." The outcome could have been different, he suggested, if the man had been on trial for "being a jerk." Freedom of Expression?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on March 30, 2009, 04:51:21 PM
Now, that's just silly. Look at way most youngster dress these days. It looks like they are genetically opposed to pulling up their pants. He mooned a neighbour and he took him to court??? In Denmark, that would have resulted in a quick kick up the backside....some people are just plain odd...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: paddyfields on April 03, 2009, 12:21:22 AM
  Jail for exam scam organizers
EIGHT parents and teachers in east China who sent examination answers to their children through secret radio earphones have been imprisoned.

The Sanmen County Court in Zhejiang Province on Tuesday sentenced the eight to prison for between six months and three years for conspiring to cheat in the national college entrance examination in 2007, the Legal Daily reported today.

The eight were charged with illegally obtaining state secrets.

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/?id=396348&type=National
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on April 03, 2009, 01:32:17 AM
Whoa, harsh.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on April 04, 2009, 04:51:30 PM
Here we go again......with a slight twist!!
Fireworks chemical found in baby formula

Posted 4 hours 22 minutes ago

A US study has found that a chemical used in fireworks and rocket fuel has been found in 15 different brands of powdered baby milk formula.

The report by the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention found that the fuel oxidiser perchlorate was discovered in formula marketed by leading US brands.

The non-profit Environmental Working Group says the chemical is a potent thyroid toxin that may interfere with foetal and infant brain development.

The group says perchlorate is also found in the drinking water of more than half of the states in the US.

The two most tainted brands had a nearly 90 per cent share of the US powdered baby milk market in 2000, EWG cited the CDC researchers as saying.

- AFP
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: paddyfields on April 06, 2009, 03:03:48 PM
And also German NUK baby powder under investigation in China

Quote
BEIJING, April 5 (Xinhua) -- The NUK baby powder, which allegedly contains forbidden ingredient, is under investigation and off shelf, said The General Administration for Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (GAQSIQ) here Sunday.

    It is reported that the Korean authorities tested 30 baby powders and found 12 contained carcinogen asbestos, including the well-known NUK baby powder of German.

    Suzhou Debao Baby Supplies Co., Ltd., NUK's general agent in China, imported 11.6 tons of semi-finished product from its Korean manufacturer, Boryung Pharmaceutical Co.,Ltd., from March 2008 to March 2009, said the quality supervisor.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on April 06, 2009, 04:04:37 PM

A US study has found that a chemical used in fireworks and rocket fuel has been found in 15 different brands of powdered baby milk formula.


 A word of caution,just don't stand behind the babies when they break wind. aoaoaoaoao
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on April 06, 2009, 10:05:19 PM
On a brighter and more reassuring note: you can all sleep peacefully now. The new Secretary-General of NATO is Danish...yes, ladies and gentlemen, from the land of  cgcgcgcgcg, small mermaids and Carlsberg beer. The world is safe, completely safe agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on April 07, 2009, 11:55:02 AM
Musical Road...........http://automobiles.honda.com/civic-sedan/videos.aspx (http://automobiles.honda.com/civic-sedan/videos.aspx)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: paddyfields on April 09, 2009, 05:06:16 PM
Tire marks lead police to bike thief
(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-04-09 10:26
Quote
  Police tracked down a bike thief by following tire marks on the ground that lead directly to the man's building.



The thief, in Jining, Shandong province, dragged the electric bike on the ground because he was unable to break the lock.

Police traced the tire trail to his hostel and arrested him the following morning while he was still in bed. He confessed to the crime.

(Qilu Evening News)

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: paddyfields on April 10, 2009, 04:26:55 AM
Mutant piglet has two mouths, three eyes
Friday, April 3 2009

Quote
A Chinese farmer has told of his shock after one of his sows gave birth to a piglet with two mouths and three eyes.

The animal was among a litter of eight born at Liu Dingsheng's farm in Chongren County in Zhejiang province.

A local vet said that the extra facial features could have been caused by a genetic mutation or feed pollution.

"We were shocked to see such a weird looking creature. I don't really know what to do with it," Dingsheng told People's Daily.

(http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk287/messon08/160x120_mutant_piglet.jpg)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: synthette58 on April 10, 2009, 05:42:26 AM
hmmm........snout to brag about..........("s'nowt".......in Nottm dialect!).

Nice one, Paddy!!
 agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: synthette58 on April 10, 2009, 06:21:03 AM
On a brighter and more reassuring note: you can all sleep peacefully now. The new Secretary-General of NATO is Danish...yes, ladies and gentlemen, from the land of  cgcgcgcgcg, small mermaids and Carlsberg beer. The world is safe, completely safe agagagagag

Ah, Eric...........this big blue marble world of ours now cradles itself in your nation's capable hands. I sleep now, safely in my soft little bed, knowing that thou reposeth upon thy rock!
(in other words, folks - his bed is likened to a brick!.......mine is as soft as down!......ain't I the lucky one!! LOL!!). Read and weep, Eric, my Danish Devil friend!!

Pace, in omnipotens.....from Negotiums permabulans in Tenebris.....

figure that out, and I'll stand you dinner! LOL!!  bhbhbhbhbh bhbhbhbhbh
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: synthette58 on April 10, 2009, 06:52:34 AM
Now, that's just silly. Look at way most youngster dress these days. It looks like they are genetically opposed to pulling up their pants. He mooned a neighbour and he took him to court??? In Denmark, that would have resulted in a quick kick up the backside....some people are just plain odd...

Ja!!.......we're ALL odd, Eric!! (otherwise we wouldn't be here!!) LOL!!
IMHO - a swift kick in the pants never hurt anyone!
And don't we all weep for the days of the old British 'Bobby' that would swat you upside the head with his gloves, and tell you "gerrout of it!".......?

Where the hell did respect and discipline go??
 kkkkkkkkkk bfbfbfbfbf
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on April 11, 2009, 01:33:33 AM
I was hoping the Canadian guy would get the nod.  He's one of the few prominent conservatives that I respect and trust.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: DaDan on April 12, 2009, 09:13:58 AM
It's taking place in lunchrooms, playgrounds and classrooms across the tri-state area.

It may even be happening in your own home --


aoaoaoaoao  kids smoking candy!  aoaoaoaoao

 ababababab "Eventually, as I got better at it, you know, it was just a cool thing to do,"  ababababab

http://wcbstv.com/seenat11/smoking.candy.smarties.2.982419.html (http://wcbstv.com/seenat11/smoking.candy.smarties.2.982419.html)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on April 12, 2009, 10:04:46 AM
Please take note.....these are American "Smarties" kkkkkkkkkk hard and powdery......NOT the true "Smarties" ababababab from the UK/Nestle's


And what the big deal, anyway.  We had candy cigarettes when I was little :wtf:
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on April 13, 2009, 12:22:55 PM
Child Rapist and Pornographer Gets 50 Years (Dude hid in China)

http://tinyurl.com/cox945
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on April 14, 2009, 04:46:27 AM
Not the perv I knew here.  Icky nonetheless.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on April 16, 2009, 11:37:45 AM
    BEIJING, April 14 (Xinhuanet) -- Thousands of dolphins blocked the suspected Somali pirate ships when they were trying to attack Chinese merchant ships passing the Gulf of Aden, the China Radio International reported on Monday.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-04/14/content_11184581.htm (http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-04/14/content_11184581.htm)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Schnerby on April 16, 2009, 04:16:22 PM
So that's why they were training all those men in dolphin suits last month...  ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on April 16, 2009, 08:54:09 PM
From CNN's website:

China's economy grew 6.1 percent in the first quarter of 2009, down from 6.8 percent last quarter and from 10.6 percent year-on-year, state media reported on Thursday.

It is the slowest rate of growth for the Asian nation in nearly a decade, Xinhua reported.

The economic data was announced at a news conference by Ma Jiantang, director of the National Bureau of Statistics.

Gross domestic product reached 6.6 trillion yuan (about $939 billion) during the quarter, according to government-run news agency Xinhua.

Meanwhile, industrial output grew 5.1 percent for the quarter and showed signs of improvement -- climbing 8.3 percent in March.

China's consumer price index and producer price index -- two major indicators of inflation -- fell 1.2 percent and 4.6 percent, respectively, while retail sales grew 15 percent.


Other bright spots were a rise of fixed-asset investment to 28.8 percent, compared with last year, to $411 billion.

Foreign direct investment declined 20.6 percent in the first quarter, compared with the same period last year, with investments totaling $21.8 billion.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on April 17, 2009, 03:10:43 AM
But at what rate does China's economy need to grow just to stay even with population growth?  After all, a positive growth rate may bean a negative per-capita national income change if population grows faster than GDP.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: paddyfields on April 17, 2009, 09:39:42 PM
  Taxis scam with dodgy meters
Quote
  SOME taxis have installed devices in their cabs that make the meter tick faster or increase the distance traveled, local quality authorities warned yesterday.

The Shanghai Bureau of Quality and Technical Inspection's taxi meter test office said it had found nearly 80 such devices in taxis in January and February, mostly targeting foreigners and tourists from other provinces at airports and railway stations.

Officials said even taxis from reputable companies were involved.

It's hard for passengers, especially those in the backseat, to know what's happening because drivers can control the devices by remote control or with a thin wire hidden under the gear stick.

Ren Yushi, a middle-school teacher, told Shanghai Daily it usually cost him about 30 yuan (US$4.40) to travel home from school, but one day he had to pay 40 yuan when the traffic wasn't bad. He didn't find out what was wrong until he compared the receipt with the one from the previous day.

"For the very same route, the receipt showed 3 kilometers more than usual," he said.

So now as well as taking the longest route the taxi drivers are finding new ways to "do you".   asasasasas asasasasas

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article/2009/200904/20090417/article_397967.htm
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on April 18, 2009, 02:58:34 AM
In Dalian they do it by inventing a new, more roundabout route.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mr Nobody on April 18, 2009, 03:10:29 AM
This is an old idea. There are, as far as I can tell, several ways to make the meter giving different results.
 

Years ago.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on April 20, 2009, 03:23:52 AM
But at what rate does China's economy need to grow just to stay even with population growth?  After all, a positive growth rate may bean a negative per-capita national income change if population grows faster than GDP.

The Chinese gov't is going to be paranoid if it drops below 6% - they fear MASSIVE social unrest then.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mr Nobody on April 20, 2009, 04:35:55 AM
Then expect social change before it. These guys are awesome social engineers.

Awe, as in scary.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: DaDan on April 21, 2009, 07:33:41 PM
Fatties cause global warming!  


"It is true fat people eat more food than average."
 aoaoaoaoao  bibibibibi  aoaoaoaoao
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2387203.ece (http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2387203.ece)
The scientists say providing extra grub for them to guzzle adds to carbon emissions that heat up the world, melting polar ice caps, raising sea levels and killing rain forests.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: psd4fan on April 22, 2009, 01:30:39 AM
Crap. I'm in trouble then.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: psd4fan on April 22, 2009, 02:34:09 AM
Fatties cause global warming!  


"It is true fat people eat more food than average."
 aoaoaoaoao  bibibibibi  aoaoaoaoao
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2387203.ece (http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2387203.ece)
The scientists say providing extra grub for them to guzzle adds to carbon emissions that heat up the world, melting polar ice caps, raising sea levels and killing rain forests.
MMmmmm Polar Ice Caps from Timmys's. akakakakak :alcoholic:
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: joe.thinker on April 27, 2009, 08:48:11 PM
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8004910.stm

dear lord
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: paddyfields on April 30, 2009, 06:11:53 AM
Conficker worm begins attacking PCs aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao
Quote
   BEIJING, April 27 (Xinhuanet) -- The Conficker virus, a malicious software program that first appeared last November, has finally become active.

    The computer worm was expected to carry on disruptive activities on April 1. However, the threat was dismissed as a "false alarm" later, security experts was quoted as saying by Reuters.

    The Conficker worm, also known as Downadup or Kido, which started spreading to millions of computers last year, appears to be turning its infected hosts into servers for e-mail spam.

    By exploiting a vulnerability in Microsoft's Windows operating system, the worm can infect users' computers and spread to other computers across a network automatically, without human interaction.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-04/27/content_11267377.htm
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: paddyfields on May 02, 2009, 12:36:00 PM
  Hong Kong detected first suspected flu case
(Xinhua) 2009-05-01

HONG KONG -- Health authorities have confirmed the first case of influenza A/H1N1 in Hong Kong, Chief Executive Donald Tsang announced Friday.


The first case involved a Mexican who arrived in Hong Kong by air via Shanghai on Thursday. The patient checked into the Metropark Hotel in Wanchai, Hong Kong, and later went to see the doctor after developing flu symptoms, including fever.
The case was confirmed to an infection of influenza A/H1N1 on Friday.

The alert level was immediately raised from "serious" to "emergency", the highest level in Hong Kong, Tsang announced after an emergency meeting.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: DaDan on May 06, 2009, 02:34:19 PM
  President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden took a short—but wholly noticeable—motorcade ride from the White House to Virginia and pulled into a small, independent burger joint called Ray's Hell Burger.


aoaoaoaoao
(http://img.breitbart.com/images/2009/5/5/ap-p/0a13d4bd-9284-462b-b4f4-5623c1865637.jpg)
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D980D0UO0&show_article=1 (http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D980D0UO0&show_article=1)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on May 07, 2009, 05:32:23 PM
What an embarrassment.  The amount of live television news time spent on every nuance of this event is just a great symbol of "news" coverage in our times.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: DaDan on May 07, 2009, 06:02:20 PM
 bibibibibi

[attachment removed for space reason by admin]
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on May 08, 2009, 12:08:56 AM
 bibibibibi Good grief, Charlie Brown! This can't possibly be true! ( Careful, danger ahead)
http://slamxhype.com/blogs/shanghai-that-extra-mile/ (http://slamxhype.com/blogs/shanghai-that-extra-mile/)
If your soul is a sensitive one, best not go there!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mr Nobody on May 08, 2009, 12:20:39 AM
Sorry george, this is 1. old not news and 2. fake not real. and 3 posted here several times already.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on May 08, 2009, 12:38:11 AM
1. I didn't know that.
2 I thinked along those lines.
3 I must have missed it.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on May 10, 2009, 02:45:06 PM
77 Chinese kids missing in UK

http://tinyurl.com/q47tzc
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on May 11, 2009, 03:50:07 AM
http://www.forbes.com/2009/05/05/world-happiest-places-lifestyle-travel-world-happiest_slide_11.html?thisSpeed=15000

Yeah, happiest nation in the world agagagagag agagagagag  cgcgcgcgcg cgcgcgcgcg
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on May 11, 2009, 03:53:08 AM
Great minds think alike.  I was posting the same message but Eric beat me to it.


World's Happiest Places
A new report reveals where people feel most positive about their lives
By Lauren Sherman

Where in the world do people feel most content with their lives?

According to a new report released by the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development, a Paris-based group of 30 countries with democratic governments that provides economic and social statistics and data, happiness levels are highest in northern European countries.

In Depth: 10 of the World's Happiest Places

Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands rated at the top of the list, ranking first, second and third, respectively. Outside Europe, New Zealand and Canada landed at Nos. 8 and 6, respectively. The United States did not crack the top 10. Switzerland placed seventh and Belgium placed tenth.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on May 11, 2009, 04:40:51 AM
http://www.forbes.com/2009/05/05/world-happiest-places-lifestyle-travel-world-happiest_slide_11.html?thisSpeed=15000

Yeah, happiest nation in the world agagagagag agagagagag  cgcgcgcgcg cgcgcgcgcg

 agagagagag Eric.

You leave and your country becomes the worlds happiest place. Congratulations!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: paddyfields on May 11, 2009, 04:49:27 AM
Quote
1. Denmark
Satisfaction With Present Life: 90.1*

Predicted Satisfaction With Future Life: 92.3*

2009 Gross Domestic Product Per Capita: $68,362**

Unemployment Rate: 2%***

Such a low unemployment rate but ETR claims he cannot find suitable employment mmmmmmmmmm, when really he is happier in China than in the happiest Country in the World afafafafaf
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: paddyfields on May 11, 2009, 06:57:49 AM
Australia chooses 'cheeky' Expo mascot
Quote
AUSTRALIA unveiled its official mascot for the 2010 Shanghai World Expo - a kookaburra - and invited residents of China to propose an appropriate name for the Australian bird.

The winner will receive A$2,000 (US$1,519) and a free trip to Australia.
http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article/2009/200905/20090509/article_400290.htm
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: becster79 on May 11, 2009, 03:01:50 PM
Swine Flu mutates to.....Zombism!!!!!!!!!  apapapapap

http://bouncewith.me.uk/europe/8027043.htm

EU quarantines London in flu panic
There has been a small outbreak of “zombism” in London due to mutation of the H1N1 virus into new strain: H1Z1.

Similar to a scare originally found in Cambodia back in 2005, victims of a new strain of the swine flu virus H1N1 have been reported in London.

After death, this virus is able to restart the heart of it’s victim for up to two hours after the initial demise of the person where the individual behaves in extremely violent ways from what is believe to be a combination of brain damage and a chemical released into blood during “resurrection.”

The World Health Organization (WHO) has raised the alert to phase six, its highest level, and advised governments to activate pandemic contingency plans.

In Mexico, the epicentre of the outbreak, President Felipe Calderon urged people to stay at home over the next five days.

There are many cases elsewhere - including the US, Canada, Latin America, Europe, Israel, and New Zealand.

BBC health correspondent Mark McGrith says the raising of the WHO alert on Wednesday suggests a global epidemic, or pandemic, is imminent.

In the latest developments:

The Netherlands confirms its first case of zombie swine flu, in a three-year-old boy recently returned from Mexico. After passing away early this morning, he rose from the dead and lunged at his mother.
Ghana has become the latest country to ban pork imports as a precaution against swine flu, though no cases have been found in the West African country
China's health minister says that the country's scientists have developed a "sensitive and fast" test for spotting swine flu in conjunction with US scientists and the WHO. The country has recorded no incidence of the flu yet. There methods, however, have been uneffective in spotting the H1Z1 strain.
At the meeting of health ministers in Luxembourg, a French proposal for a continent-wide travel advisory for Mexico will be discussed.

It is unclear whether the EU executive has the power to impose a travel ban.

Several countries have restricted travel to Mexico and many tour operators have cancelled holidays.

Other members are resisting calls to implement travel bans or close borders, on the grounds - backed by the WHO - that there is little evidence of their efficacy.

The EU ministers will also try to agree on how to refer to the new virus.

The European Commission has been calling it "novel flu", replacing the word "swine" to avoid prompting a fall in demand for pork and bacon.

On Wednesday, Egypt began a mass slaughter of its pigs - even though the WHO says the virus was now being transmitted from human to human.

(...and in a really nice twist to the article,)

If you feel yourself passing away, then notice your strength and vigor returning at an alarming rate, please attempt to restrain yourself to prevent infection and harm to others.
 ahahahahah ahahahahah ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mr Nobody on May 11, 2009, 03:09:38 PM
"In a recent interview, when asked about this topic, the Australian Prime Minister was quoted as saying "BRains!!" as he lurched forward."
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Schnerby on May 11, 2009, 08:29:38 PM
I shouldn't laugh.

But I am.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on May 11, 2009, 11:37:31 PM
Well, we knew it would happen, and now it has:

Suspected case of swine flu reported in mainland China
Last Updated: Sunday, May 10, 2009 | 5:52 PM ET CBC News

A Chinese man returning from studying at a U.S. university has become the first suspected case of swine flu in mainland China, the country's Health Ministry said on Sunday.

The ministry said the man, 30, took a flight from Tokyo and arrived in Beijing on Saturday before heading to the city of Chengdu in Sichuan province on the same day.

Officials did not specify where he studied.

The number of confirmed cases of the H1N1 infections across the globe rose Sunday by about 1,000 from the previous day, the World Health Organization said.

Twenty-nine countries have officially reported 4,379 cases of influenza H1N1, the WHO said.

Canada has reported 284 laboratory confirmed human cases, including one death, the Public Health Agency of Canada said Sunday. Among the provinces, British Columbia has the most cases with 79, followed by Ontario with 76.

The country has the third highest number of swine flu infections, but on Friday the United States overtook Mexico to become the country with the highest number of people with the illness.

By Sunday, the U.S. total was 2,254 cases, including three deaths. Mexico, which has been at the centre of the outbreak, was reporting 1,626 cases, including 48 deaths.

Japan confirmed its fourth case of swine flu Sunday in a teenager who recently returned from a school trip to Canada.

Three others in the group that visited Canada were earlier identified as having the virus.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: paddyfields on May 15, 2009, 02:24:39 PM
Photo taken on May 13, 2009 shows a Long-eared Jerboa at the scenic spot of the Mountain of Flames (Huoyanshan) in Turpan City, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The Long-eared Jerboa, a species on the edge of extinction living in desert habitat, is a mouse-like rodent with a long tail, long hind legs, and exceptionally large ears.(Xinhua Photo)
(http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk287/messon08/xinsrc_432050614130414004951.jpg)

(http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk287/messon08/xinsrc_4320506141304890318543.jpg)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mr Nobody on May 15, 2009, 02:54:28 PM
Then what did they do with it? Sold it on the Chinese equivalent of ebay for food or medicine?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on May 15, 2009, 09:40:26 PM
Scandal in Hangzhou: 3 guys were racing their sports cars along a downtown street when one of them struck and killed a just-graduated honours student.  The police at first claimed that the driver was going 70 kph, but the story in the chatrooms was different... then they were expunged the next day.  Houtian, however, over a thousand people showed up at the accident site in a spontaneous memorial that turned protest.  Footage of the accident itself appeared online, and higher-ups reversed the findings, stating that the car had been going around 130 kph!  My contact says the victim sailed 5m up and 20m away.

I couldn't find the grisly footage, but here at least is the story:

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XOTE0MzY3MDQ=.html
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on May 15, 2009, 10:38:07 PM
My Chinese teacher told me about it today - in Dalian.  Said the 'people' are upset because the driver's family was very rich which is why they tried to cover up the story.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on May 15, 2009, 10:48:01 PM
chinaSMACK ran the story a couple of days ago. Pics and comments here...http://www.chinasmack.com/ (http://www.chinasmack.com/)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on May 16, 2009, 03:14:24 AM
We've been using this in class. The kid that was killed was from Hunan.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: paddyfields on May 17, 2009, 02:52:02 PM
The police are now seeking approval from the prosecutors to arrest the driver of the car.  kkkkkkkkkk
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: old34 on May 17, 2009, 03:29:38 PM
They've actually gone back through all the traffic cameras and were able to track the three cars on their 5 mile journey through the city ending at the site of the accident. The cameras didn't catch the impact, but they did catch the victim as he walked by and then out of camera range and then a few seconds later you can see his body sliding as the three cars come to a halt.

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XOTE1NDc5MzY=.html (http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XOTE1NDc5MzY=.html)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on May 17, 2009, 10:08:24 PM
Love Land

http://tinyurl.com/p28qcv
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on May 19, 2009, 06:43:47 AM
I'm imagining what the midway games are like there.  What exactly do you have to do to win a stuffed animal?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: thedogateit on May 19, 2009, 06:26:43 PM
Love Land gets some New York Times love. http://bit.ly/T8hvL
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Shroomy on May 19, 2009, 06:43:55 PM
And here I thought Love Land was going to become the next mandatory high school field trip.  ahahahahah ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: china-matt on May 21, 2009, 01:35:07 PM
The US government is handing out a $2.6 million grant (taxpayer funded, of course) to help train Chinese prostitutes to drink less in an effort to reduce the risk of STDs.

http://www.future-earth.net/government/us-will-pay-26-million-to-train-chinese-prostitutes.html
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mr Nobody on May 21, 2009, 02:18:18 PM
Well, that might solve some of the unemployment problem. AND it's local to me! - Well, nearby.

26 million dollars? 100 venues? You could BUY the venues PLUS the girls for that, and have enough to buy the bars they go to, and the restaurants, and probably set up a profitable tour business as well. What will they do with the rest of the money? Besides, although I haven't been to Beihai, the girls don't drink much around here.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on May 24, 2009, 02:00:33 PM
BEIJING – Chen Fuchao, a man heavily in debt, had been contemplating suicide on a bridge in southern China for hours when a passer-by came up, shook his hand — and pushed him off the ledge.
Chen fell 26 feet (8 meters) onto a partially inflated emergency air cushion laid out by authorities and survived, suffering spine and elbow injuries, the official Xinhua News Agency said Saturday.
The passer-by, 66-year-old Lai Jiansheng, had been fed up with what he called Chen's "selfish activity," Xinhua said. Traffic around the Haizhu bridge in the city of Guangzhou had been backed up for five hours and police had cordoned off the area.
"I pushed him off because jumpers like Chen are very selfish. Their action violates a lot of public interest," Lai was quoted as saying by Xinhua. "They do not really dare to kill themselves. Instead, they just want to raise the relevant government authorities' attention to their appeals."


Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Ruth on May 24, 2009, 04:27:45 PM
Back home the guy who pushed him off would be sued for causing bodily injury.  Gotta love his logic, though.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on May 24, 2009, 07:20:17 PM
He was arrested but ....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mr Nobody on May 25, 2009, 02:43:31 AM
I know the feeling.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on May 25, 2009, 03:53:38 AM
Dark documentary on China underbelly chills Cannes

http://tinyurl.com/oc955d
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on May 25, 2009, 04:10:46 AM
U.S. Will Pay $2.6 Million to Train Chinese Prostitutes

http://tinyurl.com/ow8dj8
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: becster79 on June 08, 2009, 07:33:02 PM
This isn't quite news news as such, but it's still on today's CNN website and I was just too moved by the story NOT to put it SOMEWHERE in here!

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/06/05/mystery.illness.mandy.disease/index.html#cnnSTCText

Mystery illnesses: A mother's painful quest for answers

CNN's global health show Vital Signs takes a look at rare diseases this month. Here Lisa Young, the mother of Mandy Young, who suffers from an illness that took doctors 22 years to diagnose, describes her family's agonizing quest for answers.

CONYERS, Georgia (CNN) -- "Your daughter is a walking time bomb." We have been told this more times than I like to remember. We have lived every day not knowing if the next breath she takes will be her last.

Her illnesses come so quickly. It's a daily battle of fear, worry, misery, faith and hope. She has been in the hospital more than 100 times. She has suffered one life-threatening infection after another.

We share her story, our story, in hopes of helping others.

We make sure that Mandy knows this is not just her illness.

It's our families' life, our journey. She is not in this alone. It's extremely hard living a life so mysterious that doctors and scientists named her rare disease after her. It's our story about "Mandy's Disease."

Mandy was a healthy, nine pound, green-eyed beauty -- until the day she was diagnosed with Spinal Meningitis.

Hours and days crept by, waiting every four hours for our ICU visit, 10 minutes of torture.

"Your daughter is very sick. Her mind is surely in a vegetated state from the seizures she continues to have. The stroke that she suffered has caused the left side of her body to be paralyzed," the doctors said.

"She is in a coma and we see no way she will wake up. We really don't think she will live through the night. It's time to tell her goodbye," they continued.

Mind spinning, stomach churning, feeling like I've had the breath knocked out of me, I whispered, "NO." "No. We won't tell her goodbye. And you can't either. She has to fight. She has to know that we want her to fight."


At 13 months, her left eye turned red. Allergies, Pink Eye, minor infection? All easily treated, and cured.

By day five, after six trips to doctors and emergency rooms, when her eye was swollen beyond seeing and looked like a piece of raw meat, we were finally able to beg her doctor for more aggressive testing.

Surgery, biopsies and a diagnosis. Nisseria Meningitides. Her eye would be replaced with a glass eye. But only if she lived.

 At 21 months. Spinal Meningitis again. The same promises of certain death. ICU. Seizures. A 106 degree temperature raged. "There is no way that she has the strength to fight off another infection of this magnitude. It's time to let go. We're losing her by the minute."

After the first bout of meningitis we were told, "No one gets it twice. Live your life and enjoy your child!" Then, bout two. Although not the same type of meningitis, it was the same family.

It's rare to have it twice. But impossible to have it three times. But time three did come. "You have to find out why this keeps happening. She can't go through this again. What can you do?" we pleaded with the doctors.

They told us it could possibly be immune deficiency. This was the first time we heard this term.

Mandy was discharged and our journey for a reason began. Our lives were changed forever. Twice a week for the next two years, we handed her over for blood to be drawn. She went into isolation. Daily preventative antibiotics.

But nothing stopped the madness of these infections. One fever blister on her lip turned into hundreds during a nap. She was hospitalized on oxygen as the blisters took over her lungs. Double Pneumonia. Scarlet Fever. Ear infection after ear infection.

Surgically implanted tubes in her ears, infection, tubes out, surgery, tubes in. 11 times. An abscess the size of a cantaloupe in her abdomen.

The grueling, sometimes gruesome, immune studies continued. The only clue continued to be her low white blood count. Everything else, normal. The turmoil in my heart was insane.

Years passed. Mandy's illnesses continued. Immune studies continued. Still we had no answers. We traveled the country begging for someone to study her. "Her body is further advanced than medicine. The test hasn't been invented yet to define her deficiency." This was the standard answer.

But, someone had to have a new test that could give us our answers. And then the time bomb that we had only been warned about exploded.

Gas Gangrene and Clostridia Septicemia. A combination not seen since WWII. "She's fighting to stay alive. Five percent chance to live," the doctors said. ICU. And then, in an attempt to save her life, they began to amputate her leg. Before they stopped the spreading, her leg and hip were gone.

As she lay in a coma, we prayed for help. Our search for a research specialist intensified. That's when we found Dr. John Gallin at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland.

Mandy is 27 now. Her immune studies began when she was two in 1983. And in May 2003, we received an email that said, "At long last we have discovered the basis of Amanda's problem."

Mandy has a genetic defect, called IRAK-4. Her body doesn't recognize infection and doesn't produce the cells needed to fight it off.

She is still studied at the NIH in hopes of finding a treatment or cure for her disease. And although finding a cure for her would be the ultimate gift, knowing that we have a name for her illness is the prize.

We searched for a name for twenty years for Mandy disease. We spent weeks and months with her, in hospital after hospital, praying for her to live through her sickness. And to know that we have Dr. Gallin and his team in the background working on her behalf is incredible!

Dr. Gallin did what he said he would do and stayed with Mandy until her diagnosis was made. Now the journey continues as we search for a treatment or cure.

But in the meantime, Mandy is beginning a career in motivational speaking.

Of her doctors at the National Institutes of Health she says: "They are like my family too, and I get excited about seeing them. NIH, or 'the House of Hope,' is just that.

"A place for families to find hope, just like we did."
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Ruth on June 08, 2009, 09:08:48 PM
Thanks for sharing this story.  What a journey this family have had.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on June 12, 2009, 05:21:13 AM
Guess ole BDA ain't so far off the beaten track as I'd thought.....


http://www.bermudasun.bm/main.asp?FromHome=1&TypeID=1&ArticleID=41803&SectionID=24&SubSectionID=270

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on June 14, 2009, 09:16:52 AM
And now, we've made the Big Time news media ahahahahah

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/americas/8096925.stm








And I should point out that many Bermudians are sorely vexed asasasasas with our "esteemed" Premier Brown bqbqbqbqbq And that our "loyal" Opposition Party has made a call for a Vote of No Confidence over this matter bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on June 14, 2009, 10:47:08 AM
Hey, Monkey. With a bit of luck, they'll start a BBQ Street!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Ruth on June 24, 2009, 12:03:20 AM
From the New York Times:
Mental Illness: Far More Chinese Have Mental Disorders Than Previously Reported, Study Finds
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
Published: June 15, 2009
The burden of mental illness in China has been seriously underestimated, the authors of a new study say. More than 17 percent of Chinese adults have a mental disorder, the study concluded — far more than the 1 to 9 percent reported in studies done between 1982 and 2004.

To do the study, published in the journal Lancet last week, researchers at Columbia University and major psychiatric hospitals in Beijing, Shandong, Zhejiang, Qinghai and Gansu screened 63,000 adults with questionnaires, and psychiatrists interviewed more than 16,000 of them, often in local dialects. The research was financed by the World Health Organization, the Shandong provincial health department and the China Medical Board of New York, an independent medical foundation begun in 1914 by the Rockefeller Foundation, which supports medical education and research across Asia.

The most disturbing aspect of their research, the authors said, was that, among those who had a diagnosable mental illness, 24 percent said they were moderately or severely disabled by it. But only 8 percent had ever sought professional help, and only 5 percent had ever seen a mental health professional.

People from rural areas were more likely to be depressed and have alcohol problems than urbanites, the study found. Mood and anxiety disorders were more common in people over 40 and among women, while alcohol abuse was much more common among men.

Although the authors did not reflect at length on the role of China’s economic rise, which has led to mass migrations of poor people to the cities, they acknowledged that they were measuring some effects.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on June 24, 2009, 01:47:07 AM
The percentages are much higher in my classes.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Ruth on June 24, 2009, 03:12:57 AM
The percentages are much higher in my classes.
What are you doing to your students?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on June 26, 2009, 01:33:23 AM
From Denmark. Eric may comment...WARNING! LOTS OF BLOOD!!
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread475757/pg1 (http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread475757/pg1)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mr Nobody on June 26, 2009, 04:12:50 PM
From Denmark. Eric may comment...WARNING! LOTS OF BLOOD!!
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread475757/pg1 (http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread475757/pg1)

It's cultural. They have been doing it for thousands of years. To interfere with cultural traditions is reprehensible.

The turtle kills in Indonesia are a case in point. It is just not politically correct to force people to change their culture.

Like, stopping human sacrifice with the mayans or head hunting in New Guinea.

Oh, yeah, and I am not sure what species are involved, (can't see the video, don't care to) but many cetaceans have the intelligence of small mammals like rats or cats, not human level. Only a few could be considered by ANYONE as intelligent. Some of the small open-water dolphin-type species school in such numbers (1m long, 300 per pod) are actually considered an environmental hazard and classed by some as virtually vermin, with brain power to match.

But that isn't politically correct to say either.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: DaDan on June 26, 2009, 05:00:28 PM
Didn't see the link, just replying to this from my personal experience of hundreds of hours amongst a few varieties of swimming beef in their natural enviroment, biggest pod I was in had easy couple thousand head, I've swam with them, held a males hard he presented in a way that told me to grab it, then he took me for a cool ride in a place folks swim with them daily, had another playfully slap my ass with it's tail, many others bump my carefully, I've played bait tugawar uncountable times, had at least a thousand baits taken by them but leaving me the tiny part of bait hook was attached to, but never hooked one, I've watched moms & aunties swim babies bait to bait as we trolled at 8 knots, then to my props, obviously teaching them danger, don't remember even hearing of one ever taking a lure even though it's common to have them swim & play with the lures... I learned to reconize the heard formations, starting with the young adult male scouts, then biggest bulls garding the parimiters & the well orginized groups inside the heard, the babies always secure in the middle with mom on one side & aunty on it's other & a bull always nearby, seen how they drive schools of man sized tuna like cowboys & cattle so they always have food but only eating their tuna when other food fish weren't around, they ball bait & hold the ball so the caged tuna stay well fed & healthy..


Sure, not as inteligent as humans.

but I'd put them quite a few notches higher than cats & most other animules.

but I'm not educated in uni so this is only my oponion, not science.


Quote
many cetaceans have the intelligence of small mammals like rats or cats, not human level. Only a few could be considered by ANYONE as intelligent. Some of the small open-water dolphin-type species school in such numbers (1m long, 300 per pod) are actually considered an environmental hazard and classed by some as virtually vermin, with brain power to match
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on June 26, 2009, 05:12:50 PM
I watched them often on Nauru. Once saw a pod that took 15 minutes to cross my line of sight.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mr Nobody on June 26, 2009, 05:23:19 PM
Cetaceans are a family involving a range of beasties, large to small, dumb to smart. It isnt "whales" vs "dolphins". eg river dolphins, while rare and beautiful, aren't too bright.

Using primates as an analogy, our family also ranges intelligence, going from us, supposedly at the top, through chimps and other apes, through monkeys which vary considerably, down to lemurs and tarsiers, down to tree shrews about as smart as a lab rat.

If one plays with a chimpanzee, then one would say that all primates are pretty sharp, and figure that any damage they did would be worth it. If all you had to play with were tree shrews, and there were millions of them eating all the food, you wouldn't be so impressed.

Both points are true.

I was also speaking, if you note, in particular to a Pacific species about one metre long, one that is pretty dumb. I would think that DaDan was speaking of an Atlantic species, and considerably larger. The Atlantic porpoise, which is what I suspect it was, is considerably more intelligent.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on June 26, 2009, 06:42:44 PM



   

 Ananova:
Luxury yachts offer pirate hunting cruises

Luxury ocean liners in Russia are offering pirate hunting cruises aboard armed private yachts off the Somali coast.
 Wealthy punters pay £3,500 per day to patrol the most dangerous waters in the world hoping to be attacked by raiders.
When attacked, they retaliate with grenade launchers, machine guns and rocket launchers, reports Austrian business paper Wirtschaftsblatt.

Passengers, who can pay an extra £5 a day for an AK-47 machine gun and £7 for 100 rounds of ammo, are also protected by a squad of ex special forces troops.

The yachts travel from Djibouti in Somalia to Mombasa in Kenya.

The ships deliberately cruise close to the coast at a speed of just five nautical miles in an attempt to attract the interest of pirates.

"They are worse than the pirates," said Russian yachtsman Vladimir Mironov. "At least the pirates have the decency to take hostages, these people are just paying to commit murder," he continued.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mr Nobody on June 26, 2009, 06:59:37 PM
Murder of pirates, unlike the pirates, who murder innocent tourists and sailors.

Hmm.

Don't know, but so far it doesn't raise any of my hackles.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on June 26, 2009, 07:12:20 PM
Oh, yeah, and I am not sure what species are involved,

According to the responses following the video, we're talking pilot whales.









Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mr Nobody on June 26, 2009, 09:35:49 PM
Well, there are a few pilot whales, but I'll put in an educated guess at dog-smart.

In a way, it's poetic justice, since pilot whales reputedly led the whaling ships to the whaling pods.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: DaDan on June 27, 2009, 05:48:07 AM
Quote
I would think that DaDan was speaking of an Atlantic species

Hawaii is in the Pacific
 ahahahahah

Quote
but I'll put in an educated guess at dog-smart.

I remember the day, while pointing out the fly/hunting patterns the of a certain sea bird we fisherfolks in Hawaii use to guide us to fish daily to a famous bird scientist that wrote a few books on sea birds of the world, actually the Second bird of that species that day I showed him...
I Still laugh at how closed minded he was while telling me
`Hawaiian waters Don't have Those birds!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mr Nobody on June 27, 2009, 04:00:32 PM
um, not being closed minded. talking about tests, rather than anecdotes. Pilot whales of several species fronted up about dog smart.

you didn't say which ocean. I assumed atlantic due to bermuda coming up elsewhere, for some reason.

Pacific has the bottle nose, which fronts up as the most intelligent of the cetaceans, about the level of a chimpanzee. And despite what Peter Cook said, they aren't insects, and they don't eat bananas.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on June 27, 2009, 06:33:25 PM
Ok. I feel obliged to comment. The vidoe does not work for me but I am familiar with the custom. Firstly, it's done on the Faroe Islands which, to all intents and purposes, is not Denmark. They don't even speak Danish there, they speak Faroese. However, some of the comments about the video, not made on this forum, got the old blood boiling. One ignoramus had the audacity to call Denmark "supposedly civilized"....he's now on the "First one to be fed to Jormundgand when Ragnarok breaks out" list.
It is a horrible custom. I have never nor will ever condone the unnecessary slaughter of animals for no practical purpose. That being said, this whole sanctimonious, pot-addled, head-in-sky-no-connection-to-reality, doped-up-to-the-gills, flower-in-hair-wearing-kumbaya-singing hippie nonsense about dolphins is getting on my tits! They're not Flipper! Flipper is dead! Some Hollywood executive probably had Flipper steak with potatoes and gravy! Ever eaten chicken, cow, veal, lamb, sheep or goat? Ever been to a feed-lot? Ever been to an industrial abattoir? The people on the Faroe Islands may be killing all those dolphins as a rite of passage, but they do actually make use of the slain beasts. They're not exactly hunting down their babies and clubbing them to death for their pelts with no added interest in their meat, a monstrous habit still practiced by some countries I might add! "Save the planet" was another comment...really??? Of all the things we could do to save the planet, our major concern should be the humane treatment of marine mammals??? I do not condone, as I have stated, mass-slaughter of animals, but if anyone can eat a steak and still argue about treating another species with decency and respect, they sorely are in need of a reality check. Now, I am going to eat my BLT, because I am a carnivore and I eat dead animals who, in appearance, look really cute and yet we slaughter them in great numbers every day and no-one seems to care, unless one of them starred in an unbearable saccharine TV-show a long, long, long, long, long time ago.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on June 27, 2009, 07:00:16 PM
Calm down Eric

And put the dolphin down.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mr Nobody on June 27, 2009, 07:41:48 PM
I have a recipe for what amounts to dolphin on toast, or a kind of dolphin pizza thingie. It's from Italy, in the middle ages. Never actually tried to make it. Not sure I want to eat things as smart as some of the people I meet. Same goes for rats and dogs, for the same reason.

You can eat whale meat here in Middle Earth. I had barbequed whale meat skewers a few months ago. (I didn't know what it was until AFTER I had eaten it, though.) Tasted pretty yummy, not at all fatty or anything. Lumps of tasty BBQ flesh. Better than the camel or the donkey.I wouldn't actually go out and order it, though, knowing it was whale.

And I eat skippy every time I go back to Oz. Yum.



Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on June 27, 2009, 09:14:17 PM
I will not! It's my dolphin. It is not what I most want but seeing as it is impossible to get barbecued dodo, this will have to make due.

Yes, you can whale here in Midgard. Go to Greenland, those chappies up there use whale for everything.

Time to go out and order some Border Collie Fried Rice....I always hated Lassie....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on June 27, 2009, 09:18:41 PM
And put the dolphin down.


UUmmmm.....did you mean dolphin (the fish)?  Or were you meaning dolphin (the mammal)? :wtf:
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on June 28, 2009, 06:13:58 PM
Apart from the fact that the foundations were no good, the rest of the building looks pretty good.

Quote
A 13-story apartment building under construction in Shanghai has toppled over almost intact, killing one worker.

Footage broadcast on state broadcaster CCTV shows the whole building lying on its side.

The building reportedly tipped over at the base, crumbling to the ground in one big piece.

It's believed the 28-year-old worker killed had gone into the building to get his tools and tried to jump out the window when the building fell.

www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25700324-663,00.html (http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25700324-663,00.html)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: old34 on June 28, 2009, 07:55:28 PM
What was that place built with? Legos?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on June 28, 2009, 07:57:15 PM
Legos don't fall over  llllllllll
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on June 28, 2009, 08:35:50 PM
Maybe it was pirated, fake, knock-off Chinese Lego. Proper Danish Lego does not fall over, nope.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on June 28, 2009, 09:56:12 PM
Getting back to dolphins for a moment........


(http://www.flashasylum.com/db/files/Comics/Kris/smart.png)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: china-matt on June 29, 2009, 03:43:55 AM
Anyone else notice that the building that toppled over didn't really have much of a foundation...that could be why it happened. And now the question is, will anyone buy the apartments in the other buildings?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: old34 on June 29, 2009, 07:18:32 AM
I'm no engineer (civil or uncivil) but I noticed those shallow piles, too. Moreover, the closeups showed that they were hollow on the inside. One of the biggest construction costs is cement and there're loads of stories about how Chinese construction crews cut corners to save costs on cement. Witness the 7000 (?) school buildings that fell down in the Sichuan earthquake.

So here's the Lotus Garden in Minhang and a 13 story building falls over. And the piles look like hollowed out peg legs of a second story man.

In the aftermath of the Taipei earthquake in 1999, I remember reading that most buildings survived, but in one of the newer tall ones that *surprisingly* had collapsed, the foundation piles had broken open and they found that the supposedly solid concrete foundations had in fact been stacked water barrels in the center, "wrapped" in a thin veneer of concrete. Well, not so thin, but thick enough to pass inspections. But still, the piles had a pretty much hollow center when they should have been feet thick. And the earthquake opened 'em up for the inspectors to see.

This Minhang building looks like it had both shallow pilings and hollow pilings. Yet the building fell 13 floors from vertical to horizontal almost intact.

I say Lego construction with Chinese characteristics foundation and cement work.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Paul Carr on June 30, 2009, 04:45:27 AM
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-06/29/content_8333721.htm
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-06/29/content_8333905.htm

3 dead, 60 injured in central China train collision

Terrible tragedy!! . I was actually on the T97 train from Beijing to Hong Kong today.  Our train was held up by several hours I believe by this collision.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on June 30, 2009, 07:45:30 PM
Yeah in Chenzhou near the Hunan - Guangdong border. We are trying to find out if any my school students were on this train.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on June 30, 2009, 07:46:54 PM
I agree that Australians are generally trouble but murder charges for riding in a taxi?

http://bit.ly/y4iE4
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on June 30, 2009, 08:06:44 PM
He is alleged to have stolen the taxi after the crash, Stil. That's a bit naughty.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: teacheraus on July 01, 2009, 12:55:10 AM
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.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on July 01, 2009, 02:24:33 AM
A morbidly fascinated part of me cannot help but ask; "What was he thinking when he tried to drive away?"
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on July 01, 2009, 02:30:55 AM
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.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mr Nobody on July 01, 2009, 02:35:26 AM
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.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Paul Carr on July 01, 2009, 02:38:48 AM
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?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on July 01, 2009, 03:19:20 AM
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.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on July 01, 2009, 11:40:01 PM
Painting on Photo

http://bit.ly/y9tjD
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on July 02, 2009, 12:22:30 PM
Another one down. A bad week for show-biz. This time it was Karl Malden. R.I.P.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Paul Carr on July 02, 2009, 04:00:35 PM
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.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on July 02, 2009, 05:43:35 PM
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.  afafafafaf
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on July 11, 2009, 11:27:07 AM
WTF has the press done to people in China?   asasasasas asasasasas asasasasas

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


*****

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."
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mr Nobody on July 11, 2009, 06:15:34 PM
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?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on July 11, 2009, 10:33:43 PM
Lobotomy??
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on July 12, 2009, 06:23:06 AM
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.
 aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on July 14, 2009, 12:20:58 AM
Swearing 'helps to reduce pain'

http://bit.ly/10zsjU
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: teleplayer on July 14, 2009, 11:27:31 AM
Swearing 'helps to reduce pain'

http://bit.ly/10zsjU

News one can use!!  bjbjbjbjbj
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on July 14, 2009, 02:48:17 PM
I hereby nominate this guy for honorary saloon membership!   bjbjbjbjbj

******

Chinese road vigilante an Internet hit: report

AFP Mon Jul 13, 1:57 am ET

BEIJING (AFP) – A retired teacher has become an unlikely Internet hit in China for throwing bricks at cars whose drivers were ignoring red lights at a dangerous crossing, state media has reported.

The furious 74-year-old last week took up position on an intersection in Lanzhou, the capital of northwest Gansu province, and damaged more than 30 cars before he was stopped by police, the China Daily reported.

"I just wanted to catch people's attention and tell the drivers to think of pedestrians," the man said, according to the report.

The unnamed man's attacks drew wide support in Chinese cyberspace, with nearly 80 percent of 400,000 respondents to an online poll backing him, the English-language paper said.

The ex-teacher became a campaigner for road safety after a pedestrian was killed near where he lived.

He successfully lobbied for traffic lights at the intersection, but drivers continued to ignore them, the report said, citing the Lanzhou Morning Post.

So on Thursday last, he started lobbing bricks at transgressors, and was joined by two other elderly men, while other people found them more bricks and brought water.

He had planned to keep up his vigilante attack for a week but was stopped by police after one day. He was interviewed and released without charge, the paper said.

The reports did not indicate whether any cars were seriously damaged or crashed after being hit.

China's roads are notoriously dangerous. Last year, nearly 73,500 people died in road accidents in China last year, or more than 200 fatalities per day, according to police statistics.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mr Nobody on July 14, 2009, 04:29:35 PM
Hero of the Republic.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Ruth on July 14, 2009, 05:30:52 PM
Buy that man a beer  agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: thedogateit on July 16, 2009, 01:34:57 PM
The Virgin Mary has competition. http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2536406/Ghost-of-Jacko-snapped-on-car.html
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on July 21, 2009, 12:51:12 AM
40 years ago (Adult Language)


http://bit.ly/19WqcB
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mr Nobody on July 21, 2009, 02:37:04 AM
The Virgin Mary has competition. http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2536406/Ghost-of-Jacko-snapped-on-car.html

So, finally, proof there really is an Elvis.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on July 22, 2009, 04:45:19 PM
The Onion sold to the Chinese


http://bit.ly/Bn2eU
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: contemporarydog on July 22, 2009, 06:16:46 PM
Could something like The Onion ever exist in China?

Actually, satire is a very very 'Anglo' thing isn't it... I'm not sure the French would even take too cleverly to an equivalent...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Wags on July 22, 2009, 11:27:40 PM
 mmmmmmmmmm

Still scratching my head on this one Stil. It has the signs of a prank, something they're not unaccustomed to at The Onion.

I went to the Yu Wan Mei site ( http://www.yuwanmei.com/home (http://www.yuwanmei.com/home) ) wondering, "What the... Is this for real?" The loyalty bracelet??  aoaoaoaoao Eel Milk Ice cream?  aoaoaoaoao

Better evidence of trickery though comes when you look at the Subsidiaries page, including such interesting names as: "Don Chin Office Solutions and Industrial Waste Supply, Jhonson & Jhonson Baby's Shampow, Hu-Hu Poisonous Treats, CTM, Kei Magong Finest Racehorse Processors" and my personal favourite "Mai Cheung Genetic Anomalies Inc."

Regardless as to whether it is or isn't a joke, sure is keeping me amused.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on August 02, 2009, 08:23:51 PM
Holy crap!

Man dies from plague in China, 11 others infected.

http://bit.ly/AU8DT
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on August 03, 2009, 03:01:00 PM
It was on CCTV9 yesterday.  Pneumonic version.  Definitely not a good thing.   aoaoaoaoao

The last serious outbreak of that kind that I can recall was in India in the 1990's (I don't keep up with smaller outbreaks as well as I did when I was an Epidemiology student).  They managed to contain it in time.

The good news is that a fast and early quarantine is usually just the ticket to deal with this particular problem.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on August 03, 2009, 06:12:34 PM
Nothing to do with China yet,but some PIGS have caught the swine flu from their handlers in Australia. aoaoaoaoao Guess what is in quarantine now?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Newbs on August 03, 2009, 09:20:12 PM
Yep, correct weight, Granny Mae
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/08/03/2643845.htm (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/08/03/2643845.htm)  Another report said that this had previously happened in Canada and Argentina.  In itself they say it's not a bit deal, but it does increase the chances of the little swine 'flu virus mutating into something rather more ugly.

This also made the news today.
http://www.3news.co.nz/David-Farrier-goes-on-hunt-for-Mongolian-death-worm/tabid/418/articleID/114185/cat/58/Default.aspx (http://www.3news.co.nz/David-Farrier-goes-on-hunt-for-Mongolian-death-worm/tabid/418/articleID/114185/cat/58/Default.aspx)  At first I thought, "Hey, is it April the 1st already?", then I thought I'll just file this one under WTF.  But it seems that this little Mongolian Death Worm is Mongolia's answer to the Loch Ness Monster or whatever.  Hell, the thing probably doesn't exist but it's too good a story not to post here.  The bit about using explosives to find it, because it likes the vibrations, reminds me of one of the critters in "Dune"
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on August 04, 2009, 03:18:57 AM
Nothing to do with China yet,but some PIGS have caught the swine flu from their handlers in Australia. aoaoaoaoao Guess what is in quarantine now?

Do the pigs call it "Human flu"?   ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mister Barfly on August 04, 2009, 04:40:57 AM
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20090803/twl-chinese-town-sealed-off-after-plague-3fd0ae9.html

A town of 10,000 people in north west China has been sealed off from the outside world after an outbreak of deadly pneumonic plague.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ccvortex on August 04, 2009, 06:03:59 AM
Wow, not good!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Raoul F. Duke on August 04, 2009, 12:07:45 PM
Yeah, getting news on that here now, too. Nasty, nasty stuff...highly contagious and lethal in 24 hours...but confined to a small mountain village in Qinghai. Apparently outbreaks of this stuff are not uncommon in China, but are quickly contained...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on August 04, 2009, 04:04:05 PM
China closes factory after cadmium pollution protest

 http://bit.ly/152omP

Not good. Particularly since this is where I live.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Raoul F. Duke on August 04, 2009, 07:09:49 PM
Mmmmm...cadmium...mmmmmmm...

Meanwhile, the plague death toll in Qinghai has now gone up to 3.

Man, what a downer thread this has become... oooooooooo

OK, so Stil is getting plenty of essential zinc in his diet! axaxaxaxax
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on August 04, 2009, 08:06:54 PM
They closed the factory so everything is A Ok  bfbfbfbfbf

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on August 05, 2009, 06:03:08 AM
Meanwhile, the plague death toll in Qinghai has now gone up to 3.

It's not widely known, but there are usually a few cases of black plague in the US every year.  Mostly hunters in the western part of the country, just like China.  The good news is that normal cases don't tend to spread so easily.  Pneumonic ones are much more dangerous, since it's airborne and the disease is more aggressive in that form.  Since there have only had 3 deaths in extreme close proximity, that means the quarantine is working as planned.  (Amazingly, I actually was awake most of the time in Epidemiology classes.)

Quote
Man, what a downer thread this has become... oooooooooo

Raoul, please allow me to brighten your day.   ahahahahah


Prostitutes better than officials in China: survey

AFP  Tue Aug 4, 2:29 am ET

BEIJING (AFP) – Prostitutes are considered more trustworthy in China than government officials and scientists, a recent survey of more than 3,000 respondents showed.

The online survey of 3,376 Chinese showed that 7.9 percent of respondents* considered sex workers trustworthy, putting them in third place after farmers and religious workers, the Insight China magazine said on its website.

"A list like this is at the same time surprising and embarrassing," the China Daily said Tuesday in an editorial, commenting on the result of the survey, which was carried out in June and July.

"The sex workers' unexpected prominence on this list of honour... is indeed unusual."

The newspaper said the list showed scientists and teachers ranked "way below, and that government functionaries, too, scored hardly better."

Soldiers and students were ranked after sex workers on the list of trustworthy professions, the Insight China magazine said.

"Given the constant feed of scandals involving the country's elite, this is not bad at all," the China Daily editorial commented.

"At least (the scientists and officials) have not slid into the least credible category which consists of real estate developers, secretaries, agents, entertainers and directors."


*EL Note:  I wonder if there was a significant difference in trust placed in Chinese rental girls by male vs. female survey respondents?  mmmmmmmmmm
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Raoul F. Duke on August 05, 2009, 02:25:14 PM
Quote
"A list like this is at the same time surprising and embarrassing"

Embarrassing, yes...and good job, too...but not at all surprising to me.

Visiting one of either group is likely to end up with you getting f**ked. At least the chickens are a lot more straightforward and a lot more fun. agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on August 05, 2009, 05:17:20 PM
Embarassing for whom? Why? "You do the math", as the saying goes, and there should be little surprise. (Do the math, I said, not the sex-ed. Not that I care, just let's make it clear that I'm neither condoning nor condemning) If there is little cause for surprise, why should there be shame or embarassment?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Wags on August 05, 2009, 06:13:41 PM

Visiting one of either group is likely to end up with you getting f**ked. At least the chickens are a lot more straightforward and a lot more fun. agagagagag

But only one group tends to stick to the agreed upon price  afafafafaf
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on August 05, 2009, 06:45:24 PM
Quote
The online survey of 3,376 Chinese showed that 7.9 percent of respondents* considered sex workers trustworthy, putting them in third place after farmers and religious workers

8% of the people thinking you are trustworthy ranks you third in China.

I must be the most trustworthy person in China, I routinely get 10-15% from the girls I meet.  agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Schnerby on August 12, 2009, 04:11:14 AM
Heavy rains and flooding in Vietnam and South China.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8134896.stm (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8134896.stm)

We haven't got any Saloonies down that far south, do we?
 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on August 12, 2009, 02:56:00 PM
Most of my QQ contacts are in Shenzhen, Dongguan, and Guangzhou.  No one's complained about the weather and I see reasonable numbers of them online during normal hours for them.

Ruth, how's the weather???
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on August 15, 2009, 03:45:39 PM
British man falls to death in Kunming

Updated: 2009-08-15 02:23(Xinhua)
 
KUNMING:A British man fell to his death off a hotel building Friday afternoon in this capital city of southwest China's Yunnan Province, local police confirmed.Police received the report at about 2 p.m. that the man was found dead outside the Chuncheng Star Hotel on Beijing Road.

The man probably fell from a stairway window between the 12th and 13th floors, police said after initial investigation.

He hit a parked car before he died.

Police found nothing on the man to identify him, but only his mobile phone helped find some clues, with which police later knew that the man was from Britain and taught at a college under the Kunming University of Science and Technology.Police are investigating the cause of the death.

http://bit.ly/AIzal

I just hate falling out of windows in the middle of the afternoon.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on August 17, 2009, 04:47:43 AM
From the Globe and Mail: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/scholars-put-braaaaains-together-to-thwart-zombies/article1253006/ (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/scholars-put-braaaaains-together-to-thwart-zombies/article1253006/)

Quote
Scholars put braaaaains together to thwart zombies
Using viral outbreak models and statistics, Ottawa mathematicians discover only ‘aggressive attacks' will quell a spread of the undead.

Science is still struggling with how to get the jump on swine flu, but Canadians can take heart that a group of Ottawa mathematicians have found the key to beating a more virulent, if only cinematic, threat.

A zombie outbreak – the kind that always confounds authorities in movies – can be successfully overcome through “quick, aggressive attacks” on the undead, scholars at the University of Ottawa and Carleton University have concluded.


I'm not going to quote the whole article, but the last line bears repeating:
Quote
“Clearly, this is an unlikely scenario if taken literally, but possible real-life applications may include allegiance to political parties or diseases with a dormant infection.”



Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on August 17, 2009, 11:25:20 AM
"Walt Disney World's Epcot theme park is scheduled to debut a tequila bar inside the Mexico pavilion in World Showcase, just in time for the start of this year's Epcot International Food & Wine Festival. Although an abundance of alcohol is already available to park guests in Epcot's international restaurants and at kiosks throughout the park, this development begs the question: Is doing shots with the mouse a good idea at a family theme park?"

www.examiner.com/x-9082-Walt-Disney-World-Recreation-Examiner~y2009m8d14-Doing-shots-with-Mickey-Mouse-Is-Epcot-tequila-bar-a-good-idea (http://www.examiner.com/x-9082-Walt-Disney-World-Recreation-Examiner~y2009m8d14-Doing-shots-with-Mickey-Mouse-Is-Epcot-tequila-bar-a-good-idea)

An insidious invasion on the well-being of an already troubled people! bibibibibi bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on August 17, 2009, 11:28:49 AM
Lots of drinking news today.

"
Captain Joseph Crites

'Catastrophic': Captain Joseph Crites' career is over, after security guards smelled alcohol on his breath

A U.S. pilot preparing to fly a packed airliner while twice the legal alcohol limit blamed his intoxication on European beer, a court heard today.

Captain Joseph Crites, 57, said it was stronger than his normal beer, and he did not realise he would still be over the limit when he arrived at Heathrow the morning after drinking it."

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1206612/U-S-pilot-blames-European-beer-failing-breath-test-minutes-Heathrow.html (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1206612/U-S-pilot-blames-European-beer-failing-breath-test-minutes-Heathrow.html)

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on August 17, 2009, 03:39:09 PM
Beijing music professor accepts cash, sex from female student

http://bit.ly/o5dc
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on August 17, 2009, 03:39:52 PM
Man blames subway rider for theft due to his looks

http://bit.ly/ImDcq
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on August 17, 2009, 04:00:57 PM
Quote
Terracotta army 'may have belonged to empress' (August 13, 2009, AFP) China's famed ancient terracotta army which surrounds the tomb of the nation's first emperor actually belonged to a female ancestor, a historian told a state-owned newspaper Wednesday. The army of life-sized figures discovered near the northern city of Xi'an is usually thought to be guarding the burial site of Qin Shihuang, who presided over the unification of China in 221 BC and declared himself the first emperor. But historian Chen Jingyuan told the Global Times he believes the emperor's ancestor Empress Xuan, who died 55 years before Qin's birth, was the real mastermind behind the army.
Chen presents his evidence in his new book "The Truth of Terracotta Warriors," which details discrepancies such as the army's distance from Qin's tomb and the hairstyles and clothes of the warriors which he says indicate they belonged to the empress. But other historians and archaeologists disagree with his findings. Liu Zhancheng, head of the terracotta warriors archaeological team, said there was strong evidence that the first emperor was their rightful owner.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Schnerby on August 17, 2009, 04:31:41 PM
I'd like to think it was a woman who ordered an army of men for her afterlife  afafafafaf
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on August 18, 2009, 03:42:57 AM
Clash at China smelter after 100s of kids poisoned

BEIJING – Police clashed with residents of two neighboring villages in northern China where nearly all the children were poisoned by lead apparently from a nearby smelter, reports said Monday, the latest sign of growing anger over China's rampant industrial pollution.

Several hundred villagers tore down fences and blocked traffic outside the Dongling Lead and Zinc Smelting Co. in Shaanxi province after news of the poisoning emerged last week, state media and villagers said. Fighting between angry parents and scores of police broke out Sunday, and trucks delivering coal to the plant were stoned.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090817/ap_on_re_as/as_china_lead_poisoning
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Japanda on August 20, 2009, 08:44:13 AM
A couple get their wedding portraits taken military style in Nanjing

http://www.china.org.cn/china/photos/2009-07/31/content_18243664.htm
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: china-matt on August 20, 2009, 09:29:32 AM
That wedding photo made it to the Chinglish Mao blog.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mister Barfly on August 20, 2009, 02:42:41 PM
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=103891&sectionid=351020202  This is terrible.  If its true. People being kidnapped for their organs.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on August 20, 2009, 03:06:49 PM
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=103951&sectionid=351020202 (http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=103951&sectionid=351020202)

Quote
The Israeli Foreign Ministry has also condemned the report, saying ''This piece is so blatantly racist and can induce to hate crimes in such a way that we think authorities need to take care of the matter.''

The ministry is also reportedly considering summoning the Swedish ambassador to protest against his government policies as well as the article.

The Israeli Embassy in Stockholm has also sent a strong diplomatic protest to the Swedish government.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mister Barfly on August 20, 2009, 03:21:25 PM
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25955976-13762,00.html 

I hope they extend this into September as I am going to London next month.  Putpocketing
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mister Barfly on August 20, 2009, 04:00:47 PM
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25591712-401,00.html Ghosts
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on August 21, 2009, 02:26:43 PM
Be careful, The Bunnies!!!
"
Bermuda on alert as Hurricane Bill advances
August 21, 2009 - 9:39AM

Bermuda issued a hurricane watch Thursday for the possible arrival within 36 hours of Hurricane Bill, a massive storm packing powerful winds and creating life-threatening ocean swells."

http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-world/bermuda-on-alert-as-hurricane-bill-advances-20090821-esla.html (http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-world/bermuda-on-alert-as-hurricane-bill-advances-20090821-esla.html)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on August 21, 2009, 11:01:29 PM
Thanks for the concern. akakakakak 

Island-wide, precautions are being taken...Regiment and Police on Alert Standby, Emergency Measures ready, and we've gotten ourselves a new generator. bfbfbfbfbf  But I haven't laid by any extra provisions (food, water, etc) since Bill isn't due to be any closer than about 150 miles to out West. 

We most likely will only get a lot of wind and rain, come Saturday afternoon (closest passing point/time); nothing worse than a bad storm effect.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on August 21, 2009, 11:03:22 PM
Quote
nothing worse than a bad storm effect.
Fingers crossed!  agagagagag agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on August 22, 2009, 04:39:15 PM
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/11/business/economy/11expats.html?_r=1 (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/11/business/economy/11expats.html?_r=1)

The land of opportunity.  ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on August 23, 2009, 04:16:41 PM
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25963297-2703,00.html (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25963297-2703,00.html)

Environmental stuff is improving here - even in the last 6 months I have noticed more 'blue-sky' days (not Australian blue, but blue close enough to major cities in the west) to see that the environment is being taken somewhat seriously.  Even Lanzhou - which is on my 'most polluted/most awful place' list is trying to grow trees, clean up streets etc.  More people are aware, and more people are protesting about environmental concerns.  When you hear how bad things are, always check to see how old the information is - because it is changing!

 
BUT... as we see - not quite fast enough!! ananananan ananananan ananananan
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on August 23, 2009, 06:57:43 PM
A couple get their wedding portraits taken military style in Nanjing

http://www.china.org.cn/china/photos/2009-07/31/content_18243664.htm

Those are awesome.  Raises the bar for wedding photos.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ccvortex on August 24, 2009, 05:44:50 AM

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=103891&sectionid=351020202  This is terrible.  If its true. People being kidnapped for their organs.


This is a lot like the rumors the were going around Romania in the 1980's that said Americans that are adopting Romanian babies are doing so because they eat them...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on August 24, 2009, 11:52:41 AM
This is a lot like the rumors the were going around Romania in the 1980's that said Americans that are adopting Romanian babies are doing so because they eat them...

Who said those were rumors?   qqqqqqqqqq
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: fox on August 24, 2009, 10:16:34 PM
This is a lot like the rumors the were going around Romania in the 1980's that said Americans that are adopting Romanian babies are doing so because they eat them...

Who said those were rumors?   qqqqqqqqqq


yeah, these things have been going on for decades. im sure china is no exception too. i worked for a child care agency in the UK where we would take children from unsafe environments - paedophile rings and put them in secure housing. In my 4 years working in this post we discovered 2 organ selling organisations, if people breed kids for sex then it figures they will for organs, a lot of this stuff doesnt appear in the news. anyone that believes all news we hear about is as is, is living in a bubble. 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on August 26, 2009, 12:59:07 AM
The Death of Internet Addict Youth Deng Senshan

 http://bit.ly/X62eW
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on August 26, 2009, 04:59:34 AM
I read about this in the Danish newspapers. These poor children are being sent to quacks who do stuff to them which would have turned the stomach of even the most hard-boiled warden in Nineteenth Century Bedlam...poor children and poor parents.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mister Barfly on August 26, 2009, 01:23:27 PM
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1208987/Man-bursts-flames-Ohio-police-use-taser-guns-time.html

Homeless man bursts into flames after being Tasered by U.S. police


Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on August 26, 2009, 02:43:10 PM
Were the police well prepared for such an occurrence?  Did they have an adequate supply of marshmallows?
 axaxaxaxax
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: psd4fan on August 26, 2009, 04:24:31 PM
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1208987/Man-bursts-flames-Ohio-police-use-taser-guns-time.html

Homeless man bursts into flames after being Tasered by U.S. police



bibibibibi bkbkbkbkbk
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on August 26, 2009, 08:49:11 PM
Quote
Beijing police
anti-terror patrols for anniversary (August 19, 2009, AFP) Beijing police will step up their anti-terror efforts ahead of the 60th anniversary on October 1 of the founding of communist China, with more street patrols and checkpoints, state media said Wednesday. The massive police mobilisation will likely surpass the security clampdown seen for last year's Olympic Games in the capital, the China Daily reported. The report said the new security measures were also prompted by last month's unrest in China's far western Xinjiang region, which the government said was orchestrated by Muslim Uighur separatists and left nearly 200 people dead.
Police will target residents from ethnic groups and expatriates who have only resided in the capital for a short time, the China Daily said. Security forces have been engaged in a two-month-long anti-terrorism campaign aimed at maintaining social stability ahead of the sensitive anniversary, it added.


So - newbies in Beijing - expect the external security police to pop in on you.  aoaoaoaoao bjbjbjbjbj bjbjbjbjbj
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on August 29, 2009, 01:46:00 AM
http://shanghaiist.com/2009/08/26/look_what_the_drunk_driving_crackdo.php (http://shanghaiist.com/2009/08/26/look_what_the_drunk_driving_crackdo.php)

Take care on the roads!

"The Ministry of Public Security released the nine provinces and regions with the worst drunk driving records yesterday: Inner Mongolia, Yunnan, Henan, Gansu, Heilongjiang, T, Xinjiang, Guangxi and Sichuan."

And be careful when you are driving - one offender was sentenced to death for causing an accident while drink driving. 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: DaDan on August 29, 2009, 06:54:21 AM


 bibibibibi
U.N. Report Advocates Teaching Masturbation to 5-Year-Olds
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,543203,00.html (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,543203,00.html)
-------------------------------------------

The United Nations is recommending that children as young as five receive mandatory sexual education that would teach even pre-kindergarteners about masturbation and topics like gender violence
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on August 29, 2009, 06:58:53 AM
Well, as George Carlin said..."If God had not intended us to masturbate, he would have given us shorter arms".
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ccvortex on August 29, 2009, 08:49:18 AM

 bibibibibi
U.N. Report Advocates Teaching Masturbation to 5-Year-Olds
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,543203,00.html (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,543203,00.html)
-------------------------------------------

The United Nations is recommending that children as young as five receive mandatory sexual education that would teach even pre-kindergarteners about masturbation and topics like gender violence

 kkkkkkkkkk

I worked for the UN for years and can personally attest to it's complete lunacy. Seriously, it's like nothing else on Earth (in a bad way).
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on August 31, 2009, 08:09:27 PM
A third of HK teens would consider prostitution - The China Post http://bit.ly/3aj9j2
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on August 31, 2009, 08:19:26 PM
China's 'unluckiest generation' reflects on cost of revolution -  http://bit.ly/j1hg4
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Ruth on September 03, 2009, 04:37:37 PM
A third of HK teens would consider prostitution
For name brand clothing and other products  aoaoaoaoao  Kids in America get murdered for their sports shoes, so I guess what the kids in HK are doing is a step up from that, but (geezer warning) What is this world coming to?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on September 03, 2009, 05:40:09 PM
China's 'unluckiest generation' reflects on cost of revolution -  http://bit.ly/j1hg4

That's fascinating.  Xin Ran's book 'China Witness' covers this era as well, and many of the interviewees she spoke to said that it was a time they don't talk about to their children and grandchildren, because today the children aren't interested in hearing.  The sense of loss in the book seemed not to be focused around lost opportunities, jobs or education, but instead around the lack of time able to be spent with their own families, their own children.

A number of marriages were arranged by the work groups the teenagers were sent to, with remarkably good results considering the situation.

There was a level of discontent regarding today's young people - too much focus on money and not enough on creating a balanced life.  There was also a fair bit of discussion about how corruption has not changed.

Interesting book if you are interested in this era.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ccvortex on September 04, 2009, 03:41:41 PM
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/i-have-been-abducted-by-aliens-says-japans-first-lady-1780888.html
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Pashley on September 04, 2009, 07:49:43 PM
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/i-have-been-abducted-by-aliens-says-japans-first-lady-1780888.html
Yes, having the PM's wife say she was abducted by aliens is a bit weird.

However, Canada's longest-serving PM communed with the deceased regularly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lyon_Mackenzie_King#Personal_life
and there have been quite a few mad kings through the centuries.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on September 07, 2009, 07:04:49 PM
Guangdong Police Issue Important Warning to the Public
Reuters  Sept 7, 2009

Guangdong PSB spokesman DaWang issued a dire warning to the public today.  There have been repeated sitings of an Escaped Lunatic crossing the HK border several times in the last few days.  This deranged fugitive from a US asylum for the amusingly demented was last seen boarding a train in Shenzhen with what appeared to be a new laptop, maniacally laughing about finally getting back online.

If you encounter this Lunatic, the safest thing to is to panic and run away.

Officer DaWang suggests that all families in the Shenzhen/Dongguan/Guangzhou area hide their pretty daughters at his house where he will personally see that they are kept safe from harm.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Ruth on September 07, 2009, 10:16:27 PM
He's baaaaack.

Run for the hills  :wtf:
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: becster79 on September 08, 2009, 12:53:48 AM
 aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao

 :wtf:
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: teacheraus on September 08, 2009, 08:08:35 PM
Not too much Australian news makes the China Daily but when it does it is good that it is quintissentially Australian ...  (I haven't seen this in Australian Media yet).  Our esteemed Prime Minister K Rudd asked for the date for the G20 to be moved so he would not miss the AFL Grand Final. 

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2009-09/08/content_8666683.htm
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Schnerby on September 08, 2009, 10:55:22 PM
Well, obviously that's important!

This grand final will be the first one in 5 years I won't see live. My job there meant I was paid to watch footy, including the final.  ananananan
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: mlaeux on September 09, 2009, 07:07:18 AM
Lost world of fanged frogs and giant rats discovered in Papua New Guinea.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/sep/07/discovery-species-papua-new-guinea (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/sep/07/discovery-species-papua-new-guinea)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Schnerby on September 09, 2009, 05:09:57 PM
Miners trapped/ killed in Pingdingshan - Henan

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-09/09/content_8669018.htm (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-09/09/content_8669018.htm)

This is very close to home, geographically and personally, for many of my students.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on September 11, 2009, 01:47:01 PM
Two interesting bits of news:

China Sets New Rules For Music Sold Online (September 5, 2009, The Wall Street Journal)
China's government ordered a cleanup of the country's online music market that will require music sites to seek approval from censors for all foreign songs they distribute on the Internet. The Ministry of Culture's measure, which affects music services provided by companies including Google Inc. and Baidu Inc., is the latest effort by the government to try to assert control over the Internet, which has some 338 million users in China, more than in any other country.
 
China Web Sites Seeking Users' Names (September 5, 2009, The New York Times)
News Web sites in China, complying with secret government orders, are requiring that new users log on under their true identities to post comments, a shift in policy that the country's Internet users and media have fiercely opposed in the past. The editors said the sites were putting into effect a confidential directive issued in late July by the State Council Information Office, one of the main government bodies responsible for supervising the Internet in China. The new step is not foolproof, the editors acknowledged. It was possible for a reporter to register successfully on several major sites under falsified names and ID and cellphone numbers.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: old34 on September 11, 2009, 03:57:37 PM
Two interesting bits of news:

China Sets New Rules For Music Sold Online (September 5, 2009, The Wall Street Journal)
China's government ordered a cleanup of the country's online music market that will require music sites to seek approval from censors for all foreign songs they distribute on the Internet. The Ministry of Culture's measure, which affects music services provided by companies including Google Inc. and Baidu Inc., is the latest effort by the government to try to assert control over the Internet, which has some 338 million users in China, more than in any other country.

Google China Music (used as a proper noun, not a V+O) - http://www.google.cn/music/homepage (http://www.google.cn/music/homepage)  - is still working. Great source for free downloads.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on September 17, 2009, 09:04:38 PM
Nice to be wealthy!!


Chinese woman pays $695k for dog
Article from: Agence France-Presse
   
September 10, 2009 04:20pm

A MILLIONAIRE in northern China paid four million yuan ($A695,330) for a dog and ordered 30 luxury cars to come to the airport to greet her and the animal, local media report
The woman and her new pet - a black Tan Mastiff - flew into Xi'an, the capital of Shaanxi province, a report on popular news portal sohu.com said.

A convoy of 30 black Mercedes-Benz cars, led by two sports utility vehicles, drove to the airport on Wednesday to pick up the pair, who had arrived from the Tan-populated province of Qinghai in China's northwest.

Photos of the event posted with the report showed a committee of dog-lovers holding up a long red banner welcoming the mastiff to Xi'an.

The millionaire, who only gave her surname as Wang, said she and a friend had spent a long time searching for an original Tan mastiff.

"Gold has a price, but this Tan mastiff doesn't," the young woman said, according to the report.

China's economy has developed at a fast pace, creating with it an increasing number of millionaires.

Research by the Hurun Report, a magazine that tracks China's wealthiest, revealed in April that 825,000 people had personal wealth of over 10 million yuan ($1.74 million), or 0.06 per cent of the population.

The vast majority of these millionaires have said the global financial crisis has not had any impact on their lifestyle, the research said.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on September 17, 2009, 09:08:34 PM
And if you figure laowai's will get away with anything:

A GERMAN driver who caused a serious accident after he had been drinking has been ordered to serve 15 days' detention in Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, police said yesterday.

The man was the first foreigner to be caught in the city since a national campaign was launched last month aimed at stamping out drunk driving.

He was fined 1,500 yuan (US$219), Xi'an police said.

They said the man was 38 and held an EU driving license.

Liu Yang, an officer with the traffic police division in the city's Yanta District, said the German Embassy in China had requested the man's identity be kept confidential.

"Cases involving foreigners should be reported to their respective foreign embassies. The German Embassy has requested us not to release the man's identity to media," said Liu.

He said the man was also driving illegally, because traffic regulations required foreign drivers to obtain a Chinese license.

The German was sitting in the rear passenger seat when police caught him on Tuesday night. The front of his Kia car had smashed into the rear of a Jetta. Both vehicles were seriously damaged, but no one was injured. A breath test showed the man's blood alcohol level 201mg per 100ml.

The man later said he was on his way to visit his wife, a Chinese working in Xi'an, and had been drinking at his birthday party before driving.

China's Ministry of Public Security says in serious cases of drunk driving drivers face 15 days' detention.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Schnerby on September 17, 2009, 11:08:33 PM
She paid WHAT for a dog?  aoaoaoaoao

That makes me sad. When a person can waste so much money on a dog it is obscene. I don't mind a little pampering occasionally, but that money could have made a big difference to many people living in poverty.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on September 18, 2009, 02:47:30 PM
That's one expensive meal!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on September 18, 2009, 04:44:12 PM
I'd say if you were planning on having babies - China is not a super good place to do it.

Beijing birth defects rise again (September 15, 2009, BBC News)
The birth defect rate rose again in the Chinese capital Beijing last year, mirroring increases elsewhere in the country, according to figures. The city's birth defect rate has almost doubled in the last decade.  In Beijing last year, according to Chinese officials, the rate was 170 per 10,000 births. That is significantly higher than the global average.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Nolefan on September 18, 2009, 07:12:54 PM


Things are getting weird up in da jing....

and most of the city is under complete lockdown yet again today due to rehearsals for National Day llllllllll bqbqbqbqbq aaaaaaaaaa


Quote
Knife-wielding trio kill two in central Beijing

Fatal attack off Tiananmen Square amid tight security for trial parade

Al Guo
Sep 18, 2009
www.scmp.com

Three men brandishing knives killed at least two people and injured a dozen more in an apparently indiscriminate attack last night in a street a few hundred metres from Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

Two of the attackers escaped, but onlookers caught the third before police reached the scene.

The incident came hours before the highly sensitive final rehearsal for the October 1 celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic, for which security will be extremely tight. Tens of thousands of police and paramilitary police have been drafted into the centre of the capital ahead of the celebrations.

Today also sees the end of a meeting in Beijing of the Communist Party's Central Committee at which top state and military leaders are present.

Witnesses to the attack just before 7pm said the three men rampaged down a side street in the Dashilan shopping area at Qianmen, southwest of Tiananmen Square - famous for housing some of the city's oldest shops. Wielding long knives, they began their attack outside the two busiest stores, stabbing and slashing shoppers and pedestrians, shop owners and a passer-by said. The men turned into another street and continued their attack.

When onlookers understood what was happening, they began throwing bricks and lengths of wood at the men, and caught one, witnesses said, although Xinhua reported that patrolling police had captured him. Xinhua named the captive as Zhang Jianfei, 46, from the northeastern city of Jilin .

Officers at the Dashilan police station refused to comment.

The two people known to have been killed were shop security guards. Xinhua said they died in hospital despite efforts to save them.

A man riding a tricycle behind the attackers said one of the guards was stabbed in the abdomen as he tried to stop the assailants. The man also saw an elderly woman lying on the ground bleeding heavily from an abdominal wound.

The witnesses said Dashilan, which is popular with tourists, was packed with shoppers, visitors and residents taking a stroll after dinner. Several hundred metres away, Tiananmen Square was blanketed with police as technicians tested a giant screen in preparation for today's rehearsal.

Following the attack, police cordoned off most of the streets in and around Dashilan. At least 20 police cars encircled the area. At 11pm, officers were still gathering evidence.

Police would strengthen security management in key areas and downtown areas to ensure the safety of residents and tourists, Xinhua said.

People who claimed to have seen the attack and its aftermath said in internet postings that Zhou Yongkang , the member of the Politburo Standing Committee in charge of law and order, Beijing Communist Party Secretary Liu Qi and the city's mayor, Guo Jinlong, visited the crime scene.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on September 24, 2009, 09:20:51 PM
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26117421-11949,00.html (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26117421-11949,00.html)

We have the words and the offer - now let's see the implementation and effect!

I am happy to admit that there are more 'blue(ish) sky' days in Xi'an than when I arrived 5.5 years ago.  Still more would be nice.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on September 25, 2009, 06:36:33 PM
Unexpected? Not really!

Chinese cyberattacks target media ahead of anniversary (September 22, 2009, Reuters)
Foreign media in China have been targeted by emails laden with malicious computer software in attacks that appear to be tied to the run-up to the National Day military parade on October 1. While spam and viral attacks are not uncommon, the latest wave is part of a pattern of increasingly sophisticated emails tailored to tempt foreign reporters, rights activists and other targets to open infected attachments. While poor English used to be a giveaway, new techniques include mimicking a known and trusted sender, or resending legitimate emails from activist organizations with a fake, malware-laden attachment. Chinese employees working for foreign news organizations in Beijing and Shanghai got identical emails on Monday, each with an attachment carrying malware meant to exploit Adobe Acrobat software, a common application used to read PDF files. The email, which appeared to be from an economics editor named Pam Bouron, was a polite request for help lining up interviews during an upcoming visit to Beijing. It was tailored so that "Pam" appeared to work for each news organization.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Schnerby on September 25, 2009, 07:20:07 PM
Sneaky.

I left my job as a journalist in Australia and am not here on a journalist visa. I have no reason to be, I am working as a teacher.

But, I still have access to my work email in Australia. Oddly enough I got a few Chinglish emails with attachments. Even more bizarrely, one is from a woman called Pam.

Here's a great idea. We don't want bad publicity so let's do sneaky things to the people who are responsible for our coverage in the foreign media.  bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on September 25, 2009, 07:33:03 PM
So, did you open 'Pam's' attachment?  ahahahahah ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on September 29, 2009, 03:46:29 PM
Sneaky.

I left my job as a journalist in Australia and am not here on a journalist visa. I have no reason to be, I am working as a teacher.

But, I still have access to my work email in Australia. Oddly enough I got a few Chinglish emails with attachments. Even more bizarrely, one is from a woman called Pam.

Here's a great idea. We don't want bad publicity so let's do sneaky things to the people who are responsible for our coverage in the foreign media.  bibibibibi

[010]  Targeted Malware Attack on Foreign Correspondent's Based in China (09/28/2009)

Targeted Malware Attack on Foreign Correspondent's based in China

By Nart Villeneuve (nart.villeneuve@utoronto.ca) and Greg Walton
(g.walton@secdev.ca) | Sept. 26, 2009.

Overview

There have been recent reports of malware attacks on journalists based in China. The attacks specifically targeted Chinese employees working for media organizations, including Reuters, the Straits Times, Dow Jones, Agence France Presse, and Ansa. These employees received an email from "Pam <pam.bourdon@yahoo.com>"  who claimed to be an editor with the Straits Times, that came with a PDF attachment that contains malware. When opened, malicious code in the PDF exploits the Adobe Reader program and drops the malware on the target’s computer.

These attacks correlate with reports of increased security measures within China as a result of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.2 These increased security measures have also been extended to the Internet, with providers of anti-censorship technology reporting increased levels of blocking that prevents people from accessing the web sites of foreign media and news organizations.

This short briefing from the Malware Lab and the Information Warfare Monitor analyzes a sample from one of the attacks on behalf of an international news agency that operates in China, and a member of the Foreign Correspondents Club in Beijing.

Key Findings:

    * The content of the email, and the accompanying malicious attachment, are in well written English and contain accurate information. The email details a reporter’s proposed trip to China to write a story on China's place in the global economy; all the contacts in the malicious attachment are real people that are knowledgeable about or have a professional interest in China's economy.

    * The domain names used as “command & control” servers for the malware have been used in previous targeted attacks dating back to 2007. The malware domain names, as in previously documented cases, only resolve to real IP addresses for short periods of time.

    * The malware exploits vulnerabilities in the Adobe PDF Reader, and its behaviour matches that of malware used in previous attacks dating back to 2008. This malware was found on computers at the Offices of T in London, and has used political themes in malware attachments in the past.

    * The IP addresses currently used by the malware are assigned to Taiwan. One of the servers is located at the National Central University of Taiwan, and is a server to which students and faculty connect to download anti-virus software. The second is an IP address assigned to the Taiwan Academic Network. These compromised servers present a severe security problem as the attackers may have substituted their malware for anti-virus software used by students, employees, and faculty at the National Central University.

Read more here - http://www.zonaeuropa.com/200909c.brief.htm#010
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on October 09, 2009, 05:07:48 PM
Hong Kong bans pregnant women from China giving birth in city

 http://j.mp/aLWI1


Hong Kong - Hong Kong hospitals on Thursday began turning away women from mainland China arriving to give birth to ensure the city could cope with a surge in local births expected in the next three months. The territory has imposed a three-month ban on childbirth bookings by mainland mothers to ensure the city's over-stretched maternity services can deal with an expected 20-per-cent increase in deliveries by local women.

A similar ban was imposed last year as part of an on-going series of measures to reduce the number of mainland mothers giving birth in Hong Kong.

The number of so-called "maternity tourists" from China has risen steadily since the easing of cross-border restrictions in 2003.

Last year, almost 10,500 - or one quarter - of the 41,000 births in public hospitals were to non-local women.

Giving birth in Hong Kong not only guarantees them world-class health care but in many cases secures citizenship in the city of 7 million for children who would otherwise be entitled only to a Chinese passport.

Hong Kong citizenship entitles the children to free education, health care and other benefits throughout their life, the equivalent of a lottery win for children from poor families in southern China.

In 2007, Hong Kong's Hospital Authority imposed charges of up to 6,000 US dollars for each non-resident birth in bid to curb the rise.

A Hospital Authority spokesman said as a result births by mainland mothers had fallen by 12 per cent in 2008 compared with 2006.

However, the coming months are a peak period for births among local women which made reintroducing the ban necessary, said the spokesman.

Hong Kong reverted to Chinese rule in 1997 after 156 years as a British colony but maintains a tightly-controlled border and economic and political autonomy under a "one country, two systems" arrangement.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on October 10, 2009, 08:00:23 AM
Not sure if this belongs in the "reap what you sow", category or the "Only in America" one.

http://jonathanturley.org/2009/10/09/melanie-hain-gun-rights-advocate-shot-dead-in-apparent-murder-suicide/
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ccvortex on October 10, 2009, 08:49:20 AM
Right, because no one in the entire world has ever committed suicide with a gun outside of the US...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on October 11, 2009, 11:59:18 PM
I feel really sorry for the children.  First of all Mum rocks up to a soccer game armed, which of course makes all the 5 year olds feel really safe, then they are in the house when Mum and Dad have the biggest argument of their lives and have to see/hear their deaths.

Poor babies.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: mlaeux on October 12, 2009, 09:09:17 AM
Yipes!  aoaoaoaoao
Carrying a gun to the soccer game? What state was that in again?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ccvortex on October 12, 2009, 09:12:33 AM
It was a publicity stunt. Pennsylvania.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on October 17, 2009, 04:21:22 AM
I don't think we can get our hopes up yest about revising official history, but just maybe....

http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14587593&fsrc=rss (http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14587593&fsrc=rss)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on October 20, 2009, 02:20:48 AM
And what about the drought in the south??

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26230792-12377,00.html (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26230792-12377,00.html)
China begins resettling 330,000 for canal
   
From correspondents in Beijing | October 19, 2009
Article from:  Agence France-Presse

CHINA has begun resettling up to 330,000 people to make way for a much-delayed multi-billion dollar project to divert water to meet growing demand in the parched north, state media said.

People in the central provinces of Henan and Hubei are being moved to make way for a canal from the Danjiangkou reservoir in Hubei to Beijing, Xinhua news agency said.

Under the project, waters from a tributary of the Yangtze river, the country's longest, will be diverted to arid northern China.

The canal is part of the central line in a projected 400 billion yuan ($63.35 billion) project originally envisioned as a three-line system of canals and pipes.

Environmentalists have long criticised the project for its huge costs, while warning of corruption in the building and resettlement processes.

Water was originally slated to begin flowing from the central line to Beijing by 2010 but was postponed to 2014 largely due to the resettlement issue, earlier reports said. The delay will further complicate water shortages in northern China that experts blame on global warming, drought, and rising demand in the booming Beijing region.

Currently water is being diverted from parched Hebei province to provide emergencies supplies for neighbouring Beijing.

According to plans, in 2014 about 13 billion cubic metres of water is expected to be channelled along the central canal from the Yangtze tributary every year, with one tenth intended for Beijing.

Costly plants to treat badly polluted water along the project's eastern line have also put construction and delivery of water on that line behind schedule, earlier reports said.

The difficulties on the eastern and central line also prompted the government to postpone construction on the western line which was slated to begin in 2010.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on October 20, 2009, 02:24:01 AM
Pick 'em up, move 'em on.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/10/19/2718382.htm?section=justin (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/10/19/2718382.htm?section=justin)
Villagers relocated after lead poisoning

By China correspondent Stephen McDonell

Thousands of villagers in China will be relocated from an area around a dangerous lead smelter.

Hundreds of children living in Jiyuan in central Henan Province were found to have excessive levels of metal in their blood, according to a Chinese newspaper.

The English-language China Daily has reported that 15,000 villagers who live near the country's largest lead smelter will now be moved.

The company that runs the smelter, Yugong Gold and Lead, has admitted to at least some culpability for the dangerous levels of metal in children's blood, which can lead to anaemia and brain damage.

It is reported that more trees will be planted to try to stop the spread of lead poisoning.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on October 20, 2009, 09:32:16 AM
Does that water diversion project creep out anyone else?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on October 20, 2009, 03:08:56 PM
Definitely me.  Although we had the Snowy Scheme and the Ord Scheme so... I can't point too many fingers.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mister Barfly on October 21, 2009, 03:00:54 PM
http://www.chinasmack.com/pictures/train-attendant-selection-process-beauty-contest/

Best place to find a girlfriend (if you like them young), all the selection work has been done for you.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on October 21, 2009, 04:49:00 PM
This one isn't China specific (although it does mention China) but I think it is fascinating and would be really useful with students - talking about the effects of technology on people.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/10/19/revolution_in_a_box?print=yes&hidecomments=yes&page=full (http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/10/19/revolution_in_a_box?print=yes&hidecomments=yes&page=full)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Schnerby on October 22, 2009, 12:00:41 AM
Pick 'em up, move 'em on.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/10/19/2718382.htm?section=justin (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/10/19/2718382.htm?section=justin)
Villagers relocated after lead poisoning

By China correspondent Stephen McDonell

Thousands of villagers in China will be relocated from an area around a dangerous lead smelter.


This one really bothers me. I lve in Henan and so far have found (well read baout online) closed villages of diseased people, orphan communities and now this.

I'm pretty sure I know the location of an AIDS community. We get turned away by armed guards when riding our bikes nearby and the students get twitchy talking about that area. They're barbed wired in and it's quite a hike from the main road.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Nolefan on October 22, 2009, 01:59:37 AM

Not exactly a news item but it is in the news and i find the article fascinating!!!

http://globalvoicesonline.org/2009/10/20/china-from-heroic-to-ignorant-masses-and-then/

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on October 22, 2009, 03:12:54 AM
Really fascinating!   Subtle movements are interesting to watch. 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mister Barfly on October 22, 2009, 02:48:02 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/21/AR2009102103567.html

Maybe an Asia-Union on the horizon
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on October 22, 2009, 05:55:26 PM
Interesting article.  I wonder how far the investigations will go.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091021/ap_on_re_as/as_china_gangs
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mister Barfly on October 24, 2009, 02:37:22 PM
I havent had chance to read all of it yet, but it seems like a very interesting article, from people that go to Palestine every year.

http://www.thecommentfactory.com/palestine-in-pieces-an-interview-with-kathleen-and-bill-christison-2406

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-accused-of-denying-palestinians-access-to-water-1809948.html
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on October 31, 2009, 03:54:27 PM
Hahahahahahahahah riiiiight

South Korea and Japan consider history textbook with China

http://ow.ly/xNu4
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on October 31, 2009, 08:22:37 PM
Don't give lifts to anyone.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26273283-25837,00.html (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26273283-25837,00.html)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: The Local Dialect on November 01, 2009, 03:52:16 PM
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/nyregion/31kidnap.html?pagewanted=2&sq=international%20kidnapping&st=cse&scp=1 (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/nyregion/31kidnap.html?pagewanted=2&sq=international%20kidnapping&st=cse&scp=1)

Unbelievable. An FT in China kidnaps his daughter from her mother and the child ends up abandoned in a Chinese orphanage. What a sack of  asasasasas.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on November 01, 2009, 04:19:41 PM
The bloke clearly loves his daughter - NOT!  Nasty fella, into power plays for control.  I hated custody battles back in OZ when I was working with Families.  It usually ended up not being about the child but about who had the most power, who could hurt the other person most.  Interviewing people in these cases was horrible.  Trying to make recommendations for the court given the web of lies proffered was hard.  But.. this one should be a no-brainer for the US welfare authorities to recommend to the courts that he never be allowed unsupervised access to his child again.  US courts do have parental, care worker, GP/Dr etc interviews before making any form of custody order, don't they?  My knowledge of US custody stuff is limited to Kramer vs Kramer!!

Poor little girl - she must have been so frightened in a Chinese orphanage - those places are NOT filled with light and loving care!!  Pleased mum got her back.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on November 01, 2009, 04:56:46 PM

39 year old singer Chen Lin 陈琳 committed suicide last night in Beijing by jumping from her apartment.

http://j.mp/2q5iSj (Chinese)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on November 01, 2009, 07:09:34 PM
Stil

Won't open here  llllllllll
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on November 03, 2009, 02:35:28 AM
Middle school kidnapping plot busted in Jilin
from Danwei

City Evening News
November 2, 2009
Two teenage girls from rural Siping in Jilin Province conspired with a 19-year-old high school dropout who was working in a bar, to sell local middle school girls into prostitution.

Zhao and Dong, both fourteen years old, tricked five middle-school students into coming with them to the city of Gongzhuling, where they held them for 68 hours before they were discovered by police.

Zhao and Zou, the 19-year-old, hatched the unsuccessful moneymaking scheme online. "I wanted to take them off to be working girls. They'd sell their bodies and we'd make money," Zou later confessed to police.

Here's how things went down, according to a report in the City Evening News:

On October 15, Zhao called up Zou and arranged for him to rent a car to pick up a few girls from Gujiazi. She and Dong would meet him there. At 10 am on the 16th, Zou rented a Songhuajiang mini-van and arrived at the gate to Middle School #2 in the Liaohe rural administration district. When classes let out at 11, Zhao had five of her classmates get in the car by telling them that it was her birthday and she was taking them to lunch. She first said that they were going to eat in Lishu, but when they got there she said they would go on to the city of Gongzhuling. Zou lied to a friend, saying that his girlfriend was in town but had no place to stay. He borrowed a key and took them to his friend's place. At 6 that evening, Zou went out to ask around but was unable to find any place to "take in" the girls, so he returned after buying some things to eat.

After supper on the 16th, one girl said that she wanted to go home, and the other girls began to agitate for hiring a cab home. The suspects placated them by saying they'd be sent home the following day. After the argument, Zhao dragged the girl who first suggested going home into the next room and beat her with a belt.

The article goes on to describe more beatings at the hands of Zhao and Dong over the next two days. Zou was apparently prepared to take the girls back home on the morning of the 17th after he was unable to sell them into prostitution.

Parents of the missing girls notified police on the afternoon of the 17th, and the girls were rescued at 7 am on the 19th after a 39-hour investigation.

The happy conclusion:

On the morning of the 19th, parents of the five kidnapped girls came to the police station bearing two banners. Practically every parent called out through tears, "If the police hadn't rescued them in time, who knows what would have happened to our kids. At the critical moment, the people's police came through!" As they were taking their children home, the parents tried to press a stack of cash on the officers in charge of the case, but the police politely declined.

A more banal threat to secondary education appeared in the sidebar of today's paper: the eight "unwritten rules" that govern elementary and middle schools. The article, cribbed from a CCTV report, pairs a rule enacted to make education more fair or to reduce student stress with circumstances that actually exist in many parts of the country:

No matriculation tests; parents compete for spots in schools
Entrance exams may be prohibited, but there are lots of other ways to jockey for access to the best schools;
School selection fees have disappeared in name only; parents make "voluntary" donations;
Mathematics Olympiad stopped; "Hope Cup" takes its place
Zhejiang's Department of Education put a stop to the extracurricular, competition-focused math program in primary schools, but the drive to gain awards has kept supplemental math classes alive;
No promotion-based rankings; schools still compete for top honors
Schools aren't supposed to compare advancement rates;
"Key classes" prohibited; "innovative classes" keep cropping up
According to Ministry of Education rules, compulsory grade levels are not supposed to be divided into ordinary classes and "experimental classes," "accelerated classes," "innovative classes," and so forth. Many schools continue to divide up their student body, but they're more circumspect about the terminology used;
No make-up classes on holidays; Classes are still made-up, but in a separate location;
Teachers may not conduct paid tutoring; Swap classes and teach
Teachers tutor but aren't often called out on it. They're only catering to market demand;
No full-time test prep classes; Entire classes change locations.
Links and Sources
City Evening News (Chinese): Two 14-year-old girls kidnap 5 junior high girls, Eight unwritten rules for primary and secondary schools
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: old34 on November 03, 2009, 03:44:30 AM
France may be hiring native English speaking teachers soon?

http://is.gd/4L2hh (http://is.gd/4L2hh)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on November 03, 2009, 11:58:32 AM
Quote
"The legacy of cultural protectionism is one factor, and the way foreign languages are taught in school is another. Students pass language exams only to discover they can't really speak [the language]."
Sounds like China!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Eagle on November 03, 2009, 01:57:14 PM
Is it any different in any country taking a second language in a public school?  I know that in the USA and Canada, learning a second language is noted as a score on report cards, not in real ability to function in that language in the countries where that language is spoken.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Schnerby on November 04, 2009, 01:25:34 AM
"China Dismisses Minister of Education"


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/world/asia/03china.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=china%20education&st=cse


Did someone say corruption?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on November 04, 2009, 04:00:30 AM
Certainly not a lot there that is news to most of us. Neither the systemic abuse nor the scapegoating should surprise any of us. Q now is, is the new minister just another fall-guy, or is he a real minister, someone who is interested in grabbing the reins and controlling the horses? <shakes head> Next!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on November 04, 2009, 06:33:12 AM
The last dozen posts demonstrate perfectly why this is close to my favourite thread.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on November 05, 2009, 05:49:34 AM
Disney says China approved Shanghai theme park.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j2yn_cPHYvvMlIL5IHOpjGC-MfjAD9BOI6A80 (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j2yn_cPHYvvMlIL5IHOpjGC-MfjAD9BOI6A80)

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on November 05, 2009, 04:56:24 PM
Melbourne baby saved with experimental drug13:00 AEST Thu Nov 5 2009
By ninemsn staff

Baby Z pictured during treatment.
More national news: Police to quiz psych patient over deathsPatience needed for Oceanic Viking: RuddTax review 'likely to be 10-year plan'Postal worker hands in $100k parcelSam Ibrahim walks free on bailPolice probe Qld fisherman stabbingRudd backs Bligh over asset salesBorthwick to lead WA oil spill inquiryStabbed teen started fight, court toldGovt criticised for under-six curriculum
A last-ditch effort by a Melbourne doctor to save a dying baby has broken new ground in world medicine.

The little girl, identified as Baby Z, was born in May last year with the rare metabolic disorder known as molybdenum co-factor deficiency.

A high level of toxic sulphite in the infant's system caused the infant's brain to begin to dissolve.

She suffered seizures just 60 hours after birth and was given little hope of survival after being diagnosed with the fatal condition at the Monash Children's Hospital.

But determined doctors grasped onto a slim chance after scouring medical journals.

First biochemist Dr Rob Gianello discovered a research paper detailing an experimental drug called CPMP precursor Z, developed by German plant biologist Professor Gunther Schwarz.

He had successfully used the treatment on mice with the disease in 2004, but no human trials had taken place.

Monash research clinician Dr Alex Veldman and his team contacted Prof Schwarz in Cologne and, after being rubber stamped by the Southern Health BioEthics Panel, the little girl's treatment began.

Almost immediately, Baby Z's condition rapidly improved.

"It was really like awakening — it was just bang, and she was switched on," the Herald Sun reported Alex Veldman as saying.

The baby's level of alertness improved significantly within days.

Her head circumference, which remained static during her first six weeks, started to increase after cPMP substitution was commenced.

Baby Z was allowed to go home about four weeks into her treatment course and is now described as "delightful" by her amazed mother.

The medical long shot is already paying dividends overseas with news that a German baby is also undergoing the same treatment for an identical illness.

The four-week-old boy is also showing rapid improvement after being prescribed cPMP following the Melbourne success.

"This is a first life saving treatment for this fatal disease with global implications," Dr Veldman said.

"The team at Southern Health managed to get this therapy from bench to bedside in about two weeks, a process which normally takes several years."

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/927292/melbourne-baby-saved-with-experimental-drug
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Ruth on November 05, 2009, 06:11:10 PM
Quote
"The team at Southern Health managed to get this therapy from bench to bedside in about two weeks, a process which normally takes several years."
Good thing they let the experimental therapy take place.  From the sounds of it, that little girl didn't have a couple of years to wait for the bureaucratic approval process.  Nice to see that sometimes things work out.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Schnerby on November 06, 2009, 05:11:39 AM
"Photo of naked woman in prostitution bust triggers rage"

http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/photo-of-naked-woman-in-prostitute-bust-triggers-rage-20091105-hydl.html (http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/photo-of-naked-woman-in-prostitute-bust-triggers-rage-20091105-hydl.html)
Quote

A photo showing a plainclothes policeman pulling a naked woman by the hair during a prostitution bust in central China has caused outrage on the internet, where it has been widely circulated.

The photo was one of a series taken by local media covering a police raid on prostitution and gambling dens in Zhengzhou, capital of Henan province, said the official China Daily, which also published the controversial picture...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on November 08, 2009, 01:50:49 PM
Shrooms return to China

 http://twurl.nl/fdfcly
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on November 08, 2009, 01:52:59 PM
China's Second Largest Lake Shrinking Fast

http://tinyurl.com/yfsc23n
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on November 08, 2009, 02:00:40 PM
Rebuilding in Sichuan, Wenchuan

Bricks That Fall Apart in Your Hands

(Chinese) http://tr.im/EtN3

(Emglish) http://tr.im/EtNa
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on November 20, 2009, 03:04:37 PM
Ummm.... not good.

China investigates 2 deaths after flu vaccinations (November 14, 2009, AP)
Two people in China who received swine flu vaccinations died in the past week but at least one death appears unrelated to the vaccine and the other was being investigated. The country's health ministry reported the deaths late Friday on its Web site - the first time China has announced deaths with potential links to the Chinese-made swine flu vaccine. An autopsy showed one victim suffered a heart attack and, "experts have basically ruled out the possibility that the patient's sudden death was the result of immediate allergic reactions to the flu vaccines," the ministry statement said. Experts were waiting for more lab results, it added. An autopsy on the second person was scheduled for late Friday, but no results had been reported Saturday morning.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on November 20, 2009, 03:07:50 PM
And this one is going to happen as well!!

No bars, no mistresses, Chinese officials warned (November 14, 2009, AP)
Chinese officials are being told to dump their mistresses, avoid hostess bars, and shun extravagances as part of the Communist party's efforts to clamp down on the corruption that is threatening its rule and sullying its reputation. The language of the new morality push, one of countless such campaigns informally under way, is surprisingly bold, often cutting through the bureaucratese to make a clear link between moral lassitude and corruption. One statistic trotted out at a recent speech to bureaucrats: 95 percent of officials investigated for corruption were found to be keeping mistresses.




IN Xi'an a couple of weeks ago the police raided the fancy hotels and the KTVs and arrested/kicked out all of the 'hostesses'.  Not sure how long the clamp down lasted though.  ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on November 20, 2009, 03:54:25 PM
Also thought this one was interesting:

Washington Post: China is Changing Us.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/13/AR2009111303151.html (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/13/AR2009111303151.html)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: radiojedi on November 20, 2009, 11:08:00 PM
Random story from the American midwest.

I especially love the last line, "They escaped their containment ponds soon thereafter and have been swimming north since." Sounds like some bad sci-fi movie...


Asian carp may have breached barrier By Dan Egan , Milwaukee Journal Sentine

The decade-old battle to keep Asian carp out of the Great Lakes may be over.

New research shows the super-sized fish likely have made it past the $9 million electric fish barrier on the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, a source familiar with the situation told the Journal Sentinel late Thursday.

The barrier is considered the last chance to stop the super-sized fish that can upend entire ecosystems, and recent environmental DNA tests showed that the carp had advanced to within a mile of the barrier.

That research backed the federal government into a desperate situation, because the barrier needs to be turned off within a couple of weeks for regular maintenance. The plan is to spend some $1.5 million to temporarily poison the canal so the maintenance work can be done.

But even as those plans are being finalized the news everyone dreaded came: It might be too late.

Now the only thing left standing between the fish and Lake Michigan is a heavily used navigational lock at Navy Pier.

Army Corps officials declined to comment on the situation.

"I am not prepared to discuss this today, but I will be prepared to discuss this tomorrow," Col. Vincent Quarles, commander of the Chicago District of the Army Corps Engineers, said when asked about news that the fish had breached the barrier.

The Army Corps, along with its state and federal partners in the barrier's design and operation, has scheduled a news conference for 10 a.m. Friday.

The fish that can grow to more than 50 pounds or more are a big deal because they are voracious feeders, overwhelming native species, and they pose a huge hazard to recreational boaters because of their habit of jumping out of the water when agitated by the whir of a boat motor.

No fish have been found, but a new type of DNA testing that can show the presence of fish in the water shows that the barrier does not appear to have worked at stopping all the fish.

"We've got some bad problems," Dan Thomas, president of the Great Lakes Sport Fishing Council, said when told the news.

Thomas said the plan to poison the canal is going to have to grow to cover areas above the barrier, which is about 20 miles downstream from the Lake Michigan shoreline.

"Unless we treat that canal real quick as far up as we can, then we can almost be assured that they're on their way into the lake," he said.

For several years, the northern migration of the silver carp, which can grow to 50 pounds, had stalled in a pool just above the Dresden Island Lock and Dam on the Des Plaines River southwest of Joliet, Ill. - about 20 miles downstream from the barrier.

In August the Journal Sentinel learned the environmental DNA testing that biologists had quietly begun using on the canal revealed that the fish had started to move again. It's been all hands on deck ever since.

In addition to plans to poison the river, the Army Corps is scrambling to build a twin to the new barrier. It also is looking at building an emergency berm to prevent the fish from riding floodwaters from the carp-infested Des Plaines River into the canal above the barrier.

The two species of Asian carp threatening to invade Lake Michigan are silver and bighead carp. It's not known which species - or whether both species - have been detected above the barrier with DNA tests.

Silver carp are considered the bigger threat to the economy, ecology and culture of the Great Lakes because of the penchant for leaping out of the water and injuring boaters.

Silver carp were imported to Arkansas in the 1960s where they were used in federally funded sewage treatment experiments.

They escaped their containment ponds soon thereafter and have been swimming north since.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on November 20, 2009, 11:47:00 PM
http://tr.im/FlSJ

What Chinese Waitresses Really Think About Foreign Clientele

Nov 14, 2009
By Mark Turner, www.eChinacities.comFont Size:

Favourite bars, and what took place in at them over the weekend, are two of the most popular topics for water-cooler banter in the work place amongst foreigners. Visiting bars is a favourite expat pastime and this is unlikely to change in the near future. One subject that is not heard so much around the water-cooler is the goings-on in bars from the perspectives of the people that work in them. In order to lend a voice to the more-often-than-not mute bartender, I decided to don my roving reporter hat, take up my pen and pad, and go find out what Beijing’s underpaid, sometimes harassed, and sometimes snooty bartenders and waitresses really think about the human zoo that is bar culture in China.

Having spoken to a handful of people, it seems that there is a great divide between the way Chinese bar clientele and their foreign counterparts approach bars; this is one of the things that fascinate bar staff the most. “As soon as Chinese people come into my bar, they try to find a comfortable place to sit down, and straight away they plan what they are going to order. They probably want to order a lot of drinks and some nuts or snacks… I want this, this and this, oh and six of those!” says Gladys, a waitress. Rather than identifying oneself as a person receiving to wait on, foreigners instead mostly head straight for the alcohol, like a herd of thirsty bison to a watering hole.

Many believe that despite this eagerness, foreigners are still more discriminating about what they drink. “Chinese people don’t care so much about quality; they are mostly impressed by price. Foreigners care more about quality.” Gladys went on to suggest that certain types of foreigners and nationalities even have particular favourites: ”In my bar French people like to drink rum and coke, British people like gin and tonic, and Americans always drink dirty martinis. It has to be dirty!” Whether these generalisations are like tequila – to be taken with a pinch of salt – remains to be seen. What we do know is there are certainly a lot of differences between the way people of different nationalities approach drinking and bars.

Mating rituals are also a source of much amusement to Chinese bar staff. “Sometimes a couple go to the toilets together... I don’t think that’s the cleanest place to be, doing that kind of thing, but I guess they are the ones that pay the money... They can do what they like as long as it doesn’t hurt anybody,” speculates Li Li, bartender at a popular Beijing bar. The way that the male of the species tries to attract a potential mate is also a subject under scrutiny. Chinese males tend to assume the hunter-gatherer role when in the bar: “Sometimes I feel like guys are trying to impress me by asking for the most expensive thing, or asking for lots of something. They don’t understand that they sometimes look really stuck up.”

Foreign guys also act in less than exemplary ways towards female bar-goers and staff; sometimes taking on an even more distasteful, predatory role after a few too many Tsingtaos. “I don’t like it when foreign men customers try to touch me or grab me when they are drunk. One time a regular followed me out of the bar after work and asked me to go back to his home. I kicked him and told him that I am a traditional Chinese girl. I thought that was very weird, because earlier in the night he showed me pictures of his wife and kids... People do strange things when they have drunk too much,” says Julia, another waitress.

There are discrepancies, also, in the other ways that Chinese and foreigners misbehave. Chinese misbehaviour tends to be a direct result of overindulgence, or misjudgment about the amount they can drink and remain sober; Westerners' misbehaviour is often more exhibitionism-related. “Chinese people often drink more than they should. Western people do more silly embarrassing things, like stand on the table, [and] take off all their clothes,” says James, a veteran bar manager.

James continued by saying that the entire meaning of bars is different for foreigners, as bar culture is a new thing to Chinese people. To many, he says, it's a novel way to spend money. For others, it is a way of gaining face, or pursuing an advantage in business circles. “Foreign people often like to dress very casual at my bar. Chinese people sometimes come wearing a suit; they want to impress the people they work with.”

As China’s bar scenes grow, it will be interesting to see how the drama of the human zoo unfolds. Will the culture of alcohol transcend national boundaries, leading to Chinese people adopting more Western attitudes toward drinking, or vice-versa? Until then, ganbei!

***
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: harry_aus on November 21, 2009, 05:33:54 AM
Australian Teacher jailed for Sex Offences

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,26375776-421,00.html

Hey guys - you're in for a shock here - the offender
is a woman!     mmmmmmmmmm
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on November 21, 2009, 07:15:35 AM
Judging from the news reports, in the USA, female offenders of that sort are at least equal to male offenders, if not noticeably more common.  Of course, the larger percentage of teachers being female in the USA probably helps make that happen.

Still, male teachers are always the subject of suspicion.  When I taught elementary school, I was having a conversation with the principal in the hallway before class started.  While we were talking, she hugged a number of male and female students, as did several other female teachers within sight of us.  Then a 3rd grade girl came up from behind me and gave me a quick hug before I even noticed she was there.  As soon as the girl stepped away, I was warned to "Watch it" in a dire tone of voice.  The level of hypocrisy was truly amazing.

What makes this more offensive is that female teachers who do this almost inevitably get MUCH lighter sentences than male teachers.  Worse, I see almost zero press reports of non-teacher females being charged for having sex with underage males.  I'm guessing that if there's not a teacher and school board involved, the whole thing gets shoved under the rug.

So, as far as life in the USA goes, if a 24 year old male does anything with a 14 year old girl, it's a LOONG sentence in the slammer.  If a 24 year old female does anything with a 14 year old boy, virtually nothing happens - unless she's a teacher, in which case she loses her license and gets a very light sentence.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on November 21, 2009, 08:08:44 AM
She's a 33 year old hottie.

What she did was obviously wrong, but that is an attractive woman

Begs the question - why? Kind of like why men rape or molest kids; WHY?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Newbs on November 21, 2009, 10:07:20 AM
Important breakthrough in Sino-Australian relations.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/20/2749238.htm (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/20/2749238.htm)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on November 21, 2009, 10:52:03 AM
As usual, the AFL sends a couple of mediocre teams to do the International thing. kkkkkkkkkk Still, it might give Melbourne a chance to see what a large number of people together might look like. Must be disheartening for them to play in front of two men and a dog, each week. I might suggest they send Geelong and West Coast to Jinan to play an exhibition.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: harry_aus on November 21, 2009, 06:25:05 PM
My comment on that lady teacher was rather glib. Further
reading of this story reveals that she originally
had some personal issues, which then led to alcohol abuse, and after that,
these offences. I think she carries a great deal of sadness, and her behaviours
have been those of a person who lost their way. But, none of that, as you ask,
answers that fundamental question of "why?". The sentence of 4 years + is quite a severe term, and maybe the courts want to send some type of message out.
The whole thing is puzzling to me.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on November 21, 2009, 08:55:32 PM
The answer to 'why' for any form of abuse (sex/domestic/workplace/sewing circle etc) is power and control.  If you feel internally powerless then you use your position/strength/gender/money/etc to make yourself feel powerful.  And with sex abuse you get the added bonus of that magic reinforcement - orgasm.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on November 21, 2009, 11:22:11 PM
She's a 33 year old hottie.

What she did was obviously wrong, but that is an attractive woman

Begs the question - why? Kind of like why men rape or molest kids; WHY?

Has it ever occurred to you that maybe you are a paedophile, but you just haven't met the right child yet?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on November 21, 2009, 11:36:00 PM
Kitano. Sometimes it's a good idea to re-read a post before you hit the "post" button.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: pydilyk on November 22, 2009, 03:07:17 AM
title pretty much says it all

http://russiatoday.com/Top_News/2009-07-20/Transformers_fan_drank_gasoline_to_gain_energy_.html
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: mlaeux on November 22, 2009, 03:33:22 AM
  aoaoaoaoao   The kid is lucky to be alive.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on November 22, 2009, 03:48:54 AM
Good job he didn't decide to start smoking too  agagagagag agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: harry_aus on November 22, 2009, 05:45:54 AM
On a lighter-note, actress Demi Moore "furious" over
Photoshop claims:-
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/19/demi-moores-hip-photoshop_n_364469.html

Some of the statements and comments (in this earth-shattering story) have had me
laughing, viz,
Demi:-   "I am on the skinny side lately. I have no hips." ;(anatomical/medical history re-written!)
(journalist):- "The photo in W magazine showed what appeared to be part of Moore's thigh sliced off"
Sounds gruesome!  LOL
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on November 22, 2009, 07:06:10 AM
The answer to 'why' for any form of abuse (sex/domestic/workplace/sewing circle etc) is power and control.  If you feel internally powerless then you use your position/strength/gender/money/etc to make yourself feel powerful.  And with sex abuse you get the added bonus of that magic reinforcement - orgasm.

I agree with all of this, but it begs the question, "why do some people get to the point of feeling this powerless?".  So often a sexual offender was abused him or herself.  I'm sure that's a good portion of the reason.  And I wonder what the cure rate is even with intensive therapy.  Probably not high.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on November 22, 2009, 04:59:04 PM
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/obama-asia-part-iii (http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/obama-asia-part-iii)

An analysis of Obama's visit.

"In one month’s time, China will likely emerge as the second biggest economy in the world. A realistic American president has to partner with this rising power with more equality and mutual respect. ...  his visit helped enthrone China as a more equal power."
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: harry_aus on November 22, 2009, 06:49:46 PM
An interesting article, thanks.
But what does this mean about "in one month's time, China will..etc"?
What is happening, or is expected to happen, in a month's time?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on November 23, 2009, 12:39:01 AM
End of quarter economic figures will be out.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: radiojedi on November 23, 2009, 02:24:25 AM
It's from a few months back, but this article made me laugh....it's so true in Dalian, too.

Beijing loves IKEA -- but not for shopping

Customers hop into display beds and nap, pose for snapshots with the decor and enjoy the air conditioning and free soda refills. They just don't buy much....read more http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-china-ikea25-2009aug25,0,7736661.story
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: mlaeux on November 23, 2009, 03:37:32 AM
I saw that one before. What a treat! We have an Ikea in Tampa. Trust me, security would show you the door if you tried any of that nonsense.  bibibibibi

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: radiojedi on November 23, 2009, 04:44:38 AM
We have one in Dalian and it's chaos.  The one in MN back home is by the Mall of America and you get looked at funny for sitting on the chairs too long.

I saw that one before. What a treat! We have an Ikea in Tampa. Trust me, security would show you the door if you tried any of that nonsense.  bibibibibi


Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on November 23, 2009, 05:43:22 AM
Yes, the IKEA in DL is chaotic. I love going there just to people-watch. Besides, I like th swedish vodka and their cheese is nice (when they have it).
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: mlaeux on November 23, 2009, 07:27:44 AM
Mmmmmm...cheese cake.  :dancemj:
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on November 23, 2009, 07:31:11 AM
I saw that one before. What a treat! We have an Ikea in Tampa. Trust me, security would show you the door if you tried any of that nonsense.  bibibibibi


I'm back in Florida and have a video camera.  Want to go shopping and cause some chaos?   ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: mlaeux on November 23, 2009, 07:38:10 AM
EL - Sure PM me! ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: radiojedi on November 23, 2009, 09:02:30 PM
Yes, the IKEA in DL is chaotic. I love going there just to people-watch. Besides, I like th swedish vodka and their cheese is nice (when they have it).

And Swedish meatballs.  akakakakak  No vodka for me for a while until after baby is here.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on November 24, 2009, 11:35:17 PM
China executes 2 for role in tainted milk scandal

BEIJING – China executed two people Tuesday for their roles in a tainted milk powder scandal in which at least six children died and more than 300,000 became sick.
Zhang Yujun was executed for endangering public safety and Geng Jinping was executed for producing and selling toxic food, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
Their sentences were upheld in March by an appellate court in the northern city of Shijiazhuang. China requires death sentences to receive final approval from the Supreme People's Court in Beijing, after which most are carried out by lethal injection.
Xinhua said news of the execution had been issued by the Shijiazhuang Municipal Intermediate People's Court, although a court clerk who answered the phone Tuesday said he was unable to confirm the sentences had been carried out.
The case was one of China's worst-ever food safety scandals, involving tainting of infant formula with the industrial chemical melamine, which can cause kidney stones and kidney failure.
Melamine, used in the manufacture of plastics and fertilizer, was added to watered-down milk to fool inspectors testing for protein, and to boost profits.
Zhang, a cattle farmer, and Geng both had been convicted of producing and selling a phony protein powder containing melamine, much of it to producers who sold tainted milk to the now-defunct Sanlu Group Co., at the time one of China's biggest dairies. Geng's brother, Geng Jinzhu, was given eight years and his sentence was upheld Thursday.
In all 21 people were tried and sentenced in January over the scandal, including Sanlu's general manager, Tian Wenhua, who was given a life sentence after pleading guilty to charges of producing and selling fake or substandard products.
Three other former Sanlu executives were given between five years and 15 years in prison. A total of 21 defendants were being sentenced Thursday in connection with the case.
The harsh sentences underscored the government's resolve in tackling recurring food safety problems and an eagerness by the communist leadership to move past the embarrassing scandal.
However, no public investigation was ever made into accusations that news of the melamine tainting was suppressed ahead of last year's Beijing Olympic Games because the government did not want it overshadowing the prestigious event.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on November 25, 2009, 12:14:36 AM
give lethal injection to the messenger :(

there are a lot of parralels with china and italy with regards to the corruption, like they make examples of people and so on but it's all just tokenism. to really solve the problem of bribery needs a lot of guts that people just don't have

there was a shakedown on the corruption in italy in the early 1990s where pretty much the whole government got fired for bribes but as a result of that they got silvio berlusconi who is more corrupt than all of the CCP and italian governments put together

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on November 25, 2009, 12:22:59 AM
Yeah, sometimes it seems like trying to control an outbreak when 93 percent of the population is already infected.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on November 25, 2009, 12:31:32 AM
being an english gent i despair sometimes cos i have arguments with students cos they need to pay a bribe to go travelling or pass an exam and don't realise that they are part of the problem doing that

unfortunately if you want to fight corruption you do have to give up these priveledges that gangsters have, in england it's not so difficult cos you can travel and pass exams without paying people off and you do miss out on stuff but it isn't like china where you would have to pay bribes to graduate and stuff, but it is so endemic here and the system fosters it something really has to be done

i guess the next generation expect more so it will change by the time they are in power
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on November 26, 2009, 12:13:30 PM
This one is just too good to pass up.

http://www.breitbart.tv/snl-slaps-obama-over-budgetary-nuttiness/

 ahahahahah ahahahahah ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: radiojedi on November 30, 2009, 02:05:37 AM
China executes two men convicted of child trafficking

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8383116.stm

Interesting, difficult topic.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: old34 on November 30, 2009, 03:58:34 AM
This one is just too good to pass up.

http://www.breitbart.tv/snl-slaps-obama-over-budgetary-nuttiness/

 ahahahahah ahahahahah ahahahahah

EL, you're not in China at the mo', dui bu dui?

The page link loads here but the video doesn't.
Same thing with last week's scathing SNL skit on Obama's trip to China.

So, here's a question for the assembled: Why can't we view these SNL clips here in China?

Knee jerk responses about the GFW, Youtube blocks, using VPNs, Tor, etc. get 0 points.
So answer the question and let the irony flow.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on November 30, 2009, 11:22:26 AM
I'm back in exile Florida at the moment.  China should REALLY unblock that one.  It shows what would happen of Hu said what he was really thinking to Obama.  bjbjbjbjbj
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: old34 on November 30, 2009, 12:43:03 PM
Well, here's the irony...China isn't blocking SNL. Nope. Not a GFW issue at all.

NBC issues take down orders all the time to its content being shown on Youtube, thus its unavailability on Youtube.

Now, go to SNL's NBC website which is freely available from China, and up pops a message that this content cannot be streamed to users OUTSIDE the U.S. Yes, even our friends in Canada are prohibited from watching it. Likewise any sites linking to the video (such as Hulu TV) run into the same problem. In effect we have corporate censorship of content limiting it to those inside the U.S. Call it NBC's (and a few others) Great Retaining Wall.

Can't blame this one on China.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on December 04, 2009, 04:37:17 PM
IF 10,000 fewer students are applying for university entrance in Beijing - where many of these students are considered to be wealthy - how many fewer will apply in poorer areas?  And which courses will lose the most enrolments??

"College applications to sink again (December 2, 2009, China Daily)
The number of Beijing students to take university entrance exams next June is expected to drop by 10,000 from last year, setting a record low for applications in the capital city, local media said Wednesday. According to a pre-application survey among high schools in Beijing, each district will contribute about 1,000 fewer students than last year, totaling 10,000, the Beijing Morning Post reported Wednesday. However, the Beijing college enrollment office refused to comment on this prediction."
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on December 04, 2009, 05:25:50 PM
Any speculation as to why, LE? Is this a local (BJ) phenomenon, or part of a larger trend?
Smaller cohorts graduating from gaoxue? Easier or cheaper entrance standards at non-BJ unis? Fewer Ss from the boonies coming into the big, expensive city?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on December 04, 2009, 07:11:54 PM
Is there a smaller pool of prospective students to choose from?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: harry_aus on December 08, 2009, 07:53:01 PM
Caught smuggling geckos in his underwear:

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/981218/tourist-caught-smuggling-lizards-in-underwear

Female Customs officer: "Is that an iguana in your pocket, or are you.............."
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on December 09, 2009, 06:08:18 AM
Female Customs officer: "Is that an iguana in your pocket, or are you.............."

Both!  afafafafaf
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Monkey King on December 10, 2009, 09:27:24 PM
Something going down in North Korea:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6940482.ece

Imagine having your life savings just wiped out...although I doubt too many people havbe too much there anyway.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Monkey King on December 15, 2009, 04:25:56 PM
China’s Changing Views on Race (http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/13/chinas-changing-views-on-race/)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on December 15, 2009, 04:38:33 PM
Really interesting MK.  Thanks.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: old34 on December 21, 2009, 12:53:30 AM
Japanese girls (sic) want to marry Chinese (sic)!

So sayeth the People's Daily:...

Read and discuss.

http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90782/90872/6839840.html (http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90782/90872/6839840.html)

Quote
Nowadays, there is a popular saying among Japanese girls that goes "What we want is Chinese food and men, not French lovers or American houses." This means Japanese girls have lost their interest in French and American men.

In Japan, men from China are becoming more popular with Japanese girls. More than 1,500 Japanese girls married with Chinese men last year, an increase of 30 percent, which is the highest in history.

A representative from Japan's China information research institute told the reporter that the quick development of China's economy and Chinese people getting richer are the most important reasons for Japanese girls changing their appetites. Also because Japan has more women than men and Japanese men compared to Chinese men are generally less capable when it comes to being both a considerate family man and a breadwinner; today's Japanese men feel much more inferior compared with men from China because they found what they are lacking is not little.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on December 21, 2009, 03:49:14 AM
Not sure if this is just more of the usual propaganda, or a case of "the grass is always greener" I can think of a few chinese women who would gladly trade their ch men for Japeanese, for many of the reasons cited in this story.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Ruth on December 21, 2009, 02:48:22 PM
This is perfect.  There are more men in China than women.  The surplus can marry the surplus Japanese women. 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on December 23, 2009, 04:50:27 AM
China’s last tiger is eaten

The last wild Indochinese tiger in China has been killed and eaten by a villager.

By by Our Foreign Staff
Published: 9:33AM GMT 22 Dec 2009

The man was sentenced to 12 years in jail, local media reported. Kang Wannian, a villager from Mengla, Yunnan Province, met the tiger in February while gathering freshwater clams in a nature reserve near China’s border with Laos. He claimed to have killed it in self-defence.

The only known wild Indochinese tiger in China, photographed in 2007 at the same reserve, has not been seen since Kang’s meal, the Yunnan-based newspaper Life News reported earlier this month.

The paper quoted the provincial Forestry Bureau as saying there was no evidence the tiger was the last one in China.

A local court sentenced Kang to 10 years for killing a rare animal plus two years for illegal possession of firearms, the local web portal Yunnan.cn reported. Prosecutors said Kang did not need a gun to gather clams.

Four villagers who helped Kang dismember the tiger and ate its meat were also sentenced from three to four years for “covering up and concealing criminal gains”, the report said.

The Indochinese tiger is on the brink of extinction, with fewer than 1,000 left in the forests of Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on December 23, 2009, 06:22:51 AM
I consider this to be further evidence for my theory that dragons really were real creatures.  The last ones were eaten in China sometime in the last 1-3 thousand years.

You'll probably think this is a silly idea, but consider this.  If the last pandas had been eaten 1000 years ago, they would very likely be considered to be imaginary animals today.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on December 24, 2009, 12:28:36 AM
The China bubble
Last Updated: Tuesday, December 22, 2009 | 2:07 PM ET Comments2Recommend6
By Gady Epstein, Forbes.com

China's big developers are highly leveraged and dependent on low interest rates and rising prices. China's big developers are highly leveraged and dependent on low interest rates and rising prices. (Greg Baker/Associated Press)China's economy is the envy of the world. As developed nations struggle to eke out a bit of growth and to get unemployment rates out of double digits, Chinese output gallops ahead at an 8 per cent annual rate. This $4.7 trillion US economy, it seems, is the world's dynamo and the prototype for the future.

Take a close look, however, and you may come away thinking China resembles nothing so much as Japan shortly before its stock and property markets melted down two decades ago. A speculative frenzy of borrowing and bidding up is at work. If and when prices crash, there will be hell to pay.

Signs of the times: government bureaucracies funding themselves by foisting debt on state-owned business enterprises; local governments raising capital by selling land at sky-high prices to corporations they own; and a People's Bank of China lavishing liquidity on the entire system in a way that makes Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke look downright stingy.

"It's a Ponzi scheme whose head is the central bank, and it can print money," says Victor Shih, a China expert at Northwestern University.

The U.S. government's $7.2 trillion in debt at the end of June represented 50 per cent of gross domestic product. The Chinese government's officially disclosed $840 billion in public debt represents less than 20 per cent of GDP. But the People's Bank of China and the treasury are also on the hook for potentially $1.5 trillion in off-balance-sheet debt owed by cities and provinces and entities they control. They're also implicitly obliged to backstop $1 trillion, both in loans that "policy banks" were directed to issue, even when they made no economic sense, and nonperforming loans that the government removed from the books of state-owned commercial banks over the past decade.

Add it up and the national government is responsible for debt equal to over 70 per cent of 2009 GDP. That doesn't count any loans generated this year that might go sour amid a 30 per cent increase in debt balances nationwide. (The U.S. government, in addition to its direct debt equal to 50 per cent of GDP, is responsible for cosigning of mortgage borrowers' obligations equal to another 18 per cent of GDP.)

Like the U.S. housing industry a few years ago, China's big developers are highly leveraged and dependent on low interest rates and rising prices. Municipal governments are knee-deep in this asset swamp. They use land sales as a means of funding themselves.

As fast as China is growing and urbanizing, its cities are churning out more office towers and luxury malls than can be leased for years to come. Tianjin, a gritty metropolis not far from Beijing, will soon have more prime office space than will be filled in a quarter-century at the current absorption rate. Shunyi County, in the capital's suburbs, sold a residential plot last month for $400 per square foot, a new national record. The bidders were mostly state-owned companies and the winner none other than a developer owned by Shunyi County. Where the developer came up with the money for the purchase is unclear, but the county will nevertheless book $740 million as revenue from the sale.
'A pure debt game'

China's mercantilist trade policy is another contributor to its asset bubble. By artificially depressing the value of its currency and making it difficult for locals to invest abroad, China has forced an artificially large amount of capital to chase after domestic investments, inflating property and stock prices. It's the same scenario China pursued in late 2007, before its stock market lost two-thirds of its value, but that era was characterized by monetary restraint compared with today.

    'The more debt that's on the balance sheets, whether you see it or not, the more vulnerable borrowing entities become to shocks.'—Michael Pettis, Peking University

"It's a pure debt game," says Andy Xie, an economist who advises private investors and sees the current bubble as "much worse than previous ones."

In late November China's ruling Politburo declared that the nation's monetary and fiscal promiscuity will continue into 2010. The markets, predictably, were overjoyed. Economists who see parallels to the Russian and Brazilian financial crises a dozen years ago are less sanguine.

"The more debt that's on the balance sheets, whether you see it or not, the more vulnerable borrowing entities become to shocks," warns Michael Pettis, a finance professor at Peking University and expert on China's economy and sovereign debt.

China naysayers have been wrong before. Gordon Chang, author of the 2001 book The Coming Collapse of China, has warned — wrongly, so far — that doom lies around the corner. Cushioning China's economy is its high growth rate, an estimated $260 billion (but declining) annual current account surplus and, at $2.3 trillion, the world's biggest foreign exchange reserve.

Bubbles, it bears noting, tend to surprise many observers with their longevity. (A Forbes cover story warned six years too early that the U.S. housing bubble threatened to tank the economy.) But when bubbles do eventually blow, it's usually with a bang.

In the first nine years of this decade China added an average of $1.50 in new credit to the economy to produce each incremental dollar of output. With so much money chasing domestic investments, that ratio has jumped to $7 of fresh credit for each additional dollar of GDP this year, estimates Pivot Capital Management, a Monaco hedge fund.
Risk of crisis grows

All told, China's ratio of outstanding credit (government and private) to annual GDP stands at 160 per cent and could approach 200 per cent by 2011, which would be similar to the 1991 level in Japan, just as that nation began tottering off the economic precipice. (U.S. ratio: 240 per cent.) "All this points to [the idea] that credit in China is not going to be able to grow much longer without risking a crisis," Pivot concludes.

Assuming China's reckoning does arrive some day, it's impossible to say whether it might presage Japan-style deflation, Russian-style hyperinflation or American-style stagnation. For now, private, semiprivate and state-owned enterprises are getting creative to keep the boom alive. Some cash-starved local governments are believed to be asking companies to prepay 2010 corporate taxes to meet this year's budgets. It's the kind of monkeyshines you might expect in New Jersey or California, not in supposedly cash-rich China.

Related-party transactions are another popular funding source. Hainan Expressway Co. in southern China is a government-owned outfit deep in hock. In the last year it has lent some $40 million to its founding shareholder, the Hainan Department of Transportation, and booked the loan due as an asset on its balance sheet. This classification provides the Hainan Expressway with additional collateral to borrow even more in new construction loans from state-owned financial institutions and increases the risk that it will eventually default, according to Northwestern's Shih.

Western and Hong Kong investors are in on the frenzy, too. Evergrande Real Estate Group, a Guangzhou developer, recently staved off a default on short-term debt by raising $800 million in a Hong Kong initial offering, which bestowed it with a $14 billion market cap. But whom is it kidding? Sixty per cent of its "profit" this year is expected to come from increasing the reported value of its properties, a ploy that is a common source of earnings for Chinese real estate developers.

As is typical in the later stages of property booms, many investors in China appear to have discarded rental yields as a measure of how much a building is worth in favor of greater-fool pricing. In downtown Beijing office towers sold this year for $400 per square foot, despite the fact that many were unleased and many more are under construction. The leading buyers: state-owned enterprises, including banks and insurers.
Warning Signs

Asset flipping can go on only so long. At some point you need paying tenants.

    * Developers highly leveraged, dependent on easy credit.
    * Government funding via debt and land sales to state-owned corporations, prepayment of corporate taxes.
    * Total outstanding debt approaching Japan's precrash level.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on December 25, 2009, 06:29:08 PM
China’s last tiger is eaten. The last wild Indochinese tiger in China has been killed and eaten by a villager.

Its the last one, so what's the big deal. It will die soon anyways. At least a farmer had a good meal and not the other way around.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on December 26, 2009, 02:27:10 AM
China’s last tiger is eaten. The last wild Indochinese tiger in China has been killed and eaten by a villager.

Its the last one, so what's the big deal. It will die soon anyways. At least a farmer had a good meal and not the other way around.

I'll count that as a "Yes" vote on my theory of Chinese Dragons.  ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ArialFont on December 26, 2009, 07:43:07 PM
http://www.forbes.com/2009/12/24/china-internet-blacklist-beijing-opinions-columnists-gordon-g-chang.html?feed=rss_popstories (http://www.forbes.com/2009/12/24/china-internet-blacklist-beijing-opinions-columnists-gordon-g-chang.html?feed=rss_popstories)

China shuts down the internet.

God help us all.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on December 28, 2009, 10:04:21 PM
Quote
    WUHAN, Dec. 26 (Xinhua) -- The Wuhan-Guangzhou high-speed railway with the world's fastest train journey at a 350-km-per-hour designed speed, started operation Saturday.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-12/26/content_12706811.htm


Twould be fun to ride!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on December 30, 2009, 01:53:37 AM
Student who is punished to stand outside freezes to death

December 28th, 2009 by Key | Posted in News | 2 Comments »
News from Netease and everywhere: A first grade student of a middle school from Shandong Province named Zhang Jixin (张继鑫) climbed out of the dormitory walls to buy food for another student on the evening of December 17th 2009. He was spotted by the teacher on duty when climbing the wall. The teacher hit him several times and ordered him to stand still outside as a punishment. Later the teacher went out drinking and forgot about the student. At 7 am in the morning on December 18th, Zhang Jixing was found dead (freezes to death) inside of a drain on campus. Later the teacher commented “Zhang Jixing died very comfortably” in an interview which stirred even more public out-cry all over the nation.



Both principle and vise-principle of Wujin middle school in Weifang city, Linqu County were fired on December 24. However the deceased student Zhang Jixin’s stepfather Zhang Benyong told the reporter that this incident has already been “privately settled” and they will not hold any department or individual responsible.


At 5 pm on December 24, reporter once again went to Zhang Benyong’s home, he was sadly resting his head on the table by a bed, behind him is his wife Fan Weihong was lying in bed. Some neighbors were in the room, one after the other tried to comfort the sobbing couple.

“Thank you… the incident has passed.” Zhang Benyong said, through coordination of relevant departments, the school and they have reached to a “settlement” agreement. But he declined to talk about the specific amount of the “settlement” in details. He only said, “They paid off the money all in one time.” The mother lay in bed and said “Please don’t mention how much money, whenever we talk about how much money we feel like as if we sold our child for money.” When reporter was leaving, Zhang Benyong said with another deep sigh “Whether if the money is enough of not, this thing is over, we will not hold anyone responsible.”

Reporter tried to contact Linqu local education and public security department and try to learn more details about the “private settlement” but with no success.





Blog post: Child freezes to death is a shame of the education and also a failure of the parents

by Shi Sansheng (石三生)

A student named Zhang Jixin (张继鑫) from Weifan, Shandong, was frozen to death; a 14-year-old boy was frozen to death. This alerted the high officials and disturbed the people into a panic. People have varies opinions on the incident.

According to my somewhat authoritarian judgment, in the current China, even a “Zhou Tiger” (South China Tiger incident) took up numerous amount of time and energy of the people and many internet media companies nationwide. Finally the poor “Zhou Tiger” was sent to the cage for everyone in the world to watch. Such detective effort, to investigate the cause of Zhang Jixin’s death perhaps is harder than sending Yang Liwei (杨利伟) into space.

Therefore, whether the education is a disgrace or just indifference of humanity, I only want to wait and see, see what kind of explanation the big officials give us.

A 14-year-old boy died, I believe that his parents must have been in unbearable pain. Life to death is the most painful thing on earth, not to mention people with white hair are seeing off people with black hair; people with black hair are saying good bye to their under-aged son.

Zhang Jixin is gone, However when we are blindly blaming the school, blaming our education, did we ever think about blaming ourselves?

Why is a 14-year-old child like a piece of wood, without his ability to think? Why is Zhang Jixin like a little lamb waiting to be butchered? Everyone runs for their lives when disaster is imminent, this is the law even a small bird understands, why didn’t Zhang Jixin understand? He was not caged. If so, this case can be solved by idiots. There is no monkey king in the world that can draw a prison (to imprison him). What makes a 14-year-old to lose his survival instinct?

My father and I were never in good terms, even when after he passed away, I never forgive him. I am a very smart child, but not stupid. It took my mother 10 months to conceive me so it proved that I am different from other people around me. I was naughty and lively by nature when I was young. But I was always thin because of my poor nutritional childhood. From primary school to junior high school, I became the subject of entertainment and the bullies. That was nothing, but I hated my father, whether if I was right or wrong, after fighting outside, I for sure would take a beating from my father at home.

My father’s logic was “Someone else takes a shit on your head, you clean it up yourself, being at a disadvantage is a blessing.” People say “the fox may grow grey, but never good”, this is all bull shit. How can a child’s personality not related to the parents?

Our children from an early age are living in lies and fairytales. What? Teacher and student are like father and son, listen to the teacher and follow the party. What if the teacher is a beast? We should respect him for a lifetime? Worse yet, many parents openly tell the teacher to physically punish their kids on their behalf. Our children are being violated in these seemingly moral actions, to the point they learn knowledge but forget about the basic human-nature of surviving as a highly intelligent animal. How sad is that?

The dead is gone, life is doomed to a one-way street. As someone else’s parents, we are unable to change China’s education, but then you should start with yourself, educate children some basic common sense. If you are wrong, please have the courage to admit your mistake to the children.

Respect the teacher, but do not show filial obedience to the teacher like you would to your parents. Teachers also have their own children.

Do not agree to use violence, but when violence is inevitable, tell the child to run, if can’t get away, just fight it!

If the bastard teacher is punishing a child, when the teacher is there, go ahead and be obedient, but when the teach is not there, just run away. This way is not only good for the child, but also is good for the teacher. At least, the teacher will be given a murderer hat, and the parents will not need to suffer the painful death of their children.

Here, we commemorate the “comfortable” death of student Zhang Jixin.

If there is an afterlife, must remember to run, run far away, far, far away…
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: mlaeux on December 30, 2009, 06:36:16 AM
What a sad story.  alalalalal
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on December 30, 2009, 07:10:48 AM
i'm really angry with the english press and government how they are making this big thing about that heroin smuggler

he was a rich guy who lost all his money and got so desperate for cash he smuggled heroin into china. they caught him and executed him

that's the story

they are making it out like it's some big thing, it's not.

england says 'let him off, he's a bit simple' twats. anybody who decides to get involved with hardcore drug smuggling into china has serious mental problems, they aren't going to let them off cos they are fucked up
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on December 30, 2009, 07:49:50 AM
I've got mixed feelings.  If he was really unaware of the contents of the suitcase and was being used because he had mental issues, then I think he should have been let off lightly and deported on the condition that his passport be revoked and he never be allowed to travel internationally again - or at least until such time as his mental issues are "cured", thus making him 100% responsible for any future transgressions.

On the other hand, if he had the mental capacity to plan and carry out a heroin smuggling attempt, then I've got no issue at all with him being exterminated like any other vermin.  We aren't talking about a bag of weed here.  We're talking about 4 kg of something that destroys lives, wrecks families, and turns nice, trusted friends and family into criminals (yep, I had a relative slide down the slope from party person to burglarizing every relative in town to support her habit - it took multiple jail and prison sentences to finally get her back to being someone I could trust, mostly).  If he'd been caught with 4 kg of poison that was planned to be introduced into a town's water supply, no one would have worried about a harsh sentence.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on December 30, 2009, 09:18:33 AM
anybody who agrees to smuggle heroin into china has some serious mental problems. if they just deported people bringing serious amounts of heroin into the country for gangsters then it would be worth smuggling drugs for everyone cos the worst that could happen is you get sent home

like you said it's poison. personally i don't agree with the death penalty for anything, but china has the death penalty and this guy is caught bringing poison into their country so i don't understand why it's such a bad thing that they give him the harshest punishment that they have
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on December 30, 2009, 01:35:49 PM
I agree with Kitano.

Mental issues eh but well enough to raise 3 kids, get issued a passport, drivers license ....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Eagle on December 30, 2009, 02:24:26 PM
No excuses for the bum.  He was importing heroin and that is bad any way you can think of it, in any country.  Heroin destroys lives.  4kg of the shit isn't an accident. I don't buy the "I did it because I was stressed and suffering mentally."  Anyone who deals in narcotic death deserves their fate.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on December 30, 2009, 08:26:00 PM
I share EL's mixed feelings. If (big if) it can be established that he was the more or less unwitting pawn of gangsters, and really didn't know what he was carrying for them, then yes a measure of leniency is called for. However I'm not a lawyer and I'm not initmately familiar with all the gritty details of the case, so I can't say.

I may be wrong about this, but it seems to me that if the police have prepared a strong prima facia case against him, then it would be his (his lawyer's) duty to demonstrate his incapacity to take responsibility for his acitons. It would take more than just stating the claim. And no, phenomenally bad judgement is not proof of mental illness. (Going to the failure-wish thread, would you accept that as an excuse?)

In principle, I'm against capital punishment. If I'm going to debate the issue though, I'm certainly not going to use this clown as the poster boy for abolition. If anything, I see this as an example of why we foreigners should try not to meddle in China's internal affairs.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Wags on December 31, 2009, 02:18:03 AM
Often I think, "Am I too critical of standards here?"  mmmmmmmmmm

But now I know, Nope, NOOOOOOT At all:

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-12/30/content_9244857.htm (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-12/30/content_9244857.htm)

  kkkkkkkkkk
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on December 31, 2009, 02:47:50 AM
Was the bridge construction company president one of the people mentioned in the upstairs article??  ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on January 05, 2010, 11:44:32 PM
Now you don't have to worry whether you have nice underwear on for strip searches.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/travel/news/air-travellers-to-us-face-virtual-strip-search/story-e6frg8ro-1225814899575 (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/travel/news/air-travellers-to-us-face-virtual-strip-search/story-e6frg8ro-1225814899575)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on January 08, 2010, 05:36:12 PM
Do you live in the happiest city?

http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2010/01/06/happiest-city-in-china-hangzhou/ (http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2010/01/06/happiest-city-in-china-hangzhou/)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: old34 on January 09, 2010, 06:20:04 PM
Do you live in the happiest city?

http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2010/01/06/happiest-city-in-china-hangzhou/ (http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2010/01/06/happiest-city-in-china-hangzhou/)

Maybe this is what makes them so happy:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/m/hangzhou/e/2010-01/08/content_9290881.htm (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/m/hangzhou/e/2010-01/08/content_9290881.htm)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on January 09, 2010, 07:17:41 PM
Or maybe this

http://news.jongo.com/articles/07/0430/14304/MTQzMDQc3S2voXe.html
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: china-matt on January 12, 2010, 06:12:59 PM
Baidu got hacked by some angry Iranians: http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90778/90860/6866089.html
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on January 13, 2010, 05:07:50 AM
As opposed to the cheerful Iranians who hacked CareBears.com to post a message promoting International Happiness Day.  ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on January 13, 2010, 07:26:07 PM
Download music while you can, kids.

Google may end China operations
Last Updated: Tuesday, January 12, 2010 | 10:13 PM ET
The Associated Press

Google says it might end its operations in China after discovering that the email accounts of human rights activists had been breached.

The company disclosed in a blog post Tuesday that it had detected a "highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China."

Google said further investigation revealed that "a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists."

Google did not specifically accuse the Chinese government. But the company added that it is "no longer willing to continue censoring our results" on its Chinese search engine, as the government requires.

Google said the decision could force it to shut down its Chinese site and its offices in the country.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Pashley on January 13, 2010, 07:47:07 PM
Google may end China operations

See thread "Google unplugging?" in the bar.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on January 15, 2010, 10:21:00 PM
Yeah, there turn out to be 3 different threads covering this.  bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Raoul F. Duke on January 16, 2010, 11:04:03 AM
Can you guys get to the "Colbert Nation" website,
If so, check out last night's edition of 'The Word'...one of his very best, I thought...

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/261785/january-14-2010/the-word---honor-bound (http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/261785/january-14-2010/the-word---honor-bound)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on January 16, 2010, 02:03:03 PM
Colbert is great.
Chocolate Great Wall...
http://media.theage.com.au/lifestyle/essentials/chinas-great-wall-of-chocolate-1042014.html?sy=age&source=theage.com.au%2F (http://media.theage.com.au/lifestyle/essentials/chinas-great-wall-of-chocolate-1042014.html?sy=age&source=theage.com.au%2F)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on January 19, 2010, 08:07:49 PM
Anyone teaching in Guangdong??  Big Brother is watching you!!

100,000 electric eyes to watch college students (January 13, 2010, China Daily)
Guangdong authorities plan to install 100,000 electric eyes at colleges and universities in the province to ensure safety, Guangzhou Daily reported. The electric cameras will cover 50 percent of the college dormitories and keep records of what they see for at least 20 days. Campus buildings, squares, dining halls and parking lots will be covered by the watchful electric eyes, the report said.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on January 20, 2010, 04:28:37 AM
Note to self - tap into cameras monitoring the girls' dorm.  afafafafaf
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on January 20, 2010, 07:38:53 AM
Contest: which dorm room can steal the most cameras?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: thedogateit on January 20, 2010, 09:38:57 AM
If you want to see Avatar in 2-D act fast.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2010/01/avatar-pulled-from-2d-screens-by-chinese-government.html
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on January 20, 2010, 02:14:19 PM
If you want to see Avatar in 2-D act fast.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2010/01/avatar-pulled-from-2d-screens-by-chinese-government.html


It's definitely better in 3D if you can see it that way.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: DaDan on January 20, 2010, 07:55:14 PM
A conservative Republican elected to US Senator in MA the bluest state in the union.

`Changed!
 cccccccccc
blblblblbl
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on January 21, 2010, 07:31:32 AM
Looks like the voters in Massachusetts decided they wanted a free and open debate instead of backroom vote buying.  I personally am all in favor of trying to fix healthcare in the USA, but it needs to be done in an open and honest fashion.

Ted Kennedy was good at reaching across the aisle and finding solutions acceptable to more than just his own state and personal liberal views.  I think he'd be pleased to see that by breaking the filibuster-proof majority, his elected replacement will force some real bipartisanship on an important issue.

Now maybe Congress can get down to work and do this on CSPAN instead of in a smoke filled room.


Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on January 21, 2010, 09:10:32 AM
I personally am all in favor of trying to fix healthcare in the USA, but it needs to be done in an open and honest fashion.

I think (Ted Kennedy)would be pleased to see that by breaking the filibuster-proof majority, his elected replacement will force some real bipartisanship on an important issue.

Now maybe Congress can get down to work and do this on CSPAN instead of in a smoke filled room.

It would be nice if that were the result, but that's not what will happen.  The Republicans are against any health care reform whatsoever and will stall this as long as possible.  And with the cloture rules in the Senate, that will likely be forever.

I think the Dems should nut-up and play hardball.  Let the Republicans filibuster for weeks on end and publicize the details as the waste of time and money that a filibuster is.  The emotion that the Republicans have counted on would eventually run its course and they would be on the defensive.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ArialFont on January 23, 2010, 04:55:29 PM
I just don't know where else to put this. Move it if it's in the wrong place, oh Powers that Be.

http://www.youtubecn.com/ (http://www.youtubecn.com/)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lone Traveller on January 24, 2010, 12:17:05 AM
So, everyone who's still living in China.... What's the deal with Google???

Caught only the end of a news story tonight saying something about Google being either blocked or censord in some way and that it had something to do with the U.S.

Can anyone elighten me? (I'm notorious for only picking up 1/2 stories)  bfbfbfbfbf

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on January 26, 2010, 08:13:18 PM
Quote
Dictionaries have been removed from classrooms in southern California schools after a parent complained about a child reading the definition for "oral sex".

Merriam Webster's 10th edition, which has been used for the past few years in fourth and fifth grade classrooms (for children aged nine to 10) in Menifee Union school district, has been pulled from shelves over fears that the "sexually graphic" entry is "just not age appropriate", according to the area's local paper.

The dictionary's online definition of the term is "oral stimulation of the genitals". "It's hard to sit and read the dictionary, but we'll be looking to find other things of a graphic nature," district spokeswoman Betti Cadmus told the paper./quote]
Tuff job, but it has to be did!
I always thought dictionaries were there to provide needed information.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jan/25/oral-sex-dictionary-ban-us-schools (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jan/25/oral-sex-dictionary-ban-us-schools)

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on January 26, 2010, 08:24:16 PM
It's not April Fool's Day yet!!  Not even in California.

So - all dictionaries and encyclopedias will now be pulled from the school?  Or they could do as the Chinese do and cover up offending entries with white-out or pasted paper.  But even here it is only used for 'T' words.  kkkkkkkkkk kkkkkkkkkk kkkkkkkkkk


Love it!!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: teacheraus on January 26, 2010, 10:38:58 PM
Not that I think it will affect many people here in the Saloon but I did just read this story proposing to jail or fine people in China who eat dogs or cats.

Quote
China to jail people for up to 15 days who eat dog
By Zhao Chunzhe (chinadaily.com.cn)
China has launched its first draft proposal to protect the country's animals from maltreatment including a measure to jail people who eat dog for up to 15 days, the Chongqing Evening News reported today.

The pilot scheme aims to protect the nation's animal from misuse or injury and defines maltreatment as hurting or killing animals in a cruel manner.

The draft has nine chapters covering major regulations including animal medical treatment, transportation and butchers regulations.

It also proposes that people caught eating dog or cat meat will be detained for no more than 15 days with a fine of 5,000 yuan ($732). Any unit or group found violating the rule will be fined between 10,000 yuan ($1,464) to 500,000 yuan ($73,239).

"It won't impact people's lives because only few people eat the meat of dogs and cats," said Chang Jiwen, a principal drafter.

China National Native Produce & Animal By-Products Import & Export Corporation backed the act saying it will encourage its trade volume of down and cashmere, the report said.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: thedogateit on January 27, 2010, 02:18:09 AM
I don't know how the people in Dongbei will take this. Almost all of my students and colleagues eat dog. It's even served in the campus cafeterias.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: mlaeux on January 27, 2010, 03:19:00 AM
Doesn't this refer to swiping random cats and dogs off the street and not farm raised dogs? (Not sure about the farm raised cats though.) Not that I condone eating dog and/or cat meat, but I seem to recall that the dogs are a special breed (although I don't know what kind) specifically farmed for well, you know, a food source.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: teacheraus on January 27, 2010, 04:11:37 AM
I gather at the moment it is draft legislation so no timeframe at this stage. From what I have read it does seem to be talking about total ban. As a story it has even made the Australian ABC news site.  The following is what they had to say about the story.

Quote
China flags scrapping dog meat from menus

Dog and cat meat - age-old delicacies in China - could be off the menu in the food-loving nation under its first law against animal abuse, state press has reported.

People who eat either animal, both of which are viewed as promoting bodily warmth, would face fines of up to 5,000 yuan ($813) and up to 15 days in jail if the law is passed, the Chongqing Evening News said.

It says organisations involved in the practice would be fined from 10,000 to 500,000 yuan.

The law has been at the drafting stage over the past year and the report did not make clear when the legislation was expected to become law.

China's rubber-stamp legislature meets in March but draft legislation can often take years to be approved.

Cruelty to animals and the raising of cat and dog meat for dinner tables remains widespread in China, despite growing consciousness over animal welfare.

Restaurants touting "fragrant meat," a euphemism for dog, can be seen in cities throughout the country, where the fondness for dogs as pets co-exists with a taste for canine meat.

Cat meat is most popular in parts of southern China and there are regular reports of animal lovers attempting to block trucks carrying hundreds or even thousands of cats to meat markets and eventually dinner tables there.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: mlaeux on January 27, 2010, 04:47:15 AM
Quote
Cat meat is most popular in parts of southern China and there are regular reports of animal lovers attempting to block trucks carrying hundreds or even thousands of cats to meat markets and eventually dinner tables there.
aoaoaoaoao  and  ananananan
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on January 27, 2010, 08:43:26 AM
So they are becoming animal rights activists?  Any irony there?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: thedogateit on January 29, 2010, 03:31:35 AM
R.I.P. Howard Zinn  http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/01/howard_zinn_his.html
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on January 29, 2010, 03:40:31 AM
Puppies are cuter than people.  Ask the British!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on January 29, 2010, 04:07:33 AM
I witnessed the way they treated dogs before killing them at the market yesterday. Banning dog meat is fine by me...if they would also make it legal to beat eight kinds of crap out of malicious sadists who take a perverse joy in animal cruelty, it would be even better!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on January 29, 2010, 04:46:49 AM
I hope this is about the eating of strays (or pets) and not the more standard food dogs. I love dog meat. It's a regular dish for me.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on January 29, 2010, 04:16:35 PM
The great karaoke-based protest movements are being repressed!

China's Big Brother Is Watching Karaoke (January 27, 2010, Yahoo! News)
Karaoke will never be the same in China. The government there has created a new law called the "National Karaoke Content Management System," also know as "The Black Box," which censors singers from belting out lyrics that are obscene or call for independence in places including T. A few of the phrases on the list of obscenities include "nightmare," "even pigs die," and "conquer the world." Nearly 180 bars in the city of Chonqing and hundreds more around the country are already being subjected to the karaoke crackdown, with police automatically notified when an illicit phrase is sung. The same device that is installed in bars is also used to stop piracy and the import of unlicensed music.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on January 30, 2010, 02:27:06 AM
Can we please ask them to censor the theme song to Titanic.  aaaaaaaaaa
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on January 30, 2010, 06:06:31 AM
<intoxicated post alert: the poster is currently intoxicated and may later regret (or not) any offending words in the following post/>
I have a love/strong dislike-but-several-steps-from-hate thing with KTV. I love going there with a group of colleagues, students, business clients, whatever, and getting well-wrecked and singing and having a good time, one and all. I hate the fact that, foreigness being what it is, most of the music that I would sing is simply unknown in these parts. Go ahead, you find Townes Van Zandt or Alan Price or the Grateful Dead or the Who in these parts. Until now I could smuggle in my own personal stash of mp3 music and DL it onsite and boogie until dawn, but not now. Music is now on a par with heroin, ecstacy and whatever. If it ain't on the list, its' verboten. Cross the line and you'll hear from us.

I'm not the kind of person that security types usually have it in for; I'm past the age,
I'm not in touch with any of the usual suspects (I hope not). As a teacher I have walked the line and stayed well clear of any controversy; I let sleeping dogs lie and I'm happy to be left alone. I serve no greater cause than my own family. Frankly, greater causes scare me. I'm happy to be a guest and a well-behaved guest in this country, and I am happy to give this country what little I have to offer. However, when things reach a certain point, i have to wonder what is going on here, how I fit into the scheme of things, and whose interests I am serving. And I'm not happy with how things have changed. When the security apparatus is a greater threat to honest citizenry than the terrorists and criminals, then you know who has won. And, more to the point, who has lost.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on January 30, 2010, 05:37:08 PM
yeah the censorship since i've been here has really annoyed me, specially since they seem to be getting worse not better as the country gets richer

most of the time i don't think about it, but then when i do think about it i think about moving to a different country
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on February 02, 2010, 05:30:26 AM
Korea activists target foreign English teachers

A South Korea group uses the Internet and other means to track foreign teachers, in an effort to ferret out illegal or unsavory behavior. The teachers say they're victims of stalkers and rumors.

Reporting from Seoul - Sometimes, in his off hours, Yie Eun-woong does a bit of investigative work.

He uses the Internet and other means to track personal data and home addresses of foreign English teachers across South Korea.

Then he follows them, often for weeks at a time, staking out their apartments, taking notes on their contacts and habits.

He wants to know whether they're doing drugs or molesting children.

Yie, a slender 40-year-old who owns a temporary employment agency, says he is only attempting to weed out troublemakers who have no business teaching students in South Korea, or anywhere else.

The volunteer manager of a controversial group known as the Anti-English Spectrum, Yie investigates complaints by South Korean parents, often teaming up with authorities, and turns over information from his efforts for possible prosecution.

Outraged teachers groups call Yie an instigator and a stalker.

Yie waves off the criticism. "It's not stalking, it's following," he said. "There's no law against that."

Since its founding in 2005, critics say, Yie's group has waged an invective-filled nationalistic campaign against the 20,000 foreign-born English teachers in South Korea.

On their website and through fliers, members have spread rumors of a foreign English teacher crime wave. They have alleged that some teachers are knowingly spreading AIDS, speculation that has been reported in the Korean press.

Teacher activists acknowledge that a few foreign English instructors are arrested each year in South Korea -- cases mostly involving the use of marijuana -- but they insist that the rate of such incidents is far lower than for the Korean population itself.

"Why are they following teachers? That's a job for the police," said Dann Gaymer, a spokesman for the Assn. for Teachers of English in Korea. "What this group is up to is something called vigilantism, and I don't like the sound of that."

In November, the president of the teachers group received anonymous e-mails threatening his life and accusing him of committing sex crimes.

"I have organized the KEK (Kill White in Korea)," one e-mail read in part. "We will start to kill and hit [foreigners] from this Christmas. Don't make a fuss. . . . Just get out."

Yie acknowledges that he has been questioned by investigators but denies any involvement in the threats of violence.

"To be honest," he said, "a lot of our group members believe the teachers made this all up."

The debate over foreign English teachers is symbolic of a social shift taking place in a nation that has long prided itself on its racial purity and singular culture, South Korean analysts say.

In less than a decade, the number of foreigners living in South Korea, with a population of nearly 49 million, has doubled to 1.2 million, many of them migrant workers from other Asian nations.

Also included are the foreign English teachers, most from the United States, drawn here by compensation packages that may include as much as $2,500 a month plus free rent and a round-trip ticket to teach a Korean population obsessed with learning from native speakers.

Yie's efforts have the support of some educators who say many foreign teachers lack the skills to run a classroom.

"This has nothing to do with race. It is all about teaching," said Kim Young-Lan, a sociology professor at Sookmyung Women's University in Seoul.

The government has tried to stem what it sees as a troubling number of racist incidents. A 31-year-old man was charged last year for a verbal outburst against an Indian man and a Korean woman traveling together on a city bus in Seoul.

But some teachers from abroad say Korean laws regarding their status remain discriminatory. Foreign English teachers must undergo HIV tests and criminal and academic checks that are not required of Koreans doing the same work, they say.

Yie says he has nothing against foreigners. Growing up near the city of Osan, he often rode with his taxi driver father and encountered foreigners who served at the U.S. military base there. "I learned to pick out the good guys from the bad guys," he says

In 2005, by then living in Seoul, he joined the fledgling activist group after seeing an upsetting posting on a website: claims by foreign teachers that they had slept with Korean students.

Yie, who is single and has no children, volunteered to help organize an effort to rein in such behavior.

"People were angry; most of them were parents with kids," he said. "We all got together online and traded information."

Gaymer says he doubts that such a posting ever existed. Instead, he says, Koreans were angry about photos posted on a job website showing foreigners dancing with scantily clad Korean women.

"They were consenting adults at a party with foreign men," he said. "They weren't doing anything bad or illegal."

Yie's group, Gaymer says, has used the incident as a rallying call. "They're posting online pictures of teachers' apartments and whipping each other into a nationalist frenzy, creating a hysteria against all English teachers, troublemakers or not," he said.

Yie, who says his group is managed by half a dozen key figures and has 300 other members, created a system for parents and others to report bad teachers. The group says it has contributed to several arrests, including the recent bust of several foreign instructors for gambling and marijuana possession.

"I'm being called a racist who judges the entire group by the mistakes of the few," Yie said. "I'm trying to look at these teachers with an open mind."
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on February 05, 2010, 05:07:32 PM
Does this mean I won't be woken up at all hours by "Good Luck" messages???   akakakakak

China sets limit on Spring Festival SMS (February 1, 2010, Xinhua)
Mobile phone users in China will need to limit the number of Chinese New Year text messages they send during Spring Festival as part of a crackdown on spam messages. An agreement among the country's three main mobile network operators last June stipulates that if the number of messages sent from a phone number reaches 200 within an hour or 1,000 within a day, the phone's message service will be suspended for a week. For holidays and weekends, the allowable limit will increase to 500 hourly and 2,000 every day, it said.


But it is interesting the level of control the gov't has over the whole system.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on February 05, 2010, 05:10:51 PM
A good measure.

But like you said, Lotus, a tad unnerving in its implicaitons.  MInd, just monitoring traffic alone seems to me reasonable.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on February 10, 2010, 02:55:57 PM
A new team to cheer for!

The daughter of a friend of a friend is in the team, which is why I am interested.  And yes, it does have echoes of "Cool Runnings" - they trained by pushing a cart around Epping Oval for several miles a day.  They came 14th in the last Olympics, but they raised all the money themselves to compete, qualify. A lot of it paid for by her father, they bought a second hand sled from a German team and they had to fix it and prepare it themselves, get it painted in Australian colours, which they had to get colour codes (Bunnings helped out there I think), then they had to pay for the accommodation etc as well. Very little support from Australian Olympic Committee.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/02/10/2815248.htm (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/02/10/2815248.htm)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: becster79 on February 28, 2010, 04:43:09 AM
Thinking of everyone in Chile at the moment after their 8.8 (!!!!!!!) shaker- and now we're expecting a tsumani to hit early tomorrow morning in my hometown back in Oz! Hope mum's left her beachside shack, or surf's up!

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,26783581-952,00.html


February 28, 2010 12:20am

PEOPLE on Australia's east coast are being warned to stay away from beaches on Sunday morning after warnings of a possible tsunami.

The alert follows a massive 8.8-magnitude earthquake which struck off the coast of Chile, toppling buildings, cutting power and killing at least 78 people.

In Hawaii, the Pacific Tsunami Centre has issued an alert for people to take "urgent action ... to protect lives and property".

The Joint Australian Tsunami Warning Centre (JATWC) issued a tsunami watch at 6.45pm (Queensland time, EST) on Saturday declaring a "potential tsunami threat'' to New South Wales, Queensland, Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island.

The Bureau of Meteorology said tsunami waves could start affecting Norfolk and Lord Howe Islands after 7.30am on Sunday.

NSW could be hit after 7.45am on Sunday, while Queensland could be hit after 8.15am.

Emergency Management Queensland said residents in coastal areas of the state's south east should keep off beaches and foreshores on Sunday morning when conditions could be rough.

"Advice from the bureau is that there is the possibility of dangerous waves, strong ocean currents and foreshore flooding for several hours tomorrow morning,'' Acting Deputy Chief Officer Wayne Coutts said in a statement on Saturday night.

"No evacuations are necessary, however we are asking people to avoid their coastal areas.

"Please do not be tempted by curiosity, and consider safety first.''

People in NSW are also advised to keep away from the coast.

The NSW Government has warned of possible "dangerous waves, strong ocean currents and foreshore flooding for several hours from 7.30am''.

"The potential impacts of the tsunami for Australia will become clearer once the tsunami reaches Hawaii,'' Emergency Services Minister Steve Whan said in a statement.

The NSW State Emergency Service said late on Saturday that people should stay away from the beach altogether between Broken Bay, north of Sydney, and the Queensland border.

"No fishing, no swimming, no boating,'' SES spokesman Phil Campbell said.

"There will be people who want to go sightseeing, but urge them not to.''

Bureau duty forecaster Jake Phillips said the NSW coast north of Broken Bay and up to Queensland's south coast as far as Double Island Point near Brisbane could be affected by strong waves.

But he said there is no concern of land inundation.

"But there is a marine threat and that would include anyone out boating or rock fishermen,'' he said.

The quake struck off Chile's coast at 3.34am local time (4.34pm) on Saturday, shaking buildings in the capital, where some buildings have collapsed.

For more information about local warnings visit www.bom.gov.au

Chile's government says 76 people are confirmed dead.

The death toll comes from the deputy interior minister, Patricio Rosende. His boss, Edmundo Perez Yoma says: "the death toll will continue rising''.

The epicentre of the tremor was 100km north northwest of the Chilean town of Chillan and 115km northeast of Concepcion, Chile's second-largest city, where more than 200,000 people live along the Bio Bio river.

The US Pacific Tsunami warning centre has also issued a tsunami warning for Chile and Peru, and a tsunami watch is in place for Ecuador, Colombia, Antarctica, Panama and Costa Rica.

Japan's meteorological agency also warned of a tsunami risk across large areas of the Pacific as US geologists said the risk extended as far as the Antarctic.

"There is a possibility that tsunami will widely occur in the Pacific Ocean,'' an official for the Japanese agency said.

New Zealand has also issued a tsunami alert .

 "There is a possible marine threat along the east coast of the North Island and South Island and Chatham Island,'' New Zealand's Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management said, warning of waves of up to 1m.

The massive quake plunged much of the Chilean capital, Santiago, into darkness as it snapped power lines and severed communications early on Saturday.

AFP journalists spoke of walls and masonry collapsing while people in pyjamas fled onto the streets.

Television images showed destroyed or heavily damaged buildings and debris-strewn streets.

Residents in the south of the city, which appeared to have borne the brunt of the quake, said roads had crumpled and a bridge had been damaged, as an AFP correspondent said buildings "shook like jelly''.

A partial evacuation of Easter Island has been ordered in Chile in the face of possible big tidal waves, President Michelle Bachelet announced.

She also said two ships with aid had been dispatched to Robinson Crusoe Island, part of the Juan Fernandez Archipelago, which has been affected by a big tidal wave.

Japan's meteorological agency warned of a tsunami risk across large areas of the Pacific including as far away as the Antarctic, as the Philippines warned low-lying coastal areas to prepare for possible evacuation.

Chilean President Michele Bachelet and her officials rushed to their offices to coordinate disaster relief, state television said, as the powerful aftershocks panicked the quake-prone Latin American country.

"With the quake of this magnitude and given its timing, we cannot rule out other casualties,'' Bachelet said as first reports came in of deaths.

Santiago is 325km northeast of the epicentre of the quake, which hit at a depth of 35km.
 
Asian nations have been on heightened alert ever since a massive 2004 tsunami that killed more than 220,000 people around the Indian Ocean.

Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama ordered his government to be prepared to offer support for victims if necessary, Jiji Press reported.

"Swift action should be required,'' Hatoyama told reporters. "It appears to be fairly sizeable. I told ministries concerned to be ready to take measures in case relief assistance is needed.''

The European Union said it stood ready to provide immediate and coordinated aid for victims.

Earthquake-prone Chile lies along the Pacific rim of fire and is regularly rocked by quakes, but damage is often limited as they mostly hit in desert regions which are sparsely populated.

In May 1960, the country was ravaged what is now known as Valdivia or Great Chilean Earthquake, which was rated 9.5 on the Moment Magnitude Scale.

The resulting tsunami affected southern Chile, Hawaii, Japan and the Philippines, reaching as far as eastern New Zealand and southeast Australia.

The estimated death toll from that disaster ranged from over 2200 to 5700.

TSUNAMI WARNING NUMBER 5 FOR QUEENSLAND

Issued by the Joint Australian Tsunami Warning Centre (JATWC) at
11:47 PM EST on Saturday 27 February 2010
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on March 01, 2010, 02:03:59 AM
50cm high waves at Norfolk Is.  Tsunami warning cancelled for Queensland coast.  30cm in Japan.  All good on the tsunami front.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: becster79 on March 01, 2010, 02:19:36 AM
Yep, chatted to the family this arvo, all quiet on the (eastern) front!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: The Local Dialect on March 01, 2010, 04:30:57 AM
A 4 year old girl was crushed/suffocated to death in a kindergarten mianbao che that was made to hold 7 people, but was packed with 20-30 kids. It was only her second day at the kindergarten. These sorts of stories involving kids make me so damned sad.

http://post.news.tom.com/s/9A000AB12308_1.html (http://post.news.tom.com/s/9A000AB12308_1.html)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Monkey King on March 01, 2010, 09:17:02 PM
“foreigner only” housing complex in Chengdu (http://www.chengduliving.com/a-home-of-our-own/)

I've no problems with a housing development aimed at 'foreigners' in theory (let's not get into what that actually means...) but to specifically state that "Chinese are not allowed to buy or rent any unit in the complex"...dunno, seems very backward.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on March 01, 2010, 10:45:09 PM
What would be the fun in living in a place like that?  I much prefer being the only white guy in the village.  bjbjbjbjbj
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on March 05, 2010, 03:25:26 PM
Going swimming in the rivers?

China’s government on Tuesday unveiled its most detailed survey ever of the pollution plaguing the country, revealing that water pollution in 2007 was more than twice as severe as was shown in official figures that had long omitted agricultural waste.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/10/world/asia/10pollute.html?sudsredirect=true (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/10/world/asia/10pollute.html?sudsredirect=true)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Bugalugs on March 05, 2010, 04:13:12 PM
Author to sue James Cameron over Avatar06:00 AEST Fri Mar 5 2010

Beijing man Zhou Shaomou claims he wrote a science-fiction novel called Tale Of The Blue Crows in 1997 which bears striking similarities to the plot of Cameron's film, Sky News reports.

The book centres around a group of explorers who travel to a distant planet inhabited by blue-skinned beings, he said.

"I wrote in my novel that their space journey took them six years but in Cameron’s movie the journey takes them five years nine months and 22 days," he said.

"I was shocked when I first saw that — it is too close."

Zhou said he never thought he would get a publishing deal for the book so he released it online, where he claims it has been read by more than 10 million people.

He now plans to sue Cameron for $162 million in copyright infringement.

Zhou has reportedly tried twice to get his case heard in China but was denied both times.

Beijing-based lawyer Yang Huipeng told Sky News that Zhou would be better off taking his case to a US court, where any legal judgement would have greater effect.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on March 05, 2010, 06:20:43 PM
Author to sue James Cameron over Avatar06:00 AEST Fri Mar 5 2010

Beijing man Zhou Shaomou claims he wrote a science-fiction novel called Tale Of The Blue Crows in 1997 which bears striking similarities to the plot of Cameron's film, Sky News reports.

The book centres around a group of explorers who travel to a distant planet inhabited by blue-skinned beings, he said.

"I wrote in my novel that their space journey took them six years but in Cameron’s movie the journey takes them five years nine months and 22 days," he said.

"I was shocked when I first saw that — it is too close."

Zhou said he never thought he would get a publishing deal for the book so he released it online, where he claims it has been read by more than 10 million people.

He now plans to sue Cameron for $162 million in copyright infringement.

Zhou has reportedly tried twice to get his case heard in China but was denied both times.

Beijing-based lawyer Yang Huipeng told Sky News that Zhou would be better off taking his case to a US court, where any legal judgement would have greater effect.

he should sue the smurfs as well
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Dex on March 06, 2010, 09:53:35 PM
Boy oh boy...

...RIP to greed. I hope.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on March 07, 2010, 12:52:11 AM
What if he's right? It wouldn't be the first time.

On the other hand, the folks who brought us Pocahontas and Fern Gully are still in discussion with Cameron
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on March 07, 2010, 02:54:56 AM
The Last Samurai has the same plot.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on March 07, 2010, 03:02:41 AM
gullivers travels, robinson crusoe etc
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Fozzwaldus on March 07, 2010, 05:43:48 AM
princess mononoke, dances with wolves...

it's a standard narrative trope
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on March 12, 2010, 01:00:05 AM
Professor charged over 'wife-swap' parties

A professor in east China's Jiangsu Province has been charged with assembled pruriency after allegedly operating an online partner-swapping community that organized 22 illegal orgies.
The professor, 53, surnamed Wang, allegedly joined 18 of the games, becoming the oldest and highest educated participant, Xinhua news agency reported today.
Another 21 members of the community also faced the charge by Qinhua District People's Procuratorate in Jiangsu's capital Nanjing, Xinhua said.
Under Chinese law, assembled pruriency constitutes organizing sexual activities for a group of men and women.

Wang faces up to five years in jail if convicted.

Wang, an assistant professor at a Nanjing university, had been living with his mentally ill mother after being divorced twice, the report said.
He launched an online community to promote the games, where he encouraged couples to swap partners, Xinhua said. At its peak, there were 190 members, prosecutors said.

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article/2010/201003/20100311/article_430882.htm#ixzz0hrfDLDJs
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on March 12, 2010, 03:10:27 AM
Some students raised this in class today...took me a while to figure out what they were talking about. Apparently this man is very famous in China these days.
http://www.whatsonxiamen.com/news10678.html
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: mlaeux on March 12, 2010, 07:55:59 AM
That's a pretty crazy story...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Pashley on March 12, 2010, 08:44:25 AM
Some students raised this in class today...took me a while to figure out what they were talking about. Apparently this man is very famous in China these days.
http://www.whatsonxiamen.com/news10678.html

China Smack (http://www.chinasmack.com/) is an interesting site, English summaries of hot topics on Chinese blogs and net forums. Fascinating.

They covered "Brother Sharp", the cool-looking homeless guy, a week or two back. A current story says the net.buzz about him enabled his family to find him. He's had a shave and is back in the home town.
http://www.chinasmack.com/stories/brother-sharp-family-reunion-netizen-photoshops/
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: mlaeux on March 12, 2010, 04:42:49 PM
Hope everything works out for the poor guy.
BTW - How is the state of China's mental health services?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on March 12, 2010, 11:15:04 PM
Should we be surprised that Professor Wang was arranging sex parties?  bhbhbhbhbh
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on March 13, 2010, 02:31:47 AM
Which poor guy do you feel sorry for?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lotus Eater on March 20, 2010, 01:43:08 AM
And the future is...

China Drawing High-Tech research from the US.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/18/business/global/18research.html?src=me&ref=general (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/18/business/global/18research.html?src=me&ref=general)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: mlaeux on March 20, 2010, 03:40:18 AM
Quote
Which poor guy do you feel sorry for?

Late for Dinner - Brother Sharp http://www.whatsonxiamen.com/news10678.html
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: pydilyk on March 30, 2010, 04:50:17 AM
Two bombs in Moscow subway, really terrible. Expect a heavy response.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/world/europe/30moscow.html?hp
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: mlaeux on March 30, 2010, 11:17:28 AM


That's heartbreaking.  kkkkkkkkkk
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: teacheraus on April 01, 2010, 11:38:13 AM
Reported in China Daily

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-03/31/content_9669595.htm (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-03/31/content_9669595.htm)

Quote
China tightens monitoring of solar storms
By Guan Xiaomeng (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-03-31 15:44 Comments(1) PrintMail  Large Medium Small 

Meteorological hazards including typhoons, sand storms, solar storms and other space storms will be listed in the upcoming meteorological hazards prevention regulations in China.

A report by the National Academies issued last year predicts a severe solar storm in 2012. Some nations including China have tightened monitoring on such storms despite the controversy of the prediction.

Solar storms happen when the energy of the sun has accumulated and has to give off electrically charged particles to space that may affect magnetic fields on earth. The storm cycle is about 11 years and the latest storm peak was around 2000.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: El Macho on April 08, 2010, 01:34:48 PM
Quote
N.Korea leader sets world fashion trend: Pyongyang (http://www.france24.com/en/20100407-nkorea-leader-sets-world-fashion-trend-pyongyang)

AFP - The trademark suit sported by North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il is now in fashion worldwide thanks to his greatness, Pyongyang's official website said Wednesday.

Uriminzokkiri, quoting an article in communist party newspaper Rodong Sinmun, said the modest-looking suits have gripped people's imagination and become a global vogue.

"The reason is that the august image of the Great General, who is always wearing the modest suit while working, leaves a deep impression on people's mind in the world," it said.

"To sum it up, that is because his image as a great man is so outstanding."

The article quoted an unidentified French fashion expert as saying world fashion follows Kim Jong-Il's style.

"Kim Jong-Il mode which is now spreading expeditiously worldwide is something unprecedented in the world's history," the stylist was quoted as saying.

The suits consist of an overall-style zipped-up tunic and matching trousers, usually in khaki or blueish-grey.

The 68-year-old leader wears them even when receiving foreign dignitaries.

During his outside "field guidance" trips in winter, he also dons a shapeless anorak and fur hat.

Kim and his deceased father Kim Il-Sung are at the heart of a personality cult that borders on religion, with near-magical powers ascribed to the younger Kim.

Rainbows supposedly appeared over sacred Mount Paekdu where Kim Jong-Il was allegedly born, and he is said once to have scored 11 holes-in-one in a single round of golf.
"To sum it up, that is because his image as a great man is so outstanding."
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on April 08, 2010, 04:35:46 PM
Quote
The trademark suit sported by North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il is now in fashion worldwide thanks to his greatness, Pyongyang's official website said Wednesday.

Is this the suit?

[attachment removed for space reason by admin]
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on April 09, 2010, 11:16:53 PM
Quote
A BREWERY'S ban on all-day drinking has prompted a walk-out, with workers disgusted they have to limit their consumption to lunchtime.

Scores of Carlsberg workers have walked off their jobs in protest after the Danish brewer tightened laid-back rules on workplace drinking and removed beer coolers from worksites, a company spokesman said.

The warehouse and production workers in Denmark are rebelling against the company's new alcohol policy, which allows them to drink beer only during lunch hours in the canteen. Previously, they could help themselves to beer throughout the day, from coolers placed around the worksites.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on April 11, 2010, 08:50:35 PM
Swingers go on trial as China cracks down on sex parties (http://www.theage.com.au/world/swingers-go-on-trial-as-china-cracks-down-on-sex-parties-20100408-rv6h.html)
TANIA BRANIGAN - April 9, 2010

BEIJING: Twenty-two swingers have gone on trial in China, charged with ''group licentiousness'' in a case that has highlighted the transformation in the country's sexual attitudes.

The defendants, who include a university professor, company bosses and shop assistants, face up to five years' jail if convicted. They met online and were caught in a police trawl for cases, initiated when a policewoman discussed her enjoyment of orgies on a radio show.

The case has stirred a debate over sexual freedom, with some arguing the law should be scrapped, particularly given that prostitution and extramarital affairs are now common in China.

The maths professor said to have organised events, Ma Xiaohai, 53, said he and the other participants did not know the law existed, Chinese media reported. The last conviction on the charge was 20 years ago.

''Marriage can be like a bowl of water that has to be drunk. Swapping partners is like a bowl of sweet wine,'' Mr Ma reportedly said.

Prosecutors said he set up an online wife-swapping chatroom that grew to include more than 190 members. He has said he became involved because he was lonely and depressed after his second marriage broke down.

''At first the chatroom discussions were very clean, with most people discussing their marital problems,'' the Procuratorial Daily quoted him as saying.

Fourteen men and eight women are standing trial in Nanjing over 22 encounters. Police said Mr Ma organised 18 of the spouse-swapping events, 14 of them at his home. But he said he stopped three months before the police detained him, due to the ''abnormal'' behaviour of some participants and after several young women turned him down.

''I didn't do anything wrong, and there was no forcing and organising. Why is the whole country picking on me?''
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on April 15, 2010, 05:52:44 AM
6.9 quake in Yushu [Qinghai Province].  400 dead.  Thousands believed injured.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8619593.stm
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on April 22, 2010, 03:18:09 AM
April 21, 2010

BARCELONA, SPAIN—Juan Antonio Samaranch, a former International Olympic Committee president, died Wednesday. He was 89.


http://olympics.thestar.com/2010/article/798476--former-ioc-head-juan-antonio-samaranch-dies-at-89 (http://olympics.thestar.com/2010/article/798476--former-ioc-head-juan-antonio-samaranch-dies-at-89)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on April 28, 2010, 03:57:02 AM
Forged Verdict in Henan: a New Low For Shanzhai

from China Hearsay

Hard to believe, but yes, the Shanzhai culture has reached down to the local court system. Forged documents are nothing new; we’ve all seen stories about fake diplomas, plagiarized academic papers, and fake corporate seals.

You don’t like that court judgment? Replace it with a better one. Certainly makes sense. Details from China Daily:

Forgery of a verdict? Yes, and even by a local court itself.

The bizarre case happened at the Weibin District People’s Court in Xinxiang of central China’s Henan province, the Zhengzhou-based Dahe Daily reported on Monday.

The report said the verdict forgery was found in March this year when the Xinxiang Municipal Intermediate People’s Court retried a civil case.

On Feb 11, 2009, the Xinxiang court upheld a verdict by the Weibin court in which Maofeng Company Ltd won a suit against the Pingyuan Theatre for failing to fulfill a contractual agreement, the report said.

The first verdict came on May 21, 2008.

But two months later, the defendant, the Pingyuan Theatre, appealed to the Henan Provincial Higher People’s Court with another verdict issued by Weibin District People’s Court on the same suit.

The second verdict, dated January 2008, ruled that the Pinyuang Theatre won the case, totally contradicting the content of the original verdict issued on May 21, 2008, the report said.

Only when the Henan Provincial Higher People’s Court ordered a retrial of the case in March this year did Maofeng Company Ltd learn there are two completely different verdicts for the same case, but both having official seals, according to the report.

The next question of course is whodunit? It should come as no surprise that this was an inside job. The investigation so far has revealed that the chop/seal on the forgery was genuine. Next step (cue dramatic music): who had access to the court’s chop?

As this might be the pinnacle of shanzhai culture, the story deserves a novel-length treatment from one of those “true crime” guys, like a Joe McGinniss type. From there, we’ll get either a tv movie on a 3rd tier cable channel or a straight-to-DVD flick. I’m liking Jackie Chan as the goofy-yet-sly police investigator.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Fozzwaldus on April 28, 2010, 09:31:15 PM
China ends HIV ban - guardian, 28/04/2010

China has revoked a ban on people with HIV/Aids entering its borders, softening a decades-old policy that drew sharp criticism this year when an Australian writer was blocked after declaring himself HIV positive.

Until now, China's regulations formally banned foreigners entering the country with "psychiatric illness, leprosy, Aids, sexually-transmitted diseases, active pulmonary tuberculosis or other infectious diseases".

The state council, China's cabinet, issued amended rules late yesterday removing the explicit ban on people with Aids or infected with the HIV retrovirus, as well as anyone with leprosy, while leaving authorities leeway to decide which diseases could trigger an entry ban.

The United Nations welcomed the decision as an important step towards ending discrimination against people living with HIV.

"I commend President Hu Jintao for China's decision to remove travel restrictions based on HIV status," the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, said in a statement.

"Punitive policies and practices only hamper the global Aids response. I urge all other countries with such restrictions to remove them as a matter of priority and urgency."

Travel restrictions, which are imposed in some form by dozens of countries worldwide, do not prevent transmission of the disease or protect public health, the statement added.

China's new rules, posted on the central government website, still block foreigners "with serious psychiatric illness, infectious pulmonary tuberculosis or other infectious diseases that may constitute a major threat to public health".

The amended regulations did not say whether Aids/HIV would be among the infectious diseases that people seeking Chinese visas must declare when applying, possibly leaving officials some discretion on how to apply the rule.

But an unnamed legal affairs official for the state council indicated that Aids/HIV would not be a bar to entry.

"Restricting foreigners with these diseases from entering the country has played an extremely limited role in our country's disease prevention and control work, and instead has repeatedly become an impediment to our hosting a variety of international events," the official told the Legal Daily.

In March, more than 90 Australian authors signed a letter decrying China's refusal to grant a visa to one of the country's most celebrated writers, Robert Dessaix, who is HIV positive.

On Friday, Shanghai opens its World Expo, a multi-billion dollar exhibition that is China's latest effort to promote an image as a forward-looking and open country.

The HIV virus can be spread through unprotected sex, sharing of infected needles and blood, and – without preventive drugs – to children in the womb of infected mothers or who take milk from an infected woman.

If untreated, the virus attacks the immune system, leading to full-blown Aids, a deadly condition.

China has 560,000 to 920,000 people infected with the HIV virus and 97,000 to 112,000 Aids patients, according to 2009 ministry of health and United Nations estimates.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on May 04, 2010, 02:20:32 AM

New openings for EFL teachers in Arizona.   bibibibibi llllllllll

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/30/arizona-ethnic-studies-cl_n_558731.html
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on May 04, 2010, 02:42:02 AM
Raoul's - Bet you wish you were in Dalian today  bjbjbjbjbj

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100503/ap_on_re_as/as_nkorea_china_kim_jong_il
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on May 04, 2010, 04:26:30 AM


Quote
Reclusive North Korean leader Kim Jong Il  arrived on a luxury 17-car train in China on Monday

Our Leader can do better than that - RD can arrive on one of these.

 bibibibibi    ummm ... you have to look at the writing on the heat-shield

[attachment removed for space reason by admin]
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on May 04, 2010, 05:37:39 AM
I like the RAINBOW on the exhaust pipe. It is fairy  very nice

 ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on May 04, 2010, 05:23:23 PM
Kim 2's crashing at the Furama and Ren Min Lu is closed between ShiJi jie and Gangwan Qiao. That's why it took almost 2 hours to get to work this morning. Can't we just put him on a skow and send him back where he came from? (Hope his own navy doesn't misfire a torpedo his way) 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on May 05, 2010, 04:44:09 PM
This just in:
Quote
This just in, folks! On his way from home after work last night, our intoxicated intrepid reporter stopped at a bar downtown and guess who he met. None other than Kim Jong II, supreme beloved despot and benevolent king-for-life of the Democratic People’s Republic of Somewhere Over the Rainbow! Our intoxicated intrepid reporter quickly mooched a drink and procured this exclusive interview.

Reporter:   Welcome to Dalian, Kimmy. Are you here to conduct secret high level international negotiations, or to enlist Chinese support for your country, or are you here for the golf?

Kim Jong II:   Well I am here on a tourist visa, though I’ve been told that it can be changed. That’s all right, isn’t it? I mean, it’s not like I’ve been caught working on it. I haven’t started my first class yet. But I’m hoping to on Monday.

R:   Your first class?

KJ2:   Yes. You see, I wanted to get in on the ground, check out the schools in person before signing a contract. So I came in on the holiday and spent today visiting all the language mills. Too many horror stories on the internet about people who come and find the reality so different from what was promised.

R:   Ahh, so you’re interested in various educational models to help your own country.

KJ2:   No, I’m not interested in opening a new school. I’m looking for work as a foreign language teacher. It’s OK to work on a tourist visa, isn’t it? Please don’t tell anyone.

R:   Kimster, why would the supreme leader of an entire nation want to give it all up and teach in a foreign country?

KJ2:   Why would anyone? Look, I’ve gone about as far as I can in my field. It’s not like I can go any higher than supreme beloved despot. And I have to admit, I’m getting stale in my work. Playing games of nuclear arms hide-and-seek, playing border games with the south, begging my international neighbors for humanitarian aide and weapons; it all gets to be the same after a while. I need a new challenge.

R:   I can see that. So why Dalian?

KJ2:   Well, it’s not too far away, so if I get tired or bored or homesick, I can catch the train and come home for a short visit. Can you say the same? Didn’t think so. Also, the climate is nice, and the air isn’t very polluted. Besides, I’ve read that Dongbei girls really rock.

R:   Yes, I’ve heard that too. So what do you think?

KJ2:   Mixed results. The girls here are very pretty, especially when they smile. Some of them have faces that, as we say back home, would stop an armoured train. Unfortunately, the way some of them frown, you’d think they already had. You would think no one had ever offered to buy them a cola before. That’s a big thing where I come from.
The city is really nice, but I can’t believe how expensive it is! I don’t know about you, but this foreigner can’t afford to live here, not on a despot’s salary. And the salaries they’ve been offering me are nothing like what I make back home. I tell you, if I don’t get something good this week, I may just pack it in and go back to being a dictator. Or maybe I’ll try Thailand. Seems like my kind of place. I like those funky red shirts people are wearing.

R:   Well, good luck with the career change. I’ll have another, if you’re buying.

KJ2:   Sure, why not? Say, is that girl smiling at me?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Ruth on May 06, 2010, 09:55:22 PM
Brilliant scoop, Latefordinner.  bkbkbkbkbk
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mr Nobody on May 07, 2010, 11:29:13 PM
If working as an EFL teacher is a preferred job for second rate dictators, it explains would explain quite a lot.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on May 08, 2010, 02:29:53 PM
(http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a197/Bissessar/Miscellaneous/Fortune.jpg)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lone Traveller on May 15, 2010, 06:42:34 PM
Congratulations Jessica Watson and Ella's Pink Lady.

After 7 months at sea - sailing unassisted, this 16yr old Aussie has just crossed the finish line at Sydney this morning.

Unfortunatley for Jess, this wont be an official record due to the fact that she didnt sail enough nautical miles and is under 18.  ananananan But what a mammouth effort. 219 days at sea. Capsizing 6 times!!! Once would be enough to turn me off.  aoaoaoaoao

Congratulations  agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: James the Brit on May 23, 2010, 02:07:27 AM
http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Asia/Story/STIStory_530038.html

Apparently the government is planning to have quotas for the number of foreigners living in China.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: rollerboogie on May 23, 2010, 04:50:42 AM
http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Asia/Story/STIStory_530038.html

Apparently the government is planning to have quotas for the number of foreigners living in China.

If enforced it will probably only be in the big smokes, and it's probably a p. c. way of them really saying, "we want to keep the dark skinned men out" without actually saying it. Unless you're here with a visa shuffle, I doubt this will be enforced much with people in efl and on the up and up.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on May 23, 2010, 05:14:24 AM
Yea, reading between the lines I'm sure teacher's quotas would be increased. There's a number of issues with the Africans (not putting blame anywhere) and there seems to be an uneasy tention with the local police
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: china-matt on May 26, 2010, 04:35:07 AM
Condom Maker Rejects Faulty Product Claim (from Shenzhen Daily) http://szdaily.sznews.com/html/2010-05/25/content_1086287.htm

Quote
CONDOM maker Wuhan Jissbon Hygiene Co. said Sunday that its condoms had no direct link to a Shenzhen customer’s premature ejaculation and depression.

Sounds like a faulty user to me.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on May 26, 2010, 03:18:25 PM
Yeah, CMatt. Am I the only one who thinks its funny that condoms come in a box with a set of instructions (that is mostly just advertising anyway)? Ahh well, Jissbon should just tell the guy to RtFM.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on May 26, 2010, 03:25:19 PM
This just in... Somali fishermen attacked by Dutch cargo ship. (From The Telagraph, UK)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/piracy/7764885/Pirates-claim-they-just-fishing-for-sharks...-with-rocket-launchers.html (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/piracy/7764885/Pirates-claim-they-just-fishing-for-sharks...-with-rocket-launchers.html)
Quote
Five Somali men have protested that they were shark fisherman not pirates despite being intercepted off Somalia's coast after attacking a Dutch vessel with rocket launchers and assault rifles.
Europe's first modern trial for the 17th century crime of "sea robbery" has opened in Rotterdam amid protestations of innocence from the accused.

The men, facing jail terms of nine to 12 years, are accused of attacking and attempting to hijack the Samanyolu, a Dutch Antilles-flagged ship, while it was sailing in the Gulf of Aden in January 2009.

The ship's Turkish crew beat off the attack by firing signal flares at the Somali boat, destroying it. Danish marines then rescued and arrested the Somalis before handing them over to Dutch authorities.

Farah Ahmed Yusuf, 25, accused the cargo ship of attacking the Somalis after engine failure had forced them to abandon their shark fishing expedition and seek help.

"The intention was to fish," he said.

"As we came closer, we put our hands in the air. While we had our hands in the air, they shot at us. They attacked us."

Another accused man, Sayid Ali Garaar, 39, said: "We were not pirates, we were fishermen. There were no weapons."

The Samanyulo's crew, expected to give evidence later in the week, have accused the suspected pirates of shooting at their vessel with automatic weapons and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

Don't you just feel sorry for those poor fishermen? <snigger>
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on May 26, 2010, 04:48:15 PM
or the "supposed" sharks
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: fox on May 27, 2010, 12:12:37 AM
iphones are killing people


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/asia_pacific/10151626.stm

420,000 people employed by Fox Conn

And

Quote:
it is also building 3m-high fences to try to stop people jumping off the dormitories.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: mlaeux on May 27, 2010, 03:05:19 AM
Bizarre   mmmmmmmmmm
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: china-matt on May 27, 2010, 04:27:29 PM
I knew those iPhones were evil the minute I first saw them. They will destroy the world I tells ya!

And Foxconn is an irresponsible company.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on May 27, 2010, 04:48:30 PM
Evil spirits again.  Case closed.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on June 06, 2010, 10:14:04 PM

Two foreigners killed over debt dispute in east China city

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-06-06 08:37 Large Medium Small
XIAMEN, Fujian - Two foreigners were killed and another injured in an aggravated debt dispute Saturday night in the coastal city of Xiamen in east China's Fujian Province, local police said.

The dead included a woman from Venezuela and a man whose nationality was not unknown yet.

The other foreigner, who was a suspect as the police said, was hospitalized for injuries. His nationality was not confirmed either.

The police did not reveal if there were other people involved in the case.

Initial investigation showed the homicide was triggered by a debt dispute. One dagger had been found on the scene, near the Marco Polo Hotel on Jianye Road.

It was unclear when the homicide happened, but local police said they received a report about it at 9:52 p.m.

Local police were still investigating the case.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on June 07, 2010, 06:59:23 PM
Never get involved loaning money to or borrowing from the guy who is always carrying a dagger no matter what his nationality.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: NATO on June 08, 2010, 10:37:00 PM
I meant to post this last week but forgot to:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/10214661.stm

An incredibly shocking event, especially given the rurality of the community that it occurred in.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on June 08, 2010, 11:44:53 PM
And a reminder that no country has a monopoly on rampages.  :wtf:
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on June 28, 2010, 03:04:41 PM
China's young college grads toil in 'ant tribes'

http://is.gd/d6Xhh
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on June 29, 2010, 12:30:16 AM
Intersting article. Seems very similar to ones written about New York, London, etc. Why is Beijing the only place these guys go to? There are so many opportunities to strike it rich in almost any Chinese city.

Sometime my g/f talks about moving and invariably its to Beijing. A few times she's mentioned Nanjing but that's about it, except once for Hong Kong
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on June 29, 2010, 06:06:21 PM
Immortality getting closer:

Researchers grow rat lung in lab in step towards regenerating human organs
Published: Thursday, June 24, 2010 | 6:41 PM ET
Canadian Press Sheryl Ubelacker, Health Reporter, The Canadian Press

TORONTO - Researchers have grown a rat lung in the lab, taking a preliminary step in the quest to regenerate the vital organs for humans.

It's not the first time an animal organ has been virtually grown from scratch — another research team grew a beating rat heart two years ago using a similar method — but regenerating the structurally complex breathing organ is considered no easy feat.

Yet the need for lung transplants is great, with more than 400,000 North Americans dying each year from lung disease and the supply of donor organs falling far short of demand. Even with a transplant, only about 10 to 20 per cent of recipients survive 10 years.

That's one of the reasons behind the push to one day have the know-how to regenerate human lungs, agreed Thomas Petersen, a member of a Yale University research team that grew the animal lung in the lab.

The researchers took a rat lung, washed away its interior cells and DNA with a mix of chemicals that left only the organ's outer shell, or matrix, the branching airway structures and the blood vessel system.

"It took a bit of work to get something that would take away the cells but not the matrix," Petersen, postdoctoral associate in biomedical engineering, said from New Haven, Conn.

The team then seeded the organ's shell, which acts as a scaffolding, with a combination of lung-specific cells cultured from adult and baby rats. It was then placed in a bioreactor designed to mimic some aspects of the fetal lung environment.

After a week in the bioreactor, the cells repopulated the decellularized matrix with functional lung cells — in effect, producing a whole new lung.

When implanted into rats for short intervals — from 45 minutes to two hours — the engineered lungs pinked up as blood flowed in and out of the organ.

"We succeeded in engineering an implantable lung in our rat model that could efficiently exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide, and could oxygenate hemoglobin in the blood," said principal investigator Dr. Laura Niklason, vice-chair of anesthesiology and biomedical engineering at Yale.

"This is an early step in the regeneration of entire lungs for larger animals and, eventually, for humans," said Niklason, whose team's paper is published online this week in Science Express.

Petersen conceded that when the scientists witnessed the flow of blood through the lung they had grown, they experienced a bit of a eureka moment.

"It was quite exciting. We really had no idea if it would work at all," he said. "You can actually see the blood turn from a dark red to a bright red ... dark going in, bright going out."

Still, Petersen said there are many hurdles to overcome and years of research are needed in rats and other animals before they would even attempt growing a human lung, which would likely be generated using cells derived from a patient's own stem cells.

"So there is a lot more that we need to do. But by showing that this approach can work, it provides a lot of promise moving forward."

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: harry_aus on June 30, 2010, 05:43:00 PM
Anybody in Nanjing heard about this horrifying
accident? (I feel a certain-reluctance to even READ this, however,
perhaps there might be some preventative/cautionary lesson somewhere in here, for
all of us. gees).

09:16, June 30, 2010
China Daily
"A university in Jiangsu Province is been accused of stifling any information concerning the death of a student who was electrocuted while taking a shower in a campus dorm on June 20.

The authorities of Nanjing Normal University in Nanjing have not given any further details about the death of the student, Song Zhenqiang.
But they say that technicians from the water heater manufacturer have not found the cause".

http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/90882/7046443.html
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on June 30, 2010, 05:59:31 PM
Sadly, I smell payoffs, bribes and intervention instead of heads rolling and improvements to the building
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on June 30, 2010, 06:32:19 PM
Sounds like some thrill rides are a little too thrilling.   aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100630/ap_on_re_as/as_china_amusement_park_deaths_1
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on July 02, 2010, 01:31:37 AM
Chinese companies 'rent' white foreigners (http://edition.cnn.com/2010/BUSINESS/06/29/china.rent.white.people/index.html?hpt=C1)
By Lara Farrar, for CNN

Beijing, China (CNN) -- In China, white people can be rented.

For a day, a weekend, a week, up to even a month or two, Chinese companies are willing to pay high prices for fair-faced foreigners to join them as fake employees or business partners.

Some call it "White Guy Window Dressing." To others, it's known as the "White Guy in a Tie" events, "The Token White Guy Gig," or, simply, a "Face Job."

And it is, essentially, all about the age-old Chinese concept of face. To have a few foreigners hanging around means a company has prestige, money and the increasingly crucial connections -- real or not -- to businesses abroad.

"Face, we say in China, is more important than life itself," said Zhang Haihua, author of "Think Like Chinese." "Because Western countries are so developed, people think they are more well off, so people think that if a company can hire foreigners, it must have a lot of money and have very important connections overseas. So when they really want to impress someone, they may roll out a foreigner."

Or rent one.

Last year, Jonathan Zatkin, an American actor who lives in Beijing, posed as the vice president of an Italian jewelry company that had, allegedly, been in a partnership with a Chinese jewelry chain for a decade.

When is being foreign a career advantage?

Zatkin was paid 2,000 yuan (about $300) to fly, along with a couple of Russian models, to a small city in the central province of Henan where he delivered a speech for the grand opening ceremony of a jewelry store there.

"I was up on stage with the mayor of the town, and I made a speech about how wonderful it was to work with the company for 10 years and how we were so proud of all of the work they had done for us in China," Zatkin said. "They put up a big bandstand and the whole town was there and some other local muckety-mucks."

The requirements for these jobs are simple. 1. Be white. 2. Do not speak any Chinese, or really speak at all, unless asked. 3. Pretend like you just got off of an airplane yesterday.

Those who go for such gigs tend to be unemployed actors or models, part-time English teachers or other expats looking to earn a few extra bucks. Often they are jobs at a second- or third-tier city, where the presence of pale-faced foreigners is needed to impress local officials, secure a contract or simply to fulfill a claim of being international.

"Occasionally companies want a foreign face to go to meetings and conferences or to go to dinners and lunches and smile at the clients and shake people's hands," read an ad posted by a company called Rent A Laowai (Chinese for "foreigner") on the online classified site thebeijinger.com.

It continued: "There are job opportunities for girls who are pretty and for men who can look good in a suit."

Click here for in-depth news on China

People like Brad Smith. When Smith -- the nom de plume of the Beijing-based American actor -- answered CNN's phone call on a recent morning, he was standing outside a meeting room at a Ramada Inn in Hangzhou, a city about 100 miles outside of Shanghai. Today's job: Pretend to be an architect from New York and give design plans for a new museum to local officials.

"They have not told me what my name is today. I think it is Lawrence or something," said Smith -- unlike some jobs, no fake business cards were given to hand out.

Earlier that morning he went over his script with his Chinese "business partners" at a Kentucky Fried Chicken. "It says, 'Good morning distinguished leaders. It is my privilege to participate in this program'," said Smith, who asked that his real name not be used for fear it could jeopardize future jobs.

If Smith is asked a question, he is told to pretend to answer as his "translator" pretends to understand.

Occasionally, these jobs can go awry. Smith said 18 months ago Beijing police showed up at his apartment after a financial company he worked at for a couple of months in Xi'an, a city in western China, allegedly swindled millions of yuan out of clients.

"That company said I was the guy in charge," he said. "I didn't even remember the company's name. After that, I decided I was never going to use my passport again with these fake companies. The small gigs are much less dangerous." Sometimes companies will hire Caucasians simply to sit in the office a few hours a day near the window where clients and customers can see them.

White women are also a hot commodity, sometimes to pose as phony foreign girlfriends, or, in the case of Vicky Mohieddeen, to pretend to be an oil tycoon.

Mohieddeen, who is Scottish, took a job in 2008 to attend what she describes as some sort of "oil drilling conference" in Shandong province for 300 yuan ($44). Several busloads of foreigners, with nationalities ranging from Pakistani to Nigerian, were trucked to the event, she said. They were greeted by brass bands and feted with a sumptuous dinner.

"I was like, 'Yeah, we have a lot of oil in Scotland.' I didn't know what to say. It was a bit nerve-racking. We were guests of honor of the vice mayor. We were put in a nice hotel. It was quite fancy."

For Mohieddeen, who had just arrived in Beijing at the time, the experience, albeit bizarre, was an introduction to a side of China most foreigners will never see.

"It is part of what China is all about, you know," Mohieddeen said. "There is quite an elaborate fantasy world going on here where if everyone buys into it, it does not matter if it is the truth. Those kinds of experiences give me a fuller understanding of the way the culture works."
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on July 02, 2010, 01:38:27 AM
I noticed you didn't post the going rate nor who to call. Could it be you are keeping it to yourself?

 uuuuuuuuuu
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on July 02, 2010, 02:39:39 AM
O cointreau mon bro:

"Rent A Laowai."

Their website does seem to be no more, however.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on July 02, 2010, 04:42:51 PM
I'm sort of in on one of these . I say "sort of" because I actually am working on a real project too, but I get dragged out to these things quite frequently. Moreover, my being gone doesn't hurt the project much because my colleagues actually believe the company hype about my being a high-ranking manager from XXXX (not my home country). I simply dump responsibilities on underlings when I leave and then thank them for taking care of business when I get back.

My last trip included a day in Hongkong. Half the day was spent at a big meeting with all the muckitty-mucks, the other half the boss an I went shopping. She got herself a new leather bag,I got a pair of watches. (one for myself, the other for my wife) It can be a fun job at times.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on July 02, 2010, 04:53:16 PM
 ananananan


I want to be a "Rent A Laowai."
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on July 02, 2010, 06:02:46 PM
Meaning you aren't already?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on July 02, 2010, 08:20:50 PM
It all sounds so very cheap and degrading.  Where do I sign up?  ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on July 02, 2010, 09:18:32 PM
 ahahahahah ahahahahah Been there, done that! See my pics of Quanzhou in the Saloon Photo Album.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on July 02, 2010, 10:26:16 PM
i modelled for an internet company

i wouldn't mind doing it again for a bit of extra cash if it was as easy as the last time (just 1 hour modelling and then they bought me dinner and beer...)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on July 02, 2010, 10:37:36 PM
I don't take my clothes off, though. Well maybe the tie. But nothing else. Not while the lights are on.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on July 09, 2010, 10:34:06 PM
... the bastards are still doing it

report from New Zealand today (9 July 2010)


Quote
Chinese seize tonnes of contaminated milk

 Chinese authorities have seized 38 tonnes of milk powder laced with a toxic additive that killed children and sparked a nationwide uproar in 2008, official media reported, underscoring the stubbornness of food safety failings.

Samples of milk powder found in northwest China's Gansu and Qinghai provinces had levels of the chemical melamine up to 500 times beyond the permitted limit, and suspected tainted powder has also turned up in the country's northeast, said the report from the Xinhua news agency on Friday.

The exposure of tainted milk products in a poor and remote parts of China's northwest has underscored the persistence of food safety problems that have alarmed consumers and sparked criminal scandals that led to executions and official sackings.

Two years ago, at least six children died and nearly 300,000 children fell ill from drinking powdered milk laced with melamine, an industrial compound added to fool inspectors by giving misleadingly high results in protein tests.

Faced with outrage from consumers and anguished parents and an international outcry, Beijing blamed officials in north China's Hebei province for covering up the problem dairy products, sold mainly by Hebei's now bankrupt Sanlu Group, which was partly owned by New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra.

China executed two people last November for their role in the scandal.

The Xinhua report did not mention any deaths or illnesses blamed on the latest batches of toxic dairy products.

``The authorities have demanded strict investigations and punishment and the preventing of any problem milk powder entering the market,'' it said.

Police traced tainted milk powder discovered in Gansu province to a dairy factory in neighbouring Qinghai province. The company had bought the powder from elsewhere and kept it in a village near the factory. Officials seized 38 tonnes of ``problem milk powder,'' said Xinhua.

``Tests showed levels of melamine 500 times above the accepted level,'' said the report.

Traders had bought the tainted milk from Hebei province, possibly buying up batches supposed to have been destroyed after the 2008 scandal, said Xinhua.

Melamine can cause kidney stones, and is used to make plastics, fertilisers and concrete. Its high nitrogen content allows protein levels to appear higher when added to milk or animal feed, allowing traders to disguise substandard products. /quote]

Last updated 13:17 09/07/2010
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on July 11, 2010, 01:14:32 AM
Disney to Expand English Language Training Schools in China (http://newsbythesecond.com/disney-to-expand-english-language-training-schools-in-china/3134/)
by Simon H. Cohen Jul 7th, 2010 Business.

The Walt Disney Company announced that it is going ahead with plans to expand their English language training programs in China. The company which currently operates 11 schools throughout the country hopes to open 140 more over the next five years.

Russell Hampton, the president of Disney Publishing Worldwide said that the language schools are part of a broader initiative to expand the company’s presence in one of the world’s most rapidly growing economies, a plan that will also include the opening of the first Disney theme park in mainland China. He estimates that by 2015 the program will generate over $100 million in revenue while teaching English to 150,000 students.

However, he also recognized that the nature of the schools present a unique opportunity to help the company gain exposure with Chinese consumers. In a recent interview he was quoted as saying that, “We wouldn’t enter this business just to use it as a marketing tool…But there’s no doubt that a side benefit is broader exposure (for) the rich heritage of Disney story-telling.”

In the past Disney’s presence in China has been severely curtailed by government media controls and quotas. The release of foreign films is currently capped at a maximum of 20 per year, and many seemingly innocuous Disney movies have been banned in the past for violating censorship laws. Disney officials said that many of the company’s trademark characters like Mickey Mouse and the Little Mermaid would be utilized as teaching aids in their English schools, giving them an opportunity to introduce them to the Chinese public.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on July 11, 2010, 01:53:18 AM
Disney officials said that many of the company’s trademark characters like Mickey Mouse and the Little Mermaid would be utilized as teaching aids in their English schools, giving them an opportunity to introduce them to the Chinese public.[/i]
 (http://newsbythesecond.com/disney-to-expand-english-language-training-schools-in-china/3134/)

Talk about life imitating art...  I think Disney got the idea from the Simpson's episode where the school closes down and re-opens as a secrect marketing institute for children's toys.  Producing "Funzo".  Except this is scary instead of funny.
http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/Grift_of_the_Magi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on July 12, 2010, 08:59:01 PM
Disney English.  I'm hearing Donald Duck's voise reciting "She sells seashells".
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on July 12, 2010, 10:36:12 PM
Disney English?  What #@*&ing kind of Mickey Mouse operation is that?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Monkey King on July 14, 2010, 07:43:49 PM
There's a Disney English about 5 minutes from my new house.  It looks very swish.

Internet addiction in South Korea (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/13/internet-addiction-south-korea)

I was in Korea in 2000-2001 and even then the 'Internet Bangs' were everywhere and you could get food and drink (including booze) delivered right to your big comfy leather chair.

I lived a year without a computer here in China and also became au-fait with your average WangBa too - generally filthy, keyboard melted with stubbed out fags, rubbish everywhere, no MSN only QQ, practically elbow to elbow with the guy next to you, but with a  certain laid back we-don't-give-a-monkeys charm.

Haven't been to one in a while though - they are probably all poshed-up now.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on July 14, 2010, 09:46:06 PM
Nope, most of them are still filthy.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on July 14, 2010, 10:19:48 PM
Speak English, China decrees (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/speak-english-china-decrees/story-e6frg6so-1225891355837)
From: The Times, July 14, 2010 12:00AM

The Chinese capital is starting a campaign demanding that its residents learn to speak at least a few sentences of English.

The drive demonstrates the dramatic changes that China has undergone in the past few decades and how its focus in world affairs has shifted.

In the 1950s, schoolchildren had to learn Russian to get ahead, while in the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, it was safer to speak no foreign language at all rather than risk retribution under Chairman Mao's rule.

Now the authorities in Beijing want to transform the capital into a "world city" - one with the international prestige of London, Paris, New York or Tokyo.

An ability to communicate with foreign visitors is regarded as a crucial step on the path to gaining such status.

All kindergartens will start English courses for their toddlers. That is expected to give them a head start for the English language classes encouraged, and often enforced, at almost every primary and middle school in China. Every Beijing public servant under the age of 40 who has a university degree will have to master a minimum of 1000 English sentences.

Every government employee, whatever their level of education, will have to be able to speak 100 sentences of English by 2015.

A minimum of 60 per cent of shop assistants, waiters, receptionists, beauticians and hairdressers under 40 will have to pass an English test in their field of expertise.

Within five years, five guides in every museum at central-government level and three in each municipal museum must pass an English proficiency test.

Before the Olympics, taxi drivers had to sit a test in basic English to renew their licences.

The Times



Tell your students to head for Beijing.  If it isn't already, exam sitting is about to boom as a part-time job.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on July 20, 2010, 04:00:31 PM
http://www.coldbee.com/2010/07/top-5-worlds-happiest-countries/

Yes, it's true, we Danes are very, very happy...but Forbes is a little wrong...see, we dump lots of LSD in the ocean and then we eat lots of fish...honestly, why else would anyone be happy about paying 60% in income tax and live on an island the size of a stamp where the sun is but a mere legend and there are 745 different categories for rain???? agagagagag agagagagag agagagagag agagagagag agagagagag cgcgcgcgcg cgcgcgcgcg cgcgcgcgcg ;)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on July 20, 2010, 07:53:11 PM
. . . honestly, why else would anyone be happy about . . .

Because
(http://www.denmarkfacts.com/image-files/girls_of_denmark.jpg)
Danish women are hot!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on July 20, 2010, 08:18:12 PM
I will get no more meaningful work done today.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: mlaeux on July 22, 2010, 09:29:52 AM
This is a sensitive subject for me, especially since I'm currently coping with the Gulf Oil Disaster thing in Florida.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-10708375 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-10708375)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-10673250 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-10673250)

Who is in Dalian? What's going on? How bad is it?

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: mlaeux on July 22, 2010, 10:14:39 AM
Now for something completely different...competing currencies are being used as payment for goods and services in Michigan.

http://www.connectmidmichigan.com/news/story.aspx?id=481793 (http://www.connectmidmichigan.com/news/story.aspx?id=481793)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on July 22, 2010, 12:52:50 PM
Here is a good link on the Dalian oil spill.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100721/ap_on_bi_ge/as_china_pipeline_explosion
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: mlaeux on July 22, 2010, 01:05:21 PM
Dragonsaver- How bad is it really?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: adriancehilgarde on July 22, 2010, 01:46:39 PM
Yikes, I was thinking Dalian might be a nice place to end up, but now I'm not so sure being anywhere around large bodies of water in China is a good idea. (Pollution!)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on July 22, 2010, 05:38:29 PM
We are going to live SUCH a long time!

Regrowing body parts closer to reality
Last Updated: Tuesday, July 20, 2010 | 10:01 PM ET Comments85Recommend92CBC News
Scientists in Toronto are trying to crack the secrets of regeneration to trigger the human body to grow tissues and organs damaged by disease.

In his lab at Mount Sinai Hospital, Dr. Ian Rogers is working on a replacement pancreas that would be grown in a lab and then placed in those with Type 1 diabetes to restore their insulin production. Dr. Rita Kandel aims to re-grow hip and knee joints. (CBC)
"When I talk to parents of kids with Type 1 diabetes, I always apologize: 'Right now our goal is to treat for a year or two,'" Rogers says. "And they're very happy, because they say, 'I nag my child three times a day to take their insulin, check their glucose,' and they're saying if they get a reprieve for a year they'll be very happy."

At this stage, Rogers's team is building a pancreas out of a surgical sponge, a three-dimensional structure seeded with insulin-producing islet cells. The pancreas would be grown in the lab and then placed under the skin of those with Type 1 diabetes to restore their insulin production.

But making a pancreas is complicated, Rogers said. The most advanced research at his lab is simpler: regenerating blood vessels so people with Type 2 — or adult onset — diabetes who have damaged fingers and toes can avoid amputation.

In theory, any condition where cells are damaged — from insulin-producing cells in diabetes to brain cells in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, to retina cells in blindness, to damaged areas in the heart — could one day be repaired, said Dr. Andras Nagy. The key is stem cells from blood, skin or embryos.
"If we can find a way to replace these cells back in to where it's missing, we can envision a cure for these diseases which are currently devastating," Nagy said.

So far this year, two U.S. companies gained regulatory approval to test stem cell-based therapies on 18 spinal cord patients, he noted.

Down the hall at the hospital's Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute, Dr. Rita Kandel is working on re-growing hip and knee joints using white pieces of cartilage grown on a bone substitute that acts like a scaffold for the cells.

"The goal is to develop a biological joint replacement so that people can be fully mobile and pain free," Kandel said.

Ultimately, Kandel's vision is what she calls a fountain of youth that could cure aging, though she acknowledged that is a long way off.

For now, most of the work is still in the test tube and petri dish stage in Toronto and other laboratories around the world.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on August 02, 2010, 10:42:37 PM
Rhinos are ready to fight back.   agagagagag

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/South-Africa-Rhino-Horn-Poison-Plan-To-Put-Off-Poachers-Who-Have-Killed-More-Than-150-This-Year/Article/201007415673716?lpos=World_News_News_Your_Way_Region_1&lid=NewsYourWay_ARTICLE_15673716_South_Africa%3A_Rhino_Horn_Poison_Plan_To_Put_Off_Poachers_Who_Have_Killed_More_Than_150_This_Year


Quote
Rhino Horn Poison Plan To Stop Poachers
4:18pm UK, Friday July 30, 2010

Emma Hurd, Africa correspondent
The owner of a South African game reserve is planning to inject the horns of his rhinos with poison.

Ed Hern, owner of the Rhino and Lion Reserve near Johannesburg, hopes the drastic measure will deter poachers who have killed more than 150 of the animals since the start of the year.

Making the horns deadly to humans is the only way to halt the booming black market trade, he says.

"The aim would be to kill, or make seriously ill anyone who consumes the horn," he said.

"If someone in China eats it and gets violently sick, they are not going to buy it again," Mr Hern said.*

Demand from China for powdered rhino horn - erroneously believed to be an aphrodisiac - is blamed for a wave of rhino poaching across South Africa's private and public game reserves.

Game reserve Ed Hern wants to deter poachers

The animals, including rare black rhino, are being slaughtered at the rate of two or three a week for their horns which can fetch up to £45,000 on the black market.

The poaching gangs are well funded, using helicopters and night vision equipment to target their prey.

Mr Hern's plan to poison the horns of his herd of white rhino has caused consternation among some conservationists but, he says, the animals will not be harmed.

"We are experimenting by injecting a little of the substance every day into one of the rhino, and monitoring him carefully for any effects," he said.

"It may seem outrageous, but what's really outrageous is the sight of a dead rhino with its horn sawn off," he added.

That fate befell the last adult rhino in the nearby Krugersdorp reserve, whose orphaned calf was found hungry and bewildered on July 16th.

The horns are believed in China to have aphrodisiac qualities

The nine-month-old, named Vuma, is now being hand reared at Ed Hern's park, along with two other calves who were also orphaned by poachers.

The calves only survived the attacks because their horns were too small to interest the poachers.

Small game reserves are increasingly being targeted by the criminal gangs after the Kruger park stepped up its security following a spate of rhino poaching.

So far this year, 152 animals have been killed so far this year, a significant increase on previous years.

Scientific research has proved that the keratin in rhino horns, the same substance as human hair and nails, has no medicinal value. But the myth of its properties continues to drive the trade.

*I personally suspect that people who die from the poison will be even less likely to be repeat customers. ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on August 02, 2010, 11:00:05 PM
the last rhinos will be gone long before the marketers in china care enough about the odd dead customer to stop buying.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on August 02, 2010, 11:05:21 PM
the last rhinos will be gone long before the marketers in china care enough about the odd dead customer to stop buying.

Yeah, the poachers and marketers don't care.  The only way this will work is if some dead customers are well connected enough that it gets plastered all over the news here.  That might reduce demand at least a little.

So, how do we start a web rumor that over 80% of powdered rhino horn is already poisoned?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Pashley on August 02, 2010, 11:10:36 PM
Could they just de-horn their rhinos?

That would make them not worth poaching; I'm not sure if it would disrupt the beasts' lives much. If so, maybe put a prosthetic horn on them, perhaps dayglo so poachers would know it is bogus.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Damballah on August 03, 2010, 02:40:03 AM

So, how do we start a web rumor that over 80% of powdered rhino horn is already poisoned?


Get a Chinese friend to write out the sentence for you in Hanzi, then post it on QQ and Xiaonei.  It will spread - fast.

And given all the other food scares, will be easily believed.  :)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on August 03, 2010, 03:56:30 AM
I would booby trap the horn so that it's only activated if the animal is dead and the horn is severly manipulated. This way it won't kill any beast preying on the carcass but obliterate the poacher. That will stop him/them
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on August 03, 2010, 06:10:01 PM
I would booby trap the horn so that it's only activated if the animal is dead and the horn is severly manipulated. This way it won't kill any beast preying on the carcass but obliterate the poacher. That will stop him/them

Damn.  Another unexploded rhino.  Do I cut the read wire or the blue wire?  ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on August 03, 2010, 07:03:06 PM
We need a bogus headline: "14 dead after terrorists poison rhino horn"
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Damballah on August 06, 2010, 12:48:46 PM
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_32/b4190014454795.htm

I don't think I'll be buying real estate or investing in too many companies any time soon.  And back home I'll be looking for stuff that won't be too affected by the next banking crisis. 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Fozzwaldus on August 06, 2010, 01:59:55 PM
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_32/b4190014454795.htm

I don't think I'll be buying real estate or investing in too many companies any time soon.  And back home I'll be looking for stuff that won't be too affected by the next banking crisis. 

I've read a couple of articles like this lately, and I wonder how much I should be worried... is the genuine canary in the mine reporting, or is it wishful thinking?

I mean, the Chinese economy has to slow down sometime... doesn't it?

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 07, 2010, 04:05:00 PM
China Plans Huge Buses That Can DRIVE OVER Cars (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/02/3d-express-coach-pictures_n_667452.html#s122517)

China may have found an environmentally friendly way to save money while easing congestion on city roads, Engadget reports.

Instead of spending millions to widen roads, the Shenzhen Huashi Future Parking Equipment company is developing a "3D Express Coach" (also called a "three-dimensional fast bus") that will allow cars less than 2 meters high to travel underneath the upper level carrying passengers.

China Hush, which has nicknamed the project "Straddling Bus" has details:

    The model looks like a subway or light-rail train bestriding the road. It is 4-4.5 m high with two levels: passengers board on the upper level while other vehicles lower than 2 m can go through under. Powered by electricity and solar energy, the bus can speed up to 60 km/h carrying 1200-1400 passengers at a time without blocking other vehicles' way. Also it costs about 500 million yuan to build the bus and a 40-km-long path for it, only 10% of building equivalent subway. It is said that the bus can reduce traffic jams by 20-30%.

According to Engadget, construction of the first 115 miles of track will begin in Beijing's Mentougou district at the end of 2010.

Check out our slideshow of the 3D Express Coach, then tell us what you think in the comments below.

For more information about this project, as well as a translation of the project's official unveiling by Song Youzhou, chairman of Shenzhen Hashi Future Parking Equipment, visit China Hush.



We're doomed.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on August 07, 2010, 06:05:23 PM
i showed my friend that video of the super bus and he said 'they should learn how to use lanes first :D
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on August 07, 2010, 07:26:46 PM
Better put a cow catcher or snowplow blade on the lower parts to deal with all the things that will cross it's path at the wrong time.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on August 08, 2010, 05:02:18 AM
EL:
Quote
Better put a cow catcher or snowplow blade on the lower parts to deal with all the things that will cross it's path at the wrong time.

Here in Dalian, we have special lanes that are (supposedly) retricted for use by the fast commuter busses. There are many places where left hand turns and U-turns are forbidden, because that requires cutting in front of the restricted-for-bus lane. You can imagine how effective the signage is, and how often traffic jams are caused by drivers who begin a U-turn across the lane and stop right in front of one of these things, expecting the driver to just stop on a dime.
I would prefer a machine gun, but I guess a snowplow blade would do just as well. Can we put spikes on that? Painted with the sting-ray poison that killed Steve Irwin?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: old34 on August 08, 2010, 06:11:17 AM
The innovation involved in this impresses me, if they can pull this off. That's what testing is for...and according to the video, they're going to try and test this in Beijing's Mentougou District.

Watching the video, they've thought through a lot of the main issues down to the emergency evacuation in case of a major accident. The power system is brilliant-the power track is on, and therefore moves, with the bus; no need to build power lines along the route. The routes will be laid along roads where pedestrian/bike access is restricted (fenced off).

We also have the BRT buses where I'm at and it's a tremendous waste of road space with special access lanes prohibited to all other vehicles. Most drivers adhere to the rules which means shoehorning 2,3, or 4 lanes of traffic into 1, 2 or 3 lanes while the BRT lane stays empty. The white lines restricting the BRT lane have sensors on them which trigger cameras if someone tries to use that lane, resulting in a photo fine. The other drivers know that so stay out of that lane. This thing could open up more lanes to regular traffic and, in addition, can carry up to 1200 passengers (about 12 busloads) at a time.

Yeah, it's fun to make fun of the way things are done here, but really it's good to see some folks have their innovation hats on and the capital/funding to try to pull something useful off.

Hats on to them. bfbfbfbfbf

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: El Macho on August 16, 2010, 01:02:27 PM
Fascinating:
Quote
China's rich have $1.5 trillion in hidden income

BEIJING - CHINA'S households hide as much as 9.3 trillion yuan (S$1.5 trillion) of income that is not reported in official figures, with 80 per cent accrued by the wealthiest people, a study showed.

The money, much of it likely 'illegal or quasi-illegal,' equates to about 30 per cent of China's gross domestic product, the study, conducted for Credit Suisse AG and published last week by the China Reform Foundation, found.

The average urban disposable household income in China is 32,154 yuan, or 90 per cent more than official figures, according to the report.

Most of that extra cash is going to the wealthiest families. The top 10 per cent of China's households take in 139,000 yuan [US$20,500] a year, more than triple the official figures, according to the Credit Suisse report.

In contrast, the bottom 10 per cent earns 5,350 yuan, or 13 per cent more. The top 20 per cent of households account for 81.3 per cent of total hidden income, according to the study, written by Wang Xiaolu of the Beijing-based foundation.

The findings indicate China's wealth gap between rich and poor, already one of the world's highest, is even wider than official figures show.

Reducing income disparities is a top goal of President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, who want to stave off riots, strikes and other social unrest that might threaten the six-decade rule of the Communist Party.

The 'grey income' comes from many sources, including gifts to officials at weddings, profits from land transfers, kickbacks from construction projects, and payoffs from state monopolies such as the tobacco industry, the study said.

'CRONY CAPITALISM'

'ONCE government power is united with capital, the free competition of the market economy begins to be replaced by a monopoly of crony capitalism, leading to disparity in income and property distribution, lower economic efficiency and acute social conflicts,' Wang wrote in his report's conclusion.

The study, compiled in 2009, is based on interviews with families in more than 4,000 urban households in 64 cities and 19 provinces, and uses 2008 data.

Its findings suggest that household income is a much higher percentage of GDP than official figures show, helping explain a surge in spending on luxury goods.

Gucci, a subsidiary of Paris-based PPR SA, last year opened a store in Hebei's provincial capital of Shijiazhuang, selling snakeskin purses for more than US$4,000, about twice the city's official annual per-capita income.

Munich-based Bayerische Motoren Werke AG said sales in China surged 82 per cent to 13,852 cars last month from a year earlier.

LOCAL GRAFT

THE figures make sense of the wealth accumulated by local officials, often revealed during corruption trials.

Hao Pengjun, a former county mine official in northern China's Shanxi province, was jailed for 20 years in April for taking in 305 million yuan illegally, the People's Daily reported.

Hao owned 35 properties in Beijing including 17 in one development, according to the Shanxi Evening News.

Zhang Yingxiang, a spokeswoman for China's National Bureau of Statistics in Beijing, said she hadn't seen the study and said the bureau didn't track grey income.

She wouldn't say whether China's households had a substantial amount of hidden wealth. -- BLOOMBERG
I tried to find the original report, assuming it would be less confusingly written than this article, but the foundation's website has been hacked. (>.<) Here's another article (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/chinas-secret-wealth-benefits-those-at-top/story-e6frg6ux-1225905590071)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Pashley on August 16, 2010, 01:32:45 PM
A fascinating talk on privacy vs data revealed to servers:

http://www.softwarefreedom.org/news/2010/feb/10/highlights-eben-moglens-freedom-cloud-talk/
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on August 16, 2010, 11:21:05 PM
The computer is your friend.
The computer wants to make you happy.
Trust the computer.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 18, 2010, 01:46:26 AM
Ian Teh, Photographer (http://www.ianteh.com//index.php)

Reviewed in The NYTimes. (http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/17/showcase-203/?hp)

There is something almost timeless about Ian Teh’s photographs of China. And yet, they are shrouded in the darkness of the country’s burgeoning energy industry. They explore the emergence of an industrial machine.

They are all about change.

The China Mr. Teh knows has two sides. The first is occupied by the facades of towering cities like Beijing and Shanghai. The other is darker, sustained by cheap labor and energy. It is this side that makes development — and the degradation of culture and the environment — possible.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on August 24, 2010, 06:02:09 PM
Worlds largest traffic jam

Thousands of drivers on the Beijing-T Expressway just outside the Chinese capital have been snared by roadworks ever since 14 August – and the disruption is expected to last a further month. The tailbacks now stretch for a mind-boggling 100km and 400 police officers have been assigned to the area to quell rising tensions, with impromptu vendors said to be charging exorbitant prices for tea and noodles. Meanwhile, drivers resigned to their fate are reported to be passing the time with games of chess or cards. Some have requested concerts be performed on roadside verges.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/aug/23/worlds-worst-traffic-jam
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on August 24, 2010, 09:06:31 PM
Oooh... Think I should buy a motorcycle and cruise up there to sell some overpriced noodles and drinks.  bjbjbjbjbj
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: The Local Dialect on August 25, 2010, 05:22:10 AM
8 Chinese tourists killed when a tour bus was taken hostage in the Philippines.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38810942/ns/world_news-asiapacific/ (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38810942/ns/world_news-asiapacific/)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: The Hiphoppopotomous on August 25, 2010, 06:37:41 AM
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-11068063


has been all over the news today.

'woman caught on film putting cat in a wheelie bin
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on August 25, 2010, 07:11:40 AM
It's ridiculous how people treat bins these days
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: The Hiphoppopotomous on August 25, 2010, 11:18:26 AM
I think you've missed the point of the article Stil.

Britian may come across as a largely uncaring and heartless country, but when we see something as horrific as a cat being put into a bin for over 15 hours, we get seriously angry. That woman has no idea the amount of stress that she could have caused that family. In our country, green bins denote recycling. Had they not heard that animals strained meows, they could have been fined a moderate amount of money for mixing plastics and cat, as well as having their collection privileges revoked. How would you like it is some old lady was the reason that you had to travel to poor parts of town to use their bottle bins? please think next time before you make light of Britain's environmental policy.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on August 25, 2010, 03:34:54 PM
I apologise. In Canada we use blue bins for recycling.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on August 25, 2010, 03:54:29 PM
To clarify Stil's point, in Canada the household blue bins are open-topped, and comparatively shallow. Yes, we have the chest-high monster bins too, but those are only at shopping malls. The household bins are so shallow that even an English cat could climb out.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on August 25, 2010, 06:14:46 PM
I think you've missed the point of the article Stil.

Britian may come across as a largely uncaring and heartless country, but when we see something as horrific as a cat being put into a bin for over 15 hours, we get seriously angry. That woman has no idea the amount of stress that she could have caused that family. In our country, green bins denote recycling. Had they not heard that animals strained meows, they could have been fined a moderate amount of money for mixing plastics and cat, as well as having their collection privileges revoked. How would you like it is some old lady was the reason that you had to travel to poor parts of town to use their bottle bins? please think next time before you make light of Britain's environmental policy.

:D:D

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on August 25, 2010, 07:09:29 PM


Worlds largest traffic jam

Thousands of drivers on the Beijing-T Expressway just outside the Chinese capital have been snared by roadworks ever since 14 August – and the disruption is expected to last a further month. The tailbacks now stretch for a mind-boggling 100km and 400 police officers have been assigned to the area to quell rising tensions, with impromptu vendors said to be charging exorbitant prices for tea and noodles. Meanwhile, drivers resigned to their fate are reported to be passing the time with games of chess or cards. Some have requested concerts be performed on roadside verges.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/aug/23/worlds-worst-traffic-jam



China's Mega Traffic Jam Tied To Illegal Coal Trade: Report

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/08/24/129404540/chinese-mega-traffic-jam-linked-to-illegal-coal-trade (http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/08/24/129404540/chinese-mega-traffic-jam-linked-to-illegal-coal-trade)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on August 26, 2010, 02:46:49 PM
Britian may come across as a largely uncaring and heartless country, but when we see something as horrific as a cat being put into a bin for over 15 hours, we get seriously angry. That woman has no idea the amount of stress that she could have caused that family. In our country, green bins denote recycling. Had they not heard that animals strained meows, they could have been fined a moderate amount of money for mixing plastics and cat, as well as having their collection privileges revoked. How would you like it is some old lady was the reason that you had to travel to poor parts of town to use their bottle bins? please think next time before you make light of Britain's environmental policy.

I'm sure it was a simple mixup.  She really meant to put the cat in the bin for biodegradable materials.

Of course, if the UK would just institute a proper pet recycling program, all that fur, meat, and other useful materials could be properly utilized instead of being composted. uuuuuuuuuu

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: The Hiphoppopotomous on August 26, 2010, 03:35:43 PM
I've lost count of the amount of letters sent to my local council inquiring about the correct method of cat disposal. I have been wanting to get rid of my cat for some time now, as he is rude and loud. I have even suggest them offering incentives such as a new cat after they get beyond their useful age.

Anyway, news just in on the cat recycling mixup...

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3110434/Its-just-a-cat-I-put-Lola-in-bin-for-joke-whats-all-the-fuss-says-Mary.html
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on August 26, 2010, 03:47:29 PM
Judging by the photos, the little monster didn't suffer too much in that bin. Looks to me like she made out like a bandit. To think of all the treats that unthinking stranger have showered on that "unfortunate" cat and her owners... you could clothe and house and feed the poor on all that. (If they don't mind sleeping on a pink pillow, wearing a cat collar and eating salmon-flavoured catfood, that is.) I know, it's not agaisnt the law to pamper a cat, but still, don't you think such people ought to be shot?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: The Hiphoppopotomous on August 26, 2010, 04:27:43 PM
MY issue isn't with the fact that the cat is spoilt, rather that someone would spoil such an ugly cat.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on August 26, 2010, 05:20:58 PM
To think of all the treats that unthinking stranger have showered on that "unfortunate" cat and her owners... you could clothe and house and feed the poor on all that.

The cat is just being fattened up in advance of the new Pet Recycling Program.  All that fur will make some nice mittens for poor children this winter.  A family that would otherwise go hungry will have a very plump cat for their Christmas dinner.

China is so far ahead of the curve with pet recycling.  You just have to tie your used pet up next to where you drop off your other recyclables.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on August 26, 2010, 09:59:51 PM
EL, you're such a humanitarian! (How's the Soylent business?)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on August 27, 2010, 12:29:33 AM
EL, you're such a humanitarian! (How's the Soylent business?)

Thanks to the continuing efforts of the Soylent Corporation, the recycling of human corpses into tasty snack crackers continues to set new records.  This benefits the living in many ways.  Expensive and wasteful burial and cremation costs are avoided.  The chances for famine worldwide are reduced.  And, the elimination of potential zombies makes us all so much safer.

Think green.  Soylent Green!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on August 27, 2010, 07:15:28 PM
8 Chinese tourists killed when a tour bus was taken hostage in the Philippines.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38810942/ns/world_news-asiapacific/ (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38810942/ns/world_news-asiapacific/)

Since many of the Chinese are from Hong Kong, this was monumental news there. We saw flags at half mast all over HK. The people and government of HK are still numb. Some people have already retalliated by firing various Filopino workers.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on August 27, 2010, 08:28:32 PM
I hate it when people take out their frustrations on innocent bystanders based on something one idiot did. I'd like to ask those HK bosses how they'd react if a HongKong person killed some foreigners and people in that country began firing anyone from HK.


I really have to wonder what the guy who did this was smoking.  A cop taking hostages to demand reinstatement.  Even if no one had been hurt, his previous firing was proven to be unjustified, and he'd been retroactively reinstated, a mass kidnapping charge would just mean he'd automatically be fired again before they could have gotten him to the jail.

It's just a pity the snipers didn't finish him off quicker.  So sad to see innocent victims who weren't even in the country when the guy's problems started get killed.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 31, 2010, 02:07:18 AM
Middle Kingdom meets Magic Kingdom (http://www.economist.com/node/16889262)

At first glance, their classrooms look like dreary boxes, but two of the four walls are interactive video monitors. Each lesson is assisted by virtual mermaids, ducks, mice and other Disney icons. Touch the answer to a question (a fried egg, for example) on one screen, and it plops out of the sky on the other. While teachers instruct, the classroom seems to move.

Has anyone seen that?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on August 31, 2010, 08:58:49 PM
Sounds a bit scary.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on September 01, 2010, 03:55:31 PM
Chinese companies 'rent' white foreigners (http://edition.cnn.com/2010/BUSINESS/06/29/china.rent.white.people/index.html?hpt=C1)
By Lara Farrar, for CNN

Beijing, China (CNN) -- In China, white people can be rented.

For a day, a weekend, a week, up to even a month or two, Chinese companies are willing to pay high prices for fair-faced foreigners to join them as fake employees or business partners.

Some call it "White Guy Window Dressing." To others, it's known as the "White Guy in a Tie" events, "The Token White Guy Gig," or, simply, a "Face Job."

And it is, essentially, all about the age-old Chinese concept of face. To have a few foreigners hanging around means a company has prestige, money and the increasingly crucial connections -- real or not -- to businesses abroad.

"Face, we say in China, is more important than life itself," said Zhang Haihua, author of "Think Like Chinese." "Because Western countries are so developed, people think they are more well off, so people think that if a company can hire foreigners, it must have a lot of money and have very important connections overseas. So when they really want to impress someone, they may roll out a foreigner."

Or rent one.

Last year, Jonathan Zatkin, an American actor who lives in Beijing, posed as the vice president of an Italian jewelry company that had, allegedly, been in a partnership with a Chinese jewelry chain for a decade.

When is being foreign a career advantage?

Zatkin was paid 2,000 yuan (about $300) to fly, along with a couple of Russian models, to a small city in the central province of Henan where he delivered a speech for the grand opening ceremony of a jewelry store there.

"I was up on stage with the mayor of the town, and I made a speech about how wonderful it was to work with the company for 10 years and how we were so proud of all of the work they had done for us in China," Zatkin said. "They put up a big bandstand and the whole town was there and some other local muckety-mucks."

The requirements for these jobs are simple. 1. Be white. 2. Do not speak any Chinese, or really speak at all, unless asked. 3. Pretend like you just got off of an airplane yesterday.

Those who go for such gigs tend to be unemployed actors or models, part-time English teachers or other expats looking to earn a few extra bucks. Often they are jobs at a second- or third-tier city, where the presence of pale-faced foreigners is needed to impress local officials, secure a contract or simply to fulfill a claim of being international.

"Occasionally companies want a foreign face to go to meetings and conferences or to go to dinners and lunches and smile at the clients and shake people's hands," read an ad posted by a company called Rent A Laowai (Chinese for "foreigner") on the online classified site thebeijinger.com.

It continued: "There are job opportunities for girls who are pretty and for men who can look good in a suit."

Click here for in-depth news on China

People like Brad Smith. When Smith -- the nom de plume of the Beijing-based American actor -- answered CNN's phone call on a recent morning, he was standing outside a meeting room at a Ramada Inn in Hangzhou, a city about 100 miles outside of Shanghai. Today's job: Pretend to be an architect from New York and give design plans for a new museum to local officials.

"They have not told me what my name is today. I think it is Lawrence or something," said Smith -- unlike some jobs, no fake business cards were given to hand out.

Earlier that morning he went over his script with his Chinese "business partners" at a Kentucky Fried Chicken. "It says, 'Good morning distinguished leaders. It is my privilege to participate in this program'," said Smith, who asked that his real name not be used for fear it could jeopardize future jobs.

If Smith is asked a question, he is told to pretend to answer as his "translator" pretends to understand.

Occasionally, these jobs can go awry. Smith said 18 months ago Beijing police showed up at his apartment after a financial company he worked at for a couple of months in Xi'an, a city in western China, allegedly swindled millions of yuan out of clients.

"That company said I was the guy in charge," he said. "I didn't even remember the company's name. After that, I decided I was never going to use my passport again with these fake companies. The small gigs are much less dangerous." Sometimes companies will hire Caucasians simply to sit in the office a few hours a day near the window where clients and customers can see them.

White women are also a hot commodity, sometimes to pose as phony foreign girlfriends, or, in the case of Vicky Mohieddeen, to pretend to be an oil tycoon.

Mohieddeen, who is Scottish, took a job in 2008 to attend what she describes as some sort of "oil drilling conference" in Shandong province for 300 yuan ($44). Several busloads of foreigners, with nationalities ranging from Pakistani to Nigerian, were trucked to the event, she said. They were greeted by brass bands and feted with a sumptuous dinner.

"I was like, 'Yeah, we have a lot of oil in Scotland.' I didn't know what to say. It was a bit nerve-racking. We were guests of honor of the vice mayor. We were put in a nice hotel. It was quite fancy."

For Mohieddeen, who had just arrived in Beijing at the time, the experience, albeit bizarre, was an introduction to a side of China most foreigners will never see.

"It is part of what China is all about, you know," Mohieddeen said. "There is quite an elaborate fantasy world going on here where if everyone buys into it, it does not matter if it is the truth. Those kinds of experiences give me a fuller understanding of the way the culture works."



Okay, I just had my first official "Rent A White Guy" experience. In another city, a developer was applying to do a major, and I mean major job. It entailled a 2-5 year construction of tourist buildings for the city. We met at the city council, with all the city leaders etc, etc, etc. The mayor came to me to say hello and then I sat for 4 hours listenting to everyone speak and ask questions, all in Chinese.

My roll? I was introduced as one of the foreign project designers. I looked so smart in my suit, quiet and proper. Talk about acting  ahahahahah.  Every so often, I would lean over to my friend and pretend to ask an intelligent question.

He later told me that almost everyone knew I was a fake. But they were proud that the projct manager hired me. It showed his sencerity.  mmmmmmmmmm. Apparently, this is just the cost of business.

The pay wasn't worth it, but I did it to help a friend. We stayed in the Gov't Hotel, dinner was incredible as was breakfast. The meeting room was also blacked out for any phone reception.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on September 01, 2010, 04:35:03 PM
Sounds a bit scary.


A Skinner box for infants.  The cruel part being, not only does the fried egg pop up on the *other* wall after you press the level, it's NOT EVEN A REAL EGG!  Around lunch time the kiddies are going to be licking the screens and begging the mermaids to give them something, anything.  This is how Uncle Walt builds his army.





Oh, you thought Walt Disney was dead?  Fools!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on September 01, 2010, 05:12:08 PM
Sounds a bit scary.


A Skinner box for infants.  The cruel part being, not only does the fried egg pop up on the *other* wall after you press the level, it's NOT EVEN A REAL EGG!  Around lunch time the kiddies are going to be licking the screens and begging the mermaids to give them something, anything.  This is how Uncle Walt builds his army.


Oh, you thought Walt Disney was dead?  Fools!

Then there's the adult version of the box for re-educating adults who don't comply to Disney standards.

Please, no!  Don't put me back in the box again!  I love Mickey Mouse!  HEIL MICKEY!  I'll do ANYTHING you ask, just please NOT the box!!!  Nooooo!!!!!

Mickey Mouse - Love him and fear him - or else you go back in the box.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on September 01, 2010, 05:52:48 PM
Yes, a cruel but inevitable reversal of the psychologist/lab rat dynamic.

Disney Theme parks are confusing, aren't they?  One should take a look at their layout.  THEY'RE MAZES!!!

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Ruth on September 01, 2010, 11:52:48 PM
Interesting experience, Day Dreamer.  I wonder why, if everyone knows the white guy is a fake, that they bother to go through the motions.  That the developer was seen as sincere for going to the effort of finding a fake white guy blows my mind.  Lots about Chinese culture I have yet to learn.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on September 02, 2010, 03:17:14 AM
Quote
I wonder why, if everyone knows the white guy is a fake, that they bother to go through the motions.  That the developer was seen as sincere for going to the effort of finding a fake white guy blows my mind.  Lots about Chinese culture I have yet to learn
Good question, one that I've been asking myself for a while now. That's my salaried job. It pays twice what teaching does, but involves extra work and hours (I'm assisting with writing a Chinglish text), but it comes with the frills. I have long been wondering how much of their own propoganda these people believe, and how much the clients believe.
Perhaps (and I'm guessing here) the key phrase is "willing suspension of disbelief". The willingness to ignore the very obvious elephant in the room in order to deal with the known issues (as opposed to opening a can of womrs) and hopefully come closer to the prize/bait at the end of the process/hook. who's zoomin' who? 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on September 02, 2010, 05:19:49 AM
As serendipity will have it, I was reading an article on this in the paper last week. When polled, the majority (approx 60%) were NOT in favour of this practice. Now it didn't say what type of people (profession) nor did it mention if the respondants were foreign or Chinese.

I looked at it as similar to a television commercial. Nobody really believes that the 4 out of 5 guys are really doctors (maybe the other guy is)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on September 04, 2010, 03:51:35 PM
Quote
Destructive 7.1 Christchurch earthquake


Christchurch - and the wider South Island - was rocked by the massive 7.1 magnitude quake at 4.35am. Buildings were flattened, residents injured and infrastructure damaged.

The quake - initially reported at 7.4 magnitude but later downgraded - was centred 30km west of the city and 33km underground. It has been followed by a series of strong aftershocks.

A state of emergency has been declared and will be in place until Monday or Tuesday. The CBD is in lockdown until at least tomorrow. [/size]

* reported that 2 suffered serious injury from falling debris

* the 7.1 earthquake in T**b*t this year had up to 10,000 deaths.

* building standards do make a difference as structures held together ... but after looking at some photos of the damage I would not build in brick  

 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Ruth on September 04, 2010, 06:25:23 PM
building standards do make a difference as structures held together
Agreed, but surely concentration of population has something to do with it also.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: becster79 on September 04, 2010, 07:17:43 PM
*Shudder* When you've been in one of that size you never forget it.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on September 04, 2010, 11:09:00 PM
Quote
building standards do make a difference as structures held together
Agreed, but surely concentration of population has something to do with it also.

Agreed. . . but the epicentre of this earthquake was the Christhurch CBD and, although the population density may not be the same as downtown in China, it does have a reasonable number of multi-level shops and apartment buidings. Maybe even a few more than the " remote Tan plateau" area where 1000's were killed.

If you (as in anyone) have not been in a big earthquake it goes something like this report from a couple:

Quote
The couple who live at the epicentre of Canterbury's destructive earthquake were thrown from their bed, then tossed around like they were in a washing machine.

"I was thrown on top of my husband and I just grabbed him," said Annette Stewart, speaking from her home 10km south-east of Darfield on the Canterbury plains.

"And then we were both thrown to the floor ... it was like being in a big washing machine."

The massive 7.1 magnitude earthquake hit Canterbury at 4.35am this morning, 33km underground.

....  Mrs Stewart and her husband Graham, who farm sheep in Darfield, said the noise was so loud they initially thought someone was smashing up their house.

"We thought it was an intruder, we thought we were being pulled out of bed," Mrs Stewart said.

"But then the roar was so loud, the roar of the earthquake and the noise of the chimneys coming down. It was like a freight train coming through the house, probably worse."

"We eventually reached the doorway, it must have gone on for more than a minute before the shaking began to subside."

Years ago I was in a 7.1 earthquake and said the same thing - "it was like a freight train coming through the house." Initially the noise is the scariest part and then dealing with the movement kicks in as the big problem.

Not sure if any sheep have been lost.  mmmmmmmmmm   

 




   
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on September 05, 2010, 09:39:25 PM
Quote
Years ago I was in a 7.1 earthquake and said the same thing - "it was like a freight train coming through the house." Initially the noise is the scariest part and then dealing with the movement kicks in as the big problem.

So, down in Kiwiland, I'm guessing that it's initially hard to tell the difference between a rare massive earthquake and a common sheep stampede.  Also, it sounds like "sheep incidents" probably kill more people than earthquakes in that country.

Sheep - be afraid, be very afraid. ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on September 05, 2010, 10:35:33 PM
Quote
I'm guessing that it's initially hard to tell the difference between a rare massive earthquake and a common sheep stampede.

No ... sheep are really not much different from humans. It's quite common for a ewe to ask, "Did the earth move for you too?"
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on September 06, 2010, 04:43:12 PM
Quote
I'm guessing that it's initially hard to tell the difference between a rare massive earthquake and a common sheep stampede.

No ... sheep are really not much different from humans. It's quite common for a ewe to ask, "Did the earth move for you too?"

Careful, people might get ba-a-a-a-ad ideas.  afafafafaf
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on September 07, 2010, 12:20:03 PM
on the scale of things a fake egg does not seem so bad ....

Quote
200 airline pilots faked resumes: Report
(
SHANGHAI: Chinese officials have found that 200 pilots falsified their flying histories, with more than half of them working for the parent company of an airline involved in China's worst plane crash in several years, a report said Monday.

The results of investigations in 2008-2009 showed that airlines desperate for staff were hiring pilots whose resumes had been faked, the newspaper China Business News cited sources with the civil aviation administration during a recent teleconference.

The report comes as the agency investigates safety measures nationwide following an August 24 crash that killed 42 people at a small airport in the northeast, in China's worst commercial airline disaster in nearly six years. Another 54 people were injured in the crash of the Brazilian-made Embraer 190 plane belonging to Henan Airlines during a nighttime landing at Yichun in Heilongjiang province.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on September 07, 2010, 07:53:07 PM
It seems xwarrior, that you are not the only one who espouses the belief of:

I have my standards. They may be low, but I have them.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on September 07, 2010, 08:21:43 PM
When all else fails, lower your standards.   ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on September 08, 2010, 05:36:52 PM
When you can't find the landing gear, lower your standards
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on September 09, 2010, 02:00:28 AM

Quote
When all else fails, lower your standards.

Quote
When you can't find the landing gear, lower your standards

I have to fly to Shanghai tomorrow night so:

   * it does not seem like a good time to challenge a pilot with, "how low can you go?"

   * in any case, I have yet to meet anyone with standards lower than mine so he can take an 'inch is as good as a mile' approach to navigating us to Shanghai and I can cope

   * I am sure the pilots "resume" and "qualifications" will have the same legitimacy as many Foreign Teachers in China
   
   * should he fail to find the landing gear he will discover that nobody can lower their standards faster than I can
   
PS At least I am not flying with the airline I have was condemned to use last month - Shenzhen Air. The airline mentioned in the report (they whose plane crashed) had just been taken over by Shenzhen air ... and in turn Shenzhen Air was bought out by Air China. Just a thought!.
Anyway, I have been booked on Shanghai Airlines for the first time. Why, I wonder, does an airline of that name have a code of FM? I am starting to worry. Maybe it's like FM radio ... where they live in a caravan and pretend they are a real radio station.
As I am going to the Expo City of China (and the whole world!) I may have to raise my standards somewhat ... at least until the plane is in the air. 
 
   
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on September 09, 2010, 02:06:38 AM
  * it does not seem like a good time to challenge a pilot with, "how low can you go?"

What about how "high" are you?

  * I am sure the pilots "resume" and "qualifications" will have the same legitimacy as many Foreign Teachers in China

yea but the difference is that when we fail, the kid is no dumber than when he started but at least he's alive (at least physically)  ahahahahah


  * should he fail to find the landing gear he will discover that nobody can lower their standards faster than I can  

If he can't drop his load, you'll drop yours  bqbqbqbqbq
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on September 09, 2010, 03:45:32 PM
Anyway, I have been booked on Shanghai Airlines for the first time. Why, I wonder, does an airline of that name have a code of FM?

FM:  Fly?  Maybe.  ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on September 10, 2010, 04:16:41 PM
Now I know why Raoul really likes those e-cigarettes.

http://www.webmd.com/smoking-cessation/news/20100909/e-cigarette-firms-get-fda-warning

Quote
One firm, Cixi E-Cig Technology, was cited for products containing drugs in unapproved forms: rimonabant, a weight loss drug not approved in the U.S. or Europe, and a form of tadalafil, an erectile dysfunction drug.

Smokable Cialis - what a concept. afafafafaf

And I always thought that cigarettes were for afterwards. ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on September 10, 2010, 07:04:59 PM
hmm, maybe think of it as the pause that refreshes between bouts of, umm, lateral exercise?
Seriously though:
Quote
Perhaps more alarmingly, FDA tests found that the firm's Vitamin C E-Liquid product contains dangerous amounts of DEG, a contaminant that the FDA says can cause "serious and irreversible" poisoning.
Don't these guys ever learn? I'm surprised the damn things don't contain lead or melamine.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on September 10, 2010, 07:50:07 PM
Don't these guys ever learn? I'm surprised the damn things don't contain lead or melamine.

Shhh... those are the secret ingredients that add to the flavor.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on September 13, 2010, 05:58:49 AM
What's with high profile sports stars? When you're world famous, eventually the news will break out. This time: Wayne Rooney

idiot (http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/100912/sports/britain_people_rooney)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on September 18, 2010, 03:40:02 AM
from China Law Blog

Quote
China-Hong Kong Flights Just Got Cheaper.
Posted by Dan on September 16, 2010
 
Flying to Hong Kong from the Mainland has always been surprisingly expensive. But no more. According to the China Economic Review, China Budget airline, Spring Airlines, has just announced that it will be pricing its Hong Kong-Shanghai route at as low as RMB398 (US $59), roundtrip, "less than a third of the current lowest air fare." It will be interesting to see how Cathay Pacific and the various China "big" airlines respond to this.   

Does anybody know if Spring Airlines is operating out of other airports?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: chinalin on September 18, 2010, 04:01:03 AM
Spring Air is based in Shanghai, so it flies to and from Shanghai.  If they are cheap enough it is not unreasonable to fly via Shanghai, to where you want to go.  We flew with them via Shanghai in the winter of 2008, when we made our trek to snowbound Shandong Province.

Lin
Zhaoqing, Guangdong.

 bxbxbxbxbx



Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on September 18, 2010, 01:46:43 PM
What they aren't telling you is that "Spring Air" is very literal.  They have to wind-up the rubber bands before takeoff. ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on September 20, 2010, 09:13:50 PM
I'm about to book a ticket on something called "Lucky Air". 
Fill in your own joke.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on September 20, 2010, 09:48:48 PM
I'm about to book a ticket on something called "Lucky Air". 
Fill in your own joke.

I'm holding out for "Relaxing Flight with Happy Ending Airlines"  afafafafaf
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on September 22, 2010, 05:13:31 AM
I'm about to book a ticket on something called "Lucky Air". 
Fill in your own joke.


Okay, I will . . .

on the radio, they only play Air Supply's version of In The Air Tonight
 aoaoaoaoao
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on September 22, 2010, 08:11:56 AM
They're a wholelly-owned subsidiary of "Wing And A Prayer Air".  Formerly, Miracle Airlines.  "If we get you there safely, it's a miracle".
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on September 28, 2010, 05:01:02 AM
You just know the late night talk show dufusses will have a field day. Jimi Heselden the owner of the company that makes the Segway scooter died. He rode a machine over a cliff and into a river.

Curious how this will affect the stock
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on September 28, 2010, 07:15:58 PM
You just know the late night talk show dufusses will have a field day. Jimi Heselden the owner of the company that makes the Segway scooter died. He rode a machine over a cliff and into a river.

Curious how this will affect the stock

I had to check the news to make sure this one wasn't just a web rumor.  It's true.  Everyone may now take 30 seconds to laugh at his ironic demise.  ahahahahah

Of course, had he been using any other form of transportation, that would also be grounds for mocking his demise (if only he'd been on one of his Segways).  His only way out would have been to die in a non-moving situation.

If you haven't ridden one of these, give it a try sometime.  They are great fun.  Just try not to drive off a cliff.

I wonder if the inventor of the Segway will manage to avoid a similar fate as the guy who bought the company?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on September 28, 2010, 07:53:49 PM
Someone should crunch the numbers: how dangerous are Segways compared to other modes of transport?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on September 28, 2010, 09:23:06 PM

Quote
Someone should crunch the numbers: how dangerous are Segways compared to other modes of transport?

"n the Segway safety case review, Dr Mary Pat McKay, professor of emergency medicine and public health at the George Washington University, counted 41 Segway injuries between April 2005 and November 2008 among patients who attended the George Washington emergency room.

"Several cases involved the rider unintentionally striking an immobile object, including a park bench, a signpost, a light pole, and a tree,” the article reads.
Ad Feedback

Ten of those cases were admitted to the hospital and four were taken to intensive care. No one died but patients suffered serious facial trauma, fractures and brain injuries.

Separately, in 2004, a 59-year-old man reportedly died after falling off a Segway."

...""Segways are fun but obviously they're best on solid, even ground. As soon as one starts doing off road on anything you enlarge the risk ratio."

I think if you go off the edge of a 9m cliff on any vehicle there is a chance you may not come out unscathed
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on September 29, 2010, 03:43:34 AM
Several cases involved the rider unintentionally striking an immobile object, including a park bench, a signpost, a light pole, and a tree,” the article reads.

Imagine the damage if the rider ntentionally strike immobile objects

I think if you go off the edge of a 9m cliff on any vehicle there is a chance you may not come out unscathed

This may now be gov't ordered to be stamped on the sides of the machines



Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on September 29, 2010, 05:26:21 PM
I believe the death was while cruising around on a new "off road" model.

Of course, those injuries involving driving into unmoving objects are simple driver error.  The same thing happens with bicycles, motorcycles, cars, trucks, etc.  Like with bicycles, driving into a light pole or bench is more likely to damage you than the object you hit.

I think if you go off the edge of a 9m cliff on any vehicle there is a chance you may not come out unscathed

This may now be gov't ordered to be stamped on the sides of the machines

That should be mandatory for all modes of ground transport, including shoes (and tattooed or branded on the feet of those who don't use footwear).

"WARNING:  Using this form of transport to go off the edge of a cliff may cause severe bodily injury or death.  Do not attempt to move from one place to another while tired or under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs.  In the event you are injured or killed, seek medical and legal assistance immediately."

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on September 30, 2010, 05:27:07 PM
If I'm ever killed on a Segway, I think I'll delegate the search for assistance.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on September 30, 2010, 06:03:44 PM
If I'm ever killed on a Segway, I think I'll delegate the search for assistance.

That's the problem with the world today.  People are always looking to pass the buck to someone else on flimsy excuses like "I can't do it because I'm dead."


Lister: I know you're dead, Rimmer, don't whinge on about it!

Rimmer: Sorry to be a bore.

Lister: I mean, you're everything you were when you were alive. Same personality. Same everything.

Rimmer: Apart from the minuscule detail that I'm a stiffie.

Lister: Look, Rimmer, death isn't the handicap it used to be in the olden days. It doesn't screw your career up like it used to.

Rimmer: That's what they say, Lister. But if you had two people coming for a job, and one of them was dead, which one would you pick? .

Lister: It depends which was better qualified.

Rimmer: Bull pats! When was the last time you saw a dead newsreader?

Lister: Channel 27 have a hologram reading the news.

Rimmer: Oh, groovy funky Channel 27! Big smegging deal. You livvies hate us deadies.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on September 30, 2010, 06:55:19 PM
Mr. Praline: 'Ello, I wish to register a complaint. (The owner does not respond.) Miss?

Owner: What do you mean "miss"?

Mr. Praline: I'm sorry, I have a cold. I wish to make a complaint!

Owner: We're closin' for lunch.

Mr. Praline: Never mind that, my lad. I wish to complain about this parrot what I purchased not half an hour ago from this very boutique.

Owner: Oh yes, the, uh, the Norwegian Blue...What's,uh...What's wrong with it?

Mr. Praline: I'll tell you what's wrong with it, my lad. 'E's dead, that's what's wrong with it!

Owner: No, no, 'e's uh,...he's resting.

Mr. Praline: Look, matey, I know a dead parrot when I see one, and I'm looking at one right now.

Owner: No no he's not dead, he's, he's restin'! Remarkable bird, the Norwegian Blue, idn'it, ay? Beautiful plumage!

Mr. Praline: The plumage don't enter into it. It's stone dead.

Owner: Nononono, no, no! 'E's resting!

Mr. Praline: All right then, if he's restin', I'll wake him up! (shouting at the cage) 'Ello, Mister Polly Parrot! I've got a lovely fresh cuttle fish for you if you show...

(owner hits the cage) Owner: There, he moved!

Mr. Praline: No, he didn't, that was you hitting the cage!

Owner: I never!!

Mr. Praline: Yes, you did!

Owner: I never, never did anything...

Mr. Praline: (yelling and hitting the cage repeatedly) 'ELLO POLLY!!!!! Testing! Testing!
Testing! Testing! This is your nine o'clock alarm call! (Takes parrot out of the cage and thumps its head on the counter. Throws it up in the air and watches it plummet to the floor.) Now that's what I call a dead parrot.

Owner: No, no.....No, 'e's stunned!

Mr. Praline: STUNNED?!?

Owner: Yeah! You stunned him, just as he was wakin' up! Norwegian Blues stun easily, major.

Mr. Praline: Um...now look...now look, mate, I've definitely 'ad enough of this. That parrot is definitely deceased, and when I purchased it not 'alf an hour ago, you assured me that its total lack of movement was due to it bein' tired and shagged out following a prolonged squawk.

Owner: Well, he's...he's, ah...probably pining for the fjords.

Mr. Praline: PININ' for the FJORDS?!?!?!? What kind of talk is that?, look, why did he fall flat on his back the moment I got 'im home?

Owner: The Norwegian Blue prefers keepin' on it's back! Remarkable bird, id'nit, squire? Lovely plumage!

Mr. Praline: Look, I took the liberty of examining that parrot when I got it home, and I discovered the only reason that it had been sitting on its perch in the first place was that it had been NAILED there.
(pause)

Owner: Well, o'course it was nailed there! If I hadn't nailed that bird down, it would have nuzzled up to those bars, bent 'em apart with its beak, and VOOM! Feeweeweewee!

Mr. Praline: "VOOM"?!? Mate, this bird wouldn't "voom" if you put four million volts through it! 'E's bleedin' demised!

Owner: No no! 'E's pining!

Mr. Praline: 'E's not pinin'! 'E's passed on! This parrot is no more! He has ceased to be! 'E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker! 'E's a stiff! Bereft of life, 'e rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed 'im to the perch 'e'd be pushing up the daisies! 'Is metabolic processes are now 'istory! 'E's off the twig! 'E's kicked the bucket, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-PARROT!!
(pause)

Owner: Well, I'd better replace it, then. (he takes a quick peek behind the counter) Sorry squire, I've had a look 'round the back of the shop, and uh, we're right out of parrots.

Mr. Praline: I see. I see, I get the picture.

Owner: I got a slug.

(pause)

Mr. Praline: Pray, does it talk?

Owner: Nnnnot really.

Mr. Praline: WELL IT'S HARDLY A BLOODY REPLACEMENT, IS IT?!!???!!?

Owner: N-no, I guess not. (gets ashamed, looks at his feet)

Mr. Praline: Well.

(pause)

Owner: (quietly) D'you.... d'you want to come back to my place?

Mr. Praline: (looks around) Yeah, all right, sure.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on October 01, 2010, 04:54:06 AM
50 years ago today, Fred and Wilma and Barney and (hubba  akakakakak  hubba) Betty
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on October 01, 2010, 03:11:10 PM
I'm still looking for a copy of that episode where, when the guys are out of town, Betty and Wilma decide to explore their secret passion for each other.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on October 03, 2010, 12:01:50 AM
Check out the Larry Flint archives.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on October 03, 2010, 12:43:12 AM
Larry Flint and Flintstones should never be uttered in the same breath

One is a big fat loud-mouth egotistical ignoramous, the other is Fred
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: pydilyk on October 03, 2010, 03:30:45 AM
sound familiar?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/02/world/asia/02china.html?_r=1&ref=world
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on October 03, 2010, 05:12:40 AM
sound familiar?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/02/world/asia/02china.html?_r=1&ref=world


clear as mud    mmmmmmmmmm
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Ruth on October 05, 2010, 05:22:30 PM
Quote
Many officials are still seeking an end to the National Day Golden Week, but they acknowledge that for now, mandatory holidays may be the only way to give workers time off, given that most companies ignore a law that guarantees workers 15 days of paid vacation a year — to be taken at a time of their choosing.
I didn't realize this was a law.  Just this past weekend I had a conversation comparing American holidays with Chinese ones. I see the 'everyone at the same time' vs 'two weeks at your request and timing' as the main difference.  Wonder when/if Chinese companies will begin following the law.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on October 07, 2010, 04:37:07 PM
This is from the advertisement for the college job that I accepted last year - it turned out to be all located in one small room:

Quote
Accommodation:  A free private apartment with the below-mentioned modern conveniences: bedroom, living room, bathroom, furniture, bedding, TV set, refrigerator,  washing machine,  DVD player.

We had a bit of a problem fitting the apartment into the room.
                       

What I would really like to see is an advertisement for Foreign Teachers accommodation, similar to this  one offering apartments to Chinese university students:
http://www.chinahush.com/2010/10/06/advertisements-in-university-freshmen-service-handbook/#more-7377 


 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on October 08, 2010, 02:04:10 AM
Mario Vargas Llosa...do you know him? I only knew he was an author and from Peru...well, according to the news, he just won the Noble Prize for Literature...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on October 08, 2010, 03:46:34 PM
Quote
Mosquito-borne disease outbreaks sicken 38 in S China

Quote
GUANGZHOU - At least 38 people in Dongguan, an industrial city in south China's Guangdong Province, have been infected by the mosquito-borne chikungunya virus, the local health department has confirmed.

Meanwhile, another 166 people were suspected of being infected and were still waiting for test results, the Guangdong Provincial Health Department announced in a statement late Wednesday.

Most of the infected suffered fevers, joint pains and rashes, it said.

"All the patients are in stable condition. There are no severe cases or deaths," it said.

Local health authorities have set up a task force of medical experts to oversee the treatment of the disease, it added.

The word "chikungunya" is Swahili for "that which bends up" referring to the stooped posture of patients afflicted by severe joint pains caused by the virus.

Chikungunya fever, like dengue fever, is a mosquito-borne disease.

The chikungunya virus is carried mostly by the Aedes aegypti mosquito. Most infections are reported in tropical Africa and southeast Asia where the average winter temperature is over 18 degrees Celsius.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on October 09, 2010, 05:32:17 AM


Quote
Road accidents kill 1,010 people over China's National Day week

Quote
BEIJING, October 8 (Xinhua) -- Road accidents killed 1,010 people in China from October 1 to 7, the National Day break, down by 25.5 percent from the same period last year, the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) announced Friday.

The number of people injured in road accidents during the week was 3,061, a drop of 45.2 percent year on year, said a statement released by the ministry.

A total of 2,653 road accidents were reported during the holiday, down by 41.2 percent, incurring an estimated 11.99 million yuan in direct economic losses, down 37.6 percent.

The statement said traffic was generally stable during, with no major or lasting traffic jams reported.

The MPS traffic management bureau dispatched seven work groups to the Beijing-T Expressway over the break to inspect the traffic situation.

Prior to the holiday, a huge traffic jam that stretched for at least 120 kilometers paralyzed the expressway.

Local traffic police in municipalities and provinces, such as Beijing, Henan, Guangdong, Hainan, Sichuan and Yunnan, all strengthened management in traffic arteries and major tourist routes.

I know there a lot of people in China - but I still find numbers like this scary. It is eqivalent to the entire population of a small town back home in New Zealand.

144   Pleasant point   1100   
145   Te kauwhata   1100   
146   Waikouaiti   1100
147   Maketu           1000   
148   Raetihi           1000   

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on October 09, 2010, 05:39:03 AM
Quote
Mosquito-borne disease outbreaks sicken 38 in S China

As I've mentioned once or trice, since I was at  medical college, I had to research a lot of useless crap relevent information. World wide, the mosquito is the #1 most dangerous animal. Collectively, it kills more humans than all othe animals combined at approx 1M per year.

I made the kids guess which animal (and to confess, I didn't have a clue either)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on October 09, 2010, 05:47:22 AM
I know how dangerous mosquitoes are, but would never have guessed if asked what the most dangerous animal was.

The kids probably couldn't guess either because a mosquito is an insect not an animal.  ahahahahah ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on October 09, 2010, 02:32:16 PM
I love fox lies news. Right up there with CNN (Motto = its better to be first than right)

http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/872729--newsmangled-media-blooper-of-the-week?bn=1

They said that the city of Los Angeles already ordered 10,000 jetpacks for its police, paramedics and fire departments! Seems to be a small error
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on October 17, 2010, 05:16:29 PM
For some reason some of this resonates - actually,from where I sit in my apartment in Shaanxi, most of it does.

Quote

"Magnasanti" - the Largest Possible Sim City

Those who have tried their hand at Sim City 3000 will be interested in this video of what is claimed to be the maximum size city possible.  “Magnasanti” has 6 million residents, and required three years to construct.  Vincent Ocasia, the creator, notes that while it is a maximal size city, it is not a utopian paradise:

    Technically, no one is leaving or coming into the city. Population growth is stagnant. Sims don’t need to travel long distances, because their workplace is just within walking distance. In fact they do not even need to leave their own block… Suffocating air pollution, high unemployment, no fire stations, schools, or hospitals, a regimented lifestyle – this is the price that these sims pay for living in the city with the highest population. It’s a sick and twisted goal to strive towards. The ironic thing about it is the sims in Magnasanti tolerate it. They don’t rebel, or cause revolutions and social chaos. No one considers challenging the system by physical means since a hyper-efficient police state keeps them in line. They have all been successfully dumbed down, sickened with poor health, enslaved and mind-controlled just enough to keep this system going for thousands of years…

http://www.viceland.com/blogs/uk-games/2010/05/10/the-totalitarian-buddhist-who-beat-sim-city/
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on October 20, 2010, 02:13:03 AM
China Anoints Its Next Leader

China's Communist Party appointed Vice President Xi Jinping to a key military post, cementing his status as heir apparent to president and party chief Hu Jintao and removing much of the uncertainty surrounding the country's leadership succession.

from http://online.wsj.com/public/page/news-china.html?refresh=on
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: BrandeX on October 21, 2010, 06:09:53 AM
I have a novel idea. Perhaps they could ask "The People" which one of them they'd like to be the leader instead?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: seamallowance on October 21, 2010, 01:10:25 PM
 bibibibibi Gah! Why didn't I think of that?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on October 21, 2010, 09:39:45 PM
I have a novel idea. Perhaps they could ask "The People" which one of them they'd like to be the leader instead?

We tried that in America, and it hasn't been working out so well for the last few decades.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on October 22, 2010, 07:06:14 AM
Do what they do on Pitcairn's Island, take turns. At current population numbers, everyone would have a day as leader once every 3,561,643.83 years   bfbfbfbfbf
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Raoul F. Duke on October 22, 2010, 07:19:20 AM
I moved a post from this thread- on the One Child Policy- to the Upstairs version of this thread.

Please: Don't Rile The Homeys. bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on October 31, 2010, 12:26:30 AM
RUGBY

Australia 26      bxbxbxbxbx

All Blacks 24      bobobobobo

Well done Aussies - great effort by your team !!!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on October 31, 2010, 01:12:49 AM
I have a novel idea. Perhaps they could ask "The People" which one of them they'd like to be the leader instead?

'the people' represented by business?

i read a really good analogy about the american regime. it's turkeys choosing christmas or thanksgiving

i for one welcome our new chinese overlords. they give us hot women and jobs which our western overlords can't
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on October 31, 2010, 02:45:50 AM

i read a really good analogy about the american regime. it's turkeys choosing christmas or thanksgiving

axaxaxaxax  I'd extend the metaphor: the Democrats are Xmas: at least there's a chance they'll eat ham.

Quote
i for one welcome our new chinese overlords. they give us hot women and jobs which our western overlords can't

When you're on, Kitano, you're on.  bjbjbjbjbj
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on October 31, 2010, 04:18:00 AM
When you're on, Kitano, you're on.  bjbjbjbjbj

xi lai....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on October 31, 2010, 08:05:30 PM
I have a novel idea. Perhaps they could ask "The People" which one of them they'd like to be the leader instead?

i read a really good analogy about the american regime. it's turkeys choosing christmas or thanksgiving


I think the Tea Party is providing a third "celebration".  The St. Valentine's Day massacre.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on October 31, 2010, 08:07:59 PM
I have a novel idea. Perhaps they could ask "The People" which one of them they'd like to be the leader instead?

They do.  Less than half answser the question.  And now that corporations are considered "people" with regard to political contributions, they speak louder.  It's even more true now that money walks and bullshit talks.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: BrandeX on November 01, 2010, 03:48:08 AM
I was being sarcastic, which doesn't play out well in a short post without an emote or something, sorry :)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on November 01, 2010, 02:46:33 PM
i for one welcome our new chinese overlords. they give us hot women and jobs which our western overlords can't

More reasons to love China!  btbtbtbtbt btbtbtbtbt btbtbtbtbt
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on November 04, 2010, 02:34:52 AM
Caught cheating in public, official sues police for causing impotence
From gglsw.cn:

October 23, 2010, at around 9 pm, when a Yizhou Road, Linyi City policeman was patrolling Phoenix Plaza, he saw a parked black Santana rocking and swaying. When forcefully opened the car door he saw a man and a woman, naked in the car, the front seats were leaned all the way back, tissue paper and red bull cans on the back seat. After interrogation, the man named Li Jingwei turned out to be one of the leaders at the Linyi Highway Bureau in charge of the State Highway 206 Yihe Bridge toll, the woman was his subordinate staff.

Two of them admitted that they were having sex at the time. Li Jingwei also confessed that he and his 13 other female subordinates have the same kind of sexual relationships, and he also has 2 illegitimate children. Li said the main reason of him engaging in such behavior was that his wife cheated on him first.

Funny thing happened couple days later after they paid the fine and left the police station. Li Jingwei soon found himself appeared to be impotent, the doctors diagnosed him with impotence caused by psychological reasons. Li thought that his condition was a caused by the policeman dragging him out of the car naked in public; therefore the police should compensate him. Calculating with the rate of average 200 yuan per sexual intercourse, under normal conditions he should be able to have 5000 more sexual intercourses in his lifetime, the police should pay him 1 million yuan in compensation.

Recently, Li Jingwei formally filed his claim to relevant department. The matter raised some heated local discussions. Many people think that the improper sexual relationship between Li and his female subordinate was not prostitution, also did not directly obstruct the society, therefore the police should have been more humane when dealing the matter. Forcefully dragging two of them out of the car naked in public was not proper, which seriously affected their physical and psychological health therefore should pay the compensation. (Above names are pseudonyms)

China Hush
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on November 04, 2010, 08:09:49 PM
There are some math issues with this.

1.  Only 200 a pop?  He really needs to consider something more upscale. afafafafaf

Ah well, I guess it's a reasonable rate for a quicky in a parked car.  I wonder why the concept of doing it in the backseat hasn't made the jump from the USA to China. mmmmmmmmmm

2.  5000 times.  He's got a wife plus 14 subordinates who are being more or less cooperative, so this is really just a matter of how he paces himself.  Is he planning to keep the job 24 years at about 4 times per week, will he reduce the frequency some and stay longer, or will he go for twice per day with a plan to drop dead with a big smile on his face in less than 7 years?
 bhbhbhbhbh

I'd pay money to be on a jury for this case.  Now that he's off his game, I'd also like to drop by his office and meet these subordinates. afafafafaf
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: becster79 on November 04, 2010, 10:56:48 PM
Ok, it has to be said....isn't impotence a GOOD thing in China???

 :wtf:
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on November 05, 2010, 01:27:48 AM
Ok, it has to be said....isn't impotence a GOOD thing in China???

 :wtf:

Considering that he's already got 2 illegitimate children and seems dumb enough to produce more, I'm surprised he isn't being taken to the vet to be neutered.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on November 05, 2010, 02:52:16 AM
Becs:
Quote
Ok, it has to be said....isn't impotence a GOOD thing in China???
Well for some people, yes. Case in point. But not for all of us.

EL:
Quote
Considering that he's already got 2 illegitimate children and seems dumb enough to produce more, I'm surprised he isn't being taken to the vet to be neutered.
Dumb enough to produce more and too dumb to take care of them... yeah, good call there.

I hope he gets torn to shreds and loses a ton of face over this.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on November 05, 2010, 02:52:07 PM

EL:
Quote
Considering that he's already got 2 illegitimate children and seems dumb enough to produce more, I'm surprised he isn't being taken to the vet to be neutered.
Dumb enough to produce more and too dumb to take care of them... yeah, good call there.

I hope he gets torn to shreds and loses a ton of face over this.

Personally, I can't imagine how any guy could announce "I am impotent!" to the world, no matter what the circumstances.  I guess his brilliant plan is to move to another province, get plastic surgery, and change his name after winning his 1 million RMB.

Is it just me, or does this sound more like an American lawsuit? mmmmmmmmmm

I think it would be great if the court rules that he can have his million RMB, but only after he has surgery to become a eunuch. ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on November 07, 2010, 03:53:31 PM
Good piece about the next president of China

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2010/nov/07/xi-jinping-china-david-cameron
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on November 09, 2010, 06:09:09 AM
Quote
All Guangzhou residents to get commuting allowances

GUANGZHOU - Each household with permanent residence registration in the provincial capital of Guangdong will be offered 150 yuan ($22) in cash subsidies for commuting purposes after local authorities scrapped a move to make public transport free ahead of the upcoming Asian Games.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-11/08/content_11513161.htm
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on November 09, 2010, 03:39:14 PM
Seems about right. I put 100 to 150 on my bus card every month. But of course I don't live in GZ.
I wonder how many people living and working in GZ are not registered as permanent residents?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Pashley on November 09, 2010, 04:54:45 PM
Each household

not "each person"

Quote
with permanent residence registration in the provincial capital of Guangdong

= with a Guangzhou hukou. The hordes of migrant workers get nothing, nor
the many students, nor staff of Shanghai companies posted there, nor ...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on November 09, 2010, 09:13:06 PM
The report came from China Daily:

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-11/08/content_11513161.htm

They are making some effort for the migrants:

Quote
n a bid to help more people benefit from the games, the government will also provide migrant workers, who have stayed in the city for more than six months, 150 yuan in cash subsidies for commuting.

I should imagine that it will turn into a bureaucratic maze and in the end people will give up trying to claim the money. Would have been easier if they just added it to the recharge cards used by most regular commuters... on cards purchased before the day of the announcement.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on November 10, 2010, 05:57:21 PM
The report came from China Daily:

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-11/08/content_11513161.htm

They are making some effort for the migrants:

Quote
n a bid to help more people benefit from the games, the government will also provide migrant workers, who have stayed in the city for more than six months, 150 yuan in cash subsidies for commuting.

I should imagine that it will turn into a bureaucratic maze and in the end people will give up trying to claim the money. Would have been easier if they just added it to the recharge cards used by most regular commuters... on cards purchased before the day of the announcement.

Would that include the 50,000 cards purchased the day before the announcement by those who made the announcement?  ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on November 10, 2010, 11:31:20 PM
EL:
Quote
Would that include the 50,000 cards purchased the day before the announcement by those who made the announcement?
Only 50,000? Maybe you dropped a zero there.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on November 11, 2010, 07:13:02 PM
EL:
Quote
Would that include the 50,000 cards purchased the day before the announcement by those who made the announcement?
Only 50,000? Maybe you dropped a zero there.

Maybe two zeros. ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: The Hiphoppopotomous on November 12, 2010, 04:27:38 PM
(Daily Mail) — Islamic protesters sparked fury today after they burned a model of a poppy and deliberately broke the silence at Armistice Day commemorations in central London.

As millions of Britons fell silent to remember those who have died in war, members of a group called Muslims Against Crusades clashed with police during an ‘emergency demonstration’ in Kensington, west London.

As the clock struck 11am the Islamic protesters burned a model of a poppy and chanted ‘British soldiers burn in hell’. They held banners which read ‘Islam will dominate’ and ‘Our dead are in paradise, your dead are in hell’.

The Muslims Against Crusades website includes graphic images of children wounded in warfare and the torture of detainees at Abu Ghraib.

The protest, in Exhibition Road, near Hyde Park, involved about 50 people while about another 50 counter-demonstrators had to be kept apart from the group by a line of police.  Three men were arrested at the scene – two for public order offences and one for assaulting a police officer.

Asad Ullah, of Muslims Against Crusades, said: ‘We are demonstrating because this day is a day of remembrance to remember every single fallen soldier, including those killed in Afghanistan and Iraq.  ‘We find it disgusting that innocent people, innocent children, have been killed in an illegal and unjust war and we are demonstrating against that.  We want the Government to pull the troops out from these countries and to stop interfering in our affairs.’

Mr Ullah added: ‘We would like to have a protest closer to the memorial but it is difficult to get access. We want to break the silence and say, “What about the silence for others that have died?’”
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: seamallowance on November 12, 2010, 05:02:02 PM
Well, indeed he's got a valid point, but this was the wrong way to go about it.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on November 12, 2010, 05:50:48 PM
that was a really stupid thing to do

i do think there is a debate to have about the meaning of rememberance day because i totally agree that it should not include the current situation where professional armies are fighting about resources etc

but this needs to be done in a reasonable way

sometimes i cringe being a secular white british person seeing how other peoplo in my situation act and express themselves, but i think normal muslim must really cringe about stuff like this
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: The Hiphoppopotomous on November 12, 2010, 06:23:04 PM
I find this news troubling. Not because of the act itself. Yed, burning a model poppy is an asshole thing to do and is an obscenely stupid way to convey their feelings.

What really bothers me is, coming from leicester, the most multicultural city in Britain (besides maybe birmingham) I feel the undercurrent of racial tension just walking through the streets. There is always a slight feeling of unease, especially when it comes to Muslims.


This will do nothing but perpetuate it. My facebook page today way a good example of that, some of the racehate I've seen on it in reaction from people that I wouldn't expect it from is truly frightening.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on November 12, 2010, 11:34:14 PM
Same thing is happening in The U.S.  All Muslims are being blamed for Nine-Eleven.  An Islamic community center proposed near the site of the tragedy has been dubbed the "victory memorial"; as if its construction is an act of celebration on the part of Muslims for the bombing.  It became a litmus test for every politician's patriotism running for office this year.

And the anti-Muslim sentiment is growing instead of subsiding.  Even about 20% of citizens think Obama is a Muslim and the conservatives used this as a tool against his party during the election.  It's crazy.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: The Hiphoppopotomous on November 13, 2010, 12:59:10 AM
I see civil war building...


That nobend BMP guy famously said that the streets would run red with blood and it's gonna be a bitch if he ends up being correct
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: NATO on November 13, 2010, 01:41:18 AM
I see civil war building...


That nobend BMP guy famously said that the streets would run red with blood and it's gonna be a bitch if he ends up being correct
He wasn't BNP, he was tory and his name was Enoch Powell.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on November 13, 2010, 04:52:44 AM
'Zombie' virus haunts cell users (http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/?id=454146&type=Metro)

WATCH out! "Zombies" are attacking hundreds of thousands of mobile phones in the city.

The zombies are not the scary kind, but they do qualify as annoying as at least 300,000 local handset users are unwittingly sending spam messages with a virus to all contacts in their address books after their phones caught the Zombie virus, said NetQin Mobile Inc, a leading mobile phone security company.

The number accounted for 20 percent of the 1.5 million mobile phones across the country that have been infected by the virus so far, making Shanghai one of the hardest-hit areas, the Beijing-based company found.

A local lawyer, Liu Chunquan, said if the hackers who created the virus are caught they will be jailed for creating and spreading a virus and damaging computer systems.

According to the country's criminal law, offenders can be jailed for more than five years if their crimes lead to severe consequences.

Anti-virus experts suggested that mobile phone users install anti-virus software and avoid clicking the links of spam messages, even those from friends or relatives.

Cell phones infected by the virus will be turned into another "zombie" phone, sending the phone user's SIM card information to hackers, who then remotely control the phone to send links of the virus to others via spam text messages.

Users who receive the messages and click the links will also be infected while the infected phones keep sending spam messages. The virus has cost handset users a total of about 2 million yuan (US$300,000) per day.

"My friend complained that he constantly received ad messages from me, but I never sent him any," said a local resident surnamed Zhang. "Then I realized that my phone was turned into a 'zombie.'"

According to a NetQin official surnamed Dong, they have studied hundreds of thousands of complaints and emergency calls, the feedback of the security software installed on mobile phones, and the information they gathered from a massive database that users had joined voluntarily.

However, the number of victims may far exceed the figures given by the company as its statistics don't cover all phone users.

The virus infected 1 million users during the first week of September, according to a previous report by the National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team Center.

"We noticed the virus in early August and our engineers started to fight back with anti-virus software," said Dong. "It's possible to stop it from spreading quickly."

But she said they also needed government help to track down the hackers.



September?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on November 16, 2010, 12:27:49 AM
Neon Trees (http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2010/11/neon-trees/)

Taiwanese researchers have stumbled onto something truly magical. When gold nanoparticles were introduced into Bacopa caroliniana plants they caused the chlorophyll to produce reddish light. Bye-bye street lights? But wait, there’s more:

While lit, the glowing trees consumed more carbon from the atmosphere than normal (i.e. the luminescence causes the cells to undergo photosynthesis).



Pandora, here we come.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on November 16, 2010, 12:39:58 AM

Man says he spent 12 years enslaved in Yunnan brick yard

http://is.gd/h7fiJ
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: old34 on November 16, 2010, 03:44:21 AM
Neon Trees (http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2010/11/neon-trees/)

Taiwanese researchers have stumbled onto something truly magical. When gold nanoparticles were introduced into Bacopa caroliniana plants they caused the chlorophyll to produce reddish light. Bye-bye street lights? But wait, there’s more:

While lit, the glowing trees consumed more carbon from the atmosphere than normal (i.e. the luminescence causes the cells to undergo photosynthesis).



So the gold industry wants in on the up-and-coming green (alternative) energy industry, too?

Recently gold has been hovering close to US$1,400/oz. How many "gold nanoparticles" in an ounce of gold? 

Times how many nanoparticles per tree to induce neonness?

Times how many trees?

Looks like King Gold is trying to lock in long-term relevance beyond the money markets and peak oil.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on November 16, 2010, 05:43:42 PM
england just sold all their gold lol

i would guess scientists will find a lot of uses for gold cos it is kind of magic how it doesn't decay or anything. i'm sure these things like diamonds and precious metal have much more power than just looking pretty that we don't know how to access yet
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on November 18, 2010, 12:03:38 AM
Interesting article in The Economist:

Rocky relations between China and Japan:
Bare anger
(http://www.economist.com/node/17416850)

The part I like best is this'n:

Michael Yahuda, of the London School of Economics, says China’s hard line probably has a lot to do with jockeying for power among Chinese leaders, as sweeping changes to the party and government hierarchy are contemplated for 2012-13. China’s foreign ministry may have argued that the rhetoric should be dialled down. But it has never had real clout. The foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, is not even in the Politburo, let alone on the standing committee, pinnacle of Communist Party power. The ministry has found itself further marginalised, as conviction grows within the party that the West is in terminal decline and that it is time for China to assert itself as a global power. Military types privately criticise the foreign ministry for wetness in dealing with Japan and the West.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: The Hiphoppopotomous on November 24, 2010, 12:39:02 AM
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11818005


uhoh
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: James the Brit on November 24, 2010, 01:06:36 AM
That story is definitely more than a little worrying.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on November 24, 2010, 03:38:10 AM
war is probably more desirable to north korea than peace the amount of problems they have now

kim jong il is seriously ill, his son has no experience, the generals are battling each other for power, china can't be bothered with them

they probably don't have the capability to build this bomb everyone is scared about

maybe they think that if they can provoke the US and ROK into attacking them that China will come to their aid?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: The Hiphoppopotomous on November 24, 2010, 03:50:05 AM
that's certainly how it seems to me.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on November 24, 2010, 04:17:33 AM
My reaction too, JWin. Uh-oh.
Kit, I'd like to think that saner heads will prevail this time. Really, though, does anyone outside of the DPRK understand what is going on there? And yes, the thought that those clowns don't know what they're doing, they actually believe their own twisted rhetoric, has occurred. Uh-oh indeed.
Will China get involved? As long as the Americans show some restraint, I seriously doubt it. Too much to lose, too little to gain for both of them. Things have changed for the big guys in the past 60 years.
OTOH, Kimster did ride his Hogwarts Express to BJ not long ago, so maybe something is up. I'm thinking about that article in the Economist that CP linked to just a week ago, and the recent spate of arrests of anyone-who-so-much-as-makes-unwanted-bird-noises. There may be more to the current domestic political harmony than we know. Americans aren't the only ones who like a little war to keep the plebians in line.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on November 24, 2010, 05:21:10 AM
there isn't really anything in it for america or ROK to send in the army that i can see.

i am a little worried about what are china's aims in all this, i wouldn't be surprised if they were calling the shots to a certain extent, they are the only ones who really have the power to order north korea to stop and they refuse to.

maybe north korea is sending a message to china. the leaders know that they can't really hurt america enough to influence them or even open a proper dialogue with america and stay in power. north korea can still have a bad effect on china by starting a war, even if/when they lose the big losers would be korea and china since they would have a big war next door which would involve them and america. that really is the last thing china wants. i think china is terrified of a war with america, the status quo is great for china, i really don't think they are quite ready to face anything serious just yet
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: old34 on November 24, 2010, 06:50:45 AM
And then there's the 13 year old boy from Mississippi mmmmmmmmmm who protested at Tiananmen Square  aoaoaoaoao a couple of days ago in support of turning the ROK/DPRK DMZ into an International Peace Park.

Did I hear you say WTF?

I think that's what the Chinese minders at the Square were thinking, too, as they rather politely stopped him and sent him on his way.

Here's the story (VPN needed to view the video portion):
http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20101122/NEWS02/101122023/1263/ (http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20101122/NEWS02/101122023/1263/)

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: seamallowance on November 24, 2010, 09:32:02 PM
South Korea says the shelling began after North Korea sent several messages protesting against military exercises being staged near the island, which lies 3km (two miles) from the disputed maritime border.

South Korea began an annual military exercise in the area on Monday. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11818729)

Maybe, just maybe.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on November 24, 2010, 11:17:04 PM
NK has a long history of making these kinds of provocative moves and then going to the bargaining table and procuring money, concessions etc.  Between that successful strategy and the need to show the backbone of the new dictator, (mini, mini-me?), it is probably a good tactical move by NK.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on November 27, 2010, 12:50:58 AM
L'Originale: Veteran's Essay on Killing (http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2010-11-21/news/bs-md-veteran-letter-20101121_1_addictions-soldiers-train)

Perspective: Killing 'Really Addictive:' Veteran's Essay Leads to Ban From Campus (http://abcnews.go.com/Health/MindMoodNews/veterans-college-essay-killing-barred-campus/story?id=12214399)


Not an essay I would have wanted to grade.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on November 28, 2010, 08:03:39 AM
 aoaoaoaoao  You have to give him an A for candor.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on November 28, 2010, 10:17:43 PM
You're gonna LOVE this.  The Onion strikes again, and this time it's Fox News who plays the fool.

http://www.thewrap.com/television/article/fox-news-site-posts-satiricial-onion-obama-story-amid-real-news-22840
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on December 01, 2010, 04:48:35 PM
It's ok.  We're rocket scientists.

Quote
The computers on NASA's space shuttles are programmed so that at the end of the year, the systems need to be reset to reflect the date as Jan. 1, instead of Dec. 32, Beutel explained. In other words, at the end of the year, the shuttle computers have to be reconfigured to change from day 365 to day 1.

"In general, to shut down and reset the computers, they need to be safely on the ground, landed or docked to the station," Beutel said. "In theory, they could do it while they're in flight, but that's never been done before."

From http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/shuttle-discovery-launch-options-101130.html
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on December 03, 2010, 12:27:04 PM
The War To End All Wars


New Zealand wins pavlova war

The war for the pavlova has been won.

A new listing in the Oxford English Dictionary says the meringue-based dessert was invented in New Zealand.

Australia has long tried to claim it created the Kiwi treat, named after the Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova who visited the Antipodes in the 1920s.

That claim has now been debunked after the Oxford yesterday relaunched its online edition, saying the first recorded pavlova recipe appeared in New Zealand in 1927.

The recipe was in a book called Davis Dainty Dishes, published by the Davis Gelatine company, and it was a multi-coloured jelly dish.

New Zealanders claim the meringue version also originated there, with recipes for it appearing in publications in 1928 and 1929.

The Australian claim centres on a recipe created by Bert Sachse, a chef at the Esplanade Hotel in the western city of Perth, as late as 1935.

Pavlova expert Dr Helen Leach of the University of Otago, who published a book called "The Pavlova Story", said though the pavlova was not what we know as a pavlova today the claim still stacked up.

"I can find at least 21 pavlova recipes in New Zealand cookbooks by 1940, which was the year the first Australian ones appeared." [/quote]
http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/food-wine/4418676/New-Zealand-wins-pavlova-war


Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on December 03, 2010, 02:20:35 PM
A victory indeed.  There's nothing more galling than another country, especially a bigger one, taking credit for your own's accomplishments.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: The Local Dialect on December 04, 2010, 12:32:53 AM
This isn't really in the news "today," as it is 2 years old, but it is pretty sad just the same. I know you'd get similar results if you polled American or Chinese teens, so I'm not picking on the British, not this time anyhow.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1577511/Winston-Churchill-didnt-really-exist-say-teens.html
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: becster79 on December 04, 2010, 02:05:47 PM
Xwarrior, how bout this- you give us back our pav, we'll give you back Russell Crowe? Good enough deal?

 :wtf:
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on December 04, 2010, 04:27:50 PM
A victory indeed.  There's nothing more galling than another country, especially a bigger one, taking credit for your own's accomplishments.

Yes, and I think Austria, (the sneaky bastards), were the best at this.  They convinced the world that Hitler was a German and Beethoven was an Austrian.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on December 04, 2010, 11:37:41 PM
Quote
Xwarrior, how bout this- you give us back our pav, we'll give you back Russell Crowe? Good enough deal?

Sorreeee ...... even if you threw in Phar Lap, Crowded House and Split Enz they would not swing the deal.

Mind you we could go halves on Keisha Castle-Hughes  uuuuuuuuuu

and if you loaned me Nicole Kidman  akakakakak for a while (and didn't tell anyone back home) then we could have a deal    agagagagag 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on December 04, 2010, 11:43:32 PM
Quote
A victory indeed.  There's nothing more galling than another country, especially a bigger one, taking credit for your own's accomplishments.

Yes, and I think Austria, (the sneaky bastards), were the best at this.

For a minute there you had me going - I thought you were talking about Australia!   bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on December 05, 2010, 05:41:40 PM
I have friends living here and I can't get a hold of them right now.


6 killed after explosion at internet cafe in southern China

http://is.gd/idK7w
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on December 05, 2010, 08:16:36 PM
Sure hope your friends weren't there Stil. 

Terrible when these things happen.   bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on December 06, 2010, 03:53:03 AM
Harsh!  Hope it's nothing, people-you-care-about-wise.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: BrandeX on December 06, 2010, 04:01:07 AM
More details on the blast.
http://www.salon.com/wires/allwires/2010/12/04/D9JTFHN00_as_china_cafe_blast/index.html

Illegal business + negligence. Imagine that.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: pydilyk on December 08, 2010, 04:39:43 AM
Not sure if anyone already linked to this, but definitely interesting:  http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2010/12/02/what-is-a-college-degree-worth-in-china
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on December 11, 2010, 10:14:38 PM
More reasons to love the American conservatives...

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/44958.html

Rep. John Shimkus is standing by a controversial comment that global warming isn't something to worry about because God said he wouldn't destroy the Earth after Noah's flood.

The Illinois Republican running for the powerful perch atop the House Energy and Commerce Committee told POLITICO on Wednesday that his understanding of the Bible reaffirms his belief that government shouldn't be in the business of trying to address rising greenhouse gas emissions.

"I do believe in the Bible as the final word of God," Shimkus said. "And I do believe that God said the Earth would not be destroyed by a flood.


Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: piglet on December 11, 2010, 11:23:53 PM
Any comments? Do you guys notice any change in prices?
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/10/world/asia/10iht-letter.html?_r=1&ref=china (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/10/world/asia/10iht-letter.html?_r=1&ref=china)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on December 13, 2010, 01:32:52 AM
China’s Army of Graduates Struggles for Good Jobs (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/world/asia/12beijing.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss)

BEIJING — Liu Yang, a coal miner’s daughter, arrived in the capital this past summer with a freshly printed diploma from Datong University, $140 in her wallet and an air of invincibility.

Liao Tingting and Liu Yang in the room they rented outside Beijing. Ms. Liu eventually returned to her home province.

Her first taste of reality came later the same day, as she lugged her bags through a ramshackle neighborhood, not far from the Olympic Village, where tens of thousands of other young strivers cram four to a room.

Unable to find a bed and unimpressed by the rabbit warren of slapdash buildings, Ms. Liu scowled as the smell of trash wafted up around her. “Beijing isn’t like this in the movies,” she said.

And so on...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: piglet on December 13, 2010, 03:00:56 AM
http://shine.yahoo.com/event/green/beijing-architect-lives-in-egg-shaped-house-on-sidewalk-2425090/#photoViewer=1 (http://shine.yahoo.com/event/green/beijing-architect-lives-in-egg-shaped-house-on-sidewalk-2425090/#photoViewer=1)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on December 16, 2010, 05:44:09 AM
Don't look at me .... I didn't force you to read this report!   awawawawaw

http://chinadailyshow.com/english-teacher%E2%80%99s-dead-poets-stunt-goes-horribly-wrong/
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: jpd01 on December 16, 2010, 04:34:18 PM
Wow, that guy is truly nuts  bibibibibi
And what's the deal with the police firing tear gas into the class room? Did they honestly have no idea that it is flammable??
Nice case of a crazed English teacher and stupid police.
The family asked for an interesting donation instead of flowers:
In lieu of flowers, their parents have asked mourners to donate a steady supply of traditional, status quo-promoting examples of Chinese cinema.  llllllllll llllllllll
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: jpd01 on December 16, 2010, 04:41:43 PM
Oh and I love the style of the administration. "Hmm well now that he's dead we will top up his electricity meter"  bibibibibi bibibibibi bibibibibi asasasasas ananananan btbtbtbtbt :banana:
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: The Local Dialect on December 16, 2010, 05:42:47 PM
The China Daily Show? China's answer to The Onion?

This was my favorite part:

Quote
Wallace’s last words were cut short when, according to one of his students, “he landed in a migrant worker’s red wheelbarrow, stained with rain water, beside the white chickens.”

I LOL'd.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: adamsmith on December 16, 2010, 06:29:08 PM
some of the articles on there are quite entertaining, just please note the disclaimer on the side bar of the page. But whoever comes up with some of these stories is quite imaginative, or watches too many movies. Ie: Teacher named Wallace crying freedom as he hurls himself out a window.  mmmmmmmmmm 'hmmm, where have I heard a similiar storyline.' agagagagag agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on December 16, 2010, 07:02:28 PM
I liked the one about England offering to return Northern Ireland to China in place of Hong Kong.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on December 17, 2010, 12:25:30 AM
I liked the one about England offering to return Northern Ireland to China in place of Hong Kong.

Unlike the rest of them, I'm sure that one was for real. ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on December 18, 2010, 06:41:55 PM
This just out of Vancouver; authorities say the Vancouver Olympics broke even  kkkkkkkkkk

For those of you who don't speak gov't, here's a translation:

WE ONLY LOST ONE BILLION DOLLRS  llllllllll
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: decurso on December 18, 2010, 06:50:10 PM
Getting that funny feeling of deja vu....I remember Expo 86. Fortunately, Jim Pattison picked up the tab for that one.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on December 27, 2010, 12:30:07 AM
Outlook 2011 & the Next Decade: China: Is The Smart Money Right? (http://www.businessinsider.com/outlook-2011-and-the-next-decade-china-is-the-smart-money-right-2010-12)
Dian L. Chu, Economic Forecasts & Opinions |  Dec. 25, 2010, 2:20 AM 

China has been ranked as the top growing country among the G20 since 2001 and is expected to retain that title for at least another five years (See Growth Chart). However, the news coming out of China for the past three months has not been good. It is looking more and more that it is not a question of if China is a bubble and going to burst, but when...


*wrings hands*
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: memnoch87 on December 27, 2010, 02:14:14 AM
Uh-Oh 

Well lets enjoy it while it lasts  agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Monkey King on January 03, 2011, 11:11:34 PM
Gucci in the Land of Genghis Khan (http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/01/02/welcome_to_minegolia)

No worries - Mongolia is about to boom, or so they say.  Black gold.  Next up - English language teachers wanted*.

(*Volunteers only, please - Mongolia is just a developing country!)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on January 05, 2011, 03:29:44 PM
Mark Twain is being updated...but I fail to see for what reason...
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/SHOWBIZ/01/04/new.huck.finn.ew/index.html?hpt=C2

I mean, racism is horrible and evil and such, but why change the words in the novel? Huck Finn uses the N word to describe his friend Jim, whom he is helping to escape. This, to me, is silliness. PC...PC...Glory be to PC...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Ruth on January 05, 2011, 06:36:34 PM
Oh, for crying out loud. I guess I see the point...

Thanks for the link. Something to talk about in American Lit next semester. Can also tie in English and how the language changes and Culture (being PC and all). The students I'll have for Amer Lit have also been my students for writing and culture. A little review with this as an example won't hurt.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: piglet on January 05, 2011, 06:38:16 PM
Are they likely to censor out the bloody in the Importance of Being Earnest?  :wtf:
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on January 05, 2011, 08:35:11 PM
I have little use for Bowdlerization, and less for people who believe that it is necessary. 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: becster79 on January 05, 2011, 08:54:01 PM
Piglet, who the bloody hell wants to bloody censor Gwendolyn & Ceciliy and their bloody cucumber sandwiches?

 ahahahahah ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: teacheraus on January 05, 2011, 09:55:15 PM

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/01/05/3107018.htm?section=justin (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/01/05/3107018.htm?section=justin)

Taiwan to curb pollution by potty training pigs

Taiwan's environmental authorities say they are planning to promote toilet training for pigs to help curb water and waste pollution.

The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) made the pledge following the success of a pig farm in southern Taiwan where the breeder started to train his 10,000 pigs in late 2009.

To keep his animals from defecating in nearby rivers, the breeder has established special toilets smeared with faeces and urine to attract the pigs, the EPA said in a statement.

This reduced the amount of wastewater by up to 80 per cent.

As well as making the farm cleaner and less smelly, it also helped reduce illness among the pigs and boosted their fertility by 20 per cent, the EPA added.

Taiwan has about six million pigs, most of them raised on farms in the centre and the south of the island.

Waste from livestock farms is among the main complaints about water pollution received by the EPA.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: old34 on January 05, 2011, 10:32:07 PM

To keep his animals from defecating in nearby rivers, the breeder has established special toilets smeared with faeces and urine to attract the pigs, the EPA said in a statement.


It doesn't work on the mainland with people. The toilets here are smeared with feces and urine, yet still people piss and shit on the streets and in the rivers.  ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on January 05, 2011, 11:28:31 PM
I remember once a co-worker (who ran a hobby farm) telling me that pigs are actually clean animals. He swore that, given a choice, pigs will identify the low point in a field, and choose that as the place for deffecation and urination, so the shit would run downhill away from them. And they prefer to be fed uphill and away from the mess. It's only when you confine large numbers in a limited space that pigs get dirty. Or so I was told. Compared to cats, dogs and cigarrette smokers, pigs are very clean.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on January 06, 2011, 03:21:20 AM
It is true.  agagagagag agagagagag Pig breeders in the west can actually carpet the area where the sow's are.  They have a trough at one end of the sty area where the pigs go, leaving the rest of the area clean. 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on January 06, 2011, 05:09:39 AM
I concur.  I grew up around farms and they obey the golden rule..."don't shit where you eat".  They're dirty because they need a wallow since they don't have sweat glands.  And they are about the smartest farm animal as well.  Horses, of course, being the stupidest mass of hair on four legs.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on January 06, 2011, 03:13:51 PM
I remember learning in grade school that pigs are netoriously clean. If my students were half as hygenic, it would be a massive improvement.

The human anus is half an inch in diametre. There are no crosswinds in the washrooms (talk about a misnomer). The basin is about 10" x 20" or 1,000 times larger.

AND THEY STILL MISS!  bqbqbqbqbq

No wonder the archery Chinese bronze medalist was a huge surprise     ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on January 07, 2011, 01:20:27 AM
 bkbkbkbkbk

Now I know why the johns at my university stink to high heaven even though the windows are open 24/7.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: piglet on January 09, 2011, 04:19:47 AM
Why Chinese mothers are superior
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111504576059713528698754.html (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111504576059713528698754.html)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on January 09, 2011, 05:35:42 AM
Quote
Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do:

• attend a sleepover
• have a playdate
• be in a school play
• complain about not being in a school play
• watch TV or play computer games
• choose their own extracurricular activities
• get any grade less than an A
• not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama
• play any instrument other than the piano or violin
• not play the piano or violin.
I guess I'll never make a good Chinese mother (thank God  asasasasas)

Quote
The fact is that Chinese parents can do things that would seem unimaginable—even legally actionable—to Westerners. Chinese mothers can say to their daughters, "Hey fatty—lose some weight." By contrast, Western parents have to tiptoe around the issue, talking in terms of "health" and never ever mentioning the f-word, and their kids still end up in therapy for eating disorders and negative self-image. (I also once heard a Western father toast his adult daughter by calling her "beautiful and incredibly competent." She later told me that made her feel like garbage.)


What a pile of  bqbqbqbqbq

Quote
If a Chinese child gets a B — which would never happen — there would first be a screaming, hair-tearing explosion. The devastated Chinese mother would then get dozens, maybe hundreds of practice tests and work through them with her child for as long as it takes to get the grade up to an A.


REALLY, come to my class you racist bitch are mistaken
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: piglet on January 09, 2011, 06:26:26 AM
Maybe the article is talking about Chinese mothers living in the US,Day Dreamer
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: James the Brit on January 09, 2011, 06:46:31 AM
That article is full of tired stereotypes...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on January 09, 2011, 02:03:20 PM
Maybe the article is talking about Chinese mothers living in the US,Day Dreamer

I know it was and its still a festering pile of poot.
I'm not mad at you piglet  kkkkkkkkkk I know you didn't write nor endorsed it. But this is just another sanctamonious ignorant cunt person
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on January 09, 2011, 05:02:54 PM
Wow!! Don't you feel sorry for poor Jed. aoaoaoaoao I wonder if she tries to make him perfect any of his techniques? uuuuuuuuuu
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on January 11, 2011, 01:26:44 AM
Just when I thought China was into the environment (recycling, pollution, atmosphere, green things) they do this

Quote
anuary 10, 2011 13:29 PM

China Publicly Burns 5.2 Million Pirated Books, Compact Discs

BEIJING, Jan 10 (Bernama) -- China's anti-piracy authorities organised public burnings of 5.2 million pirated books and compact discs Monday morning in several localities across China, Xinhua news agency reported.

They burned everything ? !!!  mmmmmmmmmm  There is a black cloud coming your way very soon.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: James the Brit on January 11, 2011, 02:31:31 AM
Just when I thought China was into the environment (recycling, pollution, atmosphere, green things) they do this

Quote
anuary 10, 2011 13:29 PM

China Publicly Burns 5.2 Million Pirated Books, Compact Discs

BEIJING, Jan 10 (Bernama) -- China's anti-piracy authorities organised public burnings of 5.2 million pirated books and compact discs Monday morning in several localities across China, Xinhua news agency reported.

They burned everything ? !!!  mmmmmmmmmm  There is a black cloud coming your way very soon.


1984
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on January 11, 2011, 03:10:41 AM
Book burning...Yeah, who does that remind me of? Daft, silly morons...I am sorry, but burning books is just wrong, wrong, wrong...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on January 11, 2011, 05:34:41 PM
China's not the only place that sometimes burns pirated products to show off a crackdown on piracy.  Personally, I think some Chinese city should build one of those Waste-To-Energy incinerator/generators.  Then they could accept all things pirated and power a few million homes.  bjbjbjbjbj
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on January 11, 2011, 08:26:55 PM
Why not send them to the poorer and remote places that can't get the real thing? Oops, bad idea, that would make sense   bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on January 11, 2011, 11:49:11 PM
Why not send them to the poorer and remote places that can't get the real thing? Oops, bad idea, that would make sense   bibibibibi

It would make sense, except that some enterprising individuals would buy up all those name brand pirated products from the recipients for a few fen on the kuai and then resell them online.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: piglet on January 14, 2011, 11:31:23 PM
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.beijingtoday.com.cn%2Fexpat-news%2Fdream-with-open-eyes-israeli-man-cycling-around-the-world&h=8a681 (http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.beijingtoday.com.cn%2Fexpat-news%2Fdream-with-open-eyes-israeli-man-cycling-around-the-world&h=8a681)
cool guy
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Ruth on January 15, 2011, 12:50:31 AM
From the January edition of the "Here Dongguan" magazine:

"At an auction for lucky license plate numbers held December 21, the plate (Guangdong character)S SS888 sold for RMB 550,000. The previous record in Dongguan was RMB 410,000 spent for the plate S SS999. The auction lasted less than five minutes."

And another one from the same magazine:
"Dongguan Police captured a gang of 16 counterfeiters printing fake 2005 series RMB 100 notes in Liaobu Town. The printers had already printed and sold RMB 56 million, for which they made a profit of 1.8 million. Police found another RMB 110 million waiting to be distributed."

Now, if memory serves me correctly, this is the name of the town where our own beloved Escaped Lunatic lives. Not sure where the clones live, but perhaps 16 of them are now in custody.  Just speculation... Not trying to start gossip or rumors  kkkkkkkkkk
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on January 15, 2011, 09:49:52 PM
EL, make sure to use a live teller, and only pull out fifties.  gggggggggg llllllllll
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on January 17, 2011, 05:04:48 PM
Sold 56 million worth and only made 1.8 million in profit? bibibibibi

Even one of my defective clones wouldn't be a party to such a poorly run scheme. ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on January 18, 2011, 01:58:10 AM
56 wasn't their cost.  Gotta give your buyers a margin in exchange for their risk.

Still, a little meager.  Maybe this was a promotional print run.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on January 18, 2011, 03:09:15 PM
Personally, I wouldn't sell a product that was of such low quality that I couldn't make at least 10% profits on my initial sales.  Far better to take more time, do it right, and make more money while selling less.  The chances of detection go down as the quality increases and the amount distributed is smaller.

Not that I've ever done anything like this. afafafafaf

Then again, my grandfather made some very interesting copies of Japanese and German documents (including currency) for the OSS during WWII, so I can say that my family has been involved in this sort of thing.  The quality was so good (same paper, same ink, incredibly good engraving on the plates) that no one (not even he and his fellow . . . copiers) could tell the difference between the originals and the copies.  At least some of those products got distributed in China. agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on January 23, 2011, 05:20:52 PM
This news does not affect me - I am not back in NZ and have no spare money - but it is a sign of things to come.

Not sure at this stage if the option will help FE's looking to transfer money but it could be worth looking into ...

Quote
Kiwi depositors are about to get their first Chinese currency-denominated retail accounts, signalling the beginning of a multi-year rise in the importance of the "redback" for ordinary New Zealanders.

The retail account will be launched early in February by HSBC, the first bank in New Zealand able to handle importing and exporting transactions in the renminbi, or "redback" as the Chinese currency is coming to be known internationally in a tag echoing the "greenback" nickname for the American dollar.

Details of the account are yet to be released – it is unlikely interest will be anything to get excited about and there may be some restrictions that are not found in accounts denominated in other currencies.

But it will add to the stock of currencies in which ordinary Kiwi depositors can hold money in banks.

Currently, internationally minded Kiwis at HSBC can have accounts denominated in US dollars, Australian dollars, euros, Hong Kong dollars, Japanese yen, British pounds, Singapore dollars, Swiss francs and Canadian dollars.

But China wants the redback to become one of the world's "reserve" currencies alongside the US dollar and the euro, and accounts such as HSBC's will start popping up at banks throughout New Zealand and around the world.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Monkey King on January 26, 2011, 05:53:01 PM
Put your Spring Festival plans on hold:

Chinese National TV reporting impending UFO/ET disclosure by Obama government (http://www.examiner.com/exopolitics-in-seattle/chinese-national-tv-reporting-impending-ufo-et-disclosure-by-obama-government)

Or don't - apparently this was picked up by Xinhua from some conspiracy blog...and then reported nationally?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on January 26, 2011, 06:20:54 PM
We are certain that non of your Earth leaders has such information. xxxxxxxxxx
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on January 27, 2011, 12:55:33 AM
 My dog recently chewed a corner on a Michael Chabon book and got a "No!Bad dog" for it...

 
     Holy Whack Spartanburg County Woman Burns “Evil” Dog
Tuesday, January 25, 2011   |  Comments: 0
An elderly US woman has been arrested and charged with felony animal cruelty after hanging a dog from a tree and burning it with an electrical cord.

The Associated Press reports that 65yr old Miriam Smith told law enforcement officers that she killed the female pitbull because it was a “devil dog” adding that she was scared it would harm children in the neighbourhood.

The dog had apparently chewed on Smith’s Bible.

Smith remains in custody and faces between six months to five years behind bars if convicted.

The dog was found under a pile of grass with the cord still around its neck by police officers.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: piglet on January 27, 2011, 06:55:15 AM
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8278315/China-to-create-largest-mega-city-in-the-world-with-42-million-people.html (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8278315/China-to-create-largest-mega-city-in-the-world-with-42-million-people.html)
Is this real??
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on January 27, 2011, 05:28:57 PM
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8278315/China-to-create-largest-mega-city-in-the-world-with-42-million-people.html (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8278315/China-to-create-largest-mega-city-in-the-world-with-42-million-people.html)
Is this real??

All I asked for was for my minions to tie the Shenzhen and Guangzhou subways together with the under-construction Donnguan subway, and maybe make the mass transit cards interchangeable and look what happens.

The capitol of the Lunatic Empire will be bigger than I expected. ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on January 31, 2011, 12:14:10 AM
Li Qiming is now world (in)famous.  This report from PRC has hit the BBC -- 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12317756
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: teacheraus on January 31, 2011, 01:56:45 AM
China tries to pass Top Gun footage as military drill

China's state broadcaster is facing questions after internet users spotted that footage in a report on air force manoeuvres in a national newscast was taken from the 1980s Hollywood film Top Gun.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/01/30/3125192.htm?section=justin (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/01/30/3125192.htm?section=justin)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on January 31, 2011, 03:13:47 PM
What's next, when reporting navy activities they'll use Hunt For Red October footage? I've always hated CCTV
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on January 31, 2011, 04:01:23 PM
What's next, when reporting navy activities they'll use Hunt For Red October footage? I've always hated CCTV

I'm voting for getting CCTV to shift to the classics.  How about some McHale's Navy and Baa Baa Black Sheep for stock footage of military activities? ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on January 31, 2011, 04:41:17 PM
Gilligan's Island on how to run a socialist organisation
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on January 31, 2011, 07:30:03 PM
Hamburger University....Gives a new, strange meaning to the concept of a McJob...
http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/01/30/the-prestige-of-patty-flipping-china%E2%80%99s-hamburger-university-more-exclusive-than-harvard/?hpt=C2
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on January 31, 2011, 10:39:27 PM
‘My father is Li Gang!’ accused gets six years 

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/930500--my-father-is-li-gang-accused-gets-six-years?bn=1

He was charged with a traffic-related offence  llllllllll So his dad's position still helped
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on January 31, 2011, 11:20:26 PM
Some people think this is funny.  The claim is that CCTV used footage from Top Gun as part of a piece about one of their new fighter airplanes.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/01/30/3125192.htm?section=justin

No one sees the BIG picture.  The footage wasn't faked.  The Chinese now have a missile that can shoot down an enemy airplane. . .

in 1986!!! aoaoaoaoao
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: teacheraus on February 01, 2011, 12:07:08 AM
EL That is a twist on the story that I don't think the International media reporting this story have picked up on.  Who knows what will be next?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Raoul F. Duke on February 12, 2011, 12:20:18 AM
Best news I've seen in a while. Of all the horrors I saw in China, child begging was near the worst.

Online campaign rescues abducted Chinese kids
By ELAINE KURTENBACH, Associated Press

SHANGHAI –
An online campaign to gather photos of Chinese kids begging on the streets is pressuring authorities to crack down on gangs that kidnap children for exploitation and is helping reunite them with families.

Many of the children seen begging in Chinese cities, often in the arms of women who are not their mothers, are snatched from their real families by kidnappers and then sold into virtual slavery, forced to beg by gangs that sometimes maim them to elicit greater sympathy.

Several families have been reunited with their abducted offspring since Beijing-based social researcher Yu Jianrong launched a campaign last month urging people to post photos of beggar children on microblogs — websites similar to Twitter.

The effort is winning fresh support for efforts to protect children from such abuses, though some visitors to the microblogs have expressed worries over privacy issues and possible retaliation against kids by their abductors.

Yu would not comment directly when contacted Friday, saying only that he would not speak to foreign media before hanging up. In his blog comments, he has urged media to "cool" their coverage of his campaign — likely out of concern over official sensitivities.

Using children under the age of 14 for begging is illegal in China, but like many other outlawed practices it is often tolerated, even in big showcase cities like Shanghai. Some, barely big enough to walk, stumble through subway trains, hands outstretched. Others sit out in the cold, on grimy sidewalks.

Children are sometimes forced to beg by their own relatives. But others are used by gangs that have kept alive a long tradition of trafficking in children, women and the disabled.

The Public Security Ministry issued a statement Thursday urging citizens to tell the police if they see children or the handicapped being used for begging. But it said the vast majority of cases were not kidnapped but were being used or "rented" by their families for begging.

Yu began encouraging China's increasingly online citizens to post photos of children they saw begging after receiving a request from a follower of his microblog appealing for help with finding his missing son.

The sites on Chinese-language sina.com and qq.com have since posted more than 2,500 photos of children seen begging in cities across China. At least six missing children had been rescued as of Thursday, the state-run newspaper Shanghai Daily reported.

The campaign is part of a growing trend to use the Internet to help track down missing family members.

"Microblog Miracle: Child Lost for Three Years Recovered," said a headline in the usually staid Communist Party newspaper the People's Daily. It showed a picture of Peng Gaofeng holding his 6-year-old son Wenle, who was recovered after Internet users spotted the child begging in a village far from the southern Chinese city where he was abducted.

Internet users had spotted the child after his picture was posted on another microblog last fall.

Wary of the potential, as in Tunisia and Egypt, for social media to be used as a tool for dissent, China generally blocks access to foreign sites like Facebook and Twitter. But domestic versions of such social media are thriving.

Such forums are a promising way to help address such social problems and a reminder of their potential for fostering positive changes, said Yu Hai, a sociologist at Shanghai's prestigious Fudan University.

At the same time, "This is an alert that the government needs to do more for people," Yu wrote. "I'm optimistic about this in the long run, but obviously there is a need for more official support."

Earlier this week, authorities in Taihe, a district in neighboring Anhui province that is known to be home to some organized begging rings, issued a notice ordering people using disabled children for begging to turn themselves in within 10 days or face "harsh penalties," according to a photographed notice posted online by the Shanghai newspaper Oriental Morning Post.

Reports said police in Taihe had so far rescued two disabled children and detained five suspects. "Using disabled children to beg is a criminal act," warned a red banner across a rural road in Taihe, in a photo carried by the newspaper.

Chinese police have set up a DNA and photo database as part of a crackdown on human trafficking that began in the spring of 2009. As of September, 813 children had been returned to their families.

But the problem remains widespread. According to humantrafficking.org, a website set up to monitor the global situation, estimates of the number of children traded or sold each year in China range from 10,000 to 20,000. Often, kidnappers grab boys to be sold to childless couples. In other cases, girls or women are taken to be sold as brides or are tricked or forced into working in the sex industry.

"While the public applaud the far reach of the Internet, the effectiveness of the police and the repeated crackdown campaigns against human trafficking are being questioned," noted a commentary Friday in the newspaper Global Times.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on February 12, 2011, 09:49:15 AM
Mubarak (completely) out!
Freedom in?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: James the Brit on February 12, 2011, 11:43:46 AM
I'd be cautious discussing the Egypt situtation in a forum about China.

AMEN TO THAT, BROTHER.  LET'S SAVE THE SPHINX LAND TALK FOR MORE DISCREET PLACES... - Con
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Paul on February 17, 2011, 04:25:39 AM
I have a receipt for my wife and I'm not giving her back just because some 'democrat' is uneasy with my morals.
But her leash keeps breaking. Bloody quality control here!
Should I get a harness?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on February 17, 2011, 04:40:43 AM
I have a receipt for my wife and I'm not giving her back just because some 'democrat' is uneasy with my morals.
But her leash keeps breaking. Bloody quality control here!
Should I get a harness?


 mmmmmmmmmm
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Paul on February 17, 2011, 04:45:32 AM
Talk English, man, and don't be iconing me with your bloody icons!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Ruth on February 18, 2011, 05:09:37 AM
Talk English, man, and don't be iconing me with your bloody icons!
Just a guess, because I'm puzzled too, but I think Day Dreamer was puzzled about the meaning of your post - especially in the news thread.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on February 18, 2011, 02:50:14 PM
But her leash keeps breaking. Bloody quality control here!
Should I get a harness?

Paul, if you go to "The Bar (On Topic) then to "Pet Questions" I'm sure that DoctorsBecknStone can answer your question.  bfbfbfbfbf ahahahahah agagagagag You may have noticed,I just love these bloody icons. ahahahahah ahahahahah ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on February 23, 2011, 12:14:26 AM
Quote
65 dead in devastating Christchurch quake

Bad news coming out of New Zealand through the day. The present death toll of 65 is expected to rise to something like 120 by tomorrow.

Best source for news is:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4688231/Deaths-destruction-in-Christchurch-quake
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: becster79 on February 23, 2011, 01:04:07 AM
:( I hate hearing about huge earthquakes.....I *still* haven't gotten over Sichuan!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on February 23, 2011, 04:14:50 AM
Sorry to hear x, hope the bad news stops there
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on February 23, 2011, 02:41:46 PM
Egad.  First a big part of HoganLand goes underwater and now the Kiwis are getting shaken to death.  What does it take to get a break from these disasters?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: becster79 on February 23, 2011, 03:09:19 PM
They've had a truly rough 6 months, EL. The first quake, 7.1 hit Sept 4 last year. Then the devastating Pike River Mine disaster where 39 miners died in December, now this. They can't get a break :(.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on February 23, 2011, 08:14:11 PM
Why Alibaba's CEO had to go (http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/02/22/why-alibabas-ceo-had-to-go/?section=magazines_fortune)
Bill Powell

For several years now, the internet firm Alibaba-Taobao has been one of the
most prominent Chinese companies on the planet—thanks both to its
success and to its brash, charismatic founder and chairman, "Jack O' (Yun)
Ma, who started the online commerce company in 1999. Its
business-to-business platform, Alibaba.com, went public on Hong Kong's stock
exchange in 2007 and raised $1.7 billion—at the time the second biggest
internet IPO ever, behind only Google (GOOG). Its online consumer sales company,
Taobao, went mano-a-mano with eBay (EBAY) and effectively ran the global
giant out of China a few years ago.

Yesterday
 for the first time, Alibaba hit a big public bump in the road: It reported that 2,326 high volume sellers who
pay a fee to the company to pedal their wares on the site – "gold
suppliers," as they're called—defrauded customers over the course of two
years, with the assistance of nearly 100 Alibaba.com employees. Ma said the
sellers were organized "fraudsters." As a result of the scandal, Alibaba.com
CEO David Wei, and his deputy, COO Elvis Lee, both resigned yesterday.
Neither, the company stressed, are implicated in the fraud; both were
falling on their swords to accept responsibility. (Japanese style corporate
accountability comes to China.)

Wei, 40, had joined Alibaba in 2006 and oversaw the successful IPO. He also
helped Ma execute the vision of Alibaba.com as a destination for customers
outside of China to buy from small and medium-sized companies operating
inside the country. Ma, to be sure, has become as publicly associated with
his company as Steve Jobs or Bill Gates have with theirs. (His company's
annual "Alifest" is practically a revival meeting for Alibaba-Taobao users,
and the waif-like Ma is their inspirational leader.) But Wei was his
polished deputy, and he unfailingly projected an image of calm competence.

The scale of the fraud amounted to about $1,200 per incident, totaling around $2.8 million, and thus is "immaterial", as John Spelich, vice
 president for international corporate affairs says, from an earnings standpoint. That is probably the only bright spot in this scandal for Yahoo (YHOO), whose Chinese operations are run by Alibaba's parent company, of which it owns 39%. The Alibaba group's stock price in Hong Kong today fell more than 8%. Of course, what makes the scandal a huge deal for Alibaba—and why
the company has gone to extraordinary lengths to snuff it out—is the
apparent involvement of insiders on the sales staff in perpetrating the
fraud. Either willfully or out of negligence, the Alibaba sales people
"helped organized Chinese criminal rings establish Alibaba.com 'Gold
Supplier' storefronts so they could pose as legitimate businesses in order
to defraud buyers," according to an account of the scandal the company
published on a website it runs.

In an e mail to employees, Ma went further. He said the company's internal
investigation
 team members "knowingly allowed fraudsters to become [Gold Suppliers] so
that they could 'make their numbers' and receive commission income.'' (It is
unclear as of yet if any of the insiders received payments from any of the
fraudsters.)

Garden variety fraud on e-commerce sites is not uncommon, of course.
Yesterday, on a web site called Alibaba168.com, where buyers and sellers
exchange information about their experiences on the site, there was an
account of an Alibaba customer in Xinjiang, in far western China, who paid
12,000 renminbi (about $1,846) to buy a bunch of walnuts from a supplier,
which he then hoped to turn around and resell at a profit. The buyer did not
 execute his transaction via Alipay, Alibaba's Paypal equivalent,
 instead forwarding the money direct to the seller. He was ripped off.

Alibaba says the scope of the fraudulent activity in the cases that led to
Wei's resignation, which in many cases involved the "sale" of low priced
consumer electronics products, "appeared to be within the risk range for
e-commerce sites in general." The problem for the company is that all of the
customers defrauded were outside of China, and, as Spelich says, the
company's "raison d'être," its founding mission, was to link Chinese sellers
with buyers abroad (Alibaba is now trying aggressively to lure sellers in
India and elsewhere to use the site.)

Several years ago, the first time I ever interviewed Ma, he spoke in
his usual passionate tone on the one issue he saw as key to whether
e-commerce would take off in China in general, and at Alibaba-Taobao in
particular: "Trust," he said. Meaning, customers had to trust in the
quality of goods they were going to be able to buy online, but more
importantly, they had to be confident they were not going to be fleeced by
faceless sellers using the Internet to perpetrate their fraud. And all this
in a country where, shall we say, business ethics are still something of a
work in progress.

It turns out that fleecing is precisely what was happening for two
years—with the aid of a handful of Ma's own employees. (Again, Alibaba employs 5000 sales people, and around 100 were involved in the fraud, the company says.) Which explains why the
company has reacted so strongly, and so publicly, to an episode that, by the
numbers, seems to be but a minor scandal. As Wei's stunning resignation
yesterday demonstrates, it's not. As Jack Ma understood from the beginning,
if the customers can't trust Alibaba, then Alibaba isn't going have many
customers.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on March 10, 2011, 06:00:48 AM
Egypt...Libya...Wisconsin

Tens of thousands of protesters have been occupying the Wisconsin state capital building for over two weeks in an effort to stop the recently elected, Republican governor from removing the collective bargaining rights of teachers in the state.  His law was pushed through the lower house, (recenlty become majority-Republican), but was stopped in the upper house even though it also became majority-Republican in the last election.  The 14 Democrats stopped it by literally leaving the state and holing up northern Illinois, thus preventing a quorum by one vote.  They have been there in secrecy for over two weeks except for an appearance on The Daily Show.  Bizarre, indeed.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on March 11, 2011, 03:53:29 AM
Quote
New Relief Workers

Would you like to put your professional experience to use in a place where people desperately need help?

Are you motivated to travel to a distant foreign country, respond to people’s needs with humility and compassion, and work alongside them to provide solutions?

Do you suspect you might want to be a relief worker, but have no idea if you are qualified, or if you could even be of service to the most vulnerable?
 
If you answered “YES” to all these questions, then this next sentence should be of particular interest to you...

After 20 years of serving the most vulnerable, Medair has learned the immense value of working with teams that include both new and experienced relief workers. New Relief Workers learn the Medair context of emergency relief and rehabilitation, and are able to apply their depth of professional experience and skills right away to help save and sustain lives.

I wonder if Medair provided relief workers for the earthquake disaster in New Zealand?:

Quote
Christchurch relief work keeps prostitutes busy

n influx of earthquake relief workers has made Christchurch's disaster a bonanza for the city's prostitutes.

Manchester St sex worker Candice, 24, said she has been run off her feet servicing search-and-rescue staff, builders, and even two New South Wales police officers.

"They took pictures with me to show the boys back home. They were in uniform but they took off their orange singlets because they said it ruined the picture."

"They are saying they are stressed out and they need to get some stress relief."


It's a relief to know that relief workers are getting some relief from the professionals in the business.   agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: piglet on March 11, 2011, 06:35:36 AM
so if he dies as an expat he has to be rein-car-nated there? Do souls not know how to travel from one place to another? bibibibibi


EL Note:  Piglet, sorry to pull the link and alter things a bit.  Some topics shouldn't be brought up so directly as the words in that link, ESPECIALLY downstairs.  Even though this one was showing the official point of view, we wouldn't want to risk the topic causing any disharmony.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on March 11, 2011, 11:38:45 PM
Major major earthquake hit Japan.  Tsunami warnings for entire pacific area.  Possible 10 meter waves.  33 feet.  llllllllll

Taiwan next, probably will hit there before this post is read.  Next Philippines and Indonesia. Hawaii.   Australia, New Zealand.  All west coast of North and South America.

Nobody knows how high the waves will be when they hit the other countries. Some islands are lower then the potential wave height.  Hope the projections are wrong. 

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: The Local Dialect on March 12, 2011, 04:19:25 AM
I've just been watching all the footage from the earthquake in Japan and ... there are no words. The tsunami hit Sendai, a city where I did a homestay during the summer after my senior year of high school. I wish I had some way of knowing if my host family is ok but I haven't spoken to them in at least 10 years. Watching the footage of those burning houses being swept out to sea is just chilling.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: piglet on March 12, 2011, 09:25:18 AM
Truly truly shocking our thoughts go out to the people suffering there-and as always in such situations a feeling of helplessness....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: NATO on March 12, 2011, 06:03:48 PM
Wow, 8.9. Nature is ruthless.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on March 12, 2011, 08:15:42 PM
In a country that receives thousands of quakes per year and are prepared (as can be) you must use your imagination to trully understand how powerful this was. This is a place that has all the up to date equipment and technology to withstand as much as they can. 500 years ago, this could have wiped out villages and killed in the 100s of thousands.

God help them
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on March 13, 2011, 02:15:04 AM
According to CNN the quake moved the entire island and actually shifted the Earth on its axis aoaoaoaoao Those poor, poor people.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on March 13, 2011, 03:00:37 AM
just saw an update in the Toronto Star. State of emergency at 5 nuclear reactors at 2 power plants. All residents are being evacuated within a 10 KM radius of the 2 sites.

Quote
An explosion at a nuclear power station tore down the walls of one building Saturday as smoke poured out and Japanese officials said they feared the reactor could melt down following the failure of its cooling system in the wake of yesterday's powerful earthquake and tsunami.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on March 13, 2011, 06:10:24 PM
According to CNN the quake moved the entire island and actually shifted the Earth on its axis aoaoaoaoao Those poor, poor people.

The quake in NZ last year also moved it a few inches if I recall. I wonder if we could have one so strong that it will have an important impact like alter the rotation or orbit of the world. That could be catastrophic.

Amazingly, just like the Indian Ocean quake from a few years back, its the tsunami that's causing most of the damage
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on March 13, 2011, 08:59:03 PM
A couple of my Chinese friends seem to have forgotten that the war ended back in 1945.  They were lamenting that the Japanese death toll was so low. bibibibibi

I HOPE they were joking.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Raoul F. Duke on March 13, 2011, 09:31:31 PM
Sorry, but they weren't. Most Chinese are deeply programmed to hate Japanese. llllllllll

The nuke plants may be the worst part in the end. It's feared one or both of the two known-damaged plants may be in meltdown. Both are releasing radioactive gases into the atmosphere.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on March 14, 2011, 01:20:30 AM
Quote
A couple of my Chinese friends seem to have forgotten that the war ended back in 1945

It is not a matter of forgetting the end of a war and more to do with what happened during it.

My father served overseas 1939-1945. He said little about his war experiences but he did say that while he could forgive the people of Germany he would never forgive the Japanese.

It helps me to understand why the people of China are rather unforgiving in their attitude to Japan.

Most of us come from countries that have never been invaded, and find it easier to be charitable, but the Chinese have every reason to not like Japan.

That, however, does not mean that I, and most Chinese people, do not feel compassion for the victims of the earthquake in Japan at this time.
 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Ben-Dan on March 14, 2011, 03:43:29 AM
Quote
A couple of my Chinese friends seem to have forgotten that the war ended back in 1945

It is not a matter of forgetting the end of a war and more to do with what happened during it.

My father served overseas 1939-1945. He said little about his war experiences but he did say that while he could forgive the people of Germany he would never forgive the Japanese.

It helps me to understand why the people of China are rather unforgiving in their attitude to Japan.

Most of us come from countries that have never been invaded, and find it easier to be charitable, but the Chinese have every reason to not like Japan.

That, however, does not mean that I, and most Chinese people, do not feel compassion for the victims of the earthquake in Japan at this time.
 

People seem much more forgiving of Americans despite our war atrocities. No Vietnamese or Japanese person has ever said anything against Americans in my presence.

Would that everyone would recognize that it's "one world, one people," and see through all the bogus nationalist and racist paradigms. What makes war atrocities possible is the underlying idea that those people over there are different, other, and alien, in which case it doesn't matter what happens to them.

It's all the Hatfields and the McCoys, brother against brother, except people believe their brother is the evil alien and don't recognize that they too possess the potential for exaggerated acts of evil.

Let me add that I can understand why people her on the mainland are angry at the Japanese. I've seen some of the horrific period footage and it made ME furious. And I also know I'm at the other end of the stick in terms of my country giving and getting beaten, invaded, bombed and whatnot, so it's easy for me to talk about recognizing the potential for evil in one's own people, but, I still think in the new millennium (which has been SUCH a disappointment), it would be great if we could all get past the superficial differences that keep us apart and recognize each others' humanity.

nuff said and probably too much.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on March 14, 2011, 06:03:16 AM
1,200 CONFIRMED dead.  Add 9,500 people missing in just one "prefecture".  Then start adding the others.

Then consider they can't even calculate the others yet.  This is looking to be an astronomical catastrophy.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on March 14, 2011, 11:20:00 AM
And Japan is one of the most prepared countries in the world aoaoaoaoao  But there's not much you can do when your whole island moves 8 feet, and shifts the Earth's axis by nearly 4 inches :wtf:
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on March 14, 2011, 11:27:16 AM
Quote
A couple of my Chinese friends seem to have forgotten that the war ended back in 1945

It is not a matter of forgetting the end of a war and more to do with what happened during it.

My father served overseas 1939-1945. He said little about his war experiences but he did say that while he could forgive the people of Germany he would never forgive the Japanese.

It helps me to understand why the people of China are rather unforgiving in their attitude to Japan.

My 12 years old Grandson Jesse is being taught,at school, to forgive and forget as he is so fond of telling me. bibibibibi I spend quite a bit of my time speaking to an old WW11 stretcher bearer. His stories are horrific. My Dad didn't talk about his service in New Guinea and my Mum had very strong feelings given the disruptions and permanent changes to our lives. When my generation dies out,we will probably take with us these feelings against the Japanese. As I tell my Grandson, it is very easy to forgive and forget if you were not the one having your breasts sliced off or other things I won't go into here. If this terrible Tsunami had happened in Japan in say 1942, I don't even have to wonder what the genuine reactions would have been. kkkkkkkkkk
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mr Nobody on March 14, 2011, 01:48:56 PM
My father the Australian never forgave the Japanese to the day he died. He actually only fought against the Germans, who he considered gentleman opponents. He was deeply suspicious of the Chinese, mostly as far as I could tell because he couldn't tell the difference.

Luckily (if that's the word) he died before I married. Although she would probably have changed his mind.

But then he didn't trust Jews either.

Needless to say, my father and I got along like a house on fire:

Screaming, yelling, fear, anger and pain.

I too am more worried about the nuclear power stations. Two Chernobyls in one country would be a disaster for the entire area, spilling over into nearby countries. Luckily they have more things in place. This is going to be a test of how they deal with it.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Ben-Dan on March 14, 2011, 03:32:22 PM
Quote
My 12 years old Grandson Jesse is being taught,at school, to forgive and forget as he is so fond of telling me. bibibibibi I spend quite a bit of my time speaking to an old WW11 stretcher bearer. His stories are horrific. My Dad didn't talk about his service in New Guinea and my Mum had very strong feelings given the disruptions and permanent changes to our lives. When my generation dies out,we will probably take with us these feelings against the Japanese. As I tell my Grandson, it is very easy to forgive and forget if you were not the one having your breasts sliced off or other things I won't go into here.

This is true, of course. Maybe there are two problems. One is forgiveness, though I was more concerned about the other one, which is the perception of the other people as alien and different and somehow separable from one's own people or oneself. When I think about what the Japanese, or the Germans, or the Americans did, or what any of the people in South East Asia did to each other (the whole Thai, Burma, Cambodia region used to do unspeakable things to each other in wars of prior centuries), I just think it's people doing it people, with the same sorts of justifications for their actions, and the same sorts of feelings.

Maybe some groups have been a bit more vicious or perverse or wantonly cruel in wartime situations, but America has Abu Graib, and this reflects precious little on "Americans". Soldiers, in war, often behave quite badly, what with the daily job of killing. If your daily job involves embracing insanity (killing for some distance justification of the primacy of one economic system or another that will only ultimately strive to make the wealthy more wealthy and everyone else subservient wretches), acts of criminal, psychotic insanity require a shorter bridge to cross.

It was humans did it. Sometimes we did it to them, and they did it to us. The real enemy is not them, but the actions themselves whoever perpetrates them. And behind and underlying the actions is, among other things, the misconception that other people in other lands or observing other cultures are somehow essentially different, and therefore easier to abstract as non-human, mere numbers on a sheet calculating casualties.

Also, I gather, some people think those other people are capable of much worse atrocities and will stoop lower. I dunno. Some might think Hiroshima wasn't all that bad because, well, it wasn't up close and personal and it was just opening an airplane hatch and dropping some brilliant cargo. Some see what the "terrorists" do as the most heinous, lament 3,000 dead and don't care about 100,000 dead. If someone blows themselves up it's an abomination, but if a gun ship mows down civilians it's a civilized game of chess. The greed that brought about the economic crisis, and sometimes sanctions on countries that prevent them getting needed supplies to purify water (resulting in tens of thousands of innocent children dying) are as cynical and brutal in their effects, despite being caused by the smiling calculations or people sitting behind desks, wearing ties sipping coffee as are acts of physical violence done in person on the spot.


Just my opinion on that.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on March 14, 2011, 05:17:38 PM
Quote
A couple of my Chinese friends seem to have forgotten that the war ended back in 1945

It is not a matter of forgetting the end of a war and more to do with what happened during it.

My father served overseas 1939-1945. He said little about his war experiences but he did say that while he could forgive the people of Germany he would never forgive the Japanese.

It helps me to understand why the people of China are rather unforgiving in their attitude to Japan.

Most of us come from countries that have never been invaded, and find it easier to be charitable, but the Chinese have every reason to not like Japan.

There were atrocities, and some of the more recent policies to try to gloss over things in Japanese schoolbooks are unacceptable.  Still, my Jewish friends on average seem more forgiving of Germans than the Chinese are of the Japanese.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on March 14, 2011, 09:39:21 PM
Looks like there are some people who can forgive even if they never forget.

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/14/china.disaster.response/

China sent in a Search and Rescue team to help at a Japanese primary school.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: fullricebowl on March 15, 2011, 01:30:33 AM
Looks like there are some people who can forgive even if they never forget.


On ifeng I was pretty surprised by the tone of the comments- I guess I'd assumed they would be more along the lines of "serves you right, Japan" but many of them were commenting on the quality of the buildings in Japan post-earthquake vs. Sichuan.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on March 15, 2011, 03:03:56 AM
I just read on a Danish news site how some Americans are, in a fit of fatal idiocy, making comments about how this quake was revenge for Pearl Harbour....right next to that was an article about how a married couple had their flimsy hopes dashed as they came across a completely wrecked mini-bus containing the corpse of their 18 year old daughter.
This is one of the largest natural disasters in modern history, the quake moved not only Japan but the Earth on its axis, thousands of people are dead, nuclear meltdowns and radioactive mayhem awaits and yet people of various nations are actually voicing some kind of twisted, psychotic elation because the Japanese government and military did something nasty more than half a century ago...I don't think the 18 year old girl in the minibus had much to do with Pearl Harbour. Honestly, how petty can individuals get.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: piglet on March 15, 2011, 04:32:47 AM
The answer Eric is extremely. You are always going to get some @$$hole telling you that God is wreaking vengeance on people for their sins etc etc.
Maybe the Maya civilization was right and the world is ending in 2012?  aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Ben-Dan on March 15, 2011, 05:02:55 AM
I just read on a Danish news site how some Americans are, in a fit of fatal idiocy, making comments about how this quake was revenge for Pearl Harbour....right next to that was an article about how a married couple had their flimsy hopes dashed as they came across a completely wrecked mini-bus containing the corpse of their 18 year old daughter.
This is one of the largest natural disasters in modern history, the quake moved not only Japan but the Earth on its axis, thousands of people are dead, nuclear meltdowns and radioactive mayhem awaits and yet people of various nations are actually voicing some kind of twisted, psychotic elation because the Japanese government and military did something nasty more than half a century ago...I don't think the 18 year old girl in the minibus had much to do with Pearl Harbour. Honestly, how petty can individuals get.

Ignorant, semi-conscious thoughts are inevitably the most common. People aren't using their imaginations when they rejoice in another's suffering, and are shortsighted when they think they are themselves safe from natural disasters.

With the threadbare condition of the biosphere and consequent increasingly erratic weather conditions, the likelihood of falling victim to some natural disaster are every increasing. Hate to be all doom and gloom, but if we don't change our polluting-for-profit ways as a species, we'll all get to experience something along these lines.

Ah  bqbqbqbqbq I just depressed myself.

Speaking of imagination. When I see some of those pics from the earthquake/tsunami, every so often I get just a glimpse of the magnitude of the "horror," and it's really too much for anyone to have a handle on.

I also read today that the economy in Japan is taking a serious nose-dive, and perpetual electrical shortages are on the horizon. The whole country basically got smashed. It's really too much, and a terrible reminder of how one's life can suddenly be overturned, and one can find oneself scrambling for the basics if one's lucky enough to still be alive and in one piece.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on March 15, 2011, 11:34:23 AM
from China Law Blog:
http://www.chinalawblog.com/2011/03/chinas_reaction_to_japans_earthquake.html

Quote
China's Reaction To Japan's Earthquake
Posted by Dan on March 11, 2011

Adam Minter of Shanghai Scrap has written an excellent piece for Foreign Policy Magazine, on China's reaction to Japan's horrible earthquake. The article is entitled, "Schadenfreude and Sympathy in Shanghai," and it does a great job conveying the "feelings" being expressed by Chinese regarding the terrible calamity that has struck Japan.

Japan, all good people stand with you and support you as you seek to overcome this tragedy.

then

Quote
Update: I wrote a number of my friends in Japan to make sure they were okay and to let them know that I and the United States will be there to assist. From one of my attorney friends (who shall remain nameless) I got back a response that said that "we welcome assistance of United States but not China." Wow. And this came without my having mentioned a word about China. Of course I knew that the animosity between China and Japan runs deep, but sometimes it takes a real life highly personalized incident to really hammer it home. 


Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on March 15, 2011, 10:24:37 PM
Earthquakes, storms, floods, drought, tornadoes, volcanic eruptions, etc.

None of them are new nor do they target anyone. As disasterous and tragic as they are, they are a part of life and death on this planet.

The other day I was listening to a radio program and the host was trying to tie in this rescent event with the Iluminati. I wanted to reach into the computer and throttle the imbecile
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Ben-Dan on March 15, 2011, 10:41:27 PM
Earthquakes, storms, floods, drought, tornadoes, volcanic eruptions, etc.

None of them are new nor do they target anyone. As disasterous and tragic as they are, they are a part of life and death on this planet.

The other day I was listening to a radio program and the host was trying to tie in this rescent event with the Iluminati. I wanted to reach into the computer and throttle the imbecile

I think that "Illuminati"  bqbqbqbqbq is intended to take people's eye off the ball of the real culprits (i.e., who is really in power and responsible for societal problems), and also to discredit whistle blowers and legitimate conspiracy theories by mixing them with wacko nonsense.

As for the natural disasters, I wouldn't lump them all together, because some are exacerbated or even caused by climate change and environmental devastation (drought, floods, storms…), whereas volcanoes and earthquakes, as far as I know, are not effected by damaging or polluting the environment. And while there have always been natural disasters, they're becoming more common and will continue to do so as we continue to debilitate the biosphere of our planet.

[Note: all scientific bodies agree that global warming is a reality, and the naysayers are all funded by oil corporations and other polluters. There actually is NO controversy in the scientific community about climate change, and more than there is about gravity or evolution. Those critical of global warming are just doing PR so the big polluters can keep on keeping on making loads-O-dough.]
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: The Local Dialect on March 15, 2011, 11:30:35 PM
For those of us needing to hear a bit of good news amidst all this madness -- a 4 month old baby was found alive 3 days after being torn from her father's arms by tsunami waters.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1366155/Japan-earthquake-tsunami-4-month-old-baby-girl-father-reunited-Ishinomaki.html

Awwww

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on March 16, 2011, 08:43:42 PM
Here's something to make you view man's best friend in a different light:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20110315/sc_livescience/dogsthateatrottentoesaltruisticorjustplainhungry

 aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on March 17, 2011, 11:29:10 AM
EL, I always said that if I had my heart attack at home alone, I would be found minus my toenails and fingernails. My little dog Pippa used to come to me as soon as she heard me with the nail clippers. Yes! I did give the nails to her to eat. Our sheep and cattle dogs out on our property used to like to eat the horses hooves when they were trimmed. My little dog was also great at detecting skin cancers. My neighbor would always be able to point out a new skin cancer at the Molescan clinic and sure enough, it would need to be removed.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on March 18, 2011, 06:19:24 PM
Quote
China's Reaction To Japan's Earthquake

A pretty good explanation for the mixed reactions in China to anything to do with Japan:

http://granitestudio.org/2011/03/15/guest-post-from-yajun-earthquakes-and-complex-feelings-toward-japan/
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on March 19, 2011, 07:19:30 AM
when you actually hear about what happened in the war i can't imagine it being forgotten while it's still living memory. two things i think about it

1)There is a big difference between the Germans and the Japanese war crimes aside from the acts in that Germany was completely re-imagined after the war and managed to express that many normal German people also hated and feared Nazis. Germany is enviable in europe in the respect that it has in it's constitution that racial hatred is illegal which means none of the racist parties we have in england and france. Japan didn't change their government structure and even protected a lot of it's war criminals. They never disowned their wartime government.

Incidentally according to Iris Chang who wrote Rape of Nanking, China has played a part in this to some extent since Japan was their main trade partner when the US was their 'enemy' and is still one of their main trade partners

2) Even though Germany is now a 'good' country, there is still a rivalry. English French and Germans will rip on each other, resent each other, hate each other etc etc as long as the countries exist. I get the impression that is at play in China, korea and Japan as well, just local rivalry. Koreans are old fashioned, Japanese are snobs, Chinese are uncouth etc
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Ben-Dan on March 19, 2011, 07:44:01 AM
Quote
China's Reaction To Japan's Earthquake

A pretty good explanation for the mixed reactions in China to anything to do with Japan:

http://granitestudio.org/2011/03/15/guest-post-from-yajun-earthquakes-and-complex-feelings-toward-japan/

That article was pretty good. This part is something I've been harping on about
Quote
Japanese soldiers were always described as short, cunning and ruthless people. They were not portrayed as human, but as aliens or killing machines.
= er, the thinking/believing/perceiving others as different and alien, and hence easier to hate, kill, whatever.

Another interesting bit was that Japan helped China out after the Wenchuan quake.

I'd also seen, on ChinaSMACK, what they mentioned about Chinese people writing in to express their admiration for how the Japanese comported themselves after the tragedy.

And the final note was rather optimistic, and something I agree with
Quote
With such a large number of ordinary Chinese using the Internet, more and more young Chinese rely on their own critical thinking and information that they find online, rather than rigid patriotic doctrine, to shape their opinion towards Japan.

I was touching on this the other day when talking about the internet being a venue for people to express their opinions and do research, and that it's one of the few things that gives me hope for the future.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on March 19, 2011, 10:09:38 PM
Geez...

Three states seek to kick habit of raising cig taxes
Associated Press

CONCORD, N.H. - As some states look to tobacco tax increases to plug budget holes, a few are bucking the national trend and saying, "If you smoke 'em, we got 'em," looking at dropping the rate to boost cigarette sales.

In New Hampshire, supporters argue that reducing the tax by a dime would help the state compete with Maine, Vermont and Massachusetts, while opponents say it would still lose millions of dollars even if higher sales resulted.

New Hampshire's House voted Thursday to reduce the tax and sent the bill to the Senate, where its prospects are uncertain. New Jersey and Rhode Island have also considered reducing their taxes.

Aaron Evans, 25, weighed his potential new option Thursday as he stopped at a convenience store in Haverhill, Mass, for a sandwich and a $7.13 pack of Marlboro cigarettes. A pack would cost him $5.99 a couple miles away in New Hampshire, which already has significantly lower taxes than Massachusetts.

He welcomed any move to make smokes cheaper but said a dime a pack wouldn't make him change his buying habits.

"You've got to average it out," he said. "I could either drive all the way over to New Hampshire and waste the gas - it kind of evens it out."

It's very unusual for states to lower the tax, said Frank Chaloupka, an economics professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The sales increase isn't enough to offset the drop in tax revenue, he said.

States have enacted 100 increases over the past decade, he said.

New Hampshire raised its tax repeatedly since Democratic Gov. John Lynch took office in 2006, increasing it from 52 cents per pack in 2005 to $1.78 currently.

"New Hampshire has been going in the same direction as the rest of the country, basically forever," Chaloupka said.

The bill passed by the House would cut the rate 10 cents to $1.68 per pack. The taxes are $2.51 in neighboring Massachusetts, $2 in Maine and $2.24 in Vermont.

Rhode Island's bill would cut its tax by $1, to $2.46 per pack compared with $3 in neighboring Connecticut. New Jersey last year considered reducing its tax 30 cents, to $2.40 per pack, but hasn't followed through.

When states raise the tax, revenue goes up even though sales decline, Chaloupka said. Over time, tobacco tax revenues gradually drop after a tax hike as smoking use declines, he said. To drive revenues back up, states have raised taxes again.

The only time tax revenues dropped after a state raised its tax was in 2006, when New Jersey raised its rate 17.5 cents, he said - though the revenue decline was more likely due to adoption of a comprehensive smoke-free policy.

New Jersey raised the tax 12.5 cents in 2009 and revenue rose, he noted.

Chaloupka asserted that any reduction in cigarette prices would add to Medicaid and other health care costs. The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids estimates that if the New Hampshire cut is enacted it would mean more than $21 million in long-term health costs.

The campaign also estimates a 10-cent drop per pack would result in 1,000 new young smokers in New Hampshire.

New Hampshire has historically looked to export its tax burden - and any resulting health costs - to other states through taxes on products such as tobacco and alcohol it sells to its residents.

"That's always been the way we run our tax structure," said Mike Rollo, spokesman for the American Cancer Society in New Hampshire. "We've always tried to tax people from out of state."

State Rep. Susan Almy, a Lebanon Democrat and member of the House Ways and Means Committee, said the health impact was not taken into account in the committee when it promoted the tax cut.

Instead, lawmakers are looking at a study by the New Hampshire Grocers Association, which has consistently criticized the tax increases as hurting small businesses, particularly along New Hampshire's state line.

Grocers Association President John Dumais said Thursday its study shows that cutting the rate a dime would cost the state tobacco tax revenues but would be offset by an increase in state taxes collected from people renting hotel rooms, eating in restaurants, and buying alcohol, lottery tickets and gasoline.

The net result would be no loss of revenue to the state but an incentive for tourists to visit the state to shop, he said.

"People coming from out of state are going to have an empty gas tank. They're going to be hungry. They're going to be tired," he said. "It's going to help every business."

State Rep. Patrick Abrami, R-Stratham, made that argument successfully during the House debate.

"We have reached the tipping point," he said. "We are hurting our merchants. We are losing sales on our borders."

But state Rep. Christine Hamm, a Hopkinton Democrat, called the move "fiscally stupid."

"No state has cut their tobacco tax and seen a revenue increase," she said.

New Hampshire Senate Finance Chairman Chuck Morse said he believes the Senate will support the cut.

"I think it's a positive sign for business. I think it will provide revenue in the long run," said Morse, a Republican who lives in Salem.

Unlike in other states where campaign contributions have the potential to sway votes, New Hampshire House members are unpaid volunteers and spend very little on campaigns - so it's unlikely that tobacco money is essentially paying for votes.

But lobbying organizations do target the smaller Senate because it's easier to win votes, and the potential benefit to tobacco companies remains clear.

"Yes, we do support the excise tax rollback as it would benefit retailers, consumers, jobs and bring tobacco tax revenue back to New Hampshire," said David Sutton, a spokesman for Altria Group, the parent company of Phillip Morris USA Inc.

If approved by the Senate, the cigarette tax cut bill would go to the governor, who doesn't support it. But the House and Senate, led by Republicans, could override a veto by the governor, saving cigarette smokers 10 cents a pack.

The House voted 236-93 to send the bill to the Senate anyway. Pro-business Republicans who control the Legislature are siding with Dumais' argument that the ripple effects from cutting the rate make it worth doing.

Lynch spokesman Colin Manning, who said the governor doesn't support the tax cut, pointed out that New Hampshire's tax rate already is the lowest in the region.

Unlike the other states, New Hampshire has no sales tax.

Manning said the House is considering making much deeper budget cuts than Lynch proposed "and now with this action today it raises the question of what else they are going to cut."
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on March 20, 2011, 02:31:38 PM
Well, it appears that The U.S. and Western Europe have finally found something to agree upon.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/world/africa/20libya.html?hp

Effort to Halt Qaddafi Attacks on Rebels in Benghazi
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK, STEVEN ERLANGER and ELISABETH BUMILLER 7 minutes ago
American and European forces began strikes against the government of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in the largest international military intervention in the Arab world since the invasion of Iraq.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on March 20, 2011, 08:07:57 PM
Yeah, I've been following this all morning.  The best coverage is coming from CNN; I give them the cake for sheer volume of coverage.  The most telling video for me was an interview of a local guy who reported pro-Gaddafi thugs in vehicles firing indiscriminately into houses as they drove by- until the French started bombing.

Prayers out to the Libyans.  Hope this works.

EDIT:  Boy, nothing's ever simple.  Both China and Russia have expressed "regrets" over the U.N. attack on Libya.  Now this:


African Union demands "immediate" halt to Libya attacks
AFP Sat Mar 19, 9:55 pm ET

NOUAKCHOTT (AFP) – The African Union's panel on Libya Sunday called for an "immediate stop" to all attacks after the United States, France and Britain launched military action against Moamer Kadhafi's forces.

After a more than four-hour meeting in the Mauritanian capital, the body also asked Libyan authorities to ensure "humanitarian aid to those in need," as well as the "protection of foreigners, including African expatriates living in Libya."

It underscored the need for "necessary political reforms to eliminate the causes of the present crisis" but at the same time called for "restraint" from the international community to avoid "serious humanitarian consequences."

The panel also announced a meeting in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa on March 25, along with representatives from the Arab League, the Organisation of Islamic Conference, the European Union and the United Nations to "put in place a mechanism for consultation and concerted action" to resolve the Libyan crisis.

The AU committee on Libya is composed of five African heads of state. But the Nouakchott meeting was only attended by the presidents of Mauritania, Mali and Congo. South Africa and Uganda were represented by ministers.

The committee said it had been unable to get international permission to visit Tripoli on Sunday but did not elaborate.

Libyan generosity and Moamer Kadhafi's role in the creation of the African Union could explain the continental cautious stand, experts said.

The AU was born in the 1999 Sirte Declaration, named after a summit hosted by Kadhafi in his hometown on the Libyan coast.

The declaration said its authors felt inspired by Kadhafi's "vision for a strong and united Africa."

"The AU as an organisation has benefited significantly from Kadhafi's wealth," said Fred Golooba Mutebi of the Institute of Social Research at Kampala's Makerere University.

The pan-African body has taken a firmer stance on three west African crises: most recently Ivory Coast and previously Guinea and Niger.

Handouts aside, Libya has invested billions of dollars in sub-Saharan Africa.

It has interests in more than two dozen African countries, while its petroleum refining and distribution unit Oil Libya has interests in at least as many.

Libyan telecommunications unit LAP Green is present in five countries in the region and expanding rapidly.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Ben-Dan on March 21, 2011, 12:24:51 AM
Just another thing to look forward to. I really hope the internet doesn't get completely taken over by large corporations & infiltrated by propagandists…

U.S. Develops Social Media Propaganda Software

The Pentagon is developing software to secretly influence social media by developing fake online personas that can sway internet chatting on comment boards to reflect U.S. government propaganda. The Guardian of London reports a California-based firm has won a contract to create an "online persona management service" that would let military personnel control up to 10 separate fake identities at once. The identities would be used to respond to relevant online content with blog posts, tweets, chat comments and other forms of interaction. A military spokesperson said foreign audiences would be targeted, as it would be illegal to use the technology on U.S. citizens.

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/3/18/headlines#9 (http://www.democracynow.org/2011/3/18/headlines#9) < new source = D-Now (Great internet news with no commercials, no hidden agenda…)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on March 21, 2011, 04:51:52 PM
So the pentagon had to award a special (and probably expen$ive) contract to do what trolls and people juggling multiple accounts for various reasons have done by all themselves since back in the days when newsgroups were the core of the internet.
 bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on March 22, 2011, 03:14:40 AM
Usually one asks how much the top end contractors make, but this time I think its worth asking if the front line shills will make more than 50 cents a post.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: piglet on March 22, 2011, 08:50:59 AM
http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2011/03/18/chinese-millionaire-smashes-his-200000-lamborghini/ (http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2011/03/18/chinese-millionaire-smashes-his-200000-lamborghini/)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on March 31, 2011, 02:21:42 PM
Now I know what I want for Christmas.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110328/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_britain_aircraftcarrier_sale
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on March 31, 2011, 04:16:40 PM
Can you get it online?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on March 31, 2011, 04:52:27 PM
I think you can buy it online.  Delivery would need to be made by ocean freight. ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on March 31, 2011, 07:32:27 PM
forget it then. It'll take to long to get here. I wanted it to be on time for your wedding. Guess I'll have to go with the his'n'hers cattleprods again.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on March 31, 2011, 07:47:17 PM
Cattle prods would be great for a wedding gift.  Go ahead and get me the aircraft carrier for Christmas. ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on March 31, 2011, 09:42:46 PM
Nah, too used. Anyway, the import tax will kill you
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on April 04, 2011, 03:25:00 PM
Nah, too used. Anyway, the import tax will kill you

Just make sure it's fully crewed and equipped.  That should be enough to end any discussions regarding import taxes. ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Raoul F. Duke on May 12, 2011, 09:05:58 PM
This just in...

Forbidden City art theft embarrasses Beijing officials
(AP) By Liz Goodwin – Wed May 11, 11:40 am ET


Beijing art officials are confessing their embarrassment after a thief knocked a hole in the wall of one of the city's most historic sites and made off with millions of dollars worth of valuables that were on loan to the Palace Museum.

The May 8 theft at the famed Forbidden City was caught on security cameras, according to China Daily. Palace Museum officials held a press conference Wednesday to release photos of the stolen valuables and to apologize to the Hong Kong museum which had lent the pieces to the Forbidden City museum.

Refreshingly, no one took a "mistakes were made" approach to the theft; Palace Museum officials practically rushed to take the blame.

Museum director Ma Jige stood up and bowed in apology to Wang Xiahong, curator of the Liang Yi Museum in Hong Kong, saying he felt "very guilty and sorry." Meanwhile, Wang said her museum would continue to donate pieces to the Beijing exhibition, despite the burglary.

"Certainly we can only blame the fact that our work was not thorough enough if something like this can happen," another Beijing museum spokesman Feng Nai'en said at the press conference.

The BBC reports that this was the first theft in the city's former imperial palace in more than 20 years.

Wang said the seven stolen items were gold and silver pillboxes, some of which were encrusted with jewels. The Forbidden City contains items of much higher value--including rare scroll paintings--but they are most likely more tightly guarded, according to the AP.

Beijing curator Karen Smith told the AP that the theft was "a big loss of face" for the museum and its officials, and that security will undoubtedly be tightened around the landmark.

In the pantheon of art thiefs, the Museum Palace burglar looks like small potatoes. Just last year, a lone robber cut open a window at the Paris Museum of Modern Art, evaded at least three on-duty security guards, slipped five canvases out of their frames and made off with a $100 million roll of paintings by Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani and Fernand Léger. The museum's alarm system had been malfunctioning for weeks--despite a pricey security remodeling--but it's unclear if the thief knew about the security lapse before he or she decided to steal the masterpieces.

In 2000, gunmen armed with submachine guns raided Stockholm's National Museum and stole Rembrandt and Renoir paintings worth about $30 million, before escaping in a small boat in a matter of minutes. Swedish police recovered the three paintings over the next five years, and sent eight people to prison for the robbery.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on May 26, 2011, 12:28:55 PM
This means war !

Quote
Danish Marmite ban enforced

First it was Vegemite, then it was Ovaltine - now the Danish government has banned importing New Zealand's beloved breakfast spread, Marmite.

The Kiwi favourite has been outlawed by legislation that prohibits products fortified with added vitamins, the Guardian reports.

Copenhagen passed the legislation in 2004, but until now, Marmite had snuck under the Danish authorities' radar.

Marmite was first made in England in 1902, but has been manufactured in New Zealand since 1919.

"What am I supposed to put on my toast now?" British advertising executive Colin Smith, who has lived in the country for six years, asked the Guardian.

"I still have a bit left in the cupboard, but it's not going to last long."

http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/5054829/Danish-Marmite-ban-enforced

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on May 26, 2011, 07:06:05 PM
I have had Marmite and I fully understand my country's decision to outlaw the stuff agagagagag agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on May 26, 2011, 07:43:28 PM
Quote
I have had Marmite and I fully understand my country's decision to outlaw the stuff

Just for that New Zealand will ban all Danish girls from our country ....  mmmmmmmmmm  ...  bibibibibi ........ on second thoughts, you can keep the ban  agagagagag

  llllllllll I will have to think of another plan
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on May 26, 2011, 07:55:06 PM
Quote
"What am I supposed to put on my toast now?" British advertising executive Colin Smith, who has lived in the country for six years, asked the Guardian.

I guess he's never heard of jam or butter. ahahahahah

Quote
The Kiwi favourite has been outlawed by legislation that prohibits products fortified with added vitamins, the Guardian reports.

What do Danes have against vitamins? mmmmmmmmmm


This means war !

Alright!  Another war, and this time with entertaining participants.  Time to make some popcorn and turn on CNN. agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: memnoch87 on May 26, 2011, 08:34:21 PM
Official reports suggest marmite is more deadly than anthrax!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on May 26, 2011, 10:21:32 PM
Okaaaayyy...all the Brits and Kiwis take a large chill pill...Having researched the issue, I can now tell you what is the what.
Firstly, Denmark has not banned or outlawed Marmite. This is an idiotic dumbass response from one little store. See, in the EU, to which Denmark belongs, enriched food or food with added vitamins are not that common. It is because, due to the Danish Department of Health, enriched foods are viewed sceptically, certain doctors fear that eating them along with normal food can lead to health issues.
Now, what has happened is that one store, one little store, was caught selling imported food like Marmite without permission. See, if you import food, like Marmite, with intention to sell you need a permit so you can be fleeced by the Tax monsters. This douchebag then proceeded to blow the story out of proportion. You can still buy Marmite in Denmark, just in stores who sell it legally.
So for those of you who are in Denmark, you can get your Marmite fix...for those not in Denmark, I am sure there are more upsetting news one can find and get frustrated about... agagagagag agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on May 27, 2011, 01:04:00 AM
Alright!  Another war, and this time with entertaining participants.  Time to make some popcorn and turn on CNN. agagagagag

Right? Like CNN could find either New Zealand or Denmark on a map.

Let's invade Afghanistan
Wait, this doesn't look like Afghanistan
Welcome Americans to Iraq
Iraq? Meh, close enough


(1940s)
We are at war with Japan
Let's imprison all the Chinese
Meh, close enough


We hate that small Caribbean island, let's invade Cuba
Wait, this doesn't look like Cuba
Welcome Americans to Greneda
Greneda? Meh, close enough
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Just Like Mr Benn on May 27, 2011, 01:59:31 AM
I just hope the Marmite marketing exec who first got the newspapers in a flap gets a good payrise. Fantastic free advetising.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on May 27, 2011, 02:36:23 AM
Quote
Time to make some popcorn and turn on CNN.

News to hand from ericthered, that Marmite is not banned in Denmark, just unlicensed, has done nothing to remove the threat of war between the two countries.

New Zealand has invoked the 'just because there are no weapons of mass destruction does not mean there are no other good reasons for going to war' mantra with the UN. Its govt is studying aerial photos of Danish girls to see if Marmite is being concealed in secret places.

Denmark is denying that it has developed a Marmite production facility of its own. The head sherang of Denmark has stated that news of a ban on Marmite from NZ was a rumour started by groups associated with El Ikea. 'It is all a big mistake,' he said. 'Everybody in Denmark loves Marmite.'

Meanwhile, American generals have ordered a larger globe for the War Room as they continue to try and locate both countries.  

  

    
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on May 27, 2011, 04:58:19 AM
The Grand Pajandrum of Denmark, in alliance with the Akond of Swat in Sweden and thae odd Cousin It creature that rules Norway, has decreed a Full Moon Day, where the inhabitants are legally obliged to go out, drop trou and point their pale bottoms at the sky in hope of insulting American spy satellites. Meanwhile the Danish National Female Beach Volley Team, the Swedish Women's Institute for Massage and the Norwegian National Stripper-robics Team has descended upon strategic places in America. So far, 99 % of the Armend Forces have been rendered useless. As the island where Copenhagen is found is called Zealand, a message have been sent to New Zealand the wording of which was, "I er edderhyleme nogle skvatmikler, klamphuggere, kraftidioter og slapsvanse! Can't even think of an original name for you island, losers! Not only will we ban Marmite, but we will take this new Zealand and force you all to eat pickled herring and watch really, really horrible social-realisctic movies!"..New Zealand has yet to respond. In the mean time, in the War Room in America, plans have been made to capet-bomb Greenland. The first casualties in the Marmite War has been Snorri Snorrison whose kayak was torpedoed with a 100 megaton nuclear torpedo and an assorted number of penguins...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: memnoch87 on May 27, 2011, 06:46:05 AM
 bkbkbkbkbk
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on May 27, 2011, 02:30:18 PM
New Zealand has invoked the 'just because there are no weapons of mass destruction does not mean there are no other good reasons for going to war' mantra with the UN. Its govt is studying aerial photos of Danish girls to see if Marmite is being concealed in secret places.
   

Although the US is fully neutral in this issue (carpet bombing Greenland was just a training exercise, plus I'm sure that there are terrorists hiding something there), I just found out that there are consequences to filling in that draft registration card back in the 1980's.

I'm going to be deployed with an elite group of highly trained perverts commandos.  Our mission is to infiltrate both countries and thoroughly search as many girls as we can, just to find out what sorts of things they may be hiding in secret places.

 blblblblbl I am so proud to serve my country. blblblblbl

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on May 27, 2011, 07:05:19 PM
New Zealand has invoked the 'just because there are no weapons of mass destruction does not mean there are no other good reasons for going to war' mantra with the UN. Its govt is studying aerial photos of Danish girls to see if Marmite is being concealed in secret places.   

Although the US is fully neutral in this issue (carpet bombing Greenland was just a training exercise, plus I'm sure that there are terrorists hiding something there), I just found out that there are consequences to filling in that draft registration card back in the 1980's.

I'm going to be deployed with an elite group of highly trained perverts commandos.  Our mission is to infiltrate both countries and thoroughly search as many girls as we can, just to find out what sorts of things they may be hiding in secret places.

 blblblblbl I am so proud to serve my country. blblblblbl

Sources close to the Pentagon are trying to confirm reports that the PEALS. commonly referred to as Perverts, Exhibitionists and Lunatics, have been placed on priority alert.

This elite Navy unit is especially trained to seek out foreign objects in places no sunlight has entered. Members of this unit are selected for their special skills, including an ability to release bra catches while blindfolded.

The US Central Command has rejected claims that it is unable to locate Denmark on a map. 'People do not realise how hard it is to find one country in a big, big world,' said General Marcus Upp III.

US Intelligence is now utilising high=tech locaters (code-named Google) to track down Denmark. It is now believed that New Zealand is off the edge of the map and US authorities, invoking the Homeland Act, have seized documents referring to the British Empire from Wikipedia in an attempt get the co-ordinates needed for arming missiles.

The Sherang of Denmark has ordered that selected citizens undertake compulsory military service . All blonde females measuring more than 34DD in a prone position have been ordered to report to the nearest army base.       

In Sweden, a special meeting of the Nobel Peace Prize Commitee has awarded a second prize to Barack Obama. In announcing the award, the Committee noted that the award is for "the American president who has declared the least number of wars in a 12 month period."

Meanwhile, the government of New Zealand has announced that a battalion of Master Grocers has embarked on the inter-island ferry. This unit is fully trained to re-supply the citizens of Denmark with Marmite.   
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Borkya on May 27, 2011, 07:17:07 PM
In Sweden, a special meeting of the Nobel Peace Prize Commitee has awarded a second prize to Barack Obama. In announcing the award, the Committee noted that the award is for "the American president who has declared the least number of wars in a 12 month period."

Ha ha ha!  ahahahahah genius.  bfbfbfbfbf (But the sad thing is that could be true some time in the not-too-distant future!)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Raoul F. Duke on May 28, 2011, 08:27:54 AM
Hmph. Eric, don't think we don't have painfully detailed satellite photos of all your asses already. We do. Such additional display will only add to our data files and help us affix the appropriate nozzles to our drones.

Perhaps your countries should remember your dealings with the old Soviet Union, when you all agreed to stop harassing Soviet subs in your waters, in exchange for the Soviets' promise to not blow the upper three meters of your countries' land masses into the stratosphere? uuuuuuuuuu

Anyway, this is one of the few places where I actually agree with Denmark. The sale of noxious substances such as Marmite or Vegemite should require a 14-day waiting period, a thorough background check, and perhaps a sanity test as well. aaaaaaaaaa
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on May 28, 2011, 03:05:45 PM
This just boggles my mind and it comes from the same state that had illegal immigrants isues. 
 mmmmmmmmmm

A fat tax!

http://www.moneyville.ca/blog/post/996614--arizona-s-50-fat-tax-plan-a-demeaning-gesture?bn=1

Maybe they could switch to a Marmite or Vegemite diet, that'll make anybody stop eating and run away for miles
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Raoul F. Duke on May 28, 2011, 03:37:25 PM
The sky is falling. ananananan


Dutch government to ban tourists from cannabis shops
Fri May 27, 3:32 pm ET
AMSTERDAM (Reuters)
– The Dutch government on Friday said it would start banning tourists from buying cannabis from "coffee shops" and impose restrictions on Dutch customers by the end of the year.

The Netherlands is well known for having one of Europe's most liberal soft drug policies that has made its cannabis shops a popular tourist attraction, particularly in Amsterdam.

Backed by the far-right party of anti-immigrant politician Geert Wilders, the coalition government that came into power last year announced plans to curb drug tourism as part of a nationwide program to promote health and fight crime.

"In order to tackle the nuisance and criminality associated with coffee shops and drug trafficking, the open-door policy of coffee shops will end," the Dutch health and justice ministers wrote in a letter to the country's parliament on Friday.

Under the new rules, only Dutch residents will be able to sign up as members of cannabis shops.

Dutch customers will have to sign up for at least a year's membership and each shop would be expected to have only up to 1,500 members, a justice ministry spokesman said.

The policy will roll out in the southern provinces of Limburg, Noord Brabant and Zeeland by the end of the year and the rest of the country next year, the spokesman said.

Amsterdam, home to about 220 coffee shops, is already in the process of closing some in its red light district. Some officials have resisted the measures, saying they will push the soft drug trade underground.

Some Dutch border towns including Maastricht and Terneuzen have already restricted the sale of marijuana to foreigners.

(Reporting by Greg Roumeliotis and Gilbert Kreijger; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on May 28, 2011, 04:06:11 PM
Monday morning in the Netherlands:
Quote
The Dutch government on Monday said it would start banning bad cannabis from "coffee shops" and impose restrictions on Dutch importers by the end of the year.

According to gov't spokesperson Haad Uupmyybuutt, "I don't know what we were smoking last week, but clearly it isn't in the public interest"
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on May 30, 2011, 06:14:16 PM
If they follow this by closing down their red light district, no one will ever bother to visit Amsterdam again. kkkkkkkkkk
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Pashley on May 30, 2011, 09:33:25 PM
If they follow this by closing down their red light district, no one will ever bother to visit Amsterdam again. kkkkkkkkkk

Not true. I love the place, and not for either the red lights or the coffee shops.

Good beer (not quite as good as Belgium but better than anywhere else), wonderful cheese, Indonesian food, live shows in bars and some great buskers, women with a meter or so of leg, ... I think there are also some museums and architecture, though I never noticed.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on May 30, 2011, 10:43:13 PM
Amsterdam is a lovely city for tourists without the redlight with all the canals and art but it's pretty dull.

That law is going to cost holland insane amounts of tourist money
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: piglet on June 01, 2011, 05:18:58 AM
new subthread-my fave European city is:
Barcelona!   akakakakak
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on June 01, 2011, 02:30:55 PM
Oh goodie.  Now we can have social security inside of China.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-05/31/content_12608675.htm (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-05/31/content_12608675.htm)

I wonder what this will do to our tax rates.  aoaoaoaoao
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: fullricebowl on June 01, 2011, 07:00:01 PM
Quote
Clare Pearson, a British national who moved to China five years ago and who now works at a Chinese magazine in Beijing, said she welcomes the Chinese government's move to include foreign workers into the social security system.

"I don't care about the monthly social insurance fees that I should pay because such a measure would make me feel that I'm no longer an outsider but a part of the country."


Wow, all I need to do to stop feeling like an outsider is contribute to a Chinese social insurance fund?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on June 01, 2011, 07:16:34 PM
Quote
Clare Pearson, a British national who moved to China five years ago and who now works at a Chinese magazine in Beijing, said she welcomes the Chinese government's move to include foreign workers into the social security system.

"I don't care about the monthly social insurance fees that I should pay because such a measure would make me feel that I'm no longer an outsider but a part of the country."


Wow, all I need to do to stop feeling like an outsider is contribute to a Chinese social insurance fund?

I expect that as soon as I start contributing to the fun that my hair will turn black and I'll finally be able to learn Mandarin.  ahahahahah


It's a brilliant move.  You have to pay in for 15 years to qualify.  Since the vast majority of expats don't stay that long, they get to make a very nice financial contribution.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: jpd01 on June 02, 2011, 04:40:41 AM
Yeah I'm not really jumping for joy over this, wow I can contribute to a fund that will pay me 500rmb a month when I retire?? Cool, and I only need to stay here for 15 years to get it?? WOW. As for medical cover, pfffftt go ask any Chinese citizen how awesome the national social security cover is..... bibibibibi bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on June 02, 2011, 05:37:58 AM
you could have a much better quality of life in china right now for 5000rmb than most pensioners have on state pensions in europe
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: teacheraus on June 02, 2011, 12:20:01 PM
you could have a much better quality of life in china right now for 5000rmb than most pensioners have on state pensions in europe

He said 500RMB not 5000RMB.  I agree 5000 is ok (It is my current pay)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on June 02, 2011, 03:02:06 PM
Coming soon - 15 year teaching contracts. ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on June 02, 2011, 03:44:06 PM
Quote
Coming soon - 15 year teaching contracts.
Hmmmm, I guess that would save them 14 years of airfare reimbursement.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on June 02, 2011, 07:37:30 PM
Hey late, at our age, a 15 year contract will more than cover our social security.

500 a month, I spend more than that on cabs. That's why I got the bike
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lone Traveller on June 04, 2011, 11:54:07 PM
Ok so which one of you colourful characters whipped over to Jinan so you could attempt to hack the gmail accounts of the White House staff???? Come on. Own up!  uuuuuuuuuu

http://raoulschinasaloon.com/index.php?action=post;topic=92.1650;num_replies=1709
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on June 05, 2011, 01:30:35 AM

Jinan?!?  Could it be that George had a hand in this... :wtf:
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lone Traveller on June 05, 2011, 03:16:44 AM
It does have a faint Georgish scent about it.  ababababab
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on June 05, 2011, 03:31:08 AM
It does have a faint Georgish scent about it.  ababababab

It smells old?  mmmmmmmmmm
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lone Traveller on June 05, 2011, 03:57:10 AM
Only by a few days  ::)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: becster79 on June 08, 2011, 12:18:09 AM
Nothing but admiration for this man!

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-06/07/content_12646060.htm (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-06/07/content_12646060.htm)

Despite age, man sits national exam 15th time
By Zhou Wenting (China Daily)
Updated: 2011-06-07 07:45

BEIJING - Onlookers can be forgiven for thinking that the whiskered middle-aged man walking into the exam room is a father of one of the test takers there.

Despite age, man sits national exam 15th time

Liang Shi, 44, attends a class for pre-exam training in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, last week to prepare for the national college entrance examination. [Provided by Huaxi Metropolis Daily]

But rather than coming to support a child, he will be taking an exam himself. Tuesday will bring his 15th sitting for the gaokao, the national college entrance exam, in the past 28 years. This time he will take the exam together with his teenage son.

"I only want to realize a dream," Liang Shi, a 44-year-old native of Chengdu, capital of Southwest China's Sichuan province, told China Daily on Monday.

"It's as if I wanted to drink, but the water hasn't boiled even though I've added a lot of firewood. I believe now it will finally boil."

Liang first took the gaokao in 1983, when he was 16. The dreaded exam was then deemed as a ticket to changing one's fortune - but he was not admitted to a single school in the exam.

Finally, in 1985, an offer came from a local technical school. Liang accepted it but soon dropped out, believing he deserved to go to a better college. He prepared to re-sit the exam the following year, when he was working part-time. His efforts again did not produce the desired result.

During those years, he moved about the province, trying his hand at various jobs. He fixed machines, chopped wood and sold clothes and TV sets. All the while, he continued to study and sign up for the exam each year.

Liang began to sell building materials in 1995. He now owns a store and employs nearly 200 people.

He cultivated his career and a marriage. All the while he refused to give up his dream of succeeding on the gaokao, despite his age.

"My friends found my pursuit to be a bit baffling, since I was spending my time and energy on things that seem to be irrelevant to my life now," Liang said.

His bookcase overflows with the reference books he has used during the years that he has been taking the exam. He does not indulge in hobbies that are common among middle-aged Chinese man - playing mahjong, drinking and smoking.

He likes tea. So he prepares for the exam in a teahouse every day.

Commenting on his son's plan to also take the exam, Liang said he is not interested in competing with the next generation but only in fulfilling his dream.

"Teenagers nowadays cannot know how much we yearned to go to college 30 years ago," he said. "University students were branded as privileged people."

Although he has taken the exam more than a dozen times, he still feels nervous every time he is confronted with it. His aspiration is to study mathematics in Sichuan University. To be admitted there, he must score at least 500 points on the exam; in recent years, his highest has been a 400.

Liang said he will think twice about taking the exam next year if his score this time falls far below his expectations.

"No matter if it's a good or bad result for the exam, I will try my best and eliminate a large regret in my life if I succeed in becoming a university student," Liang said.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: NATO on June 08, 2011, 04:19:26 AM
Come on mate!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on June 08, 2011, 05:57:24 AM
Ya gotta like this guy.

I especially like that drinking and smoking are considered hobbies.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on June 08, 2011, 04:37:52 PM
Go, Liang, go! Jia you! You can do it!
I admire this guy. This man appreciates education, has been willing to make sacrifices for it, and hasn't given up. Hope he makes it to a decent uni and gets to do what he wants.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on June 12, 2011, 12:07:17 AM
Interesting article on one of China's richest men.  Hope the link works :wtf:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/news/business-13427392
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lone Traveller on June 12, 2011, 03:52:11 AM

http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/news/business-13427392

Thanks AM. Interesting.  bfbfbfbfbf

And right at the bottom of the article:

Quote
.... While Walmart and Carrefours are pulling out of Chinese operations ....

Has anyone heard any whisperings about this?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on June 12, 2011, 04:20:00 AM
There was a report about 6 months ago that Carrefour was trying to sell their China operation ... but will have to check

In the meantime things are not good for them:

Quote
Inflation Is Driving Carrefour Franchises Out Of Business In China
Gus Lubin    | Feb. 16,


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/china-carrefour-close-inflation-2011-2#ixzz1OydmkzVw
http://www.businessinsider.com/china-carrefour-close-inflation-2011-2
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lone Traveller on June 12, 2011, 04:24:18 AM
There was a report about 6 months ago that Carrefour was trying to sell their China operation ... but will have to check

In the meantime things are not good for them:

Quote
Inflation Is Driving Carrefour Franchises Out Of Business In China
Gus Lubin    | Feb. 16,


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/china-carrefour-close-inflation-2011-2#ixzz1OydmkzVw
http://www.businessinsider.com/china-carrefour-close-inflation-2011-2


Thanks xwarrior.  agagagagag

I know a lot of FT's that will feel as though their right arm is missing if they "go under". ahahahahah For you guys, my fingers are crossed.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Lone Traveller on June 12, 2011, 04:33:26 PM
"China 'Fake Fines' Gang Members Arrested Across Asia"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13724679

I guess this time they weren't quite smart enough not to get caught. bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: James the Brit on June 17, 2011, 07:36:40 AM
There was a report about 6 months ago that Carrefour was trying to sell their China operation ... but will have to check

In the meantime things are not good for them:

Quote
Inflation Is Driving Carrefour Franchises Out Of Business In China
Gus Lubin    | Feb. 16,


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/china-carrefour-close-inflation-2011-2#ixzz1OydmkzVw
http://www.businessinsider.com/china-carrefour-close-inflation-2011-2


They're pulling out of Singapore too.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on July 07, 2011, 08:03:06 AM
South Korea won the 2018 Winter Olympics. I like to watch the events at a reasonable hour

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/candidates-wait-ioc-decision-2018-games-122554258.html
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on July 07, 2011, 07:30:01 PM
South Korea won the 2018 Winter Olympics.

Won the Olympics???  Do you mean they got ALL the gold medals? mmmmmmmmmm

 ahahahahah ahahahahah ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on July 07, 2011, 11:02:26 PM
That would happen if NORTH Korea were to host the games   kkkkkkkkkk
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: old34 on July 10, 2011, 06:44:19 AM
Thigh-high white, vinyl go-go boots. Check.
Low-ride purple velvet hot pants w. low slung white pleather belt. Check.
Bare-Midriff, low-cut purple velvet top. Check.
A shiny floor-to-ceiling metal pole. Check.
Meet a new breed pole dancer in China.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/photo/2011-07/08/content_12865805.htm (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/photo/2011-07/08/content_12865805.htm)

In advance:
You're welcome grannie mae.
Apologies to el, xw, dd, and lfd if the link wasn't what you expected.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on July 10, 2011, 04:36:47 PM
Mrs Late wants to know why I don't try that.  kkkkkkkkkk 
She says it would give me a flat belly in no time at all. I told her that we just got the trampoline, it will be a while before I'm ready for a new fitness toy.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: cruisemonkey on July 10, 2011, 06:53:20 PM
Meet a new breed pole dancer in China.
OMG aqaqaqaqaq... that's just effin' wrong!  kkkkkkkkkk
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: piglet on July 11, 2011, 01:42:09 AM
I find it quite delectable (NOT)  afafafafaf
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on July 11, 2011, 10:49:40 AM
Thanks old34. agagagagag I saw a guy on "Australia's got Talent" doing a pole dance and he was talented. uuuuuuuuuu  I find those white boots a bit distracting! ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on July 11, 2011, 07:31:52 PM
I'm billing you for pain, suffering, and emotional trauma. aaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaa
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on July 11, 2011, 11:44:48 PM
Here, something to help chase those horrible images from my brain.

http://www.echinacities.com/in-pictures/1550_1.html#pic
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on July 12, 2011, 01:25:54 AM
 kkkkkkkkkk
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on July 15, 2011, 02:48:23 PM
Make sure you shred your bullet train tickets after use

Yet another systems design flaw with our multi-billion dollar high-speed rail?: "People have found that the bar code on the train tickets can be decoded by software downloaded from the Internet. Information such as passport or other ID numbers, which are partly concealed on the tickets, will then be revealed. In a recent test, a passenger surnamed Zhou downloaded software to a cell phone and scanned the bar code with the cell phone camera. Information including the departure time and the passenger ID number began to show on the cell phone 'within seconds,' Zhou said. Industry insiders said there's no way to prevent the decoding." [Shanghai Daily]
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on July 16, 2011, 12:29:32 AM
In (making love afafafafaf) credible! I'm not private about a lot of stuff, but I don't want my passport, etc info floating about  llllllllll llllllllll llllllllll


Lunatic Moderation Note:  Yeah, it incredible, but let's remember to express our love in harmony with the Peoples Bureau of Train Ticket ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ilunga on July 20, 2011, 06:42:02 AM
Don't mess with Chinese women.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/blog/video/2011/jul/19/rupert-murdoch-jamesmurdoch?CMP=twt_gu
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on July 22, 2011, 09:17:20 AM
Another invention that will change the world:

'Magic' toilet research funded by Bill Gates foundation
CBC News Posted: Jul 20, 2011 4:43 PM ET Last Updated: Jul 20, 2011 6:31 PM ET 

Gates Foundation: Let's Reinvent the Toilet

Cheap, waterless toilets that can turn human waste into clean water and fertilizer within 24 hours are being designed and built by eight engineering teams around the world, including one from Canada.

The goal of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's $3-million Reinventing the Toilet Challenge is to bring affordable, sustainable human waste treatment to the 2.6 billion people in the developing world — about 40 per cent of the world's population — who have no access to flush toilets. That, in turn, is expected to reduce the number of children who die each year of diarrheal diseases — a figure reported by the Gates foundation to be around 1.5 million.

"I think it's a really important problem," Yu-Ling Cheng, the director of the University of Toronto's Centre for Global Engineering, said Wednesday. She is leading one of the eight teams that won a $400,000 grant to turn their proposed toilet design into a prototype within one year. All eight prototypes will be displayed at a showcase in Seattle next summer.

Reinventing the Toilet Challenge
The Reinventing the Toilet Challenge was announced by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Tuesday in Kigali, Kenya, at the 2011 AfricaSan Conference, which focuses on sanitation and hygiene. It was among $42 million in new grants from the foundation targeting sanitation and clean water.

The other teams selected to participate are:

California Institute of Technology in the U.S.
Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.
Eidgenössische Anstalt für Wasserversorgung, Abwasserreinigung und Gewässerschutz (EAWAG) in Switzerland.
National University of Singapore.
University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa.
WEDC at Loughborough University in the U.K.
Stanford University in the U.S.

The toilet cannot be hooked up to water, sewage or power lines and must cost less than five cents per user per day. It must convert urine and feces into clean water, mineral ash fertilizer, carbon dioxide and energy.

It sounds as though the goal is to "create a magic toilet," Cheng acknowledged in a video interview posted on the University of Toronto website.

But her team has already come up with a design that they think will address all the criteria. It includes components that:

Dry the waste without chemicals, using a physical process.
Disinfect it using ultraviolet light.
Filter the liquid using a membrane.
Smoulder the solid waste "like charcoal briquettes in a barbeque."
"They're all very inexpensive," Cheng said.

She added that she can't provide too many more details in order to protect the potential intellectual property value of the designs, so businesses will have confidence they can profit by manufacturing them.

While the project doesn't yet have any business partners, Cheng said she received some inquires about the project Wednesday after the news first hit the media.

'It turned our thinking upside down'
The University of Toronto was one of 21 schools invited to submit a proposal. Prior to the invitation, most of the engineers involved had never thought about toilets before, Cheng said.

A boy stands at a public toilet at Kibera slum in Nairobi. Noor Khamis /Reuters
"It turned our thinking upside down," she added, "because if you're designing for something in the First World, you don't even think that you wouldn't have power and you wouldn't have water."

The ability to treat waste within 24 hours is also important because most existing "green" toilets rely on composting, which takes a long time.

"While the human waste is sitting around, it will attract bugs, vermin, bacteria will grow and it's not a healthy situation," Cheng said. It's a particularly bad problem in crowded areas such as urban slums or areas where heavy rains can cause flooding that spreads human waste.

Besides the waste processing itself, the group also needs to makes sure the toilet is safe and robust.

"What if some kid throws a toy in there or decides to play with it?"

Developers also face cultural challenges. For example, Cheng said, people who grow up using an open field or a stream as a toilet may find it strange to use an indoor facility.

The team plans to do field tests of their prototype in Bangladesh within the next year to ensure their design is culturally appropriate. Cheng said a radical new toilet design could benefit far more people than just those in the developing world.

It could be used at campsites or outdoor events such as festivals and concerts. Or it may even have wider applications.

She said the way First World nations, such as Canada, treat human waste "is kind of ridiculous when you think about it." Water clean enough to drink is used to flush human waste away, then transport it long distances for sewage treatment.

"All that is very wasteful in terms of both money and energy. It actually means a lot of carbon emissions," she said. "Maybe once we come up with a toilet that really works, we wouldn't need this network of water and sewage in order to treat our human waste."
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on July 22, 2011, 02:06:56 PM
Urine and faeces into clean water.... aaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaa

I see the benefits of the idea of the magic toilet but still...I would not drink that water,,,
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on July 22, 2011, 05:18:50 PM
ETR, try not to think too hard about how many times the water you drink in China has been flushed already. ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on July 22, 2011, 05:35:40 PM
lalalalala....not listening...lalalalala....*Jumps around room with fingers in ears*...lalalalalala...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on July 22, 2011, 06:46:34 PM
On the other side of the coin:
http://www.golf-talk.co.uk/news/man-urinates-in-water-city-flushes-8m-gallons/124513535 (http://www.golf-talk.co.uk/news/man-urinates-in-water-city-flushes-8m-gallons/124513535)
Quote
Man urinates in water, city flushes 8M gallons
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on July 24, 2011, 07:02:49 PM
Big train crash just reported in the foreign press.
Quote
High-speed bullet train collision in eastern China kills 35
Quote
BEIJING, CHINA — A bullet train crashed into another high-speed train that had stalled after being struck by lightning in eastern China, causing four carriages to fall off a viaduct and killing at least 35 people and injuring 191 others, state media and an official said Sunday.

It was the first derailment on China’s high-speed rail network since the country launched its bullet trains in 2007 with a top speed of 250 kilometres per hour, the China Daily reported.

The first train was travelling south from the Zhejiang provincial capital of Hangzhou when it lost power in the lightning strike and was hit from behind by the second train in Wenzhou city at 8:27 p.m. Saturday, the official Xinhua News Agency said. The second train had left Beijing and both trains were destined for Fuzhou in eastern Fujian province.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on July 25, 2011, 04:05:04 PM
Was out at dinner with friends last night and it was all over the Chinese news.  Whatever safety systems they have to prevent this type of collision failed somehow.  No telling yet if the same lightning strike damaged them or if it was something more mundane like poor maintenance.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on July 25, 2011, 09:57:45 PM
All over the news these days....crazy right-wing nutjob goes to an island off the coast of Norway and shoots 92 people, oldest being 30 and the youngest being 13...he also blew up a  building in Oslo. 92 people, most of them children, He is going to be tried according to Norwegian law...a long, long time ago Norwegians and other Scandinavians practiced the use of a blood eagle on people like him...and that would still be too good for him. He shot crying children in the back as they were lying down with a machine-gun!!!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: The Hiphoppopotomous on July 25, 2011, 10:45:40 PM
The only thing more horrifying than his actions are his motives.

apparently trying to save Europe from Muslim domination. He's trying to perpetuate a war, and to scare people into fighting by  murdering children.


Honest to god I want this man to suffer before he dies. Really really suffer.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on July 25, 2011, 10:55:34 PM
See, james, that won't happen because we Scandinavians are a bunch of naive, believe-in-the-best-in-people, nampy-pampy, tree-hugging, peace-sign-waving dummmies...he'll be sentenced to maximum security life-imprisonment at some psych ward...personally, I think he should be flayed alive, slowly, and that it should be televised to everywhere.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Just Like Mr Benn on July 25, 2011, 11:34:03 PM
Even in The USA, if someone's too mentally ill to stand trial, they will never receive the death penalty. For instance the Arizona shooter from last year.

I guess the alternative is China which really doesn't have much truck with mental incapacity as a defense.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on July 26, 2011, 02:09:09 AM
This man has now stated that he wants to wear some sort of Nazi uniform for trial, he posted a manifesto, spent more than two years planning this...mentally ill my bottom...he is a cold-blooded, right-wing nutcase and, in his and similar cases, I think China is completely right. Shoot him, burn him and throw his ashes into a volcano, that would be a suitable punishment.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on July 26, 2011, 04:13:27 AM
I suspect the uniform that would fit him best has long, really long sleeves that are tied at the back. I also imagine it wouldn't be terribly hard to find doctors who would happily recommend that uniform and keep him in it for a long, long time. I wouldn't mind seeing him locked up in a high-risk psych ward, doped to the gills and kept that way for the rest of his miserable existence. Let the doctors use him as a guinea pig; let them poke, prod and test him, take him apart and put the pieces together backwards, whatever it takes to figure out what causes this particular variety of human cancer.
Which doesn't serve justice, give satisfaction to the victims' families, or do much to settle the shocked sensibilities of civilized people anywhere. It's just what I would do.

This is going to a trial, as it should. Trials aren't about venting anger; mine or anyone else's. Trials are about hearing evidence, determining causes and resposibility and culpability. Hearing evidence and passing sentence will be the easy part of this trial. Giving justice may well be impossible.
 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: piglet on July 26, 2011, 04:19:01 AM
I heard that max sentence is 21 years and that he wont serve it all but will get off for good behaviour.WTF?? Now THAT is criminal. bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on July 26, 2011, 04:52:48 AM
They are actually doing something that, to the ego of this vile sub-human creature, is unendurable. They are going to keep the trial closed. See, what the mass-murderer wanted was to use the trial as some sort of political platform, to inspire other right-wing wankers. Now he does not get that...21 years, in the care of the ever-so-nice, humanitarian hands of mental health professionals...he killed 92 people!!! They should give all the family members of the victims a club, put them in a locked room with him and then go for a nice, long smoke...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: piglet on July 26, 2011, 06:29:43 AM
But as you say,ETR because they are mamby pamby social workers with open toed sandals over there that ain't gonna happen.He will say it's because his mummy didn't give him enough moose steaks when he was a little Naziboy or some such psychobabble.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on July 26, 2011, 12:35:32 PM
No, see, I don't think he wants to be declared insane. He already stated in his manifesto that he had a normal, happy childhood. He, apparently, wanted to save Norway from a culturemaxist Islamification (whatever that is) and that is why he shot a lot of people on an excursion held by the social-democratic Labour party...He is a self-professed Messiah-figure who wants to inspire more acts. Self-professed mad-men do not do that. In Scandinavia the Nationalist Parties are all banging their drums and shouting about the Secret Take-Over of Europe and the threat of Islam...and yet the worst act of terror ever to be committed on Scaandinavian soil was just committed by a blue-eyed, blond, right-wing, White Supremacist...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on July 26, 2011, 03:32:21 PM
Bastards like this give Lunatics a bad name. asasasasas

Personally, I've always wondered about why some countries (like the USA) let crazy people off.  Consider these 2 scenarios:

Murderer #1 has been tormented for the last 10 years by someone in who is in a powerful enough position to be untouchable.  He finally decides the only option is to carefully plan out a killing, awaiting his victim in a dark alley.  It's an almost perfect crime - except for that new security camera.

Due to pre-meditation and waiting for his victim, he can't claim temporary insanity.  Instead, he gets the death penalty.  If he's lucky, he can get that turned into a life sentence (best case - he gets out in 20-25 years depending on what jurisdiction he's in, worst case - life without parole).

He's not a threat to anyone else and had a hell of a motive.


Murderer #2 is deeply disturbed.  His condition is untreatable, but he keeps getting discharged from the local psychiatric unit since they can't keep him forever and he doesn't seem "too dangerous."  Finally, the voices in his head command him to slaughter several complete strangers for no real reason.

Due to obvious insanity, he's acquitted.  A few years in a psycho ward under sedation makes him seem harmless.  Sooner or later, he gets listed as no longer dangerous and is turned loose.

He's a threat to society and could go off again at any time.


Now contemplate what happens if both are released on a legal technicality 6 months after the trial.  Which one would you rather live next door to? mmmmmmmmmm


As for our Norwegian killer, I'm thinking the time has come for all countries to consider the death penalty as the standard sentence for mass murderers.  If you are liberal enough, you can get all squishy and forgiving over someone who hacks his grandmother to bits with a hatchet, but please let's permanently get rid of these really dangerous ones without regard to any claims regarding sanity.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on July 26, 2011, 08:14:45 PM
Unfortunately, Australia is implicated in this. ananananan
Quote
As the streets of Oslo filled with an estimated 150,000 people holding a vigil for those killed, details continued to emerge from Breivik's 1500-page "manifesto", including reported plans to use explosive bullets injected with liquid nicotine.
He also cites former Prime Minister John Howard, former treasurer Peter Costello and Archbishop George Pell in a "manifesto" posted online only hours before the killings.
"Prime Minister John Howard has repeatedly proven to be one of the most sensible leaders in the Western world," he writes.
"Mr Costello has also backed calls by Prime Minister John Howard for Islamic migrants to adopt Australian values.


This definitely proves the bastard is mad! asasasasas asasasasas
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on July 26, 2011, 09:00:58 PM
Maximum sentence is 21 years?  Maybe....but I haven't seen anything to say that it cannot be imposed consecutively....21 years x 93 victims
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on July 26, 2011, 11:35:36 PM
Maximum sentence is 21 years?  Maybe....but I haven't seen anything to say that it cannot be imposed consecutively....21 years x 93 victims

1953 years.  One can only hope, but many places with a 20-25 year absolute maximum sentences don't do consecutive sentences. kkkkkkkkkk
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ToddDano on July 27, 2011, 12:14:31 PM
This guys defense attorney was on the news saying that there was no way he would ever be released from jail.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: The Hiphoppopotomous on July 28, 2011, 03:09:08 AM
i hope he gets shanked.

on a sidenote, what is liquid nicotine?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on July 28, 2011, 03:28:29 AM
As far as I know. it is extremely concentrated nicotine. It is rather dangerous to touch it or ingest it. Why?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: The Hiphoppopotomous on July 28, 2011, 04:29:13 AM
just wondering why you would put it in a bullet the bullet seems to do the trick in most cases
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on July 28, 2011, 04:58:43 AM
Ah, well, if the bullet if coated with it or it is one those dum-dum thingies, one could argue that, even if you just give your opponent a flesh wound, he will die...as I understand it, a very small dosage of liquid nicotine will cause almost instant heart-failure...though my info comes from a less-than-stellar crime novel read ages ago...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on July 28, 2011, 12:18:59 PM
I've read of people doing that with cyanide as well. ICBW (No, ICBVeryW, so don't try this at home) but my understanding is that the heat in the gun barrel burns it off so it doesn't work anyway.
It's the kind of trick that amateurs use to convince themselves they are professionals. Breivik is certainly a wannabe something.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Pashley on July 28, 2011, 03:50:17 PM
Couple busted for selling their kids to fund online gaming:
http://abcnewsradioonline.com/world-news/chinese-couple-sells-all-three-kids-to-play-online-games.html

3,000 for the daughter, 30,000 each for the sons.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on July 28, 2011, 04:15:36 PM

The Norway attacks - The Big Picture

http://is.gd/TwWOTr
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on July 28, 2011, 06:26:20 PM
Couple busted for selling their kids to fund online gaming:
http://abcnewsradioonline.com/world-news/chinese-couple-sells-all-three-kids-to-play-online-games.html

3,000 for the daughter, 30,000 each for the sons.

At minimum, I hope they both get taken down to the local vet and get "fixed".
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on July 28, 2011, 06:50:43 PM
"We don't want to raise them, just sell them for some money"...can Chinese courts sentence people to a life-time ban from online gaming and a most overdue, severe and well-deserved spanking???
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on July 28, 2011, 08:11:16 PM
you know, there are times when I think there is something fundamentally right about the chinese tradition of kids looking after their parents when the parents are too old to work. Wouldn't you love to see these two at the mercy of their kids?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on July 29, 2011, 05:18:57 PM
Better idea - a new online game called "Torment the Baby Sellers".  Characters must do all the same stuff as in typical online games, but when they do well, they get a few minutes of video feed of the cell where these 2 losers are kept chained up.  Then the players can press buttons to send electric shocks, sprays of ice water, etc.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on August 02, 2011, 10:57:50 PM


It seems that IKEA is now being copied...

http://news.yahoo.com/chinese-retailers-hijack-ikea-experience-070702412.html
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: The Hiphoppopotomous on August 03, 2011, 04:12:10 AM
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2019409/Joshua-Davies-16-dared-Facebook-friends-murder-Rebecca-Aylward.html


another story that makes me ashamed to be young and british
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on August 03, 2011, 07:32:01 AM
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2019409/Joshua-Davies-16-dared-Facebook-friends-murder-Rebecca-Aylward.html


another story that makes me ashamed to be young and british

Bridgend is the same town where those teenagers had that suicide club about 5 years ago
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: nicenightforawalk on August 03, 2011, 09:43:44 AM
James - its the Daily Mail. A tragic story, but written for sensationalism rather than accuracy.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on August 03, 2011, 12:38:49 PM
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14376722

Grumblemumble...it would seem I have to get an iPad...this definitely tops the Top Nerd News of the Week agagagagag agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on August 04, 2011, 03:02:00 AM
Isn't this ever great news for Dalian and the Pacific Rim.

China's 1st aircraft carrier in Dalian to start sea trial in Aug 2011

http://www.expatsky.com/News/chinas-1st-aircraft-carrier-in-dalian-to-start-sea-trial-in-aug-2011.html
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Mac Attack on August 04, 2011, 04:26:22 AM
Great! Just the kind of news I'd expect for my new job in Dalian!  ababababab
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 04, 2011, 04:45:52 PM
China's drive to teach English stalls in the west (http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/aug/02/china-teach-english-drive-stalls)

Investment in the country's poor western provinces is intended to create wealth and stem migration, but mismanagement is stifling access to the language of economic opportunity
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on August 04, 2011, 05:59:01 PM
Thanks for posting that, CP.
My company had (and lost) a contract with a large client out west. I was told it was because a rival orgaization had developed a more comprehensive curriculum (specifically SAT training, which was something we were working on at the time), but it might just have been the usual story.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on August 04, 2011, 07:19:39 PM
Isn't this ever great news for Dalian and the Pacific Rim.

China's 1st aircraft carrier in Dalian to start sea trial in Aug 2011

http://www.expatsky.com/News/chinas-1st-aircraft-carrier-in-dalian-to-start-sea-trial-in-aug-2011.html


Oh good.  Sea going aircraft carriers instead of pond-based ones. ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Monkey King on August 25, 2011, 11:34:06 PM
Female Chinese students return from France floozies: judicial scholar (http://www.globaltimes.cn/NEWS/tabid/99/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/672517/Female-Chinese-students-return-from-France-floozies-judicial-scholar.aspx)

There's nothing like a bit of enlightened social commentary from a respected academic for sparking some debate.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: El Macho on August 26, 2011, 02:17:43 AM
Female Chinese students return from France floozies: judicial scholar (http://www.globaltimes.cn/NEWS/tabid/99/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/672517/Female-Chinese-students-return-from-France-floozies-judicial-scholar.aspx)

There's nothing like a bit of enlightened social commentary from a respected academic for sparking some debate.

I loved the defense given by the "judicial scholar":
Quote from: A total dickhead
"You know that in my class, I only influence fewer than 100 people, but your microblog will influence some millions of people," he wrote. "And it will surely affect my reputation."
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on August 30, 2011, 04:05:32 PM
Would you sue your own mother? I wanted to once, I think I was 9 at the time

Quote
Children sue mom for ‘bad mothering’ – and lose
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/the-hot-button/children-sue-mom-for-bad-mothering-and-lose/article2146171/ (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/the-hot-button/children-sue-mom-for-bad-mothering-and-lose/article2146171/)

Quote
The birthday card showed a pile of tomatoes spread across a table. All were the same except for one that rattled with those googly eyes they sell at craft stores.
“Son I got you this Birthday card because it’s just like you … different from all the rest!” the message read inside. “Have a great day! Love & Hugs, Mom xoxoxo,” added Kimberly Garrity.

Typical mom behaviour, right?
Wrong, say two grown children who included the card as one exhibit in an exceptional lawsuit that accused Ms. Garrity of “bad mothering.”

Steven Miner II, now 23, and his sister Kathryn, now 20, have spent two years hounding their mom, seeking more than $50,000 for “intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress.” One of the lawyers representing them was their father, who is also Ms. Garrity’s ex-husband.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on September 03, 2011, 12:34:18 AM
That crowds went to watch massive tides on the Qiantang River comes as no surprise. After all any news of a tsunami will have crowds, in disregard for their safety, flocking to a beach.

The photos of what happened when waves came over the bank in one area are really dramatic:
   http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/photo/2011-09/01/content_13593987.htm

What interests me is that in the photos you can see Chinese people, including some policemen, putting themselves at risk while trying to help those in danger of being overwhelmed by the waves.

There are a lot of good people out there!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on September 06, 2011, 02:21:33 AM
Li Yang of Crazy English accused of domestic violence by laowai wife

http://is.gd/8dZ4e8
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Pashley on September 22, 2011, 07:42:43 PM
Study at Nanjing U finds eating rice can affect your genes:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2011/09/21/what-you-eat-affects-your-genes-rna-from-rice-can-survive-digestion-and-alter-gene-expression/
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on September 23, 2011, 01:15:22 AM
Quote
Farewell Michael Hart (1947-2011), e-book pioneer

"Earlier this month (September 6th, 2011), at the comparatively young age of 64, Michael S. Hart passed away. Michael was the founder, genius and muse of Project Gutenberg, the original site for free e-books on the Web. More than that, Michael was the first person to post e-books to the early Internet itself, long before the World Wide Web came into existence. In fact, he was the inventor of the electronic book as we understand the concept today. Hart later devoted his life to Project Gutenberg, eschewing the prospect of a lucrative career."

more at ....
http://www.e-book.com.au/news.htm
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on September 23, 2011, 02:10:28 PM
That is a sad loss indeed...I use Project Gutenberg all the time...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on October 10, 2011, 06:09:31 PM
Simple fines will never be enough to stop the misdeeds of any corporate giant, especially one as large as WalMart.  How about a big fat fine AND closing down 10 stores for a few days? That's not going to look good on the quarterly balance sheet. uuuuuuuuuu

10 Chinese WalMarts closed over mislabeled pork (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-10/10/content_13858100.htm)

I wonder how long the authorities will keep those stores closed? mmmmmmmmmm
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on October 25, 2011, 07:24:58 PM
Here's a conversation I never want to have with my wife:

You put WHAT (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-10/25/content_13966723.htm) into the dumplings?

aaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaa
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on October 26, 2011, 01:49:37 PM
Chinese Government tries to ban rubbish TV

They might have a point if they didn't also censor interesting TV so heavily....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/25/china-crackdown-on-vulgar-tv
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on October 26, 2011, 02:17:12 PM
Looks like those WalMarts in CQ are back in business - after 15 days of being shut down.  I'll wager they won't mislabel pork again anytime soon. ahahahahah

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-10/26/content_13976159.htm
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on October 30, 2011, 06:02:55 PM
I'm personally thrilled that there's been a Papa John's Pizza here in Dongguan for almost 5 years now (it opened a little after I arrived).  Looks like some pizza rivalries can get out of hand.  Yet another weird news item from Florida. ahahahahah

A couple of managers from a Dominoes Pizza torched a nearby Papa John's.

http://news.yahoo.com/police-fla-pizza-workers-burned-down-rival-store-235723310.html

http://www.ocala.com/article/20111029/articles/111029658?p=1&tc=pg
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on November 22, 2011, 01:23:23 AM
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/benetton-unhate-ad-campaign-features-world-leaders-kissing-195931670.html
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: CaseyOrourke on November 23, 2011, 05:25:58 PM
Looks like those WalMarts in CQ are back in business - after 15 days of being shut down.  I'll wager they won't mislabel pork again anytime soon. ahahahahah

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-10/26/content_13976159.htm

I really doubt that Walmart HQ in Bentonville, Arkansas (for you foreigners it's Are-can-saw, not Are-can-zas)even knew about this.  It was probably done by local managers and/or who got a deal on cheap pork and decided sell it as organic and pocket the profits.
Title: Gosh...Thanks, Dad!
Post by: Raoul F. Duke on December 14, 2011, 08:57:03 PM
Chinese man arrested for hiring wedding strippers

BEIJING (Reuters) -
Chinese police have arrested a man who hired two strippers to perform at his son's wedding after the performance was mobbed by villagers, a newspaper reported on Wednesday.

Zhang Cheng, from Xuzhou in eastern Jiangsu province, had originally wanted a band to play at the nuptials, but was then advised he could get performers whose show would have "special features," the Global Times said.

"After watching the show, Zhang decided it would be appropriate for his son's wedding and requested two strippers for the event," it added. "...Barely five minutes had passed before hundreds of villagers in the conservative community were swarming to the venue, trying to catch a glimpse."

Zhang was arrested the next day, the newspaper reported, though it did not say on what charge.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Ken Wills)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: NATO on December 14, 2011, 10:47:14 PM
hahaha, there is so much askew with that it's difficult to know where to start. Brilliant.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on December 15, 2011, 05:35:57 AM
arrested and fined for not inviting the proper civic and police officials perhaps?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on December 15, 2011, 06:36:14 AM
Or perhaps the police chief was not so amused at his daughters part time job.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on December 15, 2011, 10:51:33 AM
Or perhaps the police chief was not so amused at his daughters part time job.

Or perhaps that people found out about her; I mean it is probably a well paid job given the amount of effort and time which would go into it. After all, won't she need to look after Dad in his old age? ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Pashley on December 15, 2011, 04:18:51 PM
If you thought China was weird, consider Oklahoma.

A woman has been arrested there for trying to manufacturer methamphetamine inside the Walmart store where she was stealing the raw materials.
http://www.kvue.com/news/135448083.html
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on December 15, 2011, 06:31:05 PM
I'm imagining store security confronting her as she leaves.  "Unless WalMart wants to admit to selling meth, how will you charge me with shoplifting?"
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on December 20, 2011, 03:38:27 AM
Kim Jong-not il

Kim Jong-little unwell

Kim Jong-Dead

Kim Jong-stiff

Kim Jong-Little smelly

when we get

Kim Jong-clone of my father
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Raoul F. Duke on December 20, 2011, 11:08:41 AM
Having worked briefly in a Wal-Mart, I think they should  sell crystal meth.
I always envisioned little packets of "Sam's Choice Crystal Crank" bearing a picture of Mr. Sam with his eyes spinning around like pinwheels.
It would have made those overnight shifts go a LOT better. bfbfbfbfbf
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Monkey King on December 31, 2011, 04:05:35 PM
Looks like Bird Flu may be back:

December 30, 2011 (CNN)

A 39-year-old man in a southern Chinese hospital is suffering from what appears to be a contagious strain of avian flu, state media reported Friday.

Chen was in critical condition Friday at the hospital, the health department said.

Shenzhen borders Hong Kong, where more than 17,000 chickens were ordered culled on the same day that Chen was hospitalized. That decision came after a chicken carcass tested positive for avian flu.


http://edition.cnn.com/2011/12/30/world/asia/china-bird-flu/?hpt=hp_t2
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on January 14, 2012, 05:50:29 PM
BANGKOK (AP) — The U.S. ambassador to Thailand warned Friday there is a "real and very credible" threat of a terrorist attack against American citizens in Bangkok.

The message said that "foreign terrorists may be currently looking to conduct attacks against tourist areas in Bangkok in the near future." It urged Americans to "keep a low profile" in public and to exercise caution in areas where Western tourists gather
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on January 15, 2012, 08:39:18 PM
BANGKOK (AP) — The U.S. ambassador to Thailand warned Friday there is a "real and very credible" threat of a terrorist attack against American citizens in Bangkok.
The message said that "foreign terrorists may be currently looking to conduct attacks against tourist areas in Bangkok in the near future." It urged Americans to "keep a low profile" in public and to exercise caution in areas where Western tourists gather

"It urged Americans to "keep a low profile" in public"    ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Raoul F. Duke on January 17, 2012, 08:58:27 PM
If you can find access to the Jan. 16 edition of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, by all means do so. His mid-show segment on China is to die for.
Followed, by the way, by one of the funniest Colbert Reports I've ever seen. bfbfbfbfbf
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: KeyserSoze on January 18, 2012, 01:09:49 AM
this one?

http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/mon-january-16-2012-jodi-kantor

Even I can get it!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on January 18, 2012, 03:16:41 AM
...Followed, by the way, by one of the funniest Colbert Reports I've ever seen. bfbfbfbfbf

This is some of the most informative and hilarious string of episodes yet.  We need to have an election year each and every year.  Oh wait, WE DO!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Raoul F. Duke on January 18, 2012, 08:37:09 PM
Colbert is entering the Republican Presidential primary in his home state of South Carolina. It was kinda sparked by a recent poll that showed him beating the pathetic actual candidate Jon Huntsman, who has since dropped out of the race.

Stephen was moaning about not being able to get on the ballot, by virtue of South Carolina "splitting hairs over little things like being two-and-a-half months late to file." He also mentioned that, due to the same deadline, former candidate Herman Cain couldn't get OFF the ballot.

So Stephen is asking South Carolinians, INCLUDING DEMOCRATS ETC. because any registered voter can vote in a primary in South Carolina, to vote for Herman Cain...which he'll take as a vote for Colbert.

It's brilliant. It's infuriatingly friggin' brilliant. :respect:
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Pashley on January 22, 2012, 08:13:06 PM
BANGKOK (AP) — The U.S. ambassador to Thailand warned Friday there is a "real and very credible" threat of a terrorist attack against American citizens in Bangkok.
The message said that "foreign terrorists may be currently looking to conduct attacks against tourist areas in Bangkok in the near future." It urged Americans to "keep a low profile" in public and to exercise caution in areas where Western tourists gather

"It urged Americans to "keep a low profile" in public"    ahahahahah

I was in Iran during their revolution, bailed out in Jan '79 two days ahead of the Shah. This was a month or two before Khomeni returned and three or four before the hostage taking. The first sentences of Farsi (Persian) I learned were "Don't shoot" and "I am not American". I liked Iran, but in China the first whole sentence I learned was "ni hen mei" (you are beautiful) which is a vastly more pleasant sort of thing to learn. I'm not going back to Iran or Afghanistan anytime soon, which I consider regrettable.

I still kick myself for not getting some of the T-shirts that were around. They were overpriced & poorly printed, so they seemed a bad buy. In hindsight, a major missed opportunity.

One had a quote from the US ambassador "Keep a low profile" written across a bullet-pocked wall with a pair of eyes peeping over. Another was "Stay and die for BHI", since Bell Helicopter International was a major expat employer. Or "I ran from Iran" with a yellow stripe down the back ...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on January 23, 2012, 01:35:29 AM
Colbert is entering the Republican Presidential primary in his home state of South Carolina.

Stephen was moaning about not being able to get on the ballot, by virtue of South Carolina "splitting hairs over little things like being two-and-a-half months late to file." He also mentioned that, due to the same deadline, former candidate Herman Cain couldn't get OFF the ballot.

So Stephen is asking South Carolinians, INCLUDING DEMOCRATS ETC. because any registered voter can vote in a primary in South Carolina, to vote for Herman Cain...which he'll take as a vote for Colbert.

It's brilliant. It's infuriatingly friggin' brilliant.
Great stuff.  Only garnered 1.1% of the vote but the light that he's shining on the ridiculous campaign financing system is priceless.  I sometimes wish he'd be a little more serious about it to get the message through to more people, but I suppose, that would upset the whole apple cart.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on February 23, 2012, 05:26:08 AM
These kind of stories crack me up

Shanghainese Drive Onto West Lake Landmark, Insult Locals
by Joel on Wednesday, February 22, 2012

A couple of Shanghai tourists are in hot water after hurling insults and forcing their car onto the ancient Bai Causeway on Hangzhou’s famous West Lake. The Bai Causeway is a protected landmark in Hangzhou and for that reason is one of the many areas motorized vehicles are prohibited. The Shanghainese driver and female passenger are currently facing the collective wrath of Hangzhou citizens after they ignored security officers, ran a road block, and then threw money on the ground calling all Hangzhounese “rednecks.”

Around 10am on February 20th, a security guard in the West Lake scenic area noticed a Kia SUV with a Shanghai license plate idling near the entrance to the Bai Causeway. As he watched, a woman got out of the SUV and moved the barrier blocking the way onto the dyke. The guard ran towards the car shouting and blowing his whistle, but the car paid no heed, accelerating away and onto the causeway.

Bai Causeway is a popular tourist attraction, and a crowd soon formed around the SUV, preventing it from moving further and allowing security to catch up to the vehicle. The breathless guard told the couple that they were not allowed to drive in this area, and that they would have to pay a fine. The “ferocious” woman in the passenger seat responded with an insult-laden Shanghainese invective, throwing 500 RMB out the window and saying he had no right to fine them, that only traffic police have that power. She continued on with her tirade claiming that he and all of his kind were “villagers” ["countryfolk" or "country bumpkins"].

The traffic police soon arrived, escorted the SUV off the causeway and imposed a 100 RMB fine and 3 point deduction off the driver’s license. The male driver has since apologized for his actions, but his female companion remains silent.

http://is.gd/4v01dC
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on February 23, 2012, 04:46:26 PM
I'm outraged that some idiot would drive an SUV onto an important cultural landmark, but amused that this was at the behest of a ferocious Shanghai woman. ahahahahah

As your Emperor to be, I promise that public bare-bottomed spankings will be implemented to deal with this sort of behavior.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Pashley on February 23, 2012, 04:49:24 PM
These kind of stories crack me up

Shanghainese Drive Onto West Lake Landmark, Insult Locals
by Joel on Wednesday, February 22, 2012

A couple of Shanghai tourists ... calling all Hangzhounese “rednecks.”

... She continued on with her tirade claiming that he and all of his kind were “villagers” ["countryfolk" or "country bumpkins"].

Canada has people like her in Toronto, the US in New York. I've heard a Londoner claim "Civilisation stops at Watford." He was joking, but I'm not sure everyone saying it would be. It is by no means just Shanghai that has such idiots, and of course even in Shanghai they're a minority.

One of the funniest conversations I have had in China was with a Fuzhou girl who was really irritated with a Shanghai ex-boyfriend. According to her, Shanghai folk think they live in the center. Suzhou, Nanjing, Beijing and Hangzhou are suburbs, none really important. Everything else is countryside. She had excellent English and a real "Hell hath no fury ..." attitude. Brilliant.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on March 02, 2012, 03:45:50 AM
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-05/15/content_7780762.htm
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on March 02, 2012, 05:25:34 AM
From May 2009

You where searching around eh A-Train?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on March 02, 2012, 09:59:23 AM
Chinese student charged in alleged abduction of Mississauga boy

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/02/29/mississauga-man-charged-in-alleged-abduction-of-boy/

An international student in Mississauga, Ont., is accused of abducting and assaulting two children and approaching several others, with police warning there could be more victims.

Xiang (Jay) Gao, 19, is facing numerous charges, including assault, abduction and forcible confinement. The investigation is continuing and few details are being released, but police stress the offenses were not of a sexual nature.


Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on March 02, 2012, 09:41:09 PM
From May 2009

You where searching around eh A-Train?

Purely in the interst of science.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on March 06, 2012, 03:07:25 AM
Looks like the cheap housing is at the 7th ring road

(http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a197/Bissessar/a10_0.jpg)

The image is a satellite map from Cross Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review that pinpoints a series of garbage dumps that encircle the city of Beijing, in what's been affectionately dubbed the '7th Ring' by photographer Wang Jiuliang.

7th Ring refers to the 6 Ring roads which serve as highways surrounding Beijing:
With “Beijing’s Seventh Ring” (a name coined by Wang) now clearly in sight, the capital no longer looks grand, classic, or rational. It is a city suffocated by the garbage of its own production. Moreover, the area that the Seventh Ring occupies is also the area where the majority of Beijing’s migrant population lives. In other words, the laborers who contribute the most to the city’s growth and vitality now bear the brunt of the city’s waste

Beijing Besieged by Garbage

Photographing "Year One": Wang Jiuliang and the Reign of Garbage
Shih-yang Kao

Garbage dumps form Beijing's "7th Ring"
Since the outbreak of the 2008 financial crisis, the Western media has increasingly pointed to China as the potential savior of global capitalism. This is based on the idea that the demand of Chinese consumers, which has been pumped up by increasing governmental spending in infrastructure, urban renewal, and social welfare programs, has the potential to inject new energy into the sluggish world economy. This changing perception of China from its role as the world’s exporter to that of prime consumer is gradually reshaping the contour of the global economy. Luxury brands such as Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and Prada are all expanding their business in China by opening up new stores in fast-growing, second-tier inland cities. “Mao Zedong would not have approved,” wrote The Economist, “but his former serfs ignore his frowns and merrily fritter away the banknotes that still depict his face.”

It is difficult to measure the extent to which the emergence of consumerism in China has made the global economic downturn less precipitous. After all, the idea that Western economies should put their hope for recovery on Chinese buyers, instead of focusing more on disciplining the greedy gamblers of Wall Street, is simply absurd. It does seem quite clear, however, that the rise of consumerism in China has already induced its own crisis. In the autumn of 2009, more than three hundred villagers in Guangzhou’s Panyu District protested in front of the city hall against a proposed incinerator plant. They complained that people in Panyu had already suffered from a high rate of cancer and other chronic diseases caused by an existing landfill in the district and that the proposed incinerator would only make what was already a bad situation even worse. The city officials’ response to the protest was short, yet hard to dispute: How are we going to solve the city’s booming garbage crisis without incinerators? Meanwhile, 2,000 kilometers to the north, in the capital city of Beijing, residents of a high-end neighborhood called “Napa Valley” were brainstorming plans for a new neighborhood recycling program. They hoped that if they could show that the amount of waste can be significantly reduced through recycling, city officials would have no excuse to move ahead with their plan for the Asuwei Incinerator, which was to be built in close proximity to the community’s golf course and California-styled villas.

In the circle of Chinese environmental NGOs, the year 2009 is often described as “Year One of the Garbage Era” (laji yuannian). The description is quite literal. It was in the year 2009 when grassroots resistance against landfills and incinerators (Panyu and Napa Valley being the two best-known cases) began to emerge across the country. It was also in 2009 when major Chinese environmental NGOs such as Friends of Nature, Green Beagle, and Global Village began to take garbage seriously and put recycling and waste reduction on their agendas. However, the term laji yuannian also conveys a deep sense of unease. The expression brings back the year-counting tradition of dynastic China, according to which the beginning of each new emperor’s reign resets the calendar to “year one.” Laji yuannian is, thus, an announcement: Garbage has now risen to power. It governs, it conquers, and its empire is expanding. But what exactly does the reign of Garbage look like? Where is its territory? How does it redefine Chinese urbanism?

The collection of images from photographer Wang Jiuliang’s “Beijing Besieged by Waste” series provides a powerful starting point for us to think about these questions. Born to a rural family in Shandong Province, and a graduate of the Communication University of China, the 35-year-old photographer has been documenting Beijing’s garbage since 2008. His initial motivation was purely reactive. While shooting for his previous series “Afterlives,” which explored changes in the ritual of ancestral offerings in his Shandong hometown, Wang found that it was impossible to find a place where he could capture the kind of purity and tranquility for which he had hoped. “Everywhere I went there was garbage,” he recalled during a recent talk at the University of California, Berkeley, in April 2011. “In the end, I always found myself cleaning up bag after bag of garbage before I could start shooting.” As a result, even before the completion of the ‘Afterlives” series, Wang had decided to make his new enemy—garbage—the subject of his next project. He also decided to proceed with the project in Beijing, a city where he has lived since 2003.

“Dirt,” wrote cultural anthropologist Mary Douglas, “is matter out of place.” It is thus not difficult to see why any inquiry into the subject of trash—be it artistic, journalistic, or scholarly—would inevitably turn out to be a project about geography. Beijing’s garbage takes Wang Jiuliang to places that are foreign even to the capital’s own residents. He found, for example, trash heaps being used by local shepherds as ranches to raise sheep. These sheep, as anyone familiar with Beijing might suspect, will likely end up as Xinjiang lamb sticks, a local favorite. Right next to Beijing’s grand Capital International Airport terminal 3, Wang came across a humble irrigation pond being used by airliners to dump disposables. As paradoxical and pathetic as it may sound, he discovered that when the setting sun sheds its light on all of the floating foam slippers, the entire pond looks just like Monet’s Water Lilies. And he found, of course, many illegal dump sites. In one of these dump sites, Wang found not only trash, but also an entire community of scavengers from the faraway province of Sichuan, enterprising people who have built houses and  new lives from scraps, right on the dump. Wang Jiuliang’s work reveals that trash does not just disturb and destroy; it shapes identities and creates new social relations.

When all of these places are woven together, a peculiar geographic phenomenon emerges. Between Beijing’s Fifth and Sixth Ring Roads, roughly five hundred trash dumps that Wang discovered form a thick belt that encircles the entire city. With “Beijing’s Seventh Ring” (a name coined by Wang) now clearly in sight, the capital no longer looks grand, classic, or rational. It is a city suffocated by the garbage of its own production. Moreover, the area that the Seventh Ring occupies is also the area where the majority of Beijing’s migrant population lives. In other words, the laborers who contribute the most to the city’s growth and vitality now bear the brunt of the city’s waste.

Garbage has changed not only the environment of Chinese cities, but also Chinese society itself. Environmental NGOs in China have began to realize that the tasks of waste reduction and recycling must start inside the country’s urban households, which are increasingly modeled after American-style throwaway culture. In other words, for the first time, the urban middle class has become a subject of scrutiny in China’s environmental activism. Since “Year One,” we have been witnessing an explosive number of exhibits, campaigns, talks, and experimental recycling programs aimed at changing the consumption and disposal practices of urban households. Wang Jiuliang’s “Beijing Besieged by Waste” series, with its images that stir a sense of guilt deep in our stomachs, is representative of this changing course of environmental activism. And when the wasteland of urban China is thus revealed, we start to wonder whether the expansion of consumerism in China is really the key to a better future.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on March 20, 2012, 05:18:13 PM
New Zealand is facing another crisis.


Quote
NZ's Marmite stock running out

New Zealand's Marmite stock is expected to run out within weeks, according to its maker Sanitarium.

Production on the Kiwi breakfast staple had to be suspended after earthquake damage to a cooling tower at the company's Christchurch factory rendered the nearby Marmite building unsafe.

Sanitarium general manager Pierre van Heerden said hopefully enough stock was in circulation to last a few weeks, but production wasn't expected to resume until midway through this year.

...Marmite has been flying off supermarket shelves after its maker warned a shortage was unavoidable.

Traders are also cashing in on the Marmite crisis, asking as much as $800 for a jar of the black gold on Trade Me.


... PM DOWN TO HIS LAST JAR

Even Prime Minister John Key is not immune.

The Prime Minister told TV3's Firstline programme he had to follow Sanitarium's advice to spread thinly "only on toast".

"I only have got a very small amount in my office and once that runs out I'm aware supplies are very short," he said.

But in a confession perhaps showing Key's centrist tendencies, he admitted he can also eat Marmite's rival, Vegemite.

"I am a consumer who can move between brands. I'm ashamed to say it, but I can eat both."


Surviving in China without a ready supply of Marmite has not been easy. Just before Christmas a friend gave me an unopened jar and I have been eking my my way through it since then.

I am happy to share most things with others ... but nobody is allowed near my jar of Marmite.  kkkkkkkkkk

PS I notice that 'Vegemite' was good enough to start this "news" thread. 

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on March 20, 2012, 07:21:00 PM
Quick, let's get a Chinese factory to start producing fake Marmite and cash in. ababababab
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: slayer6719 on March 20, 2012, 09:53:29 PM
Marmite? that vile tasting black stuff?  aaaaaaaaaa
I,ll take Vegemite any day! ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: old34 on March 20, 2012, 10:48:46 PM
Marmite? that vile tasting black stuff?  aaaaaaaaaa
I,ll take Vegemite any day! ahahahahah

Ha! The Vegemite calling the Marmite black!

Kind of reminds me of Cubs fans at Wrigley Field arguing over Budweiser vs. Dog Old-Style beer.

Both suck.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: old34 on March 20, 2012, 10:52:19 PM
FWIW, City Shops in Shanghai stock Vegemite.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on March 21, 2012, 01:34:21 AM
old34 - I know that at least one company delivers foodstuff to Hangzhou.  Do you know if City Shops delivers?

(My new mantra - If it is good enough for the Prime Minister to be bi-mite, then it's good enough for me.)
 

 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: old34 on March 21, 2012, 01:38:38 AM
old34 - I know that at least one company delivers foodstuff to Hangzhou.  Do you know if City Shops delivers?


http://www.cityshop.com.cn/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Help_10601_10551_-1?cmsName=Delivery (http://www.cityshop.com.cn/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Help_10601_10551_-1?cmsName=Delivery)

BTW did you get that Radio working? cf. http://raoulschinasaloon.com/index.php?topic=7306.0 (http://raoulschinasaloon.com/index.php?topic=7306.0)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on March 22, 2012, 12:16:48 PM
shouldn't that be bi-mitual?
Whatever, we're cool with you, whatever your sandwich-spreadual orientation
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on March 29, 2012, 05:00:47 PM

Kotex assures woman that moldy tampons aren't unusual

​Ladies, you regularly check your unused tampons for mold, right? Well, you're going to from this day forward, because we're about to tell you how a woman found spots of black mold growing on her new, unused Kotex cotton tampons. In a follow-up letter after she complained, the company explained it was probably bread mold, based on previous tests of the multiple times this had happened before. We'll give you a moment to stop screaming uncontrollably. OK, there we go. After the pictures of the offending feminine product she posted to her blog went viral, the company contacted her again offering to do a more thorough investigation of the mold and, hey, coupons for more tampons!

http://now.msn.com/living/0328-black-mold-tampon.aspx


"And when you are finished with one, you can harvest the yeast and use it to make bread." - Another helpful consumer tip from your friends at Kotex.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on April 12, 2012, 03:28:21 PM
Changsha Edition

CCTV reveals poultry polluted by industrial rosin

A wholesale poultry market in Changsha, capital of central Hunan Province was shut down after vendors used carcinogenic rosin to remove bird feathers.

But chicken and ducks from the market are still being sold in local supermarkets and restaurants, CCTV, the state-run broadcaster, reported yesterday.

Yangjiashan Poultry Wholesale Market sold nearly 40,000 chicken and ducks a day and had a market share of 65 percent in Changsha and surrounding areas.

The vendors were seen on the TV footage of immersing slaughtered birds in a pot containing industrial rosin to remove feathers. A vendor could denude 200 ducks a day, four times faster than using a machine, the report said.

The market management admitted that the industrial rosin they used is toxic, lead-laden, harmful to kidney and liver, and can cause cancer.

But the vendors were reluctant to use edible rosin because its price is twice more expensive as compared with industrial rosin.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: NATO on April 25, 2012, 06:59:01 PM
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2012/apr/24/girl-falls-through-pavement-video

The thought has crossed my mind more than once or twice when walking on the pavement here. In chengdu in 2010 there was a story about a stretch of sidewalk sinking a few inches near the busiest shopping area.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on April 25, 2012, 08:15:35 PM
Egad! aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao

That looked a lot more solid that some places I walk over regularly. aqaqaqaqaq

Somebody buy that taxi driver a few free rounds.  He deserves them. agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: The Local Dialect on May 11, 2012, 02:38:43 AM
British guy attempts to rape a Chinese girl, a crowd stands by watching until a hair salon owner comes out and beats the crap out of the British guy. Chinese internet users can't decide whether to hate on foreigners for trying to rape their countrywoman or their fellow Chinese for standing around watching.

This is in Chinese, but there's a video of the incident. http://wei.sohu.com/20120510/n342889687.shtml?pvid=tc_news&a=&b=%E8%80%81%E5%A4%96%E5%9C%A8%E4%BA%AC%E7%8C%A5%E4%BA%B5%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E5%A5%B3%E5%AD%A9%E9%81%AD%E5%B8%82%E6%B0%91%E5%9B%B4%E6%AE%B4

and

http://news.sohu.com/20120510/n342870754.shtml


Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on May 11, 2012, 03:41:07 AM
I've reading about this. It's been all over Sina weibo.

Three big stories in a row with foreigners. Young guy in Nanjing shares some food and conversation with an old beggar lady, Brazilian in Dongguan beaten while trying to thwart a robbery and now this guy.

Keep an eye on this one folks. If it's all confirmed (even if it isn't) that this guy was trying to molest the girl, then watch your backs going out at night. The heat, alcohol and a little anti-foreigner sentiment could lead to some trouble and not just in Beijing. This is all over the web here and the responses have been really, really ugly.

Might be a good weekend to catch up on some reading.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: The Local Dialect on May 11, 2012, 04:17:30 AM
That's exactly what I was thinking Stil. This one has me a bit worried for some of our members with Chinese wives and girlfriends. For sure, if I were a foreign guy I wouldn't be going out to bars or discos and trying to pick up Chinese women this weekend.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on May 11, 2012, 05:29:45 AM
TIC

There is an outside chance that in some of the incidents all is not what it seems.

Pickpockets usually work in gangs. Usually 2 or 3 members follow the pickpocket - pickpocket immediately passes wallet etc back to one of them so that he/she cannot be found in possession should someone become suspicious of their action. 2 then passes the object to 3 who leaves the scene.
2 and 3 will sometimes deal physically to the victim of the theft if there is a chance that the pickpocket is going to be restrained from leaving the scene. They will claim that they came to the defence of an innocent person who has been unfairly accused of a crime.

Their may be a similar modus operandi operating in the "rape" case. Beijing Cream carries a story about the possibilty that the girl took something out of the guys pocket:

    http://beijingcream.com/2012/05/foreigner-assault-in-beijing-update-what-is-that-thing-the-girl-appears-to-grab-out-of-the-mans-pocket/#more-2577

It is possible, then, that these are not situations where outraged citizens have attacked foreigners. It is also possible that they are.

The internet has the ability to inflame passions in this country I agree with Stil that it is a time to 'take care out there.'
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on May 11, 2012, 04:35:49 PM
Some of the commentary on that video indicates that the girl already had something in her hand earlier, so it wasn't something she grabbed out of his pocket.

This is another reason to be VERY careful walking into the middle of a situation.  In Dongguan, the foreigner needed rescuing.  In Beijing, the foreigner needed more than he got (assuming that this is exactly was what it appears to be).

No matter what was going on, I'm pretty impressed with the much smaller Chinese guy who kept after him even after taking what looked like one hell of a punch.  Also, once the foreigner was down, several people kept intervening when someone was trying to kick him in the head.


I've told my wife that if she wants to do it in the middle of a busy street anytime soon, she's got to be on top. afafafafaf


Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: The Local Dialect on May 14, 2012, 11:23:54 PM
Apropos to our discussion about traditional culture/language, a primary school in Guangzhou has forbidden the students to speak Cantonese, saying speakng dialect is what "low quality" people do (the school denies using this wording, but who knows).

http://post.news.tom.com/s/gallery_56000A8F5645.html?source=SK_NS (this article is in Chinese)

I remember seing signs in schools back in Yunnan saying "please speak Putonghua" but I don't think it was ever a rule that the students couldn't speak dialect amongst themselves. Hell, half the teachers couldn't even speak proper Putonghua and I doubt Guangzhou is any different, so good luck with this rule ...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on May 15, 2012, 12:43:22 AM
They have/had rules like that in Canada (Quebec).  Were students were not allowed to speak English in the school.  Even brothers and sisters couldn't speak to each other in English.

I doubt rules like that really work but it depends on how zealous the school leader is. 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Pashley on May 15, 2012, 05:22:18 PM
They have/had rules like that in Canada (Quebec).  Were students were not allowed to speak English in the school.  Even brothers and sisters couldn't speak to each other in English.

I doubt rules like that really work but it depends on how zealous the school leader is. 

Some years back, I was at a foundation course school, getting students ready to study abroad. We made some effort to create an English environment with posters, movies, etc. but we never went as far as asking students to speak English to each other, except in class. Perhaps we should have.

At one point, the boss lady (who spoke excellent Chinese) freaked out about too much Chinese in the environment, and took several steps to change it. Some she backed off on within a few days, such as telling Chinese teachers (a majority of staff) to speak only English in the staff room and that she would fire them for using Chinese with students, even outside class.

Others she held to. She still threatened to fire Chinese teachers for using Chinese in class. The university that we were attached to would put up notices in our building in Chinese. She told them to send those to her admin assistant for translation; anything posted in Chinese would be torn down on sight.

Finding the right balance here is clearly a problem. How do you encourage L2 use when L1 is so much easier? Can you do that without being obnoxious?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on May 15, 2012, 08:43:54 PM
They have/had rules like that in Canada (Quebec).  Were students were not allowed to speak English in the school.  Even brothers and sisters couldn't speak to each other in English.

I doubt rules like that really work but it depends on how zealous the school leader is. 

Some years back, I was at a foundation course school, getting students ready to study abroad. We made some effort to create an English environment with posters, movies, etc. but we never went as far as asking students to speak English to each other, except in class. Perhaps we should have.

At one point, the boss lady (who spoke excellent Chinese) freaked out about too much Chinese in the environment, and took several steps to change it. Some she backed off on within a few days, such as telling Chinese teachers (a majority of staff) to speak only English in the staff room and that she would fire them for using Chinese with students, even outside class.

Others she held to. She still threatened to fire Chinese teachers for using Chinese in class. The university that we were attached to would put up notices in our building in Chinese. She told them to send those to her admin assistant for translation; anything posted in Chinese would be torn down on sight.

Finding the right balance here is clearly a problem. How do you encourage L2 use when L1 is so much easier? Can you do that without being obnoxious?

When I worked for Web they had what sounds like a really cool idea called 'English Friday' where noone in the school was allowed to use anything but English for one day a week. My school abandoned it because all of the teachers and tutors were rubbish at English lol
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on May 27, 2012, 05:08:44 AM
Cannibal serial killer arrested in Yunnan

Yesterday AFP reported that ‘Police have detained a man suspected of murdering more than a dozen boys and young men, chopping up their bodies and selling the flesh to unsuspecting consumers’.

There had previously been a trickle of reports about teenagers that had disappeared in Yunnan. On May 8, the Global Times English edition ran a story titled ‘Yunnan town fears serial kidnapper‘. On May 24, the Chongqing Economic Times published a report titled ‘In Jinning County, Yunnan Province, 17 people have disappeared – there may be a serial killer’, naming Zhang Yongming as the suspect.

The earlier Global Times story speculated that the missing young men were possibly victims of a ‘serial kidnapper’ who may forced them to work in illegal brick kilns near Kunming. The brick kilns’ theory was actually thought up by the parents of one of the missing youths, Han Yao. His parents never suspected a serial killer; such evils barely exist in state media, while kidnappings of young men are not uncommon in the provinces. Most end up in coal mines or illegal brick kilns, but more educated kidnap victims sometimes even end up tricked into running white-collar scams like pyramid schemes.

Therefore the kilns theory was quite feasible: the Global Times report mentions one man name Lei Yusheng from Yunnan who says he escaped such a place after being grabbed off the street by ‘two strong men… armed with a sword [who] pulled him into a van. He was then taken to brick kiln where he was forced to work with 30 other men from 2 am to 12 noon every day.’

This sort of trafficking is now so ubiquitous the police barely bother to investigate and it lands on the parents to conduct their own searches. The Global Times report also mentioned another case:

One of the most disturbing cases involves Xie Junhai, a 16-year-old student who left home to collect his report card on January 27 and never returned.

‘I have searched more than 100 brick kilns. Some wouldn’t let me enter. I had to plead with the local villagers to take me in. I have not found any trace of my son,’ said Xie’s father.

The search was pointless because Xie’s son had been the victims of a prolific serial killer, a 56-year-old farmer named Zhang Yongming who lived in a shack near the cold storage unit where victim Han Yao was last glimpsed. Zhang Yongming should have been the police’s first suspect: In 1978, he was sentenced to life in prison for murder, after dismembering a victim. He was released in 1997 and lived within a two kilometer radius of all the victims. The local villagers certainly suspected something was up with Zhang: the Daily Telegraph reported on May 24 that ‘last December, [Zhang Yongming] was found trying to strangle Zhang Jianyuan, 17, with a belt outside his house’. Police arrived at the house of the convicted murderer but Zhang ‘laughed off the episode, saying that he was just fooling with the boy.’ The cops also seemed to have a good sense of humour, as they ‘simply told [villagers] he was mentally ill’.

As sadly undeveloped as China’s mental-health awareness is, this failure to detain Zhang for attempted murder probably resulted in the hideous deaths of up to seventeen boys.

Grisly details that have so far emerged include that police also found human eyeballs preserved inside wine bottles, and human flesh hanging up to dry, (according to a now deleted article on Guangxi News. The AFP report says that ‘green plastic bags containing what appeared to be white bones protruding from the top were seen hanging from his home’. Zhang is now thought to have fed human flesh to his three dogs and sold portions on the market, telling people it was ‘ostrich meat,’ according to the Hong Kong Standard.

The official reaction has been predictable: censorship. For example, Weibo searches for ‘Jinning’, ‘Yunnan disappeared’ and ‘Yunnan murder’ (晋宁, 云南失踪 and 云南谋杀) are blocked. Jinning county police chief Da Qiming has been sacked, alongside the head of the Jincheng township police station, Zhao Huiyun. A special Public Security Bureau task force has been sent from Beijing to supervise the case: this is the Crime Investigation Bureau (CIB), the Chinese equivalent of the FBI. While the CIB employs expert staff, they are normally brought in to deal with cases that threaten public stability, and they serve ministerial ends. The victims’ parents will probably be largely ignored, the case declared exceptional and individual, and the public afforded little further protection.

http://www.danwei.com/cannibal-serial-killer-arrested-in-yunnan/
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: NATO on May 27, 2012, 05:19:12 AM
Now that is the kind of incompetence that is impossible to laugh off, disgusting.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on May 27, 2012, 05:29:28 AM
Err...That is disgusting...and since in China things in this article is being censored, would it not be a good idea to change these things so the people monitoring the Internet does not decide that the Saloon is misbehaving???
The police jokingly laughed at the mentally ill farmer who was strangling a teenager...right,right...I am beginning to understand why most locals I meet have little, if anything, good to say about the police.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on May 27, 2012, 05:28:49 PM
Police worldwide seem to suffer brain aneurisms when dealing with cannibals.  Jeffrey Dahmer was trying to take his 14 year old "boyfriend" back to his apartment.  The police didn't take the boy into protective custody and gave him back, despite the strange smell (from the corpse of a prior victim) coming from the apartment.  Jeffrey took the boy back inside, for dinner.

Too many people think cannibalism only happens in the movies, and consider it so "unthinkable" that the possibility isn't even considered.  It's rare, but it does happen.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on June 02, 2012, 03:22:18 AM
Obama admits to stepping up 'Cyber Warfare'

Quote
President Barack Obama's administration has taken direct responsibility for a rapid acceleration in cyber-attacks against Iran's nuclear programme.

According to anonymous senior administration sources quoted in the New York Times, Obama decided to speed up a programme first launched by his predecessor, George W Bush, codenamed Olympic Games, whose aim was to use computer viruses to attack Iran's nuclear enrichment programme.

The decision to reveal Obama's role in the cyberwar against Iran follows hard on the heels of the highly political disclosure in an election year that the president had taken a personal role in approving terrorist targets for US drone strikes.

And the depiction of his key involvement in two major clandestine military operations follows photographs last year showing him, as commander-in-chief, awaiting news of the death of Osama bin Laden.

The revelations on Iran appear designed to neutralise Republican accusations that he has been weak over the issue of Iran's nuclear programme.

According to the New York Times, Obama took the decision to accelerate the pace of computer sabotage against Tehran in 2010 even after details about one of the cyberweapons developed to attack Iran, the so-called Stuxnet worm, accidentally leaked on to the internet because of a programming error.

That worm had been designed to target Iran's Natanz plant.

At a meeting in the White House situation room within days of the worm's "escape", Obama asked his advisers, including Leon Panetta, the head of the CIA, whether the effort should be wound up because it had been compromised.

According to sources in the room at the time, Obama asked: "Should we shut this thing down?" before deciding instead to push ahead with the attacks. The Natanz plant was hit twice more by versions of the worm, which damaged up to 1,000 high-speed centrifuges then enriching uranium.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/01/obama-sped-up-cyberattack-iran

So the US's military strategy under Obama seems to be to put more and more robot planes in the sky and create more and more powerful computer viruses. What could go wrong?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Pashley on June 02, 2012, 02:27:11 PM
Obama admits to stepping up 'Cyber Warfare'

Quote
President Barack Obama's administration has taken direct responsibility for a rapid acceleration in cyber-attacks against Iran's nuclear programme. ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/01/obama-sped-up-cyberattack-iran

So the US's military strategy under Obama seems to be to put more and more robot planes in the sky and create more and more powerful computer viruses. What could go wrong?

Years back, the elder Bush had something officially called the Strategic Defense Initiative, but generally known as "Star Wars". Part of the plan was computer control of nuclear missiles. Moreover they were to be set up for "launch on warning"; the machines could fire them without human intervention. The idea was to guarantee that a surprise attack would not be a tempting strategy for those evil Russians; they might destroy America but they could not eliminate the answering missiles because those would be launched before the Ruski weapons hit.

If you know anything about software reliability issues, this idea is blindingly stupid and truly terrifying. The lobby group Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility was set up specifically because of this. http://cpsr.org/ They are still around and anyone who is greatly concerned about recent developments might consider joining.

For a while, my email signature was:
Test plan for SDI: step one, mount a scratch planet.

The reference is to: http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/S/scratch-monkey.html
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: cruisemonkey on June 02, 2012, 03:35:17 PM
...this idea is blindingly stupid and truly terrifying.

Why?  mmmmmmmmmm

Couldn't they just program the computer to say "Ooooops... sorry about that."  ahahahahah  ananananan
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Raoul F. Duke on June 12, 2012, 08:07:38 PM
Gasp...hack...

China's Wuhan city covered in mysterious haze

(AFP)
Young and old residents of the Chinese metropolis of Wuhan were advised to stay indoors on Monday after a thick haze blanketed the city of nine million people, official media said.

Described by residents as opaque with yellowish and greenish tinges, the fug descended suddenly in the morning, prompting people to rush to put on face masks, witnesses told AFP.

The official Xinhua news agency quoted the environmental protection department of Hubei province saying in a statement: "Children, the elderly and people with heart or respiratory diseases are advised to stay indoors."

Xinhua said straw burning was the cause and denied there had been any industrial accidents in or near Wuhan, after Internet rumours suggested there had been an explosion at a chemical complex northeast of the city.

"I looked out of the window of my office and I could not believe my eyes," said resident Li Yunzhong.

"At first I thought it was going to rain. In 31 years in Wuhan I have never known anything like it. We are very worried because we do not know what it is."

France's consulate-general in the central city advised residents to stay at home, close their windows and limit the use of air-conditioning.

"The source of the thick cloud that has covered the city of Wuhan since this morning is at present unknown," it said on its website.

"Local authorities have promised us the information as soon as possible."

Xinhua described the haze as grey-yellow in colour and said it was seen in seven cities in Hubei province, including Wuhan.

Air pollution is increasingly acute in major Chinese cities and authorities are frequently accused of underestimating the severity of the problem in urban areas, especially in Beijing.

Air-quality monitoring showed Wuhan's PM10 particulate concentration stood at 0.574 mg per cubic metre at 2:00 pm, more than triple the daily average of 0.150 mg, Xinhua reported.

But it quoted the environmental protection department saying industrial accidents were not responsible and analysis showed an increase in carbon particles from burning organic matter.

"Many farmers choose to burn crops that are left behind in their fields after harvesting," Xinhua said.

But Li was sceptical. "I doubt that," he said. "We don't practise large-scale shifting agriculture in our region."

Another resident told AFP she was leaving the city because of the cloud.

Wuhan is the capital of Hubei province and an industrial centre where many foreign firms have set up factories, including the French automotive group PSA Peugeot Citroën.

Alstom also manufactures boilers for coal-fired power plants there.

China's environment suffers from industrial pollution, increasing traffic and lax protection measures.

Official air-quality statistics are sometimes at odds with non-government measurements, and are often viewed with distrust.

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v176/RaoulSaloon/Saloonies/wuhanhaze.jpg)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on June 12, 2012, 10:44:32 PM
A couple more pictures from Wuhan.

(http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a197/Bissessar/Expat%20Saloon/Wuhan1.jpg)

(http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a197/Bissessar/Expat%20Saloon/Wuhan2.jpg)

Even with an unholy amount of rain lately, it's not looking so good in Changsha either.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on June 12, 2012, 10:47:16 PM
What I've heard about this is that the explosion was at a chlorine plant but I that's just rumour really.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Raoul F. Duke on June 12, 2012, 11:12:50 PM
Could be a preliminary stage or by-product, I guess. If it were pure chlorine gas no one in Wuhan would be on their feet, much less on a bicycle.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Nolefan on June 12, 2012, 11:21:14 PM
beijing has so far managed a record... 3 consecutive days of honest to goodness blue skies. We even have beautiful cloud formations.  bhbhbhbhbh bhbhbhbhbh bhbhbhbhbh agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on June 13, 2012, 12:31:55 AM
I do not want to piss on Wuhan's parade but the view looks similar to many of the days in Hangzhou.

This is the view from my window at 4pm today  - it has been like this all day.

 
(http://i953.photobucket.com/albums/ae15/xwarrior6/junk%20-%20odds%20and%20ends%20from%20other%20places/T3Image00003.jpg)



(http://i953.photobucket.com/albums/ae15/xwarrior6/junk%20-%20odds%20and%20ends%20from%20other%20places/T3Image00002.jpg)



(http://i953.photobucket.com/albums/ae15/xwarrior6/junk%20-%20odds%20and%20ends%20from%20other%20places/T3Image00001.jpg)
 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on June 13, 2012, 12:36:03 AM
That's what it looks like in Changsha but that yellow tint in Wuhan is not from being artistic with the photos apparently.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on June 13, 2012, 12:57:32 AM
That's what it looks like in Changsha but that yellow tint in Wuhan is not from being artistic with the photos apparently.


My apologies to the good citizens of Wuhan - or those of you who are not abed and are still alive! After checking some numbers it sure looks like you are having a bad day:

Hangzhou API = 101 = Grade 3A

Wuhan    API = 233 = Grade 4A
(and I imagine they have not included the 'yellow stuff' in that)

http://english.mep.gov.cn/

I hate to imagine what it is like in Wuhan at this time.


 
  
  

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: adamsmith on June 13, 2012, 01:06:23 AM
I am just glad I am not living there anymore with this happening. It was always hazy there, but this one today is a strange one and that would worry me for sure. I think I would have to chain smoke to filter out the pollutants in the air just to stay healthy. bfbfbfbfbf agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: NATO on June 13, 2012, 02:12:38 AM
It's been horrendous in Hangzhou today. Just got back inside, the whole afternoon I've felt like I smoked a packet of cigarettes last night. Had a dry throat and an acrid taste at the back of my mouth as well. Disgusting and it looks like the apocalypse is upon us. Feel sorry for the people of Wuhan, we'll probably not know the truth for a while. Shows such a blatant disregard for people's welfare. It's on days like this I feel blessed I can go home in less than 2 months.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on June 13, 2012, 03:47:46 AM
That's what it looks like in Changsha but that yellow tint in Wuhan is not from being artistic with the photos apparently.


My apologies to the good citizens of Wuhan - or those of you who are not abed and are still alive! After checking some numbers it sure looks like you are having a bad day:

Hangzhou API = 101 = Grade 3A

Wuhan    API = 233 = Grade 4A

(and I imagine they have not included the 'yellow stuff' in that)

http://english.mep.gov.cn/

I hate to imagine what it is like in Wuhan at this time.


Yeah it is pretty much the same as Hangzhou in Changsha. Wuhan looks really rough.

Changsha API = 124 = Grade 3A
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: The Hiphoppopotomous on June 13, 2012, 08:16:34 AM
nanchang is also shrouded in fog today for the first time since i got here.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on June 13, 2012, 02:33:53 PM
US Embassy warns of "particularly poor" air quality in Wuhan

From a newsletter emailed by the US Embassy this morning:
The Embassy has received reports from U.S. citizens living and traveling in Wuhan that the air quality in the city has been particularly poor since yesterday morning. On June 11 at 16:20, the Wuhan Environmental Protection Administrative Bureau posted information about this on its website. Below is a translation of that information:
"Beginning on June 11, 2012 around 08:00 AM, the air quality inside Wuhan appeared to worsen, with low visibility and burning smells. According to city air data, starting at 07:00 AM this morning, the density of the respiratory particulate matter increased in the air downtown; it increased quickly after 08:00 AM. The density at 14:00 approached 0.574mg/m3, a level that is deemed "serious" by national standards. An analysis of the air indicates the pollution is caused from burning of plant material northeast of Wuhan.
Our investigation of downtown's districts, and based on reports from all of Wuhan's large industrial enterprises, have determined that that there has not been any explosion, sewage release, leakage of any poisoning gas, or any other type of urgent environmental accident from large industrial enterprises. Nor is there burning of crops in the new city area. News spread online of a chlorine leak from Qingshan or a boiler explosion at Wuhan Iron and Steel Plant are rumors.
According to our investigation, the abnormal air quality in our city is mainly caused by the burning of the crops northeast of Wuhan towards Hubei province. Similar air quality is occurring in Jiangsu, Henan and Anhui provinces, as well as in Xiaogan, Jingzhou, Jingmen and Xiantao, cities nearby Wuhan.
The weather forecast authority of the city has advised that recent weather conditions have not been good for the dispersion of pollutants."
U.S. citizens are reminded that air pollution is a significant problem in many cities and regions in China. Health effects are likely to be more severe for sensitive populations, including children and older adults. While the quality of air can differ greatly between cities or between urban and rural areas, U.S. citizens living in or traveling to China may wish to consult their doctor when living in or prior to traveling to areas with significant air pollution.
The traditional burning of straw has been pinpointed as the main culprit, according to the Global Times:
The Hubei Provincial Environmental Protection Department released its initial investigation results Monday afternoon, saying the possibility of industrial pollution being the cause had been eliminated, with the most likely culprit being the burning of straw in neighboring provinces.
The sudden invasion of haze was similar to one in Jiangsu Province over the weekend when residents of several cities felt suffocated while smelling something burning.
The Nanjing Environmental Protection Bureau (NEPB) announced on its official microblog on Saturday night that the instant value of the air pollution index jumped to 478, making it the most polluted city among the 120 cities publishing the same index.
The PM2.5 readings in 13 cities all greatly exceeded the standard as of Sunday night, according to the Yantze Evening News.
The rarely seen pollution even swept into some cities in Shandong and Henan provinces. The provincial observatory of Jiangsu issued a yellow warning signal for haze on Sunday, as did Wuhan Monday.
The NEPB on Sunday pointed to the burning of straw in Jiangsu and Anhui as the primary cause for the pollution, which was exacerbated by unfavorable meteorological factors.
The Nanjing city government later pledged to strengthen investigations into the straw burning, which was made illegal in 2009, and work to find an alternative to the oudated tradition."

http://shanghaiist.com/2012/06/12/us-embassy-air-quality-wuhan.php

Seems like a reasonable explanation to me. Australian bushfires sometimes cause haze over New Zealand and we are more than 2000kms from the source.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on June 15, 2012, 11:53:22 AM


Nanjing:  API = 471   aoaoaoaoao

Nanjing air like smoking 15 packs of cigarettes, say experts
Staff Reporter 2012-06-14 12:52 (GMT+8)


http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?id=20120614000068&cid=1105
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: The Local Dialect on June 20, 2012, 03:49:27 PM
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/weird-wide-web/rare-mushroom-found-chinese-villagers-actually-fake-vagina

The link sort of says it all.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Fozzwaldus on June 20, 2012, 06:20:34 PM
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/weird-wide-web/rare-mushroom-found-chinese-villagers-actually-fake-vagina

The link sort of says it all.

see my 'Mystery Mushroom' thread. What a story!

How did it come to be buried?  mmmmmmmmmm
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on June 20, 2012, 07:12:16 PM

I never did care for Suzhou food.

139 Japanese students sick after visiting China (http://www.chinasmack.com/2012/stories/139-japanese-high-school-students-sick-after-visiting-china.html)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on June 22, 2012, 08:28:46 PM
Changsha guy dies after watching too much euro-cup (http://www.beijingshots.com/2012/06/chinese-soccer-fan-dies-after-watching-euro-2012-matches/)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Monkey King on June 22, 2012, 10:37:28 PM
Quote
Plus, the man took a shower quickly after drinking, causing his blood sugar level to drop dramatically

Holy crap, that staple of bachelorhood, the 'shower beer (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Shower%20beer)' has in fact been endangering our lives all along but we didn't know it!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on June 23, 2012, 03:08:35 AM
This is really tough.

Missouri businessman is stranded in China. (http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/missouri-businessman-is-stranded-in-china/article_d8d34c94-ffbd-5d14-97f5-58e2989ed094.html)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on June 23, 2012, 11:07:04 PM
OWch!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on June 24, 2012, 05:14:52 AM
Changsha guy dies after watching too much euro-cup (http://www.beijingshots.com/2012/06/chinese-soccer-fan-dies-after-watching-euro-2012-matches/)

I once spent 6 days doing nothing but listening to loud music, taking drugs and drinking and passing out before waking up to dirnk and take more drugs

Good thing I didn't shower while doing it!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: NATO on June 24, 2012, 05:30:33 AM
And they complain about the quality of people teaching English here...what do they know, eh?!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Monkey King on June 26, 2012, 10:04:04 PM
OK, this is gonna get posted sooner or later so it may as well be me:

Shanghai Subway Tells Scantily Clad Women To Expect Sexual Harassment (http://tealeafnation.com/2012/06/shanghai-subway-tells-scantily-clad-women-to-expect-sexual-harassment/)

(Includes a helpful pic of how not to dress...)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Raoul F. Duke on June 26, 2012, 11:48:28 PM
By the way, the site referred to by MK (Tea Leaf Nation) is excellent...an English-language digest of Chinese social media. I've added a link to it to our General Information Links page. bjbjbjbjbj
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Monkey King on June 27, 2012, 03:28:24 PM
Really?  I just look at the pics! 

Maybe Shanghai needs this idea until certain male attitudes catch up with their more liberated female counterparts:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women-only_passenger_car
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on June 27, 2012, 04:10:17 PM
Segregation is always a good idea. They should keep the back of buses for women too.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: pydilyk on July 10, 2012, 02:59:57 AM
Nice short summary and video of the gaokao. It's definitely something that anyone teaching in China, at any level, needs to know about. In my culture class I would explain the college admissions process in the US and the contrast would make it even clearer how ruthlessly unfair things are under the current system.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/01/world/asia/burden-of-chinas-college-entrance-test-sets-off-wide-debate.html?_r=1
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on August 17, 2012, 07:15:01 PM
Violent Attack Targets Foreigner (http://www.cityweekend.com.cn/beijing/articles/blogs-beijing/expat-life/violent-attack-beijing-anti-foreigner/)

On Friday night, around 8pm, a foreign man was walking with his Chinese boss from the SOHO Nexus building towards the Sanlitun SOHO building. As they approached the intersection of Baijiazhuang Lu, four Chinese men appeared from nowhere and began attacking them. From his account, three of them were beating him while one went after his boss.

He was thrown to the ground, beaten in the face and kicked repeatedly, all while yelling for them to stop. There were other people in the area at the time, but none stepped in to offer assistance. At some point during the attack, he managed to break free, only to be struck from behind. A few moments later the assailants suddenly stopped, and ran off.

The most chilling part of the story is what happened next. As they ran away, one of the men shouted (in English), "Get the f*ck out of our country! We don't want your kind here!" He suffered a mild concussion and some other minor injuries as a result of the attack.
According to the expat, this was not an attempted robbery and the men did not seem at all intoxicated. He had never seen them before, meaning there was no way this was some sort of retaliation for a perceived wrong. It was a genuinely random attack, specifically targeted at a foreigner.

The reason he came forward with his story was because he feels as though he's likely not the first person this has happened to. He wants people to understand that when they see a fight happening, it's not always a drunken brawl. Sometimes people genuinely need help and he hopes in the future that bystanders, foreign and Chinese alike, will at least consider stepping in.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Monkey King on August 17, 2012, 08:25:47 PM
Hmm...Not good.  I've been wondering if this would flare up again.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Fozzwaldus on August 17, 2012, 11:15:23 PM
and yet stories like this will never make the national media, but if a foreigner gets filmed being angry on a subway he will lose his job and have to apologise for hurting a nations feelings...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on August 18, 2012, 01:48:23 PM
Been back in the states four weeks and there have been three mass murders. One just 12 miles from my house where six Sihks were murdered during Sunday services. Oh to be back in China where it's sane. WHAT THE HELL DID I JUST SAY???
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Monkey King on August 20, 2012, 04:22:51 AM
Foreigner assaults Chinese woman, surrounded by angry mob (http://v.qq.com/cover/q/qppgok8bgx3pd4p.html?vid=i0010erDVUJ)

In Zhengzhou, and apparently he slapped and spat on the woman after a minor traffic incident.  We don't see this, but we do see the mob and they look about ready to kill the guy.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: old34 on August 20, 2012, 05:38:06 AM
There's a brief shot of the guy inside the car and it looks like he's wearing a Walmart name tag (about 1'55").
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Monkey King on September 24, 2012, 02:49:42 PM
Kiwi on death row in China (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10835900)

A Kiwi drug convict on death row in China is mounting a last-ditch legal challenge to have the sentence commuted to life imprisonment.

The New Zealand citizen is believed to be the first condemned to death since Lorraine and Aaron Cohen in 1982.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Monkey King on October 15, 2012, 02:28:56 PM
Phew, just when I was getting worried at the dearth of 'Bad Laowai' stories, this guy comes along and makes up for the dry spell:

Foreigner Slashes Waiter At Jianguomen Hotel, Steals Car, Hits Four Vehicles... (http://beijingcream.com/2012/10/drunk-foreigner-stabs-waiter-steals-car-hits-four-vehicles/)

Quote
Hotel manager Ms. Zhu was quoted as saying that this foreigner was a guest at the hotel and “is Russian.”

“He had already been drinking a lot when he checked in this morning,” she said. “I told the servers to pay extra attention, but I never would have thought that such an incident would happen in the afternoon.”
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on October 15, 2012, 03:29:50 PM
I'm sure almost everyone has had the urge to slap a waiter at least once, but slashing one is another matter entirely.  What the hell was that guy smoking? kkkkkkkkkk
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: technolust on November 19, 2012, 01:36:21 AM
This is really tough.

Missouri businessman is stranded in China. (http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/missouri-businessman-is-stranded-in-china/article_d8d34c94-ffbd-5d14-97f5-58e2989ed094.html)

I tried to find some more recent news, but couldn't find anything. I wouldn't be surprised if he was still in Xiamen. The part about him being away from his family was quite heart-breaking.

He's on the books as the legal rep. He also lent to (and was re-paid by) the mother company a substantial sum of money at one point, this doesn't look good for him at all.

Detention is a common way to collect a debt in China, with the government's help or without. Even if the detention is a private act and therefore illegal, it is not considered the same as kidnapping for ransom. Kidnapping can be punished severely (life sentences), illegal detention to collect a debt lands you in prison for two years max.

If he doesn't know much about doing business in China, why didn't he seek advice from experienced people? How can someone be so ignorant, yet become a CEO of a fairly large corporation?

Picture this: the company owes money, even to its own employees, and it will not be able to pay any time soon. Instead of staying in the USA and having a lawyer handle the bankruptcy, he comes over here himself.

Not exposed enough being in China, he comes to the city where the company is registered and visits the factory. What did he expect? That the employees would just shrug their shoulders about their back pay?

Ok, so he's at that factory. What's best to do? Yes, let's invite some more people that we owe money. There are apparently a fairly large number of creditors, did he assume these would each send just one representative? Did he think this mob would calmy discuss their grievances and make reasonable compromises?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on November 23, 2012, 01:13:08 AM
I keep joking about the apocalypse, but now it's really here.

No more Twinkies.  No more Wonder Bread.  It's over.  It's all over.
 ananananan ananananan ananananan ananananan ananananan ananananan ananananan ananananan ananananan ananananan

The end of Hostess (http://news.yahoo.com/hostess-gets-ok-begin-winding-down-business-205826635--finance.html;_ylt=As6f6whLUOEVeyfzDw_PpgrbFr8C;_ylu=X3oDMTVxbzJwMHZ0BGNjb2RlA2dtcHRvcDEwMDBwb29sd2lraXVwcmVzdARtaXQDQXJ0aWNsZSBNaXhlZCBMaXN0IE5ld3MgZm9yIFlvdSB3aXRoIE1vcmUgTGluawRwa2cDN2VmZmVmNDAtN2IwZS0zMTU1LWExNGEtMGRhMjM4ODM3ODEzBHBvcwM2BHNlYwNuZXdzX2Zvcl95b3UEdmVyAzYzZjU0ZTU4LTM0MzMtMTFlMi04NWFmLTNjZDkyYmZmMjAxNg--;_ylg=X3oDMTJyZHNudnA2BGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDN2Y1ZGM1MmYtYmFmZS0zMzA2LThlZWItYWI2ZTMzZjRiN2M1BHBzdGNhdANob21lfG9kZARwdANzdG9yeXBhZ2U-;_ylv=3)

Bring on the comets, asteroids, financial meltdown, nuclear war, zombie outbreaks, etc.  None of it matters anymore.
 ananananan ananananan ananananan ananananan ananananan ananananan ananananan ananananan
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on November 23, 2012, 01:15:30 PM
http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/22/world/europe/vatican-pope-jesus-book/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

So there were no cows or other farmyard animals present at that manger in Bethlehem and the choir angelic was not ushering in the arrival of the newborn King of Kings with hosannas and fierce harp-solo's ...only 176 pages...Seems like a slapdash job. Couldn't Il Papa have gone a little further and finally explained that whole thing with the fish and what kind of PA system was used for the Sermon on the Mount and whether or not that whole wedding in Canaan was just a story put in there to cover up the fact that the Messiah worked as a divine bootlegger on the sly. I mean, he had to make some scratch somehow, those twelve apostles weren't going to feed themselves.  agagagagag agagagagag

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Monkey King on November 23, 2012, 02:45:27 PM
'Nail house' to beat all nail houses?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2236746/Road-built-building-couple-refuse-China.html
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: piglet on November 23, 2012, 06:36:16 PM
@ETR well I am relieved to hear that my brethren did not kill Jesus  bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on November 27, 2012, 06:39:50 PM
@ETR well I am relieved to hear that my brethren did not kill Jesus  bibibibibi
But Jesus WAS killed by Jews. The Pope is saying that the Jewish race is not responsible; not that it was done by Jews.

I'll never understand why this is a controversy. Jesus was SUPPOSED to die according to the doctrine. That was the whole point of his being here as man. If you're a Christian, shouldn't you welcome his death. Don't you, literally, celebrate it?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: piglet on December 01, 2012, 12:15:48 AM
Sorry ETR you are looking for LOGIC,in a RELIGION?? loaves and fishes,immaculate conception,transubstantiation,.. shall I go on?  kkkkkkkkkk
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on December 01, 2012, 01:45:01 AM
Piglet, you may not know it but I minored in history of religion so trust me, I know how illogical they are...all of them...I mean, really, God has so little to do that It will actually tell a father to kill his own son just so It can stop him? For what? A laugh? And God really cares if we cut pieces of male genitalia??? I don't think so. The only logical explanation for any religion is that God, being omnipotent and omniscient, is also incredibly bored and invented all the faiths of the world just to see how much It could mess with us (Yeah, I do think the PC form of God would be Neuter). I was simply arguing that, seeing Papa Palpatine(the man looks like Palpatine) decided to write a book explaining certain things in the Bible, he should have gone the whole hog and cleared up all of it. For instance, how did Adam, when naming all the animals, come up with Xenopus?
Why does God only talk to people when they are walking around, half-delirous from thirst, in a desert? Why did God create taxes? You know, I think we are owed certain explanations. Also, it is not news that the Jewish people did not kill Jesus, the Romans did. The Jewish people chose Barabbas over Jesus. Well, Israel was occupied. Barabbas was a Zionist freedom fighter who killed two Romans, Jesus sprouted parables and handed out fish and helped people get drunk at weddings...Seems pretty clear to me why they chose Barabbas to be released.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: piglet on December 02, 2012, 02:02:54 AM
believe you mate. Check out "Jerusalem Syndrome" people who go nuts when they visit the Holy City I happen to reside in. We even have a pub named after it  ahahahahah
Lots of people think they talk to God -the problem is with those who think God has answered them.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: caley1313 on December 02, 2012, 04:01:34 AM
believe you mate. Check out "Jerusalem Syndrome" people who go nuts when they visit the Holy City I happen to reside in. We even have a pub named after it  ahahahahah
Lots of people think they talk to God -the problem is with those who think God has answered them.


So, true...ain't been many wars that weren't in the name of some religion.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Monkey King on December 21, 2012, 04:33:36 PM
Shark tank bursts on East Nanjing Road (http://shanghaiist.com/2012/12/19/shark_tank_bursts_on_nanjing_pedest.php#photo-1)

Quote
Following the sudden burst of the tank...water flooded the pedestrian street...the dead sharks lay scattered around

It's not the first time the tank has had safety issues. In June, four turtles were removed from the tank after a water pipe broke, killing two sharks.

"We will not build an aquarium again in the future," said Chen Yongping, an official with the store's management.

I should think not...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on February 06, 2013, 05:11:36 PM
The Dead Rise From Their Coffins!
First Signs of Zombie Plague in China!


It's begun.  A dead woman got up in the middle of her funeral. aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao

http://www.china.org.cn/china/2013-01/23/content_27773242.htm

http://now.msn.com/peng-xiuhua-a-101-year-old-woman-wakes-up-at-own-funeral-in-shenshuidong-village-china

Professional recommendations to prevent this sort of incident include using screws instead of nails on coffin lids, hiring armed guards to protect mourners, and cremating at quickly as possible.  Remember, the brains you save may be your own.


Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on February 07, 2013, 11:48:27 AM
EL, that's why my family has been instructed to wait three days before disposing of my earthly remains. bfbfbfbfbf I'm claustrophobic you see and I would die of fright if I woke up in a box. aoaoaoaoao  ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on February 07, 2013, 04:09:28 PM
If you did die of fright, at least you would be in a convenient location already. ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on February 08, 2013, 01:53:15 AM
If you did die of fright, at least you would be in a convenient location already. ahahahahah

And since the funeral is already paid for, you might as well use it.

I wonder if anyone can validate these two, relevant, legends.

1.) A wake is called that because it was done to make sure the person was really dead and, if not, people would be there when he "waked up".

2.) A bell would be tied to the corpse when buried so that if he became conscious he would move and ring it, thus the term "saved by the bell" and the person monitoring the bell had the "graveyard shift".  The first one sounds more like a boxing metaphor so I'm skeptical.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on February 08, 2013, 10:55:03 AM
A-Train, I have heard of the second story, but can't remember any detail.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Just Like Mr Benn on February 08, 2013, 01:17:45 PM



I wonder if anyone can validate these two, relevant, legends.

1.) A wake is called that because it was done to make sure the person was really dead and, if not, people would be there when he "waked up".

2.) A bell would be tied to the corpse when buried so that if he became conscious he would move and ring it, thus the term "saved by the bell" and the person monitoring the bell had the "graveyard shift".  The first one sounds more like a boxing metaphor so I'm skeptical.

1. "While the modern usage of the verb "wake" is "become or stay alert" meaning, a "wake" for the dead harks back to the antiquated "watch" or "guard" sense. This is contrary to the urban legend that people at a wake are waiting in case the deceased should "wake up.""Ivan Brunetti; Wilton, David A. (2004). Word myths: debunking linguistic urban legends, via Wikipedia
Debunked here; "Those phrases may have had nothing to do with bells being attached to coffins to guard against premature burial, but such devices did exist and were occasionally used. Given that some people had sufficient fear of being buried alive to invest in such coffins, it is at least plausible that they would also have made arrangements for someone to monitor the grave so that their coffin's bell could be heard in the event of them ringing it. Nevertheless, and as usual with phrase etymology, plausibility and truth are only distant relatives". http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/graveyard-shift.html
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on February 08, 2013, 05:36:38 PM
Regarding #2, I'd hard that described as a "dead ringer".
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on February 08, 2013, 05:42:25 PM



I wonder if anyone can validate these two, relevant, legends.

1.) A wake is called that because it was done to make sure the person was really dead and, if not, people would be there when he "waked up".

2.) A bell would be tied to the corpse when buried so that if he became conscious he would move and ring it, thus the term "saved by the bell" and the person monitoring the bell had the "graveyard shift".  The first one sounds more like a boxing metaphor so I'm skeptical.

1. "While the modern usage of the verb "wake" is "become or stay alert" meaning, a "wake" for the dead harks back to the antiquated "watch" or "guard" sense. This is contrary to the urban legend that people at a wake are waiting in case the deceased should "wake up.""Ivan Brunetti; Wilton, David A. (2004). Word myths: debunking linguistic urban legends, via Wikipedia
Debunked here; "Those phrases may have had nothing to do with bells being attached to coffins to guard against premature burial, but such devices did exist and were occasionally used. Given that some people had sufficient fear of being buried alive to invest in such coffins, it is at least plausible that they would also have made arrangements for someone to monitor the grave so that their coffin's bell could be heard in the event of them ringing it. Nevertheless, and as usual with phrase etymology, plausibility and truth are only distant relatives". http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/graveyard-shift.html

Figures.  All the cool legends get debunked.  You can't see the Great Wall from the moon...The U.S. Interstate Highway System was NOT built for defense purposes, (And not initiated by Eisenhower), and now the wake/bell disillusionment. Now I know why, "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance", Maxwell Scott says, "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend".
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on February 08, 2013, 05:51:20 PM
regarding the second, look up Bateson's belfry.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: becster79 on February 19, 2013, 04:38:26 AM
Tesco jokes I've heard recently (I wish they were my own!!)

“I'm so hungry, I could eat a horse..... I guess Tesco just listened!

Anyone want a burger from Tesco? Yay or neigh?

Not entirely sure how Tesco are going to get over this hurdle.

Waitress in Tesco asked if I wanted anything on my Burger. So I had £5 each way!

Had some burgers from Tesco for my tea last night .....
I still have a bit between my teeth.

A woman has been taken into hospital after eating horse meat burgers from Tesco.
Her condition is said to be stable.

Tesco are now testing all their vegetarian burgers for traces of unicorn

"I've just checked the Tesco burgers in my freezer .... AND THEY'RE OFF"

Tesco now forced to deny presence of zebra in burgers,
as shoppers confuse barcodes for serving suggestions.

Said to the missus, These Tesco burgers give me the trots....

"To beef or not to beef, that is equestrian".....

A cow walks into a bar.
Barman says, "Why the long face?"
Cow says "Illegal ingredients, coming over here stealing our jobs!"

I hear the smaller version of those Tesco burgers make great horse d'oeuvres.

These Tesco burger jokes are going on a bit....
Talk about flogging a dead horse!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on February 19, 2013, 01:15:11 PM
 bkbkbkbkbk These should be in the Jokes thread ahahahahah
Title: Banning Barbecues??
Post by: George on February 21, 2013, 03:50:59 PM
Beijing is considering a ban on BBQs.  ahahahahah ahahahahah  bibibibibi
http://www.theage.com.au/world/china-considers-bbq-ban-to-combat-smog-20130221-2esi7.html (http://www.theage.com.au/world/china-considers-bbq-ban-to-combat-smog-20130221-2esi7.html)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on February 21, 2013, 04:03:00 PM
Sure, ban BBQs and let the big factories emit to their hearts content  llllllllll asasasasas
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: mlaeux on February 21, 2013, 04:12:22 PM
Seriously?  llllllllll
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on February 22, 2013, 04:34:57 AM
Quote
Seriously?

You can't make this stuff up. Well you could try, but in a tall tales competition, China reality would win over western imagination 9 times out of 10. Remember when China Daily reprinted something from The Onion as a serious news story? That's because they're used to it being true.
Title: Massive whisky spill
Post by: latefordinner on March 02, 2013, 04:52:42 AM
Seeing as how we have a discussion at the bar turning towards the topic of scots whisky, i though this might be of interest.

Quote
Massive whisky spill at Chivas distillery sends spirits pouring into Scottish sewer

LONDON—A massive spill at a Chivas plant has sent the smell of spirits flowing through a Scottish sewer and sorrow coursing through the hearts of Scotch whisky fans.

Chivas Brothers Ltd. spokeswoman Jennifer Stevenson says the group is investigating what she described as an “accidental loss” of spirit at the company’s bottling plant in Dumbarton, Scotland on Feb. 26.

She declined to estimate how much of the bulk whisky had been lost, saying only that it was less than the 18,000 litres (4,755 gallons) mentioned in media reports.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on March 02, 2013, 10:03:34 AM
How did they notice?  mmmmmmmmmm
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: piglet on March 28, 2013, 03:01:22 AM
ETR's countrymen being a little "Too Chinese"?
http://www.whatsonxiamen.com/news30144.html (http://www.whatsonxiamen.com/news30144.html)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on March 28, 2013, 03:44:04 AM
Hmm...the sad thing is that it is not behaviour that surprises me. Disgusts me and makes me want to slap them, yes, but not surprising at all... llllllllll llllllllll llllllllll
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: piglet on March 28, 2013, 12:35:57 PM
I think they were just trying to be "when in Rome,,,,," actually
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: cruisemonkey on March 28, 2013, 01:42:51 PM
If you're going to consume massive quantities of Chinese Carlsberg, get a bus with a 'head'.  bbbbbbbbbb
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Fozzwaldus on March 28, 2013, 01:54:20 PM
Hmm...the sad thing is that it is not behaviour that surprises me. Disgusts me and makes me want to slap them, yes, but not surprising at all... llllllllll llllllllll llllllllll

I really can't see this being a big deal if it was a gang of Chinese tourists peeing on a motorway in Ireland.

There'd be a bit of smirking and a smatter of banter, but none of this 'this isn't the late Qing Dynasty, laowai!' hysteria that inevitably follows (or is portrayed on Chinasmack and the like)

...

Come to think of it I can't even see this being a big deal if it was a bus of Chinese tourists in China.

This laowai-in-China narrative is getting old
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on March 28, 2013, 01:58:00 PM
"Police said it could not punish the Danes as there was no regulation against urinating on an elevated road."
 axaxaxaxax
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on March 28, 2013, 04:45:00 PM
The g/f showed me that picture yesterday. Even she said that the local authorities were rediculous. Her first comment was, "Look, just like Chinese!"
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on March 28, 2013, 05:01:07 PM
Something else I noticed about that article was that the fine was only 200yuan! For making an emergency stop on an elevated roadway in a massive bus
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on March 28, 2013, 05:29:21 PM
The cash fine was small.  The bad part for the driver was 6 points on his license.  One more incident like this and he'll need a new job for 12 months.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: NATO on March 28, 2013, 05:53:08 PM
Quote
The driver, surnamed Bian

大还是小?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on March 28, 2013, 06:04:35 PM
Quote
Even she said that the local authorities were rediculous. Her first comment was, "Look, just like Chinese!"

Yeah, that was my thought too. Maybe the problem was that they were peeing on the wrong side of the bus, they should have been on the other side peeing into oncoming traffic with the locals?

I hate seeing the driver getting penalized for this. Hope the laowei take up a collection and pay his fine for him.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: roadwalker on March 28, 2013, 06:13:57 PM
So the question is whether the Dane should urinate or not?  Am I missing an easy pun, or anything else? Or is that even the question?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on March 28, 2013, 06:58:46 PM
Quote
The driver, surnamed Bian

大还是小?

 agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on March 28, 2013, 07:39:07 PM
Something else I noticed about that article was that the fine was only 200yuan! For making an emergency stop on an elevated roadway in a massive bus

Yeah.  Don't they usually give out awards for that?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Monkey King on March 31, 2013, 06:44:02 PM
China trade a risky business for Australians (http://www.smh.com.au/national/china-trade-a-risky-business-for-australians-20130330-2h066.html)

Carl Mather was quietly convicted of assault in January after attempting to resist four people who barged into his Chinese apartment, while he carried his three-year-old daughter in his arms.

The 54-year-old Australian English teacher opened the door of his Nanjing apartment to a man he knew, his compound manager Gao Long, but three others sprang from hiding places and forced their way in.

They were demanding to see his wife, Xie Qun, in a language he couldn't understand, and he feared they would abduct their daughter for leverage in an ongoing dispute over money and pride.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Guangzhou Writer on April 13, 2013, 04:27:00 PM
China trade a risky business for Australians

Quote
Last month Mr Mather was added to the list when he was quietly sentenced to one year's jail followed by deportation.

He was convicted for assault after being found guilty of inflicting a knife injury on one of the intruders and injuring the finger of another when it was jammed in the door.

Wow! Four people barge into your apartment and attack you, but it's only about what you did to them. Dayum.

I know this story isn't that unusual, but it's kind of shocking to me and I failed to properly take in this obvious element until the second reading:

Quote
Since November, Mr Mather has spent his days in a bedroom-size Chinese prison cell, shared with 15 men, while the assailants have never been investigated.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Guangzhou Writer on April 13, 2013, 04:43:00 PM
HK Milk Formula, Don't Take More Than Two Tins

http://www.lifeofguangzhou.com/node_981/node_989/node_997/node_1006/2013/03/05/1362448883138156.shtml

March 5, 2013

People leaving Hong Kong customs can only carry 1.8 kg (about two tins) of powdered formula, including milk powder and soya milk powder, for infants and children under 36 months.

A regulation has taken effect from March 1 in Hong Kong, limiting bringing baby milk formula to the mainland.

The new Import & Export (General) (Amendment) Regulation 2013 sets limits on the export of baby milk. People leaving Hong Kong customs can only carry 1.8 kg (about two tins) of powdered formula, including milk powder and soya milk powder, for infants and children under 36 months. Offenders will face a fine of up to HK0,000 (,000) and two years in jail.

Within two days after the amendment took effect, the Hong Kong customs detained 45 violators, including 26 Hong Kong residents, 18 Chinese mainlanders and one person with a foreign passport, according to Hong Kong's Information Service Department.

Hong Kong government determined to curb baby milk smuggling after an acute milk shortage reached a peak in 2012. Hong Kong mothers protested that customers from mainland China came to take away a large amount of baby milk, causing milk to fall short of supply and milk prices to skyrocket on the island.

The crush for milk smuggling from Hong Kong to mainland China is due to mainlanders' lack of faith in the Chinese mainland's milk industry. Since 2008, a series of milk scandals broke out in China and among the guilty companies some were household-known brands.

China's largest e-commerce platform Taobao.com has seen the price of baby milk exported from Hong Kong increase . A tin of milk powder now costs RMB275, 20% up since this January, according to sh.eastday.com.

(By Shi Yuanyuan)
Editor:Lynus Tan
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Guangzhou Writer on April 13, 2013, 04:45:57 PM
So there's an everyday product that people need for their babies and the demand is greater than the supply, so the price rises. The govt restricts the import (meaning sale). Gee, I wonder what will happen next? Total mystery, right?

Retailers couldn't just increase their supply or maybe open a store on the HK side close to the Shenzhen border? Hmmmmm. Curious.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on April 13, 2013, 04:57:24 PM
That one had me scratching my head too. mmmmmmmmmm

I mean, if you've got droves of customers coming across the border and emptying your shelves, the solution is to get more from your suppliers, raise prices, enjoy profits, etc.  Rationing the amount that can leave the country just seems silly.

If I had the time and cash, I'd rent a shop in the duty-free neutral zone at the HK-Shenzhen border and sell imported powdered milk at crazy prices.



For those who like to keep up with the news of the repulsive, there's been another "eel event" inside China.  Seems this one was self inflicted after the guy watched something in a very kinky film and decided to give it a try. Run a news search for eel if you want all the disgusting details. ahahahahah

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Guangzhou Writer on April 13, 2013, 06:26:20 PM
My interpretation of the restriction against importing milk powder to the mainland includes the article's mention that prices were rising in HK, which could be a problem for a lot of locals there, who can barely pay rent. Considering the economic benefit to HK retailers because of individuals, not dealers, who cross the border from mainland to shop in HK for milk powder, it seems that the incoming money could be a good thing and should be encouraged. Still important to consider that in the immediate sense, it might actually be causing deprivation for monetarily poor locals in HK.

However, when you consider the totality of the melamine scandal in China, USA, New Zealand, etc., in the context of obvious control mechanisms in those countries and the EU to prevent people from drinking the healthiest, freshest, safest varieties of milk and milk products, I really wonder if the restriction against importing healthier milk powder to the mainland is not only part of a trading agenda, but also part of a health agenda.

For example, Nestle, a huge Swiss food corp., will not allow importation of its Swiss milk powder to North America, and it was Nestle who was at the center of the melamine scandal in the USA that broke in 2009, leading to the immediate change in the FDA's re-classification of melamine as a toxin with zero safe levels, to allowing enough that a person my size/weight can "safely" consume 5 GRAMS (table spoon) per day. That regulatory change was made without public comment or testing, etc. I saw it as an edict from Nestle, your interpretation may vary.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on April 13, 2013, 08:58:29 PM
No, the limitation (I beleive) is on stuff that is directly imported to HK and TO BE SOLD THERE. There are endless companies and supplies of stuff imported to the mainland. Its just that those products have different ingredients. Folks are willing to pay a premium for made in/for [insert western country here] as opposed to made FOR China.

There isn't any shortage of baby powder. Chinese gov't has always restricted imports of foreign made products. The limit to 2 cans was because people were trucking it in by the truckload then selling off most of it. It was not for their personal use.

This allows the people who really want it can only get a limited number all for themselves. Remember, usually they go in as a group, each buying two tins. That could last 1 baby for months

And the profiteerers are screwed.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on April 13, 2013, 09:22:04 PM
and the people who were depending on the profiteers because they don't have the money or freedom to go to Hong Kong
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Guangzhou Writer on April 14, 2013, 02:19:31 AM
Yeah, that makes sense, DD. Goes along with the general import policies of the PRC, but raises the question of why not allow imports and then tax them to raise revenue, especially if this is an obvious health benefit item to growing babies.

I guess it was just time for a crack down on a hot item. The only question I still have is whether or not this is an HK policy as indicated by the article, or a PRC policy, or is there a difference?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on April 14, 2013, 02:58:51 AM
I regretfully forgot if it was mentioned in the papers. I'll check later, but I think its a PRC issue but also supported by HK authorities. I don't mean like of course they would, they are part of China, I mean they are dilegently working on this.

As for the people who were depending on the profiteers, there'e plenty of good safe stuff on this side of the fence. Its cheaper to go over there than depend on the Black Market. And its also easy since Chinese are free to travel to HK. The travel documents are simple, quick and inexpensive. The woman has anywhere from 6 months to about a year from the time she knows she's pregnant to the time she needs the stuff for her kid. If she can't go, hubby and family can repeatedly

Plenty of time to git over der, pa'dner
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on April 15, 2013, 02:35:25 PM
The rules and penalties on this are from the HK side.  As far as I can tell, if you are brave/foolish enough to risk the huge penalties and try bring a 3rd can across from HK with you and you can get it past the point where you hand in your HK exit card, Chinese customs won't treat it any differently than any other food purchased in HK.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: roadwalker on April 15, 2013, 08:02:59 PM
I was in HK a couple of weeks back and it definitely is a penalty to EXIT HK with more than 1.8 KG of baby formula powder.  Mainland families don't trust mainland milk/formula producers and also figure that Hong Kong has either no, or fewer problems with food quality.  Hence there must have been many a tourist who came down and loaded up with formula for family use or to sell to offset the price of the trip.  There were signs in the metro with warnings in English and Chinese.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: roadwalker on April 15, 2013, 08:31:22 PM
Now there's this:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2013/apr/08/baby-milk-powder-rationing-supermarkets?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487 (http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2013/apr/08/baby-milk-powder-rationing-supermarkets?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487)

Retailers have been asked to ration sales of baby milk powder by the manufacturer of Britain's two most popular brands after evidence that the products are being bought in bulk for "unofficial export" to China, where demand is high for foreign-made milk.

Danone, which makes Aptamil and Cow & Gate – the market leaders in the UK – has asked supermarkets and chemists to limit purchases to just two 900g tins per purchase. Asda, Sainsbury's, Tesco and Morrisons have already agreed to limit purchases to two units per customer and more retailers are expected to follow suit. {...}
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on April 15, 2013, 09:14:45 PM
One more news story like that and the panic buying will go world wide. aoaoaoaoao

Think a story can't trigger a shortage - think again.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AJohnny_Carson/Archive_1#what_about_this_toilet_paper_shortage.3F
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on April 16, 2013, 04:44:44 AM
Well I just read that China has signed a Free Trade Agreement with Iceland. I'm expecting a huge shift in the battle for economic supremacy because of this. Once you go over the North Pole (excuse me Santa) and through Russia, they are not that far apart. Only about 8,000 kms. Or about a million by sea


 bibibibibi

I mean what are they going to do, exchange rice for lava rocks?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on April 16, 2013, 06:46:23 AM
I just read all about Danone on wikipedia. They own everything

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Monkey King on April 16, 2013, 07:02:58 AM
Danone?  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mYoEpVXFbs
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Pashley on April 16, 2013, 09:02:31 AM
I just read all about Danone on wikipedia. They own everything

Except in China, where most of it was stolen by a "joint venture partner".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahaha_Joint_Venture_Company
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on April 16, 2013, 06:02:45 PM
I just read all about Danone on wikipedia. They own everything

Except in China, where most of it was stolen by a "joint venture partner".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahaha_Joint_Venture_Company

I read that wiki, there was a really interesting thing that they didn't make much of on there about them falling out that one of the early disagreements was the fact that Danone also had controlling stakes in Guangzhou and Shanghai's biggest bottled water companies!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on April 16, 2013, 06:54:46 PM
Stuff of legends. Arrogant French company tries to take over in China but lose out to a Chinese comrade.

The life story of Zong Qinghou is a model of how to succeed in China by ... being Chinese!

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

I read once that he draws something like RMB20 per day to cover his expenses, including meals. May, or may not, be true.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on April 19, 2013, 06:16:59 PM
What's with all the sinkholes lately? Are we being invaded from below? Now its a 3-car eater in Chicago.

Is the world shrinking? Fatigue? Land change (like climate change only wierder)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on April 19, 2013, 07:31:21 PM
What's with all the sinkholes lately? Are we being invaded from below? Now its a 3-car eater in Chicago.

Is the world shrinking? Fatigue? Land change (like climate change only wierder)

Zombie Apocalypse....Duh!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on April 19, 2013, 10:43:01 PM
What's with all the sinkholes lately? Are we being invaded from below? Now its a 3-car eater in Chicago.

Is the world shrinking? Fatigue? Land change (like climate change only wierder)

Zombie Apocalypse....Duh!

Leftover holes from the dead digging their way out of their graves. aoaoaoaoao
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on April 19, 2013, 11:03:43 PM
So I was right, we are attacked from below

Call Superman, beware the MolePeople
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on May 09, 2013, 05:10:26 AM
Why do I find this ironically funny:

Quote
Putin says Russia needs stronger defense against Afghan threats

http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCABRE9470GD20130508
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on May 10, 2013, 04:32:30 AM
Man who was voice of Charlie Brown sent to drug facility for stalking.


SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - The former child actor who was the voice of Charlie Brown in the 1960s "Peanuts" animated television specials was sentenced to a year in jail on Wednesday and immediately ordered to a residential drug treatment center by a California judge who told him: "Don't be a blockhead."

No news if the lady he stalk was "A little red-haired girl"

His reply: RATS!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on May 10, 2013, 04:50:09 AM
'good grief'
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: cruisemonkey on May 10, 2013, 12:53:56 PM
I charge 5 cents to give my co-workers psychiatric advice... and have doubled my income (uni). Unfortunately, their mental health is not improving.
 ababababab
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on May 10, 2013, 09:57:18 PM
Thank Buddha this could never happen in China.

DHAKA (Reuters) - The death toll from the catastrophic collapse of a Bangladesh factory building, the world's worst industrial accident since the Bhopal disaster in India in 1984, has climbed above 1,000 and more bodies might still be trapped inside as rescuers struggle to end the salvage operation.
More than two weeks after the accident, bodies were still being pulled from the rubble of the Rana Plaza complex, and on Friday a spokesman at the army control room coordinating the operation said the number of people confirmed to have been killed had reached 1,038.

About 4 million people work in Bangladesh's garment industry, making it the world's second-largest apparel exporter after China.

http://news.yahoo.com/bangladesh-building-collapse-death-toll-tops-1-000-055923561.html
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on May 16, 2013, 06:13:44 PM
Fake Condoms   bibibibibi


Well it’s official: China’s world-famous fake manufacturers have boldly gone where no men have gone before – manufacturing fake condoms. Chinese state media trumpeted the fact this week that police had busted a fake condom operation in the southern province of Fujian – back in March, actually.

Why authorities are making a big deal of it now isn’t clear. Perhaps they’re hoping to sound alarm bells – and alarming it is: police started to investigate after finding condoms selling on taobao.com, China’s largest online marketplace, for just 1 Yuan, or about 16 cents.

The investigation led them to a workshop in the southern province of Fujian, where they arrested two owners and 10 workers, and confiscated 2 million fake condoms.  The workshop was pushing out 20,000 “condoms” per day, packaged under brand names like Durex, as well a popular Chinese brand known as Jissbon  [edit: love that name] – a somewhat unfortunate translation of the name “James Bond.”

Two other workshops were also busted, one in the central Chinese province of Henan, and another in Zhejiang province, on the south east coast. But the story is bigger. Chinese entrepreneurs have also been exporting the product.

Media reports from Africa, where China has spent the better part of the last decade making itself an indispensable trading partner, show fake condoms from China have landed in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, as well as in other countries.  Earlier this month, Nigeria’s National Agency for Food and Drug Administration announced the arrest of a trader in the capital of Lagos who had hauled in counterfeit drugs, medicines and fake Rough Rider condoms from China.

Olisameka Osefoh told police he had been working with a cartel in China. He wasn’t the first: Osefoh’s arrest followed reports last month from the West African country of Ghana. FDA officials there warned the public to be on the look out for fake condoms from China marketed under the brand name “Be Safe.”

The state agency said batches of the condoms were inadequately lubricated, had visible holes and were prone to burst.




I have a question, how do they burst if they have holes?

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: cruisemonkey on May 16, 2013, 06:40:21 PM
Fake Condoms   



I have a question, how do they burst if they have holes?



I have a better question (rhetorical) -
Why does this news story not surprise me?  mmmmmmmmmm
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: roadwalker on May 16, 2013, 07:21:43 PM
Now there are fake news accounts!  Someone just copied Day Dreamer's post and put it here: http://thestar.blogs.com/worlddaily/2013/05/china-busts-bursting-condoms-at-home-but-exports-on-sale-in-africa.html (http://thestar.blogs.com/worlddaily/2013/05/china-busts-bursting-condoms-at-home-but-exports-on-sale-in-africa.html) .  Who knows where else it will end up?  /snark
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on May 16, 2013, 07:55:08 PM
Actually, I got it from The Star
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on May 16, 2013, 07:57:52 PM
I have a better question (rhetorical) -
Why does this news story not surprise me?  mmmmmmmmmm

You know what's coming next? China to perfect coning - fake people
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on May 16, 2013, 08:55:08 PM
You know what's coming next? China to perfect coning - fake people

Why would conical people be fake? mmmmmmmmmm

Or, assuming you meant cloning, all of I would like to remind the solo you that clones are people two.
 asasasasas
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on May 16, 2013, 09:54:26 PM
Clones can spell, I can't
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on May 16, 2013, 10:02:24 PM
Fake Condoms 

 brand names like Durex, as well a popular Chinese brand known as Jissbon  [edit: love that name] – a somewhat unfortunate translation of the name “James Bond.”


I think it's a VERY fortunate translation.  The only one better would have been "jizzban"
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on May 16, 2013, 10:27:11 PM
Clones can spell, I can't

All of I can spell, but sometimes too many hands on the keyboard causes difficulties.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on May 24, 2013, 01:38:33 AM
Two loonies behead a soldier in London and say that it was because of the UK's involvement in wars in Muslim lands, the news calls them terrorists and loads of racism kicks off

Aside from the shocking nature of the crime, I'm pretty annoyed about how everyone is calling it terrorism just because they were Muslims. When this sort of thing happens and it's Christians it's not terrorism....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22634468
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on May 24, 2013, 02:04:11 AM
Two loonies behead a soldier in London and say that it was because of the UK's involvement in wars in Muslim lands, the news calls them terrorists and loads of racism kicks off

Aside from the shocking nature of the crime, I'm pretty annoyed about how everyone is calling it terrorism just because they were Muslims. When this sort of thing happens and it's Christians it's not terrorism....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22634468

When it's Christians, we call it a Crusade
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on May 24, 2013, 03:06:53 AM
Two loonies behead a soldier in London and say that it was because of the UK's involvement in wars in Muslim lands, the news calls them terrorists and loads of racism kicks off

Aside from the shocking nature of the crime, I'm pretty annoyed about how everyone is calling it terrorism just because they were Muslims. When this sort of thing happens and it's Christians it's not terrorism....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22634468

When it's Christians, we call it a Crusade

As far as anyone knows it was just two insane people, there's been nothing in the news that points towards terrorism. One of the killers said that he was doing it because he was a Muslim but if he's not linked to anything then he's not a terrorist he's just a civilian who did a brutal murder.
The media and government always say that we need to get rid of this association with Islam and Terrorism and then whenever a Muslim does something violent it's automatically terrorism
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Guangzhou Writer on May 24, 2013, 04:27:28 AM
Two loonies behead a soldier in London and say that it was because of the UK's involvement in wars in Muslim lands, the news calls them terrorists and loads of racism kicks off

Aside from the shocking nature of the crime, I'm pretty annoyed about how everyone is calling it terrorism just because they were Muslims. When this sort of thing happens and it's Christians it's not terrorism....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22634468

When it's Christians, we call it a Crusade
I thought we called it "spreading democracy"?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on May 24, 2013, 05:07:38 AM
I thought we called it "spreading democracy"?

No, that's the 'mercans. Christians are crusaders, just ask us.

So this religious person leaves the sanctuary and splendor of his country. Goes to a western heathenistic imperialistic country. He hates what that country's government is doing. So he decides to kill a soldier because "that" soldier is committing crimes against his God and people?

It may be a small isolated incidence, maybe a racist (for religious reasons) act. Terrorism? I could see it. Wiki says:

Quote
Common definitions of terrorism refer only to those violent acts which are intended to create fear (terror); are perpetrated for a religious, political or, ideological goal; and deliberately target or disregard the safety of non-combatants (civilians). Some definitions now include acts of unlawful violence and war.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Guangzhou Writer on May 24, 2013, 05:15:00 AM
The definition of terrorism in the USA was established in the first Patriot Act. It is extremely broad: any crime that threatens life, blah, blah. Could be speeding.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on May 24, 2013, 05:15:17 AM
Sure 'nuf.  Who ever calls the Oklahoma City bombers terrorists? Even though they killed 168 people and openly declared intentions to overthrow the government.  But this goes on everywhere, no?  As George Carlin said, "Israeli murderers are called commandos. Arab commandos are called terrorists".
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Guangzhou Writer on May 24, 2013, 05:17:28 AM
Yeah, 99% of the time it's a meaningless label. Any definition being used by the US govt against whoever could be applied *to* the US govt.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on May 24, 2013, 05:19:31 AM
The definition of terrorism in the USA was established in the first Patriot Act. It is extremely broad: any crime that threatens life, blah, blah. Could be speeding.

(http://i536.photobucket.com/albums/ff324/aaronjmatteson/DUFE/photo.jpg)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on May 24, 2013, 05:25:41 AM
Regardless of whatever definition you use, this was a deliberate act 

Terrorist attacks are usually carried out in such a way as to maximize the severity and length of the psychological impact. Each act of terrorism is a “performance” devised to have an impact on many large audiences. Terrorists also attack national symbols, to show power and to attempt to shake the foundation of the country or society they are opposed to


The size is not the issue nor the determination of the moniker. These guys selected a soldir, a political tool and spewed religious rants along with the "get out of my country stuff"

= terrorism
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on May 24, 2013, 05:52:57 AM
I guess I'm naive.  I just see them as selfish acts of petty revenge.  If it makes the national news, it rises to the level of terrorism.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on May 24, 2013, 07:19:01 AM
The guy in the Youtube clip was from a Catholic Nigerian family. That's all I know about his background but from his strong London accent I'd guess that he grew up in London.

I suppose it does follow the definition of terrorism in that it was the use of extreme violence to make a political statement but until we know whether it was a one off or part of a bigger plan I think they should hold back on calling it terrorism.
I think people generally understand terrorism as something like Al-Qaieda or IRA where the atrocities are coordinated by a network or organisation, if it's just an isolated person or persons acting independently then it's a bit different (although I read today that Al-Qaieda's strategy has turned to trying to get isolated people to do mental things on their own steam)

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on May 24, 2013, 07:20:45 AM
I guess I'm naive.  I just see them as selfish acts of petty revenge.  If it makes the national news, it rises to the level of terrorism.

Nah, I think you're more like me, idealistic
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on May 24, 2013, 10:48:12 AM
Quote
That's all I know about his background but from his strong London accent I'd guess that he grew up in London.
Exactly, Kitano. I wondered about that.He obviously was influenced by somebody.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on May 24, 2013, 03:15:36 PM
He was BORN in England but heritage from Nigeria. 

Just crazy crazy crazy  agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on May 27, 2013, 02:26:14 PM
College Grads Are Jobless In China's "High-Growth" Economy (http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonchang/2013/05/26/college-grads-are-jobless-in-chinas-high-growth-economy/)

China’s Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security reports that 6.99 million students will graduate from institutions of higher learning in the country this year.  That’s the biggest class in the history of China, 190,000 more than in 2012.

Chinese leaders aren’t smiling, however.  There are not nearly enough jobs for all the fresh-faced talent, and the lack of opportunity reveals much about China’s faltering economy...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Monkey King on May 27, 2013, 03:07:02 PM
Just send 'em all on to do Master's...and then PhDs...maybe there'll be some jobs available by the time they eventually get out of the education system.  Of course by that time they'll have to re-train anyway...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on May 27, 2013, 04:17:21 PM
Maybe Mao was right, put them in the fields to plow
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on May 27, 2013, 04:56:28 PM
Maybe Mao was right, put them in the fields to plow

Except for the ones with degrees in accounting.  There's always a demand for more people to count beans. ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: piglet on May 28, 2013, 01:54:42 AM
Sorry guys he may have been a loony but also a terrorist.He had been listening to various extremist preacher guys and he felt he was doing it for some political cause.He ranted about getting "out of his country" meaning Afghanistan when he was born in the UK and family from Kenya but his "rationale" was motivated by the Muslim immam chappy telling him it's a good thing to decapitate all Kaffirs.I mean lots of "religious" people are loonies but they don't all go around spouting all kinds of political ideology and wanting to execute people,now do they?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on May 28, 2013, 03:53:04 AM
Sorry guys he may have been a loony but also a terrorist.He had been listening to various extremist preacher guys and he felt he was doing it for some political cause.He ranted about getting "out of his country" meaning Afghanistan when he was born in the UK and family from Kenya but his "rationale" was motivated by the Muslim immam chappy telling him it's a good thing to decapitate all Kaffirs.I mean lots of "religious" people are loonies but they don't all go around spouting all kinds of political ideology and wanting to execute people,now do they?

I just think it's different to how people generally understand terrorism.

Like that guy in Norway 2 years ago who murdered all of those schoolkids. He said that he was a far right terrorist, but he wasn't part of any organisation he just got a load of stuff into his head

When people think of terrorism they think of organisations and networks with a structure like a military organisation like Hamas or IRA. I'm not sure if either of them were that.

It seems to me that those two guys were people who had their heads turned rather than soldiers in some terrorist movement. I just hate the way that anything Islamic becomes terrorism straight away. America had that spate of mass shootings over the last couple of years and everyone is going 'what is wrong with society?' etc and then there was that one bomb attack in Boston and it was all 'Muslim Terrorism'
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: roadwalker on May 28, 2013, 04:22:24 AM
Terrorism is what the other guys do.  Shock and Awe, sending a message, collateral damage, keeping all options on the table, watering the tree of liberty, liberating people, liberating resources, liberating private phone conversations, keeping order, crowd control, enhanced interrogation techniques, and grammar control (for us English teachers) is what we do.  Terrorism is always about what the other guy does.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: piglet on May 28, 2013, 12:53:32 PM
True but you are still ignoring some core issues here regardlng Radical Muslims
This article puts it pretty well I think:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4383843,00.html (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4383843,00.html)
Of course "Some of my best friends" yada yada yada but you can't get around the indoctrination part of this.You don't get Buddhist terrorists (only self immolators of course) or modern crusaders in this mould.It's an educational /brainwashing issue for me.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on May 28, 2013, 01:24:47 PM
Remeber that dude who got drunk and midway through assaulting that woman got beaten up? Was that an isolated act or did it represent a wider sense of rapey entitlement that foreigners believe they have over China?

Identifying these violently murderous dudes as terrorists is really only a call for an increased institutional response to "terrorism" in general. As in, "this is just one example of what we must generally refuse to allow!" And what in general is that? Muslim faith? Social decay? Immigration? War? The target seems too vague.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: piglet on May 28, 2013, 11:15:48 PM
no CP the target is these Immam dudes who incite their followers to do such things He was taught by some chappy who told him that if he wants to get to Heaven he needs to hack off infidels' heads with a cleaver.
There is a dude called Abu Qatada right now sitting in prison in the UK and he can't be extradited to Jorden because he claims they might torture him there. Meanwhile he is preaching in prison to all kinds of other nutters,some of whom may then convert to Islam and then go out and do stuff. He is charismatic and dangerous but the UK harbours him because the law doesn't let them get rid of him.
It is ridiculous in my view.
It is also considered non PC to say nasty things about Muslims or to arrest Suspicious Muslim dudes because you get labelled a racist.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on May 28, 2013, 11:54:19 PM
There is a dude called Abu Qatada right now sitting in prison in the UK and he can't be extradited to Jorden because he claims they might torture him there. Meanwhile he is preaching in prison to all kinds of other nutters,some of whom may then convert to Islam and then go out and do stuff. He is charismatic and dangerous but the UK harbours him because the law doesn't let them get rid of him.
It is ridiculous in my view.

Can't they isolate him for advocating violence? They do it in the U.S. and it makes no difference why he's saying it.

It is also considered non PC to say nasty things about Muslims or to arrest Suspicious Muslim dudes because you get labelled a racist.


Maybe you didn't mean this exactly the way you said it, but I wouldn't consider it anti-PC to say nasty things about Muslims. I'd take it to be shallow.  And what is a "Suspicious Muslim dude"?  If he's carrying a bazooka, that is definitely suspicious.  If he's just wearing Muslim clothing, not so much.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on May 29, 2013, 02:39:58 AM
I totally agree with isolation.  Put him in total solitary confinement with no access to other prisoners.

I thought that just in the last couple of weeks they had found a way to deport him. 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: piglet on May 29, 2013, 03:15:59 AM
No they just lost the latest appeal to deport him
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/27/abu-qatada-theresa-may-loses (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/27/abu-qatada-theresa-may-loses)
And of course when I say suspicious Muslim dudes I am not talking about clothing but rather words and actions eg telling people to kill all the kaffirs,and spreading all kinds of hate in various ways.This is what many of the preachers do.I mean attending training camps in other countries and then returning to the UK.
I mean encouraging others to carry out violent acts.THose kind of things.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on May 29, 2013, 03:45:34 AM
And of course when I say suspicious Muslim dudes I am not talking about clothing but rather words and actions eg telling people to kill all the kaffirs,and spreading all kinds of hate in various ways.This is what many of the preachers do.I mean attending training camps in other countries and then returning to the UK.
I mean encouraging others to carry out violent acts.THose kind of things.


Well, that's good. But I might expand the term "Muslim" to "Human" and apply the same reasoning.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on May 29, 2013, 01:21:48 PM
So someone's going to have to work out whether hate speech is bad because it is or because of its effect. That said, neither of them will be especially easy to criminalise, and I think maybe both miss an important point. And it's a particularly important point with countries like China looking on. Free speech is valuable as a pragmatic principle, not as a principle per se. Free speech is the easiest way, said the original theorists, to guarantee good speech. Dumb speech, which is also afford by free speech, was meant to be recognisable as such. Which is to say, there were supposed to be other social mechanisms alongside free speech. The society was supposed to be healthy not because of free speech but in tandem with free speech.

Long story short: institutional responses that look outward toward hunting and containing "terrorists" need some foundation on inner institutions that guarantee the value of the society doing the hunting. Among other reasons, if that guarantee doesn't exist, then countries like China will happily follow the example and do hunting of their own.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: piglet on June 08, 2013, 04:47:44 PM
Terrible news down here in Xiamen this morning-happened last night though
http://www.whatsonxiamen.com/news31206.html (http://www.whatsonxiamen.com/news31206.html)
Apparently they are investigating it as a criminal act??
very very tragic  ananananan
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: The Local Dialect on June 08, 2013, 08:42:05 PM
Piglet I just saw this
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/investigators-say-fire-that-gutted-commuter-bus-killing-47-appears-intentionally-set/2013/06/07/ce2b1a26-cfd5-11e2-8573-3baeea6a2647_story.html

Apparently they've ID'd someone who may be responsible. Just horrible. :(

Edited because on second read, it is unclear as to whether they have the suspect in custody or not.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: piglet on June 09, 2013, 12:32:02 AM
The local word is that the guy was identified as having "gasoline soaked blankets" but was also dead.. it's all conjecture of course,no solid data.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on June 09, 2013, 05:30:24 PM
They have confirmed that the arsonist died in the burning bus:

Police in Xiamen have identified a suspect they believe responsible for the bus blaze that killed 47 people on Friday.
On Saturday, authorities named Chen Shuizong, a native of the city in Fujian province, as the prime suspect. He was among the passengers who died.
According to the city government's information office, police raided Chen's home and discovered a will "in which he revealed despair about his life".
He was identified through footage recorded by a security camera on the bus, a police officer close to the investigation said on condition of anonymity.
He said initial findings suggested at least 10 liters of gasoline was used to start the blaze.
Flames swept through the rapid transit bus as it traveled on an elevated road between the city's Caitang and Jinshan stations at about 6:20 pm.
The vehicle had been carrying about 90 passengers, Huang Wenhui, spokesman for the city government, said on Saturday.
He confirmed the death toll and said 34 people had also been injured.

http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2013-06/09/content_16596340.htm
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on June 09, 2013, 10:59:29 PM
Anonymous Hacker Who Outed Steubenville Rapists Facing Longer Jail Time Than Actual Rapists

Deric Lostutter, the hacker who exposed the Steubenville rapists, may end up facing more jail time than the rapists themselves.

In the Steubenville rape case, Deric Lostutter was the hacker who lead the Anonymous Op that exposed the suspects’ tweets, videos and Instagram photos that revealed them bragging about the incident, which ended up being crucial pieces of evidence in the case against them.

As a “thank you,” Lostutter could face up to 10 years behind bars for his connections to the Internet hactivist collective known as Anonymous.

Mother Jones reports that the FBI quietly raided Lostutter’s home over his connection to the Steubenville rape case. Known as “KYAnonymous” online, Lostutter spoke about the raid, his true identity and his motives for the first time in an exclusive interview.


Read more at http://www.inquisitr.com/692028/deric-lostutter-steubenville-hacker-facing-longer-jail-time-than-actual-rapists/#YkRyKF1W1f3J7c36.99

http://www.inquisitr.com/692028/deric-lostutter-steubenville-hacker-facing-longer-jail-time-than-actual-rapists/
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on June 09, 2013, 11:47:27 PM
Anonymous Hacker Who Outed Steubenville Rapists Facing Longer Jail Time Than Actual Rapists

Deric Lostutter, the hacker who exposed the Steubenville rapists, may end up facing more jail time than the rapists themselves.

In the Steubenville rape case, Deric Lostutter was the hacker who lead the Anonymous Op that exposed the suspects’ tweets, videos and Instagram photos that revealed them bragging about the incident, which ended up being crucial pieces of evidence in the case against them.

As a “thank you,” Lostutter could face up to 10 years behind bars for his connections to the Internet hactivist collective known as Anonymous.

Mother Jones reports that the FBI quietly raided Lostutter’s home over his connection to the Steubenville rape case. Known as “KYAnonymous” online, Lostutter spoke about the raid, his true identity and his motives for the first time in an exclusive interview.


Read more at http://www.inquisitr.com/692028/deric-lostutter-steubenville-hacker-facing-longer-jail-time-than-actual-rapists/#YkRyKF1W1f3J7c36.99

http://www.inquisitr.com/692028/deric-lostutter-steubenville-hacker-facing-longer-jail-time-than-actual-rapists/


We are not doing this right.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on June 10, 2013, 12:51:14 AM
Guess that means the newspaper columnist is going to get 20 years for reporting it

 bibibibibi

Bass Ackwards
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on June 10, 2013, 12:13:57 PM
Quote
Anonymous Hacker Who Outed Steubenville Rapists Facing Longer Jail Time Than Actual Rapists

Quote
Guess that means the newspaper columnist is going to get 20 years for reporting it

It's getting harder and harder to tell which country is home and which one we're guests in.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on June 10, 2013, 01:35:10 PM
Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind the NSA surveillance revelations (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-surveillance)

The 29-year-old source behind the biggest intelligence leak in the NSA's history explains his motives, his uncertain future and why he never intended on hiding in the shadows
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on June 10, 2013, 02:44:52 PM
Quote
Anonymous Hacker Who Outed Steubenville Rapists Facing Longer Jail Time Than Actual Rapists

Quote
Guess that means the newspaper columnist is going to get 20 years for reporting it

It's getting harder and harder to tell which country is home and which one we're guests in.

Make a plot of the freedom/control ratio vs. time over the last 20 years.  Slap up the USA (or UK or wherever else) vs. that Big Silly place we all love.  Is it just me, or is the accelerating US downward trend about to cross the gradual upward trend of the other?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: roadwalker on June 10, 2013, 05:05:38 PM
Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind the NSA surveillance revelations (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-surveillance)

The 29-year-old source behind the biggest intelligence leak in the NSA's history explains his motives, his uncertain future and why he never intended on hiding in the shadows

My latest hero and cause for occasional optimism.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Guangzhou Writer on June 11, 2013, 02:56:21 AM
What would Bradley Manning and Eric Snowden do?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on June 11, 2013, 04:14:31 AM
Quote
Anonymous Hacker Who Outed Steubenville Rapists Facing Longer Jail Time Than Actual Rapists

Quote
Guess that means the newspaper columnist is going to get 20 years for reporting it

It's getting harder and harder to tell which country is home and which one we're guests in.

Make a plot of the freedom/control ratio vs. time over the last 20 years.  Slap up the USA (or UK or wherever else) vs. that Big Silly place we all love.  Is it just me, or is the accelerating US downward trend about to cross the gradual upward trend of the other?


Not for a long time. I've had this from students about when the government in UK does something undemocratic as if China is better and I always point out that you hear about this stuff when it happens in the UK...if these stories happened in China they wouldn't get anywhere near the news unless some yanks made a campaign about it so that people in the West knew about it.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Guangzhou Writer on June 11, 2013, 05:10:17 AM
One of the reasons these stories are in the news in the UK and USA is that there is a gradual, top-down process of cultural change to alter people's perceptions about concepts such as rights, freedom, etc. It takes time to make the switch from citizen with rights to the full corporate model of compliant consumer with stuff.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on June 11, 2013, 06:08:28 AM
Well if you say so, but I was just saying it's nothing like China where the government is just like 'Yeah of course we censor stuff, do you think we'd trust you lot to know how the Chinese government works'
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: NATO on June 11, 2013, 06:09:53 PM
They have confirmed that the arsonist died in the burning bus:

Police in Xiamen have identified a suspect they believe responsible for the bus blaze that killed 47 people on Friday.
On Saturday, authorities named Chen Shuizong, a native of the city in Fujian province, as the prime suspect. He was among the passengers who died.
According to the city government's information office, police raided Chen's home and discovered a will "in which he revealed despair about his life".
He was identified through footage recorded by a security camera on the bus, a police officer close to the investigation said on condition of anonymity.
He said initial findings suggested at least 10 liters of gasoline was used to start the blaze.
Flames swept through the rapid transit bus as it traveled on an elevated road between the city's Caitang and Jinshan stations at about 6:20 pm.
The vehicle had been carrying about 90 passengers, Huang Wenhui, spokesman for the city government, said on Saturday.
He confirmed the death toll and said 34 people had also been injured.

http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2013-06/09/content_16596340.htm

This is not what I read. According to the article I saw (which wasn't on CD, but I can't rememeber where) this was the last-straw act of a man who had been petitioning against an injustice in his life to, surprise surprise, no avail. I'll have a look for the article.


EDIT "On Thursday, Chen wrote on his microblog that he had been a street vendor since 1994 and had been bullied for years by urban management officers.

He had recently applied for a pension but was refused several times because the government said he did not qualify. His microblog was still accessible yesterday morning but was blocked in the afternoon."

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1256734/depressed-vendor-blamed-deadly-xiamen-bus-fire
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on June 11, 2013, 09:27:13 PM
Bullied or not, anyone who sets fire to a busload of people wasn't exactly playing with a full deck to begin with.

I'm thinking we should set up public suicide booths.  If someone is so annoyed at the world that he/she wants to end it all, just can step into a clear box, latch the door from the inside, and end it all by whatever means.  No one can stop it, and the person can't harm or kill any bystanders.

For those wanting something a little bigger - have a large, fenced off concrete pad next to a 30 story building.  On the roof overlooking the pad, there's a diving board.


Yeah, maybe my ideas are wrong.  Then again, they utterly rock in comparison to getting incinerated by some screwed up moron who has a problem (real or imagined) and decides to share his fiery exit with others who picked the wrong bus on the wrong day.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: piglet on June 12, 2013, 03:05:14 PM
Right on EL as a current resident of Xiamen who has not yet dared to go on the BRT since the "accident" and who has had her fill of 20 years of Muslim Suicide attacks on public transportation I vote "public Suicide Booth" yeah!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on June 12, 2013, 04:44:16 PM
I think Kurt Vonnegut beat you to that idea, EL, in his 1968 short story "Welcome to the Monkey House" in which the overpopulation of Earth has been solved by Suicide Parlors in which Suicide Hostess are employed to kill you painlessly.  agagagagag

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Nolefan on June 12, 2013, 06:01:43 PM
only in China...

Gaokao invigilator gets beaten up by angry parents for refusing bribe
http://shanghaiist.com/2013/06/11/gaokao_invigilator_confiscates_students_phone_angry_parents_try_to_bribe_and_then_attack_him.php
man oh man...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on June 12, 2013, 06:34:38 PM
I think Kurt Vonnegut beat you to that idea, EL, in his 1968 short story "Welcome to the Monkey House" in which the overpopulation of Earth has been solved by Suicide Parlors in which Suicide Hostess are employed to kill you painlessly.  agagagagag

Various suggestions have been made before, but this time I'm thinking we need to seriously take action on the concept.  The number of people who want to share their suicidal depression with innocent bystanders seems to be growing.

Yes, it's harsh.  I've lost a couple of friends to suicide and recently had one completely disappear after sending a message that could be interpreted as a suicide note.  If someone REALLY wants to die, it would be nice to have a chance to talk them out of it - but only if this doesn't endanger innocent people.

I'd rather lose a dozen friends who really decided that their time had come to die than to lose one friend who was standing too close to some moron who decided to torch himself.


As for suicide hostesses, I wonder if any would have a big enough . . . chest to allow a guy to be suffocated. afafafafaf
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on June 12, 2013, 07:10:31 PM
EL, I think you are missing the point of why people, like that man on the bus, do what they do. If they just wanted to commit suicide, they would. It is about the spectacle, not their demise. Indeed, it is idiotic, but people do not set fire to a bus, shoot up a diner or cause mass fatalities due to suicidal depression, they do it for the arguments that will follow, or for fame, hence the many shooting-at-random-in-public-places seen all over the world, morons chasing Charles Mansonesgue fame or notoriety I guess, ending up killing themselves as they are unable to deal with the incarceration and guilt afterwards. I don't think a suicide booth would have any effect on these deluded individuals.
In Vonnegut's story, the Hostesses are pretty but as everyone is also forced to take libidal suppresive drugs, the size of their bosoms are of no consequence...it is a very odd story  agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Guangzhou Writer on June 12, 2013, 07:39:30 PM
(http://www.wesleyjsmith.com/blog/uploaded_images/Soylent1-799289.jpg)

(http://images.cafepress.com/product_zoom/99626878v4_350x350_Front.jpg)


Baby survives parents' global warming suicide pact (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/argentina/7344329/Baby-survives-parents-global-warming-suicide-pact.html)
A seven-month-old girl survived for three days alone with a bullet in her chest after being shot by her parents as part of a suicide pact over their fears about global warming.

Suicides are on the rise in many countries. It's becoming a significant trend. In Guangzhou, your anonymous country men will help you if you get cold feet (http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-05/23/content_11422634.htm).
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: decurso on June 12, 2013, 10:53:19 PM
http://shanghaiist.com/2013/06/12/baby_in_intensive_care_after_nurse_accidentally_feeds_it_baijiu.php

 bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on June 12, 2013, 11:53:46 PM
http://shanghaiist.com/2013/06/12/baby_in_intensive_care_after_nurse_accidentally_feeds_it_baijiu.php

 bibibibibi

Another candidate for a Darwin Award or the next contestant on the Springer Show.

Hey, I have no idea what this is, so let me give it to a baby. And she's a friggen nurse!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: decurso on June 13, 2013, 12:23:37 AM
 On the bright side, that baby is now well equipped to deal with a lifetime of tiresome baijiu fueled business meetings and negotiations. You DO build up a tolerance to the stuff, you know. You're just not supposed to do it all at once when you're 3 days old.  kkkkkkkkkk
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on June 13, 2013, 12:37:16 AM
I think that we have to accept responsibility for this stuff that our society throws up. I mean of course we can just say that it's mad people doing these terrible things as if we'd never fantasised about doing anything like that.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on June 13, 2013, 12:54:03 AM
Errr...which people are you talking about? The suicide-spectacle-mass-killing ones? The feeding-essentially-wood-alcohol-to-babies ones? The beating-up-incorruptible-officials ones? I can honestly say that I have fantasized about many things, but never any of the above.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on June 13, 2013, 02:09:10 AM
Incompetence is so wide-spread and expected that it's just assumed feeding the baby baijiu wasn't on purpose. A potentially interesting way of getting away with things.

Do you think it would be assumed in your country?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: decurso on June 13, 2013, 02:28:01 AM
I've been thinking about this a lot, Stil. What are the differences when it comes to comparing this story in regards to it coming from China....as opposed to if it came from any other country (which it easily could have)?

1.The excuses coming from the hospital are just SOOOOOOO lame. You think you are saving face by making excuses? Uh-uh. You are LOSING it. Hang the nurse out to dry. That's we'd do in Canada.

2.They don't have baijiu in other countries.  ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: teacheraus on June 13, 2013, 03:53:16 AM
They also don't have alcohol in unlabeled bottles sitting in the hospital room. Bad as what the nurse did was, it is clearly a comedy of errors, reflecting systemic failures more than just the actions of one person
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Guangzhou Writer on June 13, 2013, 04:07:21 AM
Stuff that outrageous happens in US hospitals every day, also in UK, but they're good at covering it up, paying off, etc. They generally don't try and slide over it with unbelievable excuses because non-disclosure clauses for insurance settlements work much better.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on June 13, 2013, 04:22:33 AM
@ ericthered

I'm okay with "The beating-up-incorruptible-officials", even the beating-up-of any-officials.

As for Nurse Incompetent, all I can say is thank God it wasn't some kind of medication. This is job dammit, you don't give an infant something you don't know. Sheer laziness if she couldn't go to get real water or check what she had. This isn't a taxi that missed a cut-off and your bill is going to be 2 kwai more

As much as I like China, one thing this country excells at is making excuses and divesting of culpability
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on June 13, 2013, 04:25:20 AM
BTW, nice name change Guangzhou Writer, I never liked "gzwriter" - sounded too much like gizz writer, what, you doing porn? The old avatar was great
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Guangzhou Writer on June 13, 2013, 12:40:24 PM
Thanks for the feedback, DD. Sorta experimenting with the correct online "branding", lol.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on June 13, 2013, 03:50:16 PM
Errr...which people are you talking about? The suicide-spectacle-mass-killing ones? The feeding-essentially-wood-alcohol-to-babies ones? The beating-up-incorruptible-officials ones? I can honestly say that I have fantasized about many things, but never any of the above.

I was referring to the suicide bombings/massacres

You never have Quentin Tarantino style revenge fantasies?



Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on June 13, 2013, 08:43:58 PM
If some of these suicidal idiots just want attention, the glass booth or 30 story high dive offer it.  We can set up live broadcasts and have people submit ratings in various categories for each death (most unusual, messiest, etc., etc.).  They all are guaranteed to get at least 15 seconds of posthumous fame.

Will it stop all homicidal/suicidal maniacs from harming innocent people?  No.  Will it stop at least some of them from harming innocent people?  Very likely.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on June 13, 2013, 09:57:31 PM
Errr...which people are you talking about? The suicide-spectacle-mass-killing ones? The feeding-essentially-wood-alcohol-to-babies ones? The beating-up-incorruptible-officials ones? I can honestly say that I have fantasized about many things, but never any of the above.

I was referring to the suicide bombings/massacres

You never have Quentin Tarantino style revenge fantasies?





No, and these idiots don't either. There is no revenge here, just plain idiocy.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Guangzhou Writer on June 14, 2013, 05:42:55 AM
Popular VPN Service Astrill Is Down Because Of DDoS Attack, Company Reveals On Twitter

http://beijingcream.com/2013/06/astrill-is-down-because-of-ddos-attack/
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: teacheraus on June 14, 2013, 12:41:13 PM
It is OK now.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Guangzhou Writer on June 14, 2013, 01:15:20 PM
My Vice President of the Navy of the aforementioned company is still not working, and the basic internet connection is so slow that it's almost unusable. Normally, I have 700+ KB/s (6 Mb/s ADSL).
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on June 14, 2013, 02:44:07 PM
It's back up for me.  Tech support sent me an explanation that only said the servers were over capacity and they were working to increase capacity.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on June 14, 2013, 07:51:25 PM
In Changsha, those that use it also said it was a DDoS attack but they all seem up and running now without issue.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Guangzhou Writer on June 16, 2013, 05:46:30 AM
Everything is fine today.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: lostjeremy on June 17, 2013, 05:13:26 AM
Thanks everyone
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: decurso on June 18, 2013, 07:56:36 PM
http://www.chinasmack.com/2013/pictures/anti-pervert-hairy-stockings-for-girls-during-summer.html
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: roadwalker on June 18, 2013, 10:15:40 PM
That's hilarious!  Of course the stockings will turn off 90+% of the perverts the girls are trying to avoid...but what of the hairy-legged-Chinese-girl fetishists?  There must be a couple of them, anyway.acacacacac
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on June 18, 2013, 10:19:31 PM
Or Italians
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on June 18, 2013, 10:20:49 PM
That's hilarious!  Of course the stockings will turn off 90+% of the perverts the girls are trying to avoid...but what of the hairy-legged-Chinese-girl fetishists?  There must be a couple of them, anyway.acacacacac

Or Italians

Wait, that's redundant and repetative and redundant
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on June 18, 2013, 10:57:31 PM
haha. or they could just not wear incredibly tight hotpants...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: decurso on June 20, 2013, 07:21:22 PM
I'm very sad to learn that James Gandolfini, the actor best known for playing Tony Soprano, has died today. Not only was I big fan  anananananof of  The Soprano's and Gandolfini himself...but he was only 51. That's waaay too young.

 No cause of death has been reported as yet. Bum news, man.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on June 21, 2013, 03:56:50 AM
Heart attack - anyone, anytime, sad
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on June 21, 2013, 04:03:30 AM
Miss Utah, Marissa Powell butchers her answers at the Miss 'Merca Pageant. Quite funny, sadly. Its gone viral


Sha was asked about the income disparity between men and women. The question she had to answer was, "A recent report shows that in 40% of American families with children women are the primary earners yet they continue to earn less than men. What does this say about society?"

Her answer was:

I think we can relate this back to education and how we are continuing to try to strive . . . to . . . to figure out how to create jobs! Right now that is the biggest problem and . . . I think especially the men are . . . um . . . seen as the leaders in this and so we need to try and figure out how to create education better so that we can solve this problem. Thank you."



Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on June 21, 2013, 05:34:20 AM
I'm very sad to learn that James Gandolfini, the actor best known for playing Tony Soprano, has died today. Not only was I big fan  anananananof of  The Soprano's and Gandolfini himself...but he was only 51. That's waaay too young.

 No cause of death has been reported as yet. Bum news, man.

Really sad news. He was good in pretty much everything that he was in. 51 is way too early
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on June 21, 2013, 01:48:24 PM
Thanks for posting the answer Day Dreamer. bfbfbfbfbf I heard her answer on the TV, but was none the wiser.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Guangzhou Writer on June 24, 2013, 12:37:27 AM
decided to leave it off, go to beijing cream if you want to find some bad news
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Guangzhou Writer on June 24, 2013, 12:43:56 AM
GOOD NEWS STORY

about toddler who was caught falling out of a window






click here (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23000252)

watch here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=084ORlzx5RE)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on June 24, 2013, 01:08:38 AM
Err...Guangzhou Writer, please try to add some information to links when posting them. We have had unpleasantness happen before due to people being miffed about the place the links led them to, so a bit more info than "Bad story/good story" would be good  agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Guangzhou Writer on June 24, 2013, 01:27:42 AM
But then my sociological experiment won't be valid :)

Ok, I got it.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: decurso on June 24, 2013, 04:28:32 PM
This is thankfully a FREAKISHLY rare occurrence in China:
http://beijingcream.com/2013/06/suspect-arrested-in-shooting-rampage-that-left-6-dead-in-shanghai/
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on June 24, 2013, 04:50:09 PM
The guns are rare, however the rampages are not. A couple of years ago there was war declared on young students by crazed guys using mostly machetes.

Brutal
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on June 24, 2013, 05:34:54 PM
The guns are rare, however the rampages are not. A couple of years ago there was war declared on young students by crazed guys using mostly machetes.

Brutal

Every week at least there's something on the Changsha news like that. Much higher occurrence in the summer. Two days ago there was a story about a guy who killed his girlfriend by chopping at the back of her neck with 'a large knife' as they called it. They showed her laying on the ground with this massive wound to her neck, he pretty much decapitated her. It's amazing how graphic an image/video they will show on the evening news. Also, they almost never talk about what motivated the attacks and didn't in this case, just what happened.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: decurso on June 24, 2013, 07:49:14 PM
 Thailand is really bad for that. They have these tabloids that routinely publish cover stories replete with full colour glossy photos of people burned alive in car accidents and their brains literally blown out .

 I remember one day the gf picked up the paper and rather nonchalantly said, "Oh....so sad. This poor girl from Laos was in a car accident and got head cut off." And there it was, man....in glorious technicolor. Veins still spurting... aaaaaaaaaa

 And the thing is...that wasn't even really NEWS. It was only on the front page because they got the requisite "horror show" photo out of it.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on June 24, 2013, 08:28:05 PM
Thailand is really bad for that. They have these tabloids that routinely publish cover stories replete with full colour glossy photos of people burned alive in car accidents and their brains literally blown out .

 I remember one day the gf picked up the paper and rather nonchalantly said, "Oh....so sad. This poor girl from Laos was in a car accident and got head cut off." And there it was, man....in glorious technicolor. Veins still spurting... aaaaaaaaaa

 And the thing is...that wasn't even really NEWS. It was only on the front page because they got the requisite "horror show" photo out of it.

Same in Italy. Except it was photos of either mafia hits or lovers's quarrels (not a joke!)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on June 25, 2013, 04:08:53 PM
Now THIS is a job action.

BEIJING (AP) -- An American executive said he has been held hostage for four days at his medical supply plant in Beijing by scores of workers demanding severance packages like those given to 30 co-workers in a phased-out department.
Chip Starnes, 42, a co-owner of Coral Springs, Florida-based Specialty Medical Supplies, said local officials had visited the 10-year-old plant on the capital's outskirts and coerced him into signing agreements Saturday to meet the workers' demands even though he sought to make clear that the remaining 100 workers weren't being laid off.
The workers were expecting wire transfers by Tuesday, he said, adding that about 80 of them had been blocking every exit around the clock and depriving him of sleep by shining bright lights and banging on windows of his office. He declined to clarify the amount, saying he wanted to keep it confidential.
"I feel like a trapped animal," Starnes told The Associated Press on Monday from his first-floor office window, while holding onto the window's bars. "I think it's inhumane what is going on right now. I have been in this area for 10 years and created a lot of jobs and I would never have thought in my wildest imagination something like this would happen."
Workers inside the compound, a pair of two-story buildings behind gates and hedges in the Huairou district of the northeastern Beijing suburbs, repeatedly declined requests for comment, saying they did not want to talk to foreign media.
It is not rare in China for managers to be held by workers demanding back pay or other benefits, often from their Chinese owners, though occasionally also involving foreign bosses.
The labor action reflects growing uneasiness among workers about their jobs amid China's slowing economic growth and the sense that growing labor costs make the country less attractive for some foreign-owned factories. The account about local officials coercing Starnes to meet workers' demands — if true — reflects how officials typically consider stifling unrest to be a priority.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: decurso on June 25, 2013, 05:09:20 PM
I don't see that ending very favourably. Big props for their cajones, though. I guess it's easy to have a big pair when you have nothing to lose.

 In a considerably less inspirational story: http://beijingcream.com/2013/06/two-young-girls-starved-to-death-in-nanjing/

 I knew a few social work majors in Beijing, and they told me that China is starting to make social work and social welfare a priority. When you see stuff like this, it can't happen fast enough.

 Stuff like this happens in Canada, the. U.S., Britain, Oz and so on, too...but there are agencies to deal with it, and they USUALLY catch it before it goes this far. Very disturbing news, this is.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on June 25, 2013, 05:29:44 PM
Re the Chip Starnes story. Not that it couldn't happen as it does so often in China, I've seen it. But my spidey senses tell me there's something amiss here. I think Mr. Starnes is playing this up a tad. I could be wrong and I have zero proof. It's just a hunch and I've learned to trust most of my hunches.

Hunch was wrong about the wife before she became the ex-wife   ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on June 25, 2013, 05:32:59 PM
I don't see that ending very favourably. Big props for their cajones, though. I guess it's easy to have a big pair when you have nothing to lose.

 In a considerably less inspirational story: http://beijingcream.com/2013/06/two-young-girls-starved-to-death-in-nanjing/

 I knew a few social work majors in Beijing, and they told me that China is starting to make social work and social welfare a priority. When you see stuff like this, it can't happen fast enough.

 Stuff like this happens in Canada, the. U.S., Britain, Oz and so on, too...but there are agencies to deal with it, and they USUALLY catch it before it goes this far. Very disturbing news, this is.

After reading that, you want to punch somebody with a crowbar. Why do they do this shit?
I'm glad they didn't go into details
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Nolefan on June 25, 2013, 05:48:43 PM
here is i guess the other side of the coin:

http://beijingcream.com/2013/01/murong-xuecun-chinese-system-is-designed-to-make-people-stupid-foster-mutual-hatred-etc/

interesting perspective.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on June 25, 2013, 06:11:57 PM
I've read in a few places that the factories are moving to Thailand and Vietnam because Chinese labour practice just isn't exploitative enough these days
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Nolefan on June 25, 2013, 06:16:50 PM
I've read in a few places that the factories are moving to Thailand and Vietnam because Chinese labour practice just isn't exploitative enough these days

it's simple economics... too expensive to manufacture here now. RMB is way up compared to other currencies and "Made in China" costs an average of 30 to 40% more than a few years ago
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on June 25, 2013, 06:39:57 PM
How much does quality factor in? We bought some clothing when we went to Thailand and they still look almost new. Stuff we get that are made in China have a shorter shelf life. I imagine that if someone/company could buy from either China or another SE Asian country with similar pricing, which would they choose. I'm guessing with all the negativity, China comes third at best
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on July 01, 2013, 12:45:48 PM
I was watching a report on TV last night about the rapid changes taking place in China. They interviewed the Melbourne (Australia) Architect who is drawing up the plans for the masses of new buildings in Nanjing. This guy says that he can hardly get his plans finished before the buildings are in place. We saw pre fabricated 30 story buildings going up like a Leggo set, in two weeks. In another area in China, we saw a city with no inhabitants and the commentator said that he quickly counted 30 odd high rise buildings. I couldn't believe what I was seeing and I don't think that this was the only place like that. The comment was made that people just couldn't afford to live in these places even though the people were growing wealthier. This guy walked down streets and shopping malls and there were no other humans. Are you folks in China hearing about things like this?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on July 01, 2013, 06:10:55 PM
I have heard of similar huge developments where ever freaking apartment is sold, but no one lives there.  People snap them up as investments, sure that they'll come out ahead because there isn't really any real estate bubble.

All I can say to that is the last time I heard people so loudly and repeatedly claiming there was no bubble was in the USA in 2008 - just before it popped.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on July 01, 2013, 06:20:09 PM
Supposedly China plans to add about 700 million people to the urban centers over the next 12 years. I guess that's who the empty buildings are waiting for.  So what happens when the inevitable, economic glitch occurs? 

http://www.urenio.org/2013/05/18/preparing-for-chinas-urban-billion/
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Guangzhou Writer on July 02, 2013, 12:43:00 AM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPILhiTJv7E
China's Ghost Cities and Malls
length 14:38

Uploaded by etfideas on Mar 24, 2011

Documentary by SBS Dateline (Australian TV) about the Chinese real estate market.

Original link to SBS Dateline video: http://www.sbs.com.au/dateline/story/watch/id/601007/n/China-s-Ghost-Cities

http://www.sbs.com.au/dateline/story/watch/id/601007/n/China-s-Ghost-Cities
http://videocdn.sbs.com.au/u/video/20110320_DL_TW_Chinas_Ghost_Cities_1000K.mp4

http://etf-investment-ideas.blogspot.com/2011/03/chinas-ghost-cities-and-malls.html
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Guangzhou Writer on July 02, 2013, 12:47:21 AM
South China Mall 
http://www.southchinamall.com.cn/english/index1.jsp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_South_China_Mall
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1223747/Ghost-mall-The-worlds-largest-loneliest-shopping-centre.html
http://www.forbes.com/2007/01/09/malls-worlds-largest-biz-cx_tvr_0109malls_slide_2.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/17/business/worldbusiness/17iht-mall.4.5321060.html
http://news.southcn.com/dishi/dongguan/shehui/content/2007-09/20/content_4248514.htm

homepage
http://www.pbs.org/pov/utopia/

watch online
http://video.pbs.org/video/1218530801/#
PBS Broadcast: August 18, 2009

D L the t0r_r3n_t
pie rate baaayyy (http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5068495/PBS_POV_-_POV_Shorts.08.23.2009.WS-PDTV.XviD_Ekolb)
another of the exact same (http://torrentdownloads.net/torrent/732704/PBS+POV+++POV+Shorts+08+23+2009+WS+PDTV+XviD~Ekolb)

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on July 02, 2013, 01:09:41 AM
The South China Mall is not a failure.  It's just that the needed a REALLY big empty mall to make an epic scale zombie flick and the filming got delayed a little.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on July 02, 2013, 02:49:13 AM
I think the urban planners of China have a mandatory movie class where they all sit around and watch "Field of Dreams" for an entire term, milling out of the room mumbling, "Build it and they will come, build it and they will come...."
There has been reports about these Ghost Towns for years.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on July 02, 2013, 02:56:15 AM
What really gets me in China is that they still put these buildings up so fast even though there's already too many and you look at a lot of the ones that are only 5 years old or so and they look awful cos they put them up so fast

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on July 02, 2013, 06:32:15 AM
I think the urban planners of China have a mandatory movie class where they all sit around and watch "Field of Dreams" for an entire term, milling out of the room mumbling, "Build it and they will come, build it and they will come...."
There has been reports about these Ghost Towns for years.

I think it's, "If we build it, we will MAKE them come".
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on July 02, 2013, 01:43:55 PM
Thanks for all that info guys. When I think that Australia has just passed the 23 million mark in population, my mind boggles. Thank goodness I'm on the way out the door; I hate crowds. bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on July 02, 2013, 05:16:22 PM
23 million and you call that a country?  There's more people than that in the Shenzhen-Dongguan-Guangzhou area alone. ababababab
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on July 03, 2013, 02:38:35 PM
EL, that is exactly why they are all crowding into this Country at an alarming rate. I'm not being racist here, just talking fact. That is one of the reasons I find it so hard to comprehend these vacant cities in China.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on July 03, 2013, 10:32:54 PM
Vacant apartments, apartment buildings, and even cities full of them are due to some sort of Chinese preoccupation with apartments that haven't been pre-occupied.  A standard Chinese apartment is a concrete shell that needs flooring, interior doors, and often even the electric wiring installed.  A "virgin" apartment in this state is considered to be more valuable for resale that a "decorated" apartment that's ready to live in.

No, I do not pretend to understand the logic of this.  It's just the way things seem to be.

"Redecorating" in China doesn't mean changing the drapes and getting a new sofa cover.  It typically employs things like chisels and jackhammers.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on July 04, 2013, 01:33:40 PM
Since we are talking about buildings, I'd like to pay tribute to Dr James Eward (Eddie) Liu who was known as the "Father of Chinatown" in Brisbane, Australia. Eddie passed away on Tuesday night aged 91. He was born in Hong Kong and arrived in Australia in 1937 when he was 15. He married an Aussie 3yrs later. He co-founded the Chinese Club of Queensland in 1952, was the driving force behind the restoration of a century old Chinese Temple  and steered the construction of Chinatown Mall which opened in 1987. He was awarded the OBE and the OAM. He helped in resettling migrants from Counries such as China, Soloman Islands and Thailand. He raised funds for countless numbers of charities and he sponsored gifted students and promoted Chinese language and Asian History through Queensland Universities. He was a beacon of hope for many Chinese migrants. The list just goes on and a huge turnout is expected at the funeral of this special man who was well known and highly respected in Brisbane.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on July 04, 2013, 01:57:27 PM
What a great guy!
 :respect:

Here's to Dr. Liu. agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: BrandeX on July 04, 2013, 05:51:48 PM
EL, that is exactly why they are all crowding into this Country at an alarming rate. I'm not being racist here, just talking fact. That is one of the reasons I find it so hard to comprehend these vacant cities in China.
People don't emigrate from China because there is no where to live. They leave China because it is China.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on July 04, 2013, 08:41:44 PM
On another note...in what appears to be a landmark decision, two parents in Wisconsin have been sentenced to jail for homicide after they decided to not take their seriously ill daughter to hospital but instead opted for relying on the power of prayer. The daughter subsequentially died. The really fascinating news here is that the decision to uphold the sentencing of these stellar parents is apparently a new development and that, for decades, these kinds of deaths have exempted from being considered homicide. Apparently the Defence Attorney representing the parents has stated that this could lead to an unfortuntate precedent wherewith other prayer-related incidents might be judged harshly...Oh, no...oh dear me no...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on July 04, 2013, 09:13:41 PM
I pray that their sentences are very lengthy.

People like this seem to view God like some kind of magic genie who grants all properly phrased wishes.  If this is true, then they shouldn't worry about wasting time eating since they can just pray for plenty of nutrition.

God gave people brains so that we wouldn't be helpless snack food for lions and wolves.  Too bad some people don't bother to use them. kkkkkkkkkk
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: decurso on July 05, 2013, 05:49:10 PM
And you think the Chinese have some wacky ideas? http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2013/07/04/goair-seeks-cabin-crew-men-need-not-apply/
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on July 05, 2013, 06:35:01 PM
Makes no sense.  They want females "to save weight", but then slap a minimum height requirement on them.  You would think they'd want to have the shortest, skinniest applicants.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: cruisemonkey on July 05, 2013, 10:50:20 PM
I'd like to see anorexic dwarfs as flight attendants.  ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on July 06, 2013, 03:09:48 AM
And you think the Chinese have some wacky ideas? http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2013/07/04/goair-seeks-cabin-crew-men-need-not-apply/

So saving a few pounds on a 50 thousand ton vehicle is sound?

Nahhhhhhhhh  kkkkkkkkkk

They are finding the loophole that allows them to hire young cute and sexy girls to attract clientelle. = gimmick
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: decurso on July 06, 2013, 04:19:48 AM
Lots of nutty mews coming my way today. Check out this new punishment for Thai cops who break the rules. Why do I have a feeling Chinese cops would LIKE this?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6932801.stm
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on July 06, 2013, 05:33:16 AM
Lots of nutty mews coming my way today. Check out this new punishment for Thai cops who break the rules. Why do I have a feeling Chinese cops would LIKE this?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6932801.stm

check the date!

the Japanese and Koreans have some great kawaii characters for police and so on

(http://youjapanme.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/police5-2.jpg)

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on July 07, 2013, 01:26:01 PM
At least two reported dead in San Francisco plane crash   bibibibibi

More than 60 injured after Asiana Airlines flight from South Korea crash-lands, with hospital treating 10 critically injured

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/06/asiana-airlines-plane-crash-san-francisco


They said on CNN it originated in Shanghai, when to Seoul and then to San Francisco.

I hope none of our members were onboard.  
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Guangzhou Writer on July 07, 2013, 04:02:55 PM
I would be very interested to read details about whether the injuries occurred while landing or while deplaning.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on July 07, 2013, 04:07:57 PM
Having watched on CNN for the last few hours and hearing reports from eye witnesses as well as some survivors I believe 90%+ of the injuries were during the crash. 

When the tail broke off, some of the crew and people at the back of the plane were sucked out.

The information is still fluctuating as more information is received.  There are quite a few in critical condition.  Others have just minor scratches and bruises.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Guangzhou Writer on July 07, 2013, 04:12:16 PM
Thanks.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on July 08, 2013, 07:54:43 AM
There were 70 Chinese students and teachers going to the USA for summer camp.  Two 16 yr old female students from China were the passengers killed.  They were the ones that were sucked out of the aircraft and were found on the runway.   aoaoaoaoao
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: roadwalker on July 08, 2013, 08:36:49 AM
There were 70 Chinese students and teachers going to the USA for summer camp.  Two 16 yr old female students from China were the passengers killed.  They were the ones that were sucked out of the aircraft and were found on the runway.   aoaoaoaoao

Wow, I can't think of anyone I would want to take their place, but it really sucks that the victims were kids.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on July 08, 2013, 04:07:01 PM
There were 70 Chinese students and teachers going to the USA for summer camp.  Two 16 yr old female students from China were the passengers killed.  They were the ones that were sucked out of the aircraft and were found on the runway.   aoaoaoaoao

Two students told me that yesterday, I had seen the news but hadn't read it. It's big news here in Zheijiang because it was a couple of kids from ZJ off to study in America. That must be the worst for the families
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on July 09, 2013, 01:16:25 PM
The News in Australia is saying that one of the young girls may have been struck by a rescue vehicle.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: decurso on July 09, 2013, 03:39:38 PM
I heard the same thing, Granny. "May have been"...In other words, we don't know and have no proof, but we're going to report it anyway, because the crash is hot news now and we need something fresh in this world of news updates every micro-second.  llllllllll llllllllll

 For something lighter...

 You've heard about that law requiring people to visit their elderly parents on a semi-regular basis? No, worries....you can now HIRE someone to do it for you!


http://beijingcream.com/2013/07/on-taobao-surrogates-to-fulfill-parent-visitation-law/

Ah, you gotta love the cynicism of the Chinese...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on July 09, 2013, 04:03:06 PM
I told my parents about this law and they said that if the law ever decided to make me visit them, they wouldn't let me in the house. How do you hire a substitute to visit parents?? And who will visit the substitute's parents?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: decurso on July 09, 2013, 04:17:09 PM
Exactly! Can you imagine it? Substitute kids visiting substitute parents?

 And if you get thrown in jail for not visiting parents...would YOUR kids still have to visit you in jail?

 This whole thing was probably cooked up by ONE bitter CCP official who was pissed that his/her little darling doesn't visit often enough. Chinese parents are HARSH, man.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: English Gent on July 09, 2013, 09:37:11 PM
China free coal policy in the north 'cut lifespans'
full article ↓
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-23236532

ive just moved to the north....bugger.  bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on July 10, 2013, 02:43:57 PM
Don't blame China for the substitute kids and grandkids concept.  Busy Japanese executives invented that insanity some time back.

Hmmmnnn... I wonder if there's a service like that in the USA yet? uuuuuuuuuu
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: LoveSasa on July 13, 2013, 05:03:10 PM
In response to a media inquiry about the names of the crew aboard Asiana Airlines flight 214 which crashed at SFO, a "summer intern acted outside the scope of his authority" by providing, ah, "erroneous" names, like "Sum Ting Wong", "Wi Tu Lo", and my personal favorite, "Ho Lee Fuk". These names were dutifully reported by Bay Area TV station KTVU without further confirmation.

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/07/12/san-francisco-tv-station-ntsb-issue-apologies-following-asiana-airlines-prank/
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: becster79 on July 15, 2013, 01:08:42 AM
Finn, and Finchel is dead alalalalal alalalalal amamamamam
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on July 17, 2013, 06:26:24 PM
I imagine that there are some worried families in Zhuhai.

Former NZ hockey rep in alleged sex abuse case

A former New Zealand and Manawatu representative indoor hockey goalkeeper has been charged over the alleged sex abuse of four Filipino children as young as nine.

Hilton Reece Munro, 45, used a 14-year-old boy to recruit younger boys who were sexually abused at a beach resort hotel on the Philippine island of Cebu, police allege.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, police say the boys, aged from nine to 14, were brought to Munro's room by local taxi driver Gilbert Andrada, 41, who has also been charged with child sex offences.

Munro played for Manawatu in both outdoor and indoor hockey in the 1990s and made headlines when firing a broadside at "inept" regional management, before shifting allegiances to Marlborough in 1997.

He then moved to Melbourne.

He played again in Manawatu for the New Zealand Men's indoor hockey team against Australia in 1998 and for the Manawatu men's indoor hockey team in the nationals in 2001.

Munro was the head of the Zhuhai International School in Zhuhai City in China's Guangdong province until last month and was formerly a teacher and boarding master at a prestigious boys' school in Melbourne, Victoria.

He denied the allegations after his arrest last Friday, telling police: "The kids are my friends who were contacted by another friend here in Cebu."

Police said boys aged nine, 10, 11, 12 and 14 were found in Mr Munro's room at the Stakili resort in Compostela town in northern Cubu.

Police said Munro told them he was a "professor" from Australia before refusing to answer any more questions and then laying down on the floor of a police cell with his T-shirt over his head.

Munro was found not guilty of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old boy in the dorm of a Melbourne boarding school in 2003.

It was alleged that he arrived by taxi in the early hours after a night out drinking with friends, climbed through a bedroom window, lay down next to the boy in bed and indecently assaulted him.

The prosecution told the Victorian County Court in 2004 that Munro, who lived in Prahran at the time, said he had met his alleged victim the previous night on a tour of the dormitories during a campus visit.

A jury accepted Munro's defence that he did not sexually assault the teenager but had asked to "crash" in the boy's room.

He climbed back out of the window at 7am, the court was told. He was found guilty of aggravated burglary and not guilty of two counts of indecent assault.

Munro was a successful hockey player who represented both Australia and New Zealand. He toured India with the Australian Universities Hockey Team and captained the NZ Indoor Hockey Team at a competition in South Africa.

During the early 2000s, he was heavily involved in boarding life at the prestigious Melbourne school, coaching hockey teams, refereeing matches, organising special father-and-son "working bees" and "cooking up feasts" for groups on weekends away to the bush.

In 1999 and 2000, he took groups of Year 7 students and international students on weekends away.

In an interview posted on the Zhuhai International School website last year, Munro said he has worked in international education for 15 years, 10 of those in leadership positions.

On Monday, he tried to cover his face during a brief closed court appearance on Monday.

Sheryl Bautista, deputy head of the Philippines' anti-human trafficking task force, told the Cebu Daily News Mr Munro paid the boys between the equivalent of $12 and $25 in Philippine pesos.

"According to the rescued minors, the suspect would take nude photos of them ... and have sexual relations with them," Inspector Bautista said.

Three mobile telephones taken from Munro have been sent for forensic examination.

Police said Munro of Shepherd Street Hong Kong travelled between resorts in Cebu province for several days while under police surveillance after a tip-off.

Andrada picked up Munro from Cebu airport on July 5 and he was scheduled to leave the country on July 26, police said.

Immigration records show Munro has been a regular visitor to the Philippines since 2011, usually staying for 21 days, police said.

Several of the boys' mothers burst into tears on Monday when they went to a welfare office where welfare officers are caring for their sons.

"I kept looking for my son since 5pm last Friday because we usually have dinner at 6pm," one mother told the Cebu Daily News.

"If my husband knew about this I don't know what he would do to that foreigner," she said.

Welfare officer Edna Regudo told the parents not to scold or blame their sons.

"Remember, they are the victims ... for them, they were just playing around, having fun," Regudo said.

Munro has been charged with human trafficking and child abuse, laws where an accused cannot be bailed if prosecutors allege they have strong evidence.

He is being held in custody while prosecutors said they would bring the case to court within 15 days.

Munro's lawyer, Leilani Villarino, told reporters the Australian would respond to the charges in due time.

On the Zhuhai International School website last year, Munro said he has been teaching in South-East Asia, Europe and the Middle East "and so have a strong global perspective".

"I bring a depth of knowledge regarding education because I have worked across all levels of schools as a classroom teacher ... curriculum co-ordinator, program leader and principal."

The website said Mr Munro "is an active and sports-minded person, having played field hockey to an international level".

The school teaches more than 160 students from 28 nationalities, catering for expatriate families living and working in Guangdong province.

The school is now in mid-year holidays.

A woman who answered the school's after-hours number said Munro finished up at the school at the end of the term and was intending to work in the Philippines.

Munro's photograph and background information have been removed from the school's website.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/8929635/Former-NZ-hockey-rep-in-alleged-sex-abuse-case
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on July 17, 2013, 08:49:26 PM
That's disgusting. The proper name is field hockey.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on July 17, 2013, 09:50:38 PM
That's disgusting. The proper name is field hockey.

I thought it was tonsil hockey.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on July 18, 2013, 01:40:38 AM
That's disgusting. The proper name is field hockey.

I thought it was tonsil hockey.

In New Zealand hockey played on ice does not really rate as a sport so the game played with crooked sticks and a ball is just called 'Hockey'. The one played on ice is 'Ice Hockey' and 'Indoor Hockey' is .... such a minority sport that it is not worth describing.

A 'field' is where you can find sheep and 'bestiality' is more of a recreation than a sport in New Zealand.
 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: cruisemonkey on July 19, 2013, 11:55:27 PM

A 'field' is where you can find sheep and 'bestiality' is more of a recreation than a sport in New Zealand.

New Zealand - where men are men and the sheep are scared.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on July 20, 2013, 03:30:10 AM
Who likes to be able to spell? Anyone? It is annoying, cramming all those words into your noggin, figuring out which letters go where and it is even more annoying that one cannot write a postcard on the computer...what to do??? Ah, the Germans have a solution. A pen with a spell-checker.
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/07/19/tech/innovation/spellcheck-lernstift-pen/index.html?hpt=hp_c4

We don't need to learn the multiplication table anymore due to caluclators, we don't need to be able to spell anymore and soon we will undoubtedly have an app that can turn any text into an audiobook and then we won't need to be able to read either...hooray for progress...err...yes, right...progress... agagagagag agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Guangzhou Writer on July 21, 2013, 07:52:22 PM
Don't forget about GPS. No need for remembering your way by paying attention to details when you can just follow the GPS every time.

All of the people, except one, that I've known in China born after 1985 have no sense of direction.

Most of them can't count, except shopkeepers. These also apply to foreigners, but it seems to be a higher percentage of locals.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on July 21, 2013, 10:30:42 PM
GPS was mainly invented so that people had a reason, well, one more reason, to be angry whilst driving and so they could fiddle with the buttons on the machine whilst driving, because their radio/bluetooth/cellphone/radio/cigarette/coffee simple was not enough of a distraction.  agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on July 22, 2013, 11:16:55 AM
Apparently, Albert Einstein is attributed with saying, "I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots".  bjbjbjbjbj
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on July 22, 2013, 02:54:21 PM
Apparently, Albert Einstein is attributed with saying, "I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots".  bjbjbjbjbj

All of Einstein's greatest fears were realized when Al Gore invented the internet. aoaoaoaoao
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: cruisemonkey on July 22, 2013, 03:45:01 PM
All of Einstein's greatest fears were realized when Al Gore invented the internet. aoaoaoaoao

So... it's Al's 'doing' that young couples on dates now spend their entire time together - sitting at a table across from each other, not speaking a single word - staring at their cell phone screens while their thumbs work furiously?
 bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on July 22, 2013, 05:37:10 PM
Chinese and Koreans are far worse than Europeans or Japanese for playing with their cellphones. My half baked theory is that because middle class kids here have to spend their teens studying and aren't allowed to go out and play ever that they act like 13 year olds well into their 20s because they missed that as teens

I have a few friends who are late 20s and they are sound but I find with people who are early 20s even if they are sound they are still teenagers here.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on July 23, 2013, 12:41:40 PM
IT'S A BOY!!!! agagagagag :candyraver: :dancemj: :dancemj: bnbnbnbnbn
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on July 23, 2013, 01:06:10 PM
 bfbfbfbfbf akakakakak agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on July 23, 2013, 01:21:07 PM
IT'S A BOY!!!! agagagagag :candyraver: :dancemj: :dancemj: bnbnbnbnbn

Congrats! agagagagag agagagagag agagagagag

Ummm... I didn't know you were expecting. ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on July 23, 2013, 02:13:25 PM
Yay..congrats  agagagagag agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on July 23, 2013, 11:46:38 PM
IT'S A BOY!!!! agagagagag :candyraver: :dancemj: :dancemj: bnbnbnbnbn

Congrats! agagagagag agagagagag agagagagag

Ummm... I didn't know you were expecting. ahahahahah


 bibibibibi That's William and Kate's firstborn ahahahahah   You know, da Dook an Dutchess uv CameBritch.  Da Royals! llllllllll
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on July 23, 2013, 11:55:31 PM
IT'S A BOY!!!! agagagagag :candyraver: :dancemj: :dancemj: bnbnbnbnbn

Congrats! agagagagag agagagagag agagagagag

Ummm... I didn't know you were expecting. ahahahahah


 bibibibibi That's William and Kate's firstborn ahahahahah   You know, da Dook an Dutchess uv CameBritch.  Da Royals! llllllllll

So a young, presumably healthy and horny couple managed to have a kid. awawawawaw  That happens tens of thousands of times every day, so really doesn't qualify as news. kkkkkkkkkk

Now if our esteemed Granny Mae got herself knocked up and had a kid, that would be news! agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: metro on July 24, 2013, 03:16:26 AM
A Photo Exclusive! bfbfbfbfbf bfbfbfbfbf

(http://sphotos-b.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/1044275_10151788217412790_2009683251_n.jpg)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on July 24, 2013, 04:33:08 AM
Congratulations to all that consider this important.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Guangzhou Writer on July 24, 2013, 05:02:10 AM
Congratulations to all that consider this important.
So...you're obviously against babies?
/sarcasm
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on July 24, 2013, 05:56:25 AM

Congratulations to all that consider this important.
So...you're obviously against babies?
/sarcasm

Stil enjoys the practice bhbhbhbhbh
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on July 24, 2013, 06:26:40 AM

Quote
Stil enjoys the practice

He has to practice cuz he hasn't figured out how to do it right yet   ahahahahah ahahahahah bhbhbhbhbh ahahahahah ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on July 24, 2013, 12:37:05 PM
Great Photo thanks Metro! bfbfbfbfbf Don't tell me William is trying to smother him already. bibibibibi He did say that the baby has a really good set of lungs.

There are no big bright stars shining in the East EL. ahahahahah I only had one go at it ( no, I wasn't talking about that side of it) and that was enough. Mine was a boy as well and my husband was there for the birth. He was the one who decided that I didn't need to go through such trauma again. I can tell you that there was NO way I could have walked out of the hospital the next day, especially with a smile on my face. ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Guangzhou Writer on July 24, 2013, 01:34:21 PM
Not sure if this was already posted, but Shenzhen just passed a good samaritan law.

http://shenzhennoted.com/2013/02/26/shenzhen-good-samaritan-law-passed/

This blog fails to mention that the Nanjing Peng Yu case was revealed last year not to be a good samaritan, but the judge was right and the man who paid admitted to causing the accident, then tried to make himself a martyr later. I'll copy the article here since bloomberg is blocked. The article contains several links, and you can find them on the Wayback Machine (http://web.archive.org/web/20130409092206/http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-17/china-s-infamous-good-samaritan-case-gets-a-new-ending-adam-minter.html) or by using Startpage.com anonymous search engine, then click the Ixquick proxy.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-17/china-s-infamous-good-samaritan-case-gets-a-new-ending-adam-minter.html

China’s Infamous ’Good Samaritan’ Case Gets a New Ending: Adam Minter
By Adam Minter 2012-01-17T23:11:15Z

The details of the most famous judicial verdict in recent Chinese history are well known to most educated Chinese adults. Or, rather, they were until Monday, with the shocking disclosure of previously confidential documents in Nanjing.

The ensuing reaction, which is really just getting underway, touches on many of the most sensitive and pressing issues in China today, including the role of the press, the possibility of a politically independent judiciary and the ever-precarious state of the Chinese self-image.

This curious but important tale begins on the morning of Nov. 20, 2006, when Xu Shuolan, a 65-year-old grandmother stepped off a bus in Nanjing, and fell to the ground. Just behind her was Peng Yu, a 26-year-old student. While others passed her by, Peng –- a self-described Good Samaritan -- rushed to her aid, accompanied her to the hospital and even paid her modest bill.

In thanks, Xu Shuolin -– a woman of modest means –- sued Peng for roughly $7,000 in medical expenses she claimed were due to the fall, including broken bones. The judge, in turn, invented a new “everyday experience” standard in the law, suggesting that nobody pays a stranger’s medical expenses without a guilty conscience. And on that basis, he ruled against Peng Yu, turning the case into shorthand for the decline of Chinese morality.

The “Peng Yu case” has become a talisman of modern China's failings, the easiest and most accessible example available to the social commentator looking to make a point about Chinese flaws and moral inferiority. And, to be truthful, since that famous verdict there have been several other high-profile “Peng Yu cases,” in which pedestrians failed to help injured strangers for fear of being sued. The most notorious occurred in October, when a national outcry ensued over a video of pedestrians passing by a fatally-injured 2-year-old who was struck by delivery trucks in a south China recycling market.

In the aftermath of that grisly incident, a real discussion about the need for a so-called “Good Samaritan law” began to take place in China, while one academic in southern China went so far as to form a foundation to provide legal and financial assistance to good Samaritans who specifically help the elderly. Of course, all of the Peng Yu-type incidents can't be blamed on Xu Shuolin’s decision to sue him, but the important point is that the national discussion about China’s so-called Good Samaritan problem was dominated by the injustice done to poor Peng Yu.

Or rather, it was until Jan. 16 -- when, in what seems to be one of the great scoops in recent Chinese journalism, the state-owned news magazine Oriental Weekly revealed the content of some newly discovered and disclosed documents. According to the trove, Peng Yu not only confessed to knocking over that supposedly greedy granny in 2006, but he actively solicited the local news media and online forum moderators to promote him as a martyred Good Samaritan.

On top of that, reports Oriental Weekly, he and Xu Shuolin secretly agreed on a modest financial settlement and had the decision sealed. So far as the two major players in China’s most notorious court decision were concerned, nobody ever had to know the truth of the matter.

The revelation that Peng collided with Xu, alone, would have been enough to send China’s microbloggers into paroxysms of recriminations. But what made the Oriental Weekly's discovery so much more potent, and so much more infuriating, was the revelation that law enforcement officials in Nanjing had received testimony and other evidence to the effect that Peng had knocked over Xu. Why was this testimony and documentation only released this week?

In the eyes of many Chinese, suspicion falls on the article's publicly identified source: Liu Zhiwei, director of Nanjing’s Political and Legal Affairs Commission, one of the city’s most senior judicial officials. The Oriental Weekly story quotes him as saying that he had the consent of Peng Yu and Xu Shuolun to disclose the case documents. But even if he didn’t, he noted, he likely would have done so, anyway, because the case had had a profound effect on Chinese moral standards. He's certainly correct on that count: According to years’ worth of polling on the subject, the Chinese public has become skittish about helping seniors and others in distress, for fear of being sued.

In other words, right or wrong, the disclosure, six years after the fact, has as much to do with politics and policy as with the rule of law. Criticism has come from some very high-level sources of the sort that don’t normally attack senior Communist Party officials. For example, on Monday, not long after the story was released, Yuan Yongjun, the Internet "censor-in-chief" at the Propaganda Department of Xi’an, a western Chinese city of 8 million, logged onto the Sina Weibo microblog to express his anger:

    Three questions: 1. Why not expose the truth earlier? Why did you wait until today? What do you expect to accomplish by revealing the truth after a decline in moral standards? 2. Why didn't you disclose the truth during the judicial proceedings? 3. Even if the facts as presented are true, how can the departments that blocked the release of the truth ever make a proper apology?

Yuan is not the only Communist Party voice expressing skepticism about the timing of the disclosure, and its truth. On Tuesday, the influential Beijing-based China Youth Daily (owned and operated by the Communist Youth League, traditionally President Hu Jintao’s power base), ran a scathing editorial on the Peng Yu disclosures written by Chen Fang (likely a pseudonym), in which the truth of the case is tellingly placed in scare quotes:

    Four years later, the truth is finally disclosed. If the present 'truth' is real, I'm afraid that what the "Peng Yu Case" has brought to the society is not a question related to social morality, but a question about how to handle the relationship between confidentiality and the right to know in socially sensitive cases. If belated justice is not justice, then what are we to call belated truth?

The answer to that question, from the point of view of this powerful party mouthpiece, is not flattering to those who are charged with maintaining Chinese public opinion:

    Reports and opinions that deviated from the truth appeared during the judicial hearing, but the relevant departments didn't pay enough attention and didn’t guide them correctly. The result is that news reports gradually deviated from the truth and created a huge gap between the court decision, and public perception.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, some of the most scathing microblog commentary on the Peng Yu disclosures come from Chinese journalists, many of whom take strong exception to the notion that they somehow fell off in their professional duty to cover the case. Li Jifeng, a journalist with the independent Southern Metropolis Daily, possibly China’s best newspaper, took to Sina Weibo to address the director of Nanjing’s Political and Legal Affairs Commission, directly: “Please investigate the police officers who were involved in the investigation of Peng Yu's Case on suspicion of negligence and dereliction of duty.”

But, in the end, many journalists are looking past the matter of what role their profession did or did not have in creating the “Peng Yu case,” and wondering aloud at what such a case -- true or not -– says about contemporary China. Honest Green Beans, the online name of an editor at the Chongqing Business Daily, summarized these sentiments when he tweeted, on Sina Weibo, on Tuesday: “We should note that the reason people tend to believe that Peng Yu is innocent on this matter: it is inseparable from the poor reputation of society in general. The issue is how do we fix this problem systemically, not just control public opinion one-sidedly.”

Among those Chinese who are neither officials, nor journalists, that’s the kind of opinion that resonates most true. Thus, TobyZhang1982, a Sina Weibo user in Shanghai, might have been speaking for the millions who have already tweeted on this matter as of Tuesday: “No matter the truths or falsehoods in this matter, it is a fact that Chinese people have become more and more cold. We can’t turn back.”

In China, no judicial proceeding, or effort at opinion guidance, is going to change a sentiment like that one.

(Adam Minter is the Shanghai correspondent for the World View blog. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the author of this blog post: Adam Minter at ShanghaiScrap@gmail.com.

To contact the editor responsible for this post: Katherine Brown at kbrown114@bloomberg.net.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on July 25, 2013, 12:43:58 PM
Very interesting thanks Guangzou Writer. My observations here in Australia are that people are selective to whom they offer help. I also gained the impression that most would prefer to pretend that their help wasn't needed, but they want a good "sticky beak" as they go past. Isn't it sad that such a law has to be put in place.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on July 25, 2013, 02:37:34 PM
Isn't it sad that such a law has to be put in place.

I'm not sure which is sadder, the need for laws like this or the amount of time it takes to get them on the books.

The US had to pass some since the "sue anyone for any reason to make money" mentality resulted in good Samaritans occasionally having to defend themselves in court.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Maifeilan on July 25, 2013, 06:14:05 PM
please excuse the levity of this one ... or - REVEL IN IT:

http://gawker.com/canadian-man-sorry-for-chugging-eight-beers-and-swimmin-888283225

(http://i1149.photobucket.com/albums/o590/wooo_O/ku-xlarge_zps98d3dc4a.png) (http://s1149.photobucket.com/user/wooo_O/media/ku-xlarge_zps98d3dc4a.png.html)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on July 25, 2013, 06:35:21 PM
Uh...so a Canadian decides to swim to America and back again? For that he is banned from all waterfront property? This article is a hoax, right? It has to be. Otherwise, I do not understand. I thought the main issue in America were people crossing US border and staying, not immediately going home again. I must admire his stamina, chugging 8 beers and swimming a river, if I chugged 8 beers I wouldn't be able to walk, much less swim.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Maifeilan on July 25, 2013, 07:53:56 PM
... we-e-e-llll ... he did dive into a regularly busy shipping lane which pissed off the enforcers a wee bit ... NO HOAX: it happened.

According to the article, one of the buddies lined up on the shore to watch panicked when our John got far enough out to disappear from sight.  He called the cops which resulted in an expensive search for our HERO who - MEANWHILE - got across to Detroit and half-way back before being spotted by Yank coastguard *on the Kanuckistani side of the river (*WHY?) ...

What with the War on Terruh and all - Amerika is a tad reactionary sensitive about the idea of foregoing official entry/exit points in favour of swimming back and forth half cut instead...( bfbfbfbfbf ) ... anyway... just to be clear - I think the ban was unjust. This guy is beer store parking lot double life-size bronze statue material!

I LOVED this story. I loved how after all was said and done he needed his buddies to know he'd made it (but for the interruption of Yanks in a boat)... More than that, I love how his Mom's reaction led to that priceless expression he's wearing.

Sorry, sorry amerika. :/  

 :alcoholic: :alcoholic: :alcoholic: :alcoholic: :alcoholic: :alcoholic: :alcoholic: :alcoholic:
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on July 25, 2013, 08:03:19 PM
In defence of the law I bet the coastguard have to go and pull drunk swimmers out of rivers alive and dead all the time
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Maifeilan on July 25, 2013, 08:31:47 PM
... just to be crystal clear, I further agree that some legally entrenched discouragements of this sort of thing are not out of order. Be safe in and on the water, kids! Go ahead and fine our good-hearted fool, John; recover the cost of the search & unnecessary rescue to whatever extent possible.  I just think the ban imposed on his strolling along the waterfront if for no other reason than to meditate on his stupid-AWESOME adventure is complete bullshit. That's all...

The next one's on me, John, buddy -  bfbfbfbfbf  agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on July 25, 2013, 08:32:45 PM
War on terror...well, I see that, however, I would argue that, in most cases. people of an anarchist frame of mind are rarely wont to get pie-eyed and go for a swim. "So, what do you want?". "I want to topple your heathen capitalist pig government, bring about a new Utopis risen like a glorious phoenix from the ashes of your modern Sodom and Gomorrah, set the people whom you have enslaved with consumerism and whose faculties you have destroyed with "Jersey Shore" free, I will usher in a new era of truth, virtue and...". "Yees..uhm...you're wet, obviously drunk and wearing a speedo...maybe you should go home and think about it some more?", "Down with your demonic soulless oligarchy who worships Mammon and..oh, right, yeah, I see your point..I will just swim back".
I wonder what the Canadians would have done had a US citizen performed this stunt? Probably given him a Molson and cheerily waved goodbye as he jumped back into the river.  agagagagag agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Maifeilan on July 25, 2013, 08:36:30 PM
You would argue from a reasoned and rational perspective - one that USanian border officials and their overlords do not share ;) ... nevertheless - yes to all of that.  I would give any Yank who tried that a CASE of Molson and a backyard bbq in her/his honoUr.  bjbjbjbjbj
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Maifeilan on July 25, 2013, 08:43:31 PM
OH - I do - must - take one small exception to your otherwise spotless thought experiment:

John was certainly NOT wearing a speedo. 

kkkkkkkkkk

C'MON.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on July 25, 2013, 09:24:14 PM
Wow, it's looking like about a hundred dead in that train crash in Spain

dark :(
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/25/spain-train-crash-dead
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on July 25, 2013, 11:28:32 PM
OH - I do - must - take one small exception to your otherwise spotless thought experiment:

John was certainly NOT wearing a speedo. 

kkkkkkkkkk

C'MON.

Poetic license...I considered a Maple Leaf adorned mankini but thought better of it. Hmm...apparently there is such a thing as a mankini...I did not know that.. agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Guangzhou Writer on July 26, 2013, 12:22:32 AM
There is no monetary cost associated with a rescue of a guy in a river. All the equipment and manpower is at hand and in use regardless. All the accountants in Dante's third circle of bureaucratic hell could not distinguish a fiscal period with the rescue compared to without.

The only stupid thing was admitting that he'd swum across, for which there is no proof, meaning no evidence, so he should just say he fell in and never cross the border, or better yet, say nothing and kick his friends in the ass. If he had gotten into trouble in the water, the only purpose for calling for help at night would be to recover his body a little more quickly.

Wotta buncha pussies.

If I ever get drunk (or not) and decide to jump into a dangerous river (has happened for good and bad motives), I hope my friends would either physically stop me or have a drink in my honor. Calling the authorities is such a lame ass move. Would immediately disown anyone like that.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on July 27, 2013, 01:39:17 PM
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/25/plague-detected-california-squirrel_n_3653037.html

Neither me nor my extended family know about this. We are tree squirrels. This is bad. It is bad enough that we are called tree rats, now it will be worse. "Mommy, mommy, can I play with the squirrel?", "No Sweetie, it may have plague, now go tell Daddy to get the shotgun".
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on July 27, 2013, 02:02:50 PM
I gotta give the swimmer huge props just for visiting Detroit at that hour.  WAY more dangerous than the swim itself.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on August 05, 2013, 06:23:27 AM
Thrown to the wolves: China's children at the mercy of foreign predators (http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1293248/thrown-wolves)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on August 05, 2013, 06:24:04 AM
Doctor sold my baby to smuggling ring, says Shaanxi mother (http://www.scmp.com/news/china-insider/article/1293880/maternity-doctor-suspected-baby-smuggling-investigation)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on August 05, 2013, 02:24:24 PM
Thrown to the wolves: China's children at the mercy of foreign predators (http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1293248/thrown-wolves)

I don't understand how so many of these people have already been caught abusing in their home countries and then our governments just let them go out into the world.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on August 22, 2013, 12:04:54 AM
Just in time for Mooncake Festival!  Order early!  Supplies are limited!

These divine mooncakes are brought to the mortal world by an act of G.O.D. (literally!)

http://shanghaiist.com/2013/08/20/hong_kong_company_god_now_selling_m.php

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Nolefan on August 22, 2013, 12:19:10 AM
Just in time for Mooncake Festival!  Order early!  Supplies are limited!

These divine mooncakes are brought to the mortal world by an act of G.O.D. (literally!)

http://shanghaiist.com/2013/08/20/hong_kong_company_god_now_selling_m.php


so you finally opened that bakery you've been talking about for years.  uuuuuuuuuu :wtf:
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: piglet on August 22, 2013, 01:42:24 AM
Sorry Stil just realized I double posted that Thrown to the wolves thing... kkkkkkkkkk
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Monkey King on August 22, 2013, 03:41:49 AM
Haha, sorry I also posted the same article after Stil on the visa crackdown thread as well, so that's 3 times now - it's just that much of a WTF headline we couldn't wait to post it I suppose!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on August 22, 2013, 04:32:33 AM
没关系
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: cruisemonkey on August 22, 2013, 02:41:18 PM
I couldn't be arsed to order those mooncakes.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on August 22, 2013, 02:51:15 PM
As long as they're not full of caca bqbqbqbqbq
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on August 22, 2013, 11:37:32 PM
Just in time for Mooncake Festival!  Order early!  Supplies are limited!

These divine mooncakes are brought to the mortal world by an act of G.O.D. (literally!)

http://shanghaiist.com/2013/08/20/hong_kong_company_god_now_selling_m.php


so you finally opened that bakery you've been talking about for years.  uuuuuuuuuu :wtf:

Not yet.  I've got to develop a perfect bagel recipe before worrying about naughty mooncakes.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Isidnar on August 31, 2013, 04:03:33 AM
...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on August 31, 2013, 04:45:40 AM
ETR -->  please stay away from the forests in California.  aoaoaoaoao bibibibibi agagagagag agagagagag

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on August 31, 2013, 05:09:43 AM
So the BXL trial is over.

What a fantastic movie that will never be made.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on August 31, 2013, 12:46:26 PM
The BXL trial was boring. I am more interested in seeing how that sick, spoiled gang-rapist is going to be non-punished because Daddy General will make everything good.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: NATO on August 31, 2013, 05:59:15 PM
Rumour has it on the Chinese web that the other people involved are from even more high-profile families and that they are picking off this one guy as damage limitation.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on September 01, 2013, 02:27:21 PM
Boring?

GKL video testified against her husband and he said she was nuts and had been driven insane and pressured to testify. BXL said that Wang, his head of security was in love (and intimated they had an affair) with GKL and they did all this behind his back. He said he had no idea about the 16 million rmb villa in France that a businessman gave GKL

Usually in these types of trials the accused grovels and apologizes to get leniency. BXL was totally defiant.

This is a great story in full. Kings and Princes, the heir-apparent to the throne, affairs and corruption, murder, gangsters, a race to the American embassy, a princeling playboy, old guard political maneuvering.

It's a shame no movie will ever be made.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on September 02, 2013, 07:06:30 PM
I know it's all a puppet show but I was really really happy about the British parliament voting against starting in the war, it was lovely seeing actual democracy working
I'm not that optimistic that it will affect anything in the long term but it was still a really nice surprise to see Britain and our European friends actually refuse to use our power for murder just because there's money in it
What a great day for humanity lol
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: piglet on September 02, 2013, 09:07:48 PM
Unfortunately Kitano it is not a great day for humanity.The Syrian people (and indeed most of the Middle East) seem to be in a Lose-Lose situation right now.ALthough I agree with you it is better for the UK and the US not to interfere,things are not looking great.I guess it will just have to play itself out,but I can't see it being great for humanity whichever way you slice it. kkkkkkkkkk
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: LoveSasa on September 03, 2013, 04:03:25 AM
« Reply #2147 on: July 27, 2013, 12:39:17 AM » 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/25/plague-detected-california-squirrel_n_3653037.html

Neither me nor my extended family know about this. We are tree squirrels. This is bad. It is bad enough that we are called tree rats, now it will be worse. "Mommy, mommy, can I play with the squirrel?", "No Sweetie, it may have plague, now go tell Daddy to get the shotgun".
Quote

What's new about plague in squirrels in California's Sierra Nevadas?

They've been carriers for as long as I can remember.

The plague ain't what it once was. After all, we are descendants of the survivors.

Yeah the squirrels and prairie dogs in most of the southwest have been known carriers for quite a while. There was some famous long distance runner who caught the plague from running through City Park right near the Capitol Building in Denver a few years ago.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: piglet on September 05, 2013, 01:20:36 AM
The last sentence leaves something to be desired imho
http://www.thenanfang.com/blog/gz-student-murdered-by-fake-beautiful-girl-he-met-on-momo/ (http://www.thenanfang.com/blog/gz-student-murdered-by-fake-beautiful-girl-he-met-on-momo/)
 mmmmmmmmmm
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on September 05, 2013, 02:10:38 AM
I agree with  you piglet.   aoaoaoaoao llllllllll

However, mental illness is not discussed or approved of in China.  llllllllll llllllllll
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on September 05, 2013, 06:36:25 PM
There's no link so I'll try to paraphrase this little nugget

A Serbian in Malaysia met a beautiful young girl, they moved in together and had a son. Then she throws him out and refuses to let him see his child. She claims that she only wanted him for his "procreation ability" and she wanted a Europian child. He's suing and trying to get his kid back

 bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on September 05, 2013, 06:45:18 PM
Attention beautiful girls wanting to borrow a man of European descent for procreation abilities.  Please send an inquiry to my website:  youlovemelongtimeanddon'tletmywifeknow.com
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on September 11, 2013, 05:05:46 AM
Here's something to give your students when they say, "I'm going to Haw-vad"

For the year 2013, Princeton is #1, followed by Harvard then Yale. Note: this is for US only, no mention where Peking Uni would be listed
 ahahahahah

As for Liberal Arts Colleges, Williams in Williamstown Ma is first, Amhurst also in Ma is second and the #3 spot goes to Swathmore (who?  mmmmmmmmmm)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on September 12, 2013, 12:11:26 AM
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/-virginia-county-library-system-destroyed-250-000-of-its-own-books-205951078.html

Throwing out books to be destroyed....I think that, in a few seconds, I could probably come up with a gazillion better things the library could have done with those books.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on September 12, 2013, 01:00:31 AM
I have never sold or purposely destroyed a book. A few by accident. I can't fathom any reason for book burning
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on September 12, 2013, 01:16:42 AM
And in other news, proto-English, aka Britspeak, has finally been deciphered.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/10280244/Translation-table-explaining-the-truth-behind-British-politeness-becomes-internet-hit.html
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: old34 on September 12, 2013, 04:12:32 AM
If you substituted Chinese for the first column (albeit in a simpler, less droll diction), the second and third columns would be about the same vis-a-vis Chinese communication.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: English Gent on September 12, 2013, 06:24:42 PM
Actually, its a bit more complicated than that table, I use the phrases and do mean the 'third' column meaning mostly, unless I am unleashing my razor sharp sarcasm.
I'll add one (to a woman) 'those clothes look quite exotic on you' means 'you look like a slag!'
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Just Like Mr Benn on September 12, 2013, 07:08:01 PM
I kind of assumed all English speakers did this, at least in a business context.

"I think you have a valuable contribution to make to the discussion" = and that contribution should be silence from now on.

"I don't want to interrupt / disagree / take anything anyway from your comments / be unduly negative" = but unfortunately I have to, because you're an idiot.

"You make an excellent point" = You're completely wrong, but unfortunately you're my boss.

"So, if I understand what you're saying correctly....." = I'm going to take the garbled incoherent nonsense you just spouted and turn it into one of my trademark pearls of wisdom.



Unfortunately, I'm no longer any good at brit-talk. A couple of weeks ago in a meeting I said to my FAO, "Can you talk in English, so we know when you're saying something incorrect". 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on September 12, 2013, 07:37:46 PM
A couple of weeks ago in a meeting I said to my FAO, "Can you talk in English, so we know when you're saying something incorrect". 

 ahahahahah

Been there. My ex-FAO was a Brit
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on September 12, 2013, 10:02:09 PM
A little like post-game, coach-speak:

"Our guards played inspired defense" = They couldn't shoot to save their lives

"We came to play today, but the breaks went against us" = They beat us like a red-headed stepchild, but at least we didn't pout and go home.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on September 15, 2013, 02:12:27 PM
So we have developed a culture where we can, safe behind Net pseudonyms, defame, insult and upset people and our only possible response is to engage in some argument with the faceless accuser because if we actually do something about it in person, we risk our job. Read this article from CNN. I do not think the teacher over-reacted.
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/12/world/americas/mexico-teacher-twitter/index.html?iref=obnetwork
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on September 15, 2013, 02:40:46 PM
And in other news, proto-English, aka Britspeak, has finally been deciphered.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/10280244/Translation-table-explaining-the-truth-behind-British-politeness-becomes-internet-hit.html


Interesting.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on September 15, 2013, 02:42:33 PM
So we have developed a culture where we can, safe behind Net pseudonyms, defame, insult and upset people and our only possible response is to engage in some argument with the faceless accuser because if we actually do something about it in person, we risk our job. Read this article from CNN. I do not think the teacher over-reacted.
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/12/world/americas/mexico-teacher-twitter/index.html?iref=obnetwork


Yeah, back in my day we'd call her a bitch and a whore to her face.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on September 19, 2013, 12:58:07 AM
Great job ad:  http://jobs.echinacities.com/jobchapter/1354412090


Crystal shooting magazines, foreigners need upper body half-naked female models one day wages 5000-8000

Job Description:
Crystal shot magazine, you need upper body half-naked female models expatriate wages 5000-8000 one day, interested please send photos [ bikini or underwear] photo [model card ] my mailbox


Guess it's time to wax my chest   aoaoaoaoao
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: cruisemonkey on September 19, 2013, 11:14:48 AM
Guess it's time to wax my chest   aoaoaoaoao

Males have to do lower body... so you need a Brazilian as well.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: NATO on September 29, 2013, 05:07:10 PM
I have never sold or purposely destroyed a book. A few by accident. I can't fathom any reason for book burning

I haven't read this article, but it's from a magazine that releases one essay per day, and they are mostly thought-provoking and interesting. I strongly recommend the magazine to everyone, it's managed to work it's way into my life due to it's fantastic content.  http://www.aeonmagazine.com/being-human/julian-baggini-burning-books/
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on October 02, 2013, 12:32:30 AM
Apparently, the American government is having a bit of a tiff, involving health care and has gone into a partial shut-down. It seems that the GOP are miffed that people have to buy medical insurance. I am no political mastermind, so can anyone please explain this to me? Why is this health care proposal so troublesome?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on October 02, 2013, 03:05:25 AM
The republicans didn't do it so they want it cancelled.  bibibibibi llllllllll llllllllll

AND,  Big business might suffer if it isn't cancelled.  llllllllll

Poor people and sick people with pre-existing conditions shouldn't be allowed to have health care.   llllllllll llllllllll asasasasas asasasasas
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on October 02, 2013, 03:42:11 AM
The republicans didn't do it so they want it cancelled.  bibibibibi llllllllll llllllllll

AND,  Big business might suffer if it isn't cancelled.  llllllllll

Poor people and sick people with pre-existing conditions shouldn't be allowed to have health care.   llllllllll llllllllll asasasasas asasasasas

Well, now, again, I am about as useful in a political discussion as an elephant at a ballet recital but that just sounds silly. I would assume that the people most in need of health care would be sick people. 不明白。。
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on October 02, 2013, 03:50:04 AM
. . . but that just sounds silly. I would assume that the people most in need of health care would be sick people. 不明白。。

Not if you're an insurance company. You want to provide for healthy long living folks so that they don't dip into the coffers yet continuously pay into it
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on October 02, 2013, 06:44:06 AM
Giving health care to sick people makes no one any profit.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: cruisemonkey on October 02, 2013, 10:27:35 AM
Giving health care to sick people makes no one any profit.

Yeah. You sell healthy people insurance, and deny coverage if they become sick. It's the American way.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on October 03, 2013, 02:51:03 AM
Having a healthy workforce is good for the economy, but not the companies who have power to lobby...

What I've read, when they did this in the Clinton years it backfired because people (specially in America) like hating the 'big government' bullying them, but then when the government actually closes down people realise that they are using it all the time

What I don't understand is why noone did this to George Bush II? The healthcare is a big deal, but the wars and tax breaks were much more expensive
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on October 03, 2013, 05:08:49 AM
I am no political mastermind, so can anyone please explain this to me? Why is this health care proposal so troublesome?

Me neither, but I think it comes down to ideology.  Socialized Health Care smacks of socialism, (a very bad word in The U.S.).  The government making you do something is "Un-Constitutional" in many pea-brained minds, (despite the fact that they accept gov't's ability to send teenagers to die in non-declared wars).

Peripheral arguments such as "Liberalism = Atheism" and Obama is a black man also come into play.  A LOT of money is spent to keep these slanders alive and the great majority comes from the business-right.

The real problem is that a minority, (The Tea Party), have an inordinate amount of power over the Republican Party and that Party, (through gerrey-mandering), has a majority in one House of Congress.  And with our system of government, that's enough to create gridlock.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on October 03, 2013, 05:35:34 AM
Then I must admit I am ever so happy to be from a socialist country.
So, the Republicans, the idiotically named Tea Party (dumbest political name since the Know-Nothing Party) are causing 800.000 people to be sent home with no pay because they don't like the idea of a nationalized health insurance? They actually think there is something wrong with people being able to get affordable and good health care? There are right now 800.000 people who can't make money over this. I do wonder how this will play out where there is a Senate of House of Representatives election:
"Vote for me! I am a Republican! I will..."
"Err...weren't you the guys who shut down the government because you had a problem with lower income people getting government subsidized good health care?"
"Well...err...I...err...It's not that simple..."
"Do members of Congress get a good health plan, with dental and such?"
"Umm...ummm...yees...but..."
"Tell ya what, I saw a dead skunk on the road a while back, I'm gonna head back and get it and then I think  am gonna keep it in my fridge. So, when you are not re-elected, I am gonna find ya, tie you up and force-feed ya undercooked skunk roadkill and then I will take you to a free clinic because, obviously, you don't think people need good doctors who are not over-worked."
A nationalized welfare system for everyone is neither socialist or atheist or dangerous, it is a very good idea. Again, not a political wiz, but the Republicans and Co. seem just a wee bit silly to me.  agagagagag agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on October 03, 2013, 06:18:11 AM
Yeah, you got it.  Now, was that so hard?!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on October 03, 2013, 03:25:35 PM
Cave discovered in Chongqing so large it has it's own weather system (http://buff.ly/GA24t5)

Pretty cool.

I do love how places are 'discovered'. Local people never count.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on October 03, 2013, 03:39:00 PM
Meh, this is Hunan. I've seen bigger (http://beijingcream.com/2013/10/beastly-rat-caught-in-hunan-allegedly-eaten/)

And of course it was eaten.

辣椒炒老鼠肉
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on October 03, 2013, 06:50:25 PM
Caves were awesome. We're doing caves in one class, so I could use that article

As for the rats, gotta agree with Stil, no big deal. I've also seen bigger. But damn, that thing is huge. Glad it's dead
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on October 04, 2013, 07:35:34 PM
One of the reporters was obviously pretty gullible.

http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?id=20131001000004&cid=1103&MainCatID=0

A 5 KG animal with bones so big than 2 knives were broken cutting it up. bibibibibi

I wonder what filet of rat tastes like? mmmmmmmmmm

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on October 04, 2013, 10:30:36 PM
I wonder what filet of rat tastes like? mmmmmmmmmm


what else? tastes like chicken
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on October 05, 2013, 08:08:32 PM
I love how every story involving animals in China ends up with a bunch of yokels eating it :D
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on October 20, 2013, 03:24:50 AM
Liberia: Chinese Police Arrive Monday (http://allafrica.com/stories/201310181190.html)

China's first group of riot police assigned to Africa as peacekeepers was set to depart from Beijing on Monday morning after months of training.

An advance team of 15 will arrive first in the Republic of Liberia, followed by another 125 police officers on Oct 21. The mission will last eight months.

The unit is being deployed to Liberia to maintain public security, as well as to protect United Nations staff and facilities.

Most members were chosen from the 1,350 applicants from Heilongjiang Provincial Public Security Frontier Corps.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on October 21, 2013, 04:59:57 AM
Liberia: Chinese Police Arrive Monday (http://allafrica.com/stories/201310181190.html)

China's first group of riot police assigned to Africa as peacekeepers was set to depart from Beijing on Monday morning after months of training.

An advance team of 15 will arrive first in the Republic of Liberia, followed by another 125 police officers on Oct 21. The mission will last eight months.

The unit is being deployed to Liberia to maintain public security, as well as to protect United Nations staff and facilities.

Most members were chosen from the 1,350 applicants from Heilongjiang Provincial Public Security Frontier Corps.


Let's all hope that their good deeds don't go unpunished like that of every other country.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on October 23, 2013, 07:16:54 PM
Soylent founder Rob Rhinehart raises $1.5 million in funding (http://www.heraldsun.com.au/business/companies/soylent-founder-rob-rhinehart-raises-15-million-in-funding/story-fni0d54w-1226745251232)

ENJOYING that sandwich you're tucking into?

Eat up, it could be one of your last if Rob Rhinehart, the founder of meal replacement Soylent has his way.

The young entrepreneur has secured $1.5 million in seed funding and millions of pre-orders for a nutritionally-complete drink he developed, Tech Crunch reports.

And it's not just any old investors. Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian and Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, described by Forbes as some of the most powerful people in tech, all want to get in on the product.

Mr Rhinehart made headlines when he gave up food for 30 days, relying entirely on the mix of vitamins and minerals like calcium, potassium, zinc, vitamins A, B, C, D, E and K in Soylent to provide his nutrition.

Despite criticism of the look and taste, a crowdfunding campaign quickly exceeded its goals.

"I have heard from some groups I did not expect though, everyone from chefs, who understandably seem to want a simple meal when they are usually cooking complex meals for other people, to truck drivers, who find it very difficult to get healthy food on the road," Mr Rhinehart told news.com.au.

The drink takes its name from cult sci-fi film Soylent Green, in which the population lives off rations including a drink made out of people.

Tech Crunch reports 50 testers have been living off the drink for months with no major issues so far. The latest round of capital raising will be used to move the company to Los Angeles and bring manufacturing in-house.

It comes following the launch of the world's first test tube burger, backed by Google's Sergey Brin. Mr Rhinehart said ultimately "Soylent will be a household name that most people use to some extent, like coffee".

However, while he expects the appetite for synthetic food to grow, it's unlikely to replace eating altogether.

"I don't think anyone should give up food entirely. Food is a big part of life. I just think we should separate food for fun and recreation from fuel for nutrition. This way we can enjoy nice foods and still be healthy. It's about balance," he said.

"Our best foods are already novelties for special occasions. Soylent will be the most popular staple meal but food will always be enjoyed for recreation by those that have the means."

The drink is expected to cost $65 for a week's supply.


 aoaoaoaoao
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: cruisemonkey on October 24, 2013, 01:35:15 AM
Hmmm... an expensive concotion of vitamins and minerals named after a sci-fi 'slurry' made from people (at least 'Soylent Green' had protien), that looks bad and tastes bad, does not sound like a wise investment to me.
 aaaaaaaaaa
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on October 24, 2013, 01:48:38 AM
It'll be the new Jolt/Mountain Dew. Soylent Beige - the health conscious hacker's meal in a cup.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on October 24, 2013, 02:40:06 AM
I'd like that. I can never be bothered to cook lunch and I don't want to eat cafe food every day. It would be nice to get your nutrition without food sometimes
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on October 24, 2013, 03:34:10 AM
I'd like that. I can never be bothered to cook lunch and I don't want to eat cafe food every day. It would be nice to get your nutrition without food sometimes

I'd like it too. I sometimes eat absolute crap because I'm in a hurry, might even have breakfast once in awhile.

The final consumer product wouldn't necessarily have to taste like crap. If you've ever had an Ensure or something like that, they are not terrible.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on October 24, 2013, 01:35:50 PM
Soylent Cola - Tastes better because it's made from people.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: cruisemonkey on October 27, 2013, 11:27:48 AM
I never thought wearing school uniforms could be hazardous to students' health -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-21583781 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-21583781)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on November 08, 2013, 04:44:05 PM
WOW! I know we don't do much in sports, but I think this transcends the genre. 1 of the 4 gold medals won by Jesse Owens in the '36 Olympic Games is going up for auction. The anticipated price is expected to exceed $1M. Part of it is due to the whereabouts of the other 3 medals. The family has no idea where they are (they say)

This is a piece of history
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on November 08, 2013, 09:54:37 PM
I've been waiting for this for a long time. At last, my chance to own the complete set. uuuuuuuuuu
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: piglet on November 11, 2013, 10:11:22 PM
We all knew this but here are the statistics

http://news.yahoo.com/study-record-number-foreign-students-hit-us-050217743.html (http://news.yahoo.com/study-record-number-foreign-students-hit-us-050217743.html)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on November 18, 2013, 04:52:42 AM
Beijing has submitted an offer to host the 2022 WINTER Olympics. I don't think they have a snowball's chance against Almaty Kazakhstan, Krakow Poland, Lviv Ukraine, Oslo Norway, and Stockholm Sweden. 2018 is going to be in South Korea so China is too close. I think the rule is that only Europe can hold consequtive games

My money is on Oslo.

If they do win, then Beijing would be the first city to host both a Winter and Summer Olympiad
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on November 23, 2013, 02:21:12 AM
Another brutal accident, this one in my town, actually a neighbouring city about 15KM from my place. Oil pipeline burst into flames killing at least 35. So far, the gov't has ruled out terrorism. They also say the chemical fallout is within national acceptable standards. (Yea, right) Luckily, it's too cold to go swimming
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: opiate on November 23, 2013, 05:17:06 AM
In Huangdao?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on November 23, 2013, 06:02:09 AM
Yes, not far from the western edge of the tunnel, not the bridge
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: NATO on November 26, 2013, 05:20:41 PM
They also say the chemical fallout is within national acceptable standards. (Yea, right)

Always a good sign when they stipulate national acceptable standards as opposed to international acceptable standards.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on November 26, 2013, 11:48:18 PM
What really frightens me is that these are the same trained apes specialists in charge of the nuclear power system
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: china-matt on November 29, 2013, 11:39:51 PM
Just saw this bit tonight: Mexican drug cartels now make money exporting ore
http://news.yahoo.com/mexican-drug-cartels-now-money-exporting-ore-050325576.html

Seems that the biggest importer of the illegally-mined iron ore from Mexico is China.

Quote
Government figures show the amount of iron ore being exported to China quadrupled between 2008 and the first half of 2013, rising to 4.6 million tons per year, precisely during the period the La Familia cartel and later the Knights Templar cemented their control over Michoacan.

And there's speculation that Chinese mining companies are trading chemicals for the ore--the kinds of chemicals that cartels can use to make a certain Breaking Bad-type drug.

There was also news of a huge meth bust in China and that most of it comes from DPRK. Wonder if DPRK is just trafficking for the cartels now.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on December 09, 2013, 12:12:10 AM
Chinese Teacher Sits on a Pile of Kindergarten Children (http://www.chinasmack.com/2013/pictures/chinese-teacher-sits-on-a-pile-of-kindergarten-children.html)

This photograph (http://img.chinasmack.com/www/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/chinese-kindergarten-teacher-on-top-of-sandwiched-children-01.jpg) appeared in the parent/guardians’ QQ contact group for the No.1 kindergarten attached to Changsha Normal University: a female teacher on the very top of three rows of children with mats separating them, striking a dance pose and doing the splits with a smile on her face.

A parent exposed this matter through the Xiaoxiang Morning Herald’s official Weixin account, saying “Teacher, you are really happy, but have you seen from their expressions how they are bearing it? How can we parents endure this? Our hearts all sank [on seeing the picture]!” The kindergarten explained that this was merely a training/exercise activity.

...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on December 09, 2013, 02:42:54 AM
What a bunch of fricken pansies. Admittedly, the kids on the bottom row are small, but the relative weight on top of them is not unbearable. You see all those kids laughing, smiling and posing? That's not the sign of suffocating children. She's lucky she's not a foreign teacher, they'd give her the death penalty
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on December 09, 2013, 03:39:35 AM
Safety first! Student foremost! Teacher above all!

This is why I can't have children. No, not because my testicles were crushed in a preschool matting accident. But because activities teaching resilience and team spirit that require mostly the ability to lie flat and not cry don't seem reasonable. Can't they just throw them in swimming pools and see if they float?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on December 09, 2013, 05:39:39 AM
Finally my school makes the national press.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on December 09, 2013, 08:21:30 AM
Quote
Finally my school makes the national press.
I can't get linked to the pic, so I'm assuming the teacher concerned was Stil.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on December 09, 2013, 09:00:06 AM
No, SHE wasn't ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on December 09, 2013, 01:24:32 PM
And she was attractive
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on December 09, 2013, 02:48:12 PM
If she gets tired of sitting on kindergartners, she can come sit on me any time she likes. afafafafaf
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on December 09, 2013, 05:24:22 PM
Quote
No, SHE wasn't
Well, Stil is a bit girly!
I still get a 403. Someone post the pic.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: piglet on December 09, 2013, 07:39:52 PM
I didn't get 404 I got "Forbidden

You don't have permission to access /www/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/chinese-kindergarten-teacher-on-top-of-sandwiched-children-01.jpg on this server.

VoxCAST Server at img.chinasmack.com Port 80"
Why don't I have permission??? Please please pretty please!  ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on December 09, 2013, 08:11:40 PM
(http://s22.postimg.org/851anb8yl/chinese_kindergarten_teacher_on_top_of_sandwiche.jpg) (http://postimg.org/image/851anb8yl/)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on December 09, 2013, 08:21:02 PM
Maybe Stil could get an autographed copy.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: George on December 10, 2013, 08:21:29 AM
Thanks Calach. A lot of fuss about not much. Maybe Stil can autograph a copy.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on December 10, 2013, 12:23:19 PM
Thanks Calach. bfbfbfbfbf I was also getting the 403.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on December 10, 2013, 05:46:25 PM
It should be the avatar.

"Like giants, sitting on the shoulders of dwarves, we see as far as we usually see."
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on December 10, 2013, 07:13:18 PM
(http://lolbot.net/pix/30567.jpg)

aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao NEW ZEALAND CANNIBALISM!!! aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on December 11, 2013, 02:43:19 AM
NEW ZEALAND CANNIBALISM!!!

Damn! Our best kept secret has been revealed

We thought by changing the name that people would not accuse us of sinocide.

 This fruit was originally from China (ye olde Chinese Gooseberry) and New Zealanders developed a taste for its flesh.

So the game is up. What can we eat now that Chinese is off the menu? The French are too greasy, Aussies are tough as old boots and it is well known that Germans have no taste at all.

 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on December 11, 2013, 12:21:41 PM
So that is why they always have a bowl of Kiwi fruit available in the lunch room at "the den". I have to get in early to beat the Chinese folk to the softest fruit; they squeeze everyone of them. bibibibibi

Thanks for the photo EL. agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on December 11, 2013, 06:26:23 PM
I'd prefer to eat the bird.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on December 11, 2013, 07:26:18 PM
I'd prefer to eat the bird.

You could try a Kiwi in a variation of "Pukeko Stew"

" ....  ..boil a gumboot and a pukeko for three days, tip put the water, throw away the pukeko and eat the gumboot."

 agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on December 12, 2013, 05:15:46 AM
Time magazine selected Pope Francis as its Person of the Year on Wednesday, saying the Catholic Church's new leader has changed the perception of the 2,000-year-old institution in an extraordinary way in a short time.

The pope beat out NSA leaker Edward Snowden for the distinction, which the newsmagazine has been giving each year since 1927.




I was hoping for Milly Cyrus  bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: piglet on December 13, 2013, 04:11:39 PM
Should we be worried ?
http://www.whatsonxiamen.com/education/6133.html (http://www.whatsonxiamen.com/education/6133.html)

I am not sure if I missed this one,is this an old item?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on December 13, 2013, 05:42:09 PM
Should we be worried ?
http://www.whatsonxiamen.com/education/6133.html (http://www.whatsonxiamen.com/education/6133.html)

I am not sure if I missed this one,is this an old item?

Should we be worried ?
If your students are going to go abroad, this is great news. That means during the school year, they won't try or work as hard as they used to. Then their scores will become lower. So if you do these kids, then they will need you a whole lot more

is this an old item? a little, but not that old
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on December 16, 2013, 11:02:24 PM
So now China has debris on The Moon too thanks to the Chang'e 3. How long before they claim it as historically theirs.

I understand a restaurant and night market has already opened up in the Sea of Tranquility.


Sorry, but with all the problems at home, I fail to see the value of this at this point in time. Maybe in 20-30 years
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on December 16, 2013, 11:29:22 PM
Pictures from the Moon:

(http://www.sibci.gob.ve/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/103.jpg)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on December 17, 2013, 12:02:28 AM
So now China has debris on The Moon too thanks to the Chang'e 3. How long before they claim it as historically theirs.

Of course the moon belongs to China. btbtbtbtbt  The original Chang'e and her rabbit have been there for many centuries.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: roadwalker on December 17, 2013, 01:28:06 AM
Pictures from the Moon:

(http://www.sibci.gob.ve/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/103.jpg)

 bkbkbkbkbk

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on December 17, 2013, 04:12:55 AM
veryvery funny
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on December 22, 2013, 11:26:52 PM
Crane Operator Captures Stunning Aerial Images Of Shanghai (http://www.neatorama.com/2013/12/21/Crane-Operator-Captures-Stunning-Images-Of-Shanghai/#!qryaI)

(http://uploads.neatorama.com/images/posts/970/67/67970/1387598935-1.jpg)

Chinese crane operator Wei Gensheng saw many incredible photo ops while working on a crane over 2000 feet above the city of Shanghai, and there he found the perfect subject for his photography- the city itself.

These soaring sky high shots are quite literally breathtaking, especially when you consider the perspective of the photographer, and it’s safe to say nobody has ever seen the city of Shanghai captured photographically in this way before.

Shanghai Tower is now the second tallest building in the world, making Wei one of the bravest photographers in the world for even attempting to take some of these amazing shots!


http://www.slrlounge.com/crane-operator-brings-camera-work
http://twentytwowords.com/2013/12/18/crane-operator-atop-the-worlds-2nd-tallest-building-takes-absolutely-stunning-aerial-shots-of-shanghai-15-pics/
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: roadwalker on December 22, 2013, 11:40:39 PM
Nice photo!  Another reason to see the smog as 'glass half full'.  kkkkkkkkkk
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on December 23, 2013, 12:08:29 PM
Thanks Calach; very interesting.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on December 25, 2013, 10:09:53 PM
According to Forbes:

Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson named highest grossing actor of 2013
The musician in the No. 1 place for highest paid, not grossing was Madonna.
Micheal Jackson topped the list for the deceased


WoW


I like all of them, but you'd think it would have been someone else. Elvis had that trophy for a while. The Rock's 4 movies took in $1.3B. Madonna's net was $125M. Not bad for a 55 year old

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/dec/18/dwayne-the-rock-johnson-highest-grossing-actor-2013
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2510330/Madonna-tops-2013-Forbes-list-highest-paid-musicians-beating-Lady-Gaga-Bon-Jovi-Justin-Bieber.html
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on December 28, 2013, 06:49:28 PM
In Iceland, a road-building project has been halted due to some interest groups claiming that the area the road is supposed to go through is inhabited by elves or, as they are known in Iceland, the Huldufolk...Apparently the area is home to a Huldufolk church...full article here...
http://www.lowellsun.com/breakingnews/ci_24776914/iceland-road-projects-blocked-by-elves

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on December 28, 2013, 11:49:49 PM
I had read about the elves here (http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/12/22/22009310-icelands-hidden-elves-delay-road-projects?)

I liked this quote:

Quote
"Some feel that the elf thing is a bit annoying," said Magnason, adding that personally he was not sure they existed. However, he added, "I got married in a church with a god just as invisible as the elves, so what might seem irrational is actually quite common" with Icelanders.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on December 29, 2013, 12:42:28 AM
Damn elf and safety regulations
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on December 29, 2013, 03:45:05 AM
In Iceland, a road-building project has been halted due to some interest groups claiming that the area the road is supposed to go through is inhabited by elves or, as they are known in Iceland, the Huldufolk...Apparently the area is home to a Huldufolk church...full article here...
http://www.lowellsun.com/breakingnews/ci_24776914/iceland-road-projects-blocked-by-elves



Not surprised that you're sympathetic to this. After all, aren't the natives descendants of the Vikings? Guess that's what happens when you do too much 'shrooms
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on December 30, 2013, 04:50:22 PM
This road is obviously part of some Dwarvish plot.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on December 30, 2013, 05:49:04 PM
Oh no...what if they dig too deep...they'll have to put up a sign...the road is closed, it was closed by the people who made it, the road is closed...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on December 31, 2013, 05:37:49 AM
but the alternative is to go over the mountain, along a perilously narrow track, in the middle of winter storm, with rocks falling all around...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on December 31, 2013, 01:34:32 PM
Is that a balrog pointing us towards a detour across that narrow stone bridge?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on January 01, 2014, 10:02:21 AM
yeah, when they mentioned a guide with a whip I was thinking more Indiana Jones-y
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on January 02, 2014, 06:47:23 AM
Changsha Conferred “Happiest City in China” for 6 Consecutive Years (http://en.changsha.gov.cn/About/Local/201312/t20131230_531632.html)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on January 02, 2014, 07:06:33 AM
Changsha Conferred “Happiest City in China” for 6 Consecutive Years (http://en.changsha.gov.cn/About/Local/201312/t20131230_531632.html)

seems legit
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on January 02, 2014, 02:01:37 PM
Changsha Conferred “Happiest City in China” for 6 Consecutive Years (http://en.changsha.gov.cn/About/Local/201312/t20131230_531632.html)

The panel of judges all being from the Changsha Happiness Promotion Bureau has nothing whatsoever to do with the outcome. uuuuuuuuuu
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on January 02, 2014, 05:23:07 PM

The panel of judges all being from the Changsha Happiness Promotion Bureau has nothing whatsoever to do with the outcome. uuuuuuuuuu


No impact at all

(http://changshanotes.smugmug.com/photos/i-G7RkXJX/0/L/i-G7RkXJX-L.jpg)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on January 02, 2014, 08:15:42 PM
The Changsha Happiness Bureau brings me Happiness
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on January 03, 2014, 12:37:20 PM
Where are the blokes, or aren't there any happy ones? ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on January 03, 2014, 03:10:29 PM
I understand that a Chinese Consortium wishes to purchase the bankrupt LA Dodgers.

The rumour is that they'll change the name to DODGY
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on January 04, 2014, 03:02:09 AM
Why is China obsessed with 'Sherlock'? (http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-01-02/why-china-obsessed-sherlock)

If you've been waiting with baited breath for the third season of the TV series "Sherlock" -- we're mere weeks away -- turns out you're not alone.

Many Chinese are also crazy about the sleuth and the actor who plays him, Benedict Cumberbatch

"He's become a kind of sex symbol in China and around the world," said Liz Carter assistant editor of Foreign Policy's Tea Leaf Nation.

Hours after the latest season of "Sherlock" premiered in the UK on New Year's Day, millions had watched it online in China.  Not only are Chinese fans watching the show and discussing it online, the infamous detective and his sidekick, nicknamed Curly Fu and Peanut in China, have also inspired a slew of fan fiction known as slash fiction or "danmei."

Danmei is a Chinese word to describe fiction and fan fiction about two characters of the same sex in a romantic situation.

According to Carter, modern danmei traces it's roots back to stories re-imagining the relationship between Captain Kirk and Spock from Star Trek as well as drawing inspiration from Japanese Manga.

When it comes to re-imaginging the relationship between the detective and his sidekick, the stories vary greatly says Carter who read numerous "Sherlock" slash stories while researching the phenomena.

Some stay true to the traditional murder mystery while others are a bit more expressive. For example, a story of a young Holmes and Watson working in the LA porn film industry.

"Sherlock uses clues to deduce that Watson has started filming adults films to pay off his medical loans," said Carter, "It's an interesting cultural intersection where everyone can unite around the fact that it's really fun to imagine Sherlock and Dr. Watson getting together."



Huh. That's interesting. And hilarious. Chinese fan fictioneers write slash.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on January 06, 2014, 04:02:46 PM
Danmei is a Chinese word to describe fiction and fan fiction about two characters of the same sex in a romantic situation.

According to Carter, modern danmei traces it's roots back to stories re-imagining the relationship between Captain Kirk and Spock from Star Trek as well as drawing inspiration from Japanese Manga.


"Captain, now that we're marooned together on this uninhabited planet, I need to tell you about the Vulcan 11 year cycle."
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on January 14, 2014, 04:45:07 AM
So, did anyone participate in "No Pants Day" on the subway on Sunday? This is not the same as when EL or Stil normally run around near nakid

 :lickass:
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on January 14, 2014, 05:13:48 AM
Amateurs.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on January 15, 2014, 02:45:07 PM
Sleeping Chinese Passengers on Spring Festival Train L199 (http://www.chinasmack.com/2014/pictures/sleeping-chinese-passengers-on-spring-festival-train-l199.html)

Subtitle: creepy guy takes pictures of people while they sleep.


Happiness is a warm train.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on January 16, 2014, 06:13:04 AM
Sleeping Chinese Passengers on Spring Festival Train L199 (http://www.chinasmack.com/2014/pictures/sleeping-chinese-passengers-on-spring-festival-train-l199.html)

Subtitle: creepy guy takes pictures of people while they sleep.


Happiness is a warm train.

Seems like my class after one of my sermons lectures lessons
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: cruisemonkey on January 16, 2014, 11:00:56 AM
Seems like my class after one of my sermons lectures lessons

Seems like a class during one of mine.
 bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on January 21, 2014, 03:14:01 AM
Many Chinese Tourists Disappointed by Koreans (http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2014/01/16/2014011601657.html)

Many Chinese tourists leave Korea with a bad taste in their mouth, a straw poll suggests. The Chosun Ilbo late last year interviewed 100 Chinese visitors to Myeong-dong, Dongdaemun and Gangam shopping districts, and that 25 said their image of Korea got worse due to their visit, while 37 said they felt belittled or even derided by Koreans.

Yet a total of 3.92 million Chinese tourists visited Korea last year to become the largest group of visitors to the country. Chinese tourists are big spenders, spending an average of US$2,154 in Korea in 2012 compared to the overall average of $1,530 for all tourists.

Some of the tourists said they could tell they were being sneered at even though they do not speak Korean. Eighteen said they sensed it from certain words or tone of voice.

And 10 said they understand enough Korean to know when they are being derided.

Most of the Chinese visitors had a positive attitude to the country when they arrived here. Korean soap operas and pop music played a major role in fostering goodwill.

Experts warn that discrimination and disdain from Koreans could prompt more people from China to take their business elsewhere.

Chung Duk-koo of the Northeast Asia Research Foundation said, "The starting point of Korea-China relations is the first impression Chinese tourists get when they visit our country." If they get a bad impression and feel Koreans are rude, this could have devastating effects that go beyond the tourism industry, he added.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on January 23, 2014, 10:11:08 PM
Ukrainian police clash with rioters protesting new anti-protest laws.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Hrushevskoho_Street_riots

Why does the word IRONY   keep popping up in my head?  mmmmmmmmmm
I know it's a serious thing, buts I gotsta make jokes
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on January 24, 2014, 02:36:00 PM
I want to go there and protest the protesters. ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on January 24, 2014, 04:16:02 PM
Butcher cures thousands of pork strips off his three story balcony (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2543294/Bringing-home-bacon-Chinese-style-Butcher-cures-thousands-pork-strips-three-story-balcony.html)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on January 24, 2014, 05:07:36 PM
thanks, Calach. When I saw the avatar, I wondered if it was EL's home soylent factory. ("We put the family in our family meals", etc)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on January 24, 2014, 07:06:44 PM
When we went to Beijing a few weeks ago, we passed by a restaurant. That in itself is not unique, neither is the fact that they prepare their own foods. Like the pics above, they had meat curing over the roof. The store was a few feet off a main road. I wish I could post it
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on January 26, 2014, 03:05:57 PM
Erik Prince: Out of Blackwater and Into China (http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303465004579324650302912522?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702303465004579324650302912522.html)

The former CIA asset on his latest venture: After being 'blowtorched' by U.S. politics, he says, this time he's working for Beijing.


 aoaoaoaoao
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on January 27, 2014, 08:39:27 PM
Baidu uses data to track world’s largest human movement as Chinese New Year begins (http://www.techinasia.com/baidu-data-track-worlds-largest-human-movement-chinese-year-begins/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=baidu-data-track-worlds-largest-human-movement-chinese-year-begins)


http://qianxi.baidu.com/
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on January 27, 2014, 10:31:28 PM
Baidu uses data to track world’s largest human movement as Chinese New Year begins (http://www.techinasia.com/baidu-data-track-worlds-largest-human-movement-chinese-year-begins/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=baidu-data-track-worlds-largest-human-movement-chinese-year-begins)


http://qianxi.baidu.com/

It's so pur-tee.

Every country has a way to monitor its people
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on January 27, 2014, 11:04:23 PM
Like fireworks. Everyone with a smartphone blasting out of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.


And yay for South China Sea, even if no one loves you enough to go home there, you will never leave us.





Ooooo, ETA: you can input a city name in the little search box (top right corner) and get more pretty data trails!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on January 29, 2014, 03:48:56 PM
800,000 Yuan? Li Na Is Not Impressed (http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/01/28/132000-li-na-is-not-impressed/)

(http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-BG640_linacu_G_20140128045412.jpg)


They'll get her in the end. You can't become this famous for being this uninterested in political mythos and not have the politicians start digging away at your foundation.

/paranoid
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on January 29, 2014, 05:33:23 PM
For that much money, I'd sleep with him.

That's chump change for her
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on January 29, 2014, 08:38:29 PM
They'll get her in the end. You can't become this famous for being this uninterested in political mythos and not have the politicians start digging away at your foundation.

/paranoid

I'm quite hopeful for the younger generation. They just grew up with capitalism and while they are still nationalistic and so on there is enough space between them and the Mao era for it to fly.
The generation after me (born in late 80s and 90s) who grew up with the internet and have had much more information available to them than anyone over 30.
There is the fact that corporations own their subconscious but I don't think that they identify with The Party as much as older people do
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on January 30, 2014, 07:31:38 AM
Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind the NSA surveillance revelations (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-surveillance)

The 29-year-old source behind the biggest intelligence leak in the NSA's history explains his motives, his uncertain future and why he never intended on hiding in the shadows



Now he's up for a Nobel Peace Prize
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on January 30, 2014, 02:11:29 PM
Tired of getting set up for blind dates by well-meaning relatives? llllllllll  Just try to get yourself locked safely away for psychiatric care. ahahahahah

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2014-01/29/content_17264867.htm

I think this could be a great business opportunity.  Lunatic Treatment Centers, specializing in the tender care of lovely girls who are seeking refuge from meddling relatives.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on February 01, 2014, 02:52:15 AM
http://m.thestar.com/#!/world/police-charge-18-in-new-york-city-prostitution-ring-that-advertised-on-cable-tv/b1b24f0eeac490569590290dd004f424

Now they advertise on tv. Wish I could have seen the spots


Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on February 03, 2014, 02:51:55 AM

Town planning in China is a bit different to back home:

Millions to be relocated

The Beijing municipal government plans to relocate about 5 million residents to the neighboring Hebei province as part of efforts to control the population, the Economy & Nation Weekly reported.

Zheng Xinli, former deputy director of the Policy Research Office of the CPC Central Committee, told the magazine that Beijing and Hebei provincial governments have reached an agreement about the relocation.

Beijing's population reached 20.7 million in 2012, which has put great pressure on the capital's natural resources, including water and air.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/trending/2014-01/22/content_17250138.htm

The number to be shifted is about 1 million more than the population of New Zealand.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on February 03, 2014, 03:54:49 AM
They never said what they are going to do with the lands; raze, develop, keep it for future use. I think it's interesting to see what the intents are. I really don't believe that its to curb the population growth. If it was, then they should limit the new immigrants. With the hukao system, they can. Not that I agree with it, but they can
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on February 11, 2014, 02:34:28 AM
Student visa system fraud exposed in BBC investigation (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26024375)

The Home Office has suspended English language tests run by a major firm after BBC Panorama uncovered systematic fraud in the student visa system.

Secret filming of government-approved English exams needed for a visa showed entire rooms of candidates having the tests faked for them.

The English Testing Service - which sets the exams - is one of the largest language testing firms in the world.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on February 11, 2014, 02:54:33 AM
Student visa system fraud exposed in BBC investigation (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26024375)

The Home Office has suspended English language tests run by a major firm after BBC Panorama uncovered systematic fraud in the student visa system.

Secret filming of government-approved English exams needed for a visa showed entire rooms of candidates having the tests faked for them.

The English Testing Service - which sets the exams - is one of the largest language testing firms in the world.



 asasasasas


Makes what we do useless and substantiates what some privileged kids thought all along
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on February 11, 2014, 03:09:10 AM
It says "non-EU" students, but the fraudsters in the article appear to be ethnically Indian. Not sure how many Chinese students would end up in the relevant schools. Maybe a lot? Dunno.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: BrandeX on February 12, 2014, 02:04:07 AM
Chinese anchor babies:
http://www.wgowam.com/common/more.php?m=58&ts=1392084759&article=F5FBA1D492D311E3B51EFEFDADE6840A&mode=2
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on February 12, 2014, 03:34:08 AM
Student visa system fraud exposed in BBC investigation (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26024375)

The Home Office has suspended English language tests run by a major firm after BBC Panorama uncovered systematic fraud in the student visa system.

Secret filming of government-approved English exams needed for a visa showed entire rooms of candidates having the tests faked for them.

The English Testing Service - which sets the exams - is one of the largest language testing firms in the world.


To put on my patronizing hat, the worst part of it is that they are only cheating themselves
 asasasasas


Makes what we do useless and substantiates what some privileged kids thought all along
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on February 13, 2014, 05:24:16 PM


We might not hear from EL in a while, like 5 to 10 years maybe

 ahahahahah

GUANGZHOU - A total of 920 suspects had been apprehended as of Wednesday in a crackdown on the illegal sex trade in South China's Guangdong province, local authorities said.

Police have swooped 18,372 entertainment venues, including 3,592 karaoke bars and 4,201 saunas in the province. A total of 38 Karaoke bars and 156 saunas and massage parlors have been closed, said the provincial public security bureau.The new crackdown came hours after a China Central Television (CCTV) program on Sunday revealed that a dozen hotels in Dongguan city were  offering sex services.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on February 14, 2014, 12:22:46 AM
They also caught a legitimate couple daring to have sex in a hotel room ahahahahah

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2014-02/10/content_17274833.htm

Had a very nice foot massage yesterday.  My massage girl told me the police had come through 5 times the day before.  I felt a little disappointed they didn't come back to check after I walked in.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on February 20, 2014, 01:55:52 AM
Would you want to be a Chinese university graduate? (http://www.mckinseychina.com/would-you-want-to-be-a-chinese-university-graduate/)

Not all is rosy in the world of Chinese graduates. Job fairs around the country see tens of thousands lining up to look for better opportunities.

More than 15% of graduates were unemployed 2 months after graduation in 2013. And when they do find a job, it is often not what they had prepared or hoped for. Instead, it is often a fairly prospect-less role in a call center, as a sales agent, or as a receptionist.

To pile misery on misery, wages for graduates have been essentially flat in real terms since 2006, during which the average per square foot price of an apartment, the prerequisite of a middle class lifestyle, has risen 6% in real terms per annum, leaving new graduates with diminished prospects of getting on the real estate ladder.

The relative return of a degree is diminishing as urban salaries of those without university education converge with those that do – the former rising from 40% of the latter in 2006, to over 80% in 2012.

Chinese students must be asking themselves the question: Is university worth it?



Is that salaries stat right? aoaoaoaoao
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: cruisemonkey on February 20, 2014, 10:39:42 AM
Would you want to be a Chinese university graduate? (http://www.mckinseychina.com/would-you-want-to-be-a-chinese-university-graduate/)

Not all is rosy in the world of Chinese graduates.

This documentary is worth spending an hour watching -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BP61LwODTnY (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BP61LwODTnY)

It should be required watching for any noob considering taking a job at a private university in China. My 'School of International Education' at a provincially-funded university is bad enough, but the 'privates' are beyond the pale.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on February 21, 2014, 12:33:16 PM
University Graduate: Are there any words I should know that will help me open doors

Councillor: Yes. "push" and "pull"
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on February 28, 2014, 05:48:21 PM
Again, China Daily amazes me.

They have a feature on a 96 car pile-up on a highway just north of Toronto. Nobody hurt.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2014-02/28/content_17312080.htm

On a feed at the bottom of the page, 7 dead on a four car collision
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2014-01/06/content_17218384.htm

I'm not trying to downplay the death of anybody and I am saddened to hear about anyone hurt/killed in an accident. I just wish they'd report news properly. This rag has no problem showcasing the faults of others(especially the island nation just east of us with the rising sun). Then they minimize what happens here or have excuses. Of course, with the Chinese experts here who know everything and the dearth of foreign knowledge just makes me want to  .  .  .    

asasasasas
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on March 08, 2014, 08:44:52 PM
Search intensifies for Malaysian airliner and 239 people, rescue ships head to sea (http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/08/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-plane-missing/)

(CNN) -- [Breaking news update, Saturday, 1:28 a.m.]
The missing Malaysia Airlines plane crashed off the southern coast of Vietnam, Vietnamese and Chinese state media reported Saturday, both citing Vietnam's military. There has been no official confirmation of a crash.

[Original story, published Saturday, 12:54 a.m.]

Search intensifies for Malaysian airliner and 239 people, rescue ships head to sea
(CNN) -- China deployed two rescue ships to the South China Sea on Saturday as the search intensified for a missing Malaysia Airlines flight carrying 239 people, state-run broadcaster CCTV said.

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 traveling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing disappeared Saturday after air traffic controllers lost contact about 2:40 a.m. local time (1:40 p.m. ET Friday), Malaysia Airlines Vice President of Operations Control Fuad Sharuji said on CNN's "AC360."

"At the moment we have no idea where this aircraft is right now," Sharuji said.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: The Local Dialect on March 09, 2014, 12:24:35 AM
Very sad about the plane. My husband was playing online games when we heard the news and immediately speculation about hijackings began to swirl.

It sounds a lot like the Air France crash a few years back. The plane was just ... gone.

Malaysian Airlines has dropped the ball bigtime on this one. They're getting all sorts of abuse on their Weibo site for waiting until the plane was due to arrive basically to announce it was missing and getting a search going. So you had all these families waiting for their loved ones at the airport who had no idea. The plane had been missing for at least 5 hours or so by then. They're also getting flack for still, as of now, not admitting that the plane has crashed. They're still saying it is "out of contact."
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on March 09, 2014, 03:01:14 AM
Two of the safest ways to travel: airplanes and elevators. The reaction to this is usually a bevy of ignorant comments about never flying again.

Talk about poor people skills, what a brutal way to handle this disaster. First we're going to punch you in the gut, then before you have a chance to catch your breath, we'll kick you in the groin. There is no good way to be told a loved one has died, but there aren't too many worse ways
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: The Local Dialect on March 09, 2014, 03:39:44 PM
They're now saying two of the passengers were traveling on stolen passports. The mystery continues...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on March 09, 2014, 04:24:14 PM
2 on Missing Malaysia Jet Used Stolen EU Passports (http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/missing-malaysia-jet-stolen-eu-passports-22832673)

Foreign ministry officials in Rome and Vienna confirmed Saturday that names of two nationals listed on the manifest of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight match passports reported stolen in Thailand.

Neither European was on the plane, which disappeared Saturday less than an hour after it took off from Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing, officials said. The Italian was traveling in Thailand and the Austrian was located in his native country.

The father of the Italian man told The Associated Press that his son's passport had been stolen about a year and a half ago while traveling in Thailand.

"He deposited it with rental car agency, and when he returned the car it was gone," Walter Maraldi said by telephone from his home in the northern Emilia-Romagna region.

The Italian man had a new passport issued in Thailand to continue his trip, his father said. The Italian Interior Ministry issued a statement that the man also reported it stolen on Aug. 1, 2013, after his return to Italy, and that the stolen document had been entered into the Interpol database.

Walter Maraldi said authorities could not tell him whether the stolen passport or a counterfeit copy was used by a passenger to board the aircraft.

The father said his son Luigi Maraldi, 37, called his parents from Thailand to tell them he was fine after hearing news reports that an Italian with his name was on board the missing airplane.

Austrian Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Weiss confirmed that a name listed on the manifest matches an Austrian passport reported stolen two years ago in Thailand. Weiss would not confirm the Austrian traveler's identity.

"We have no information on who might have stolen the passport," Weiss said.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on March 09, 2014, 07:37:15 PM
According to US officials, those two guys are "people of interest" as in they are being suspected of an act of terrorism, sabotage, or something.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: The Local Dialect on March 09, 2014, 07:40:45 PM
Now they've upped it to 4 fake passports. At least one is Chinese. It isn't looking good.

http://weibo.com/2656274875/AAasV7eo6
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on March 10, 2014, 04:39:32 PM
They need to check whoever it was who checked in the people with stolen passports.  Those should have set off all sorts of alarm bells the moment they were entered into the system.

Two of the safest ways to travel: airplanes and elevators. The reaction to this is usually a bevy of ignorant comments about never flying again.

I always try to avoid flying in elevators.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on March 10, 2014, 07:48:43 PM
They need to check whoever it was who checked in the people with stolen passports.  Those should have set off all sorts of alarm bells the moment they were entered into the system.

The authorities have confirmed that a previous report of 4 passengers boarding with stolen passports was incorrect. They are investigating the backgrounds of 2 passengers using stolen passports.


 http://news.yahoo.com/interpol-passports-flights-must-checked-175214048--finance.html

It just beggars belief that this is the situation. It makes a mockery of all the so-called security procedures we are put through when boarding a plane.

I, for one, thought that when a passport was scanned at an airport it was checking for all kinds of information including its status. Seems that this is not the case:

Quote
More than 1 billion times last year, travelers boarded planes without their passports being checked against Interpol's database of 40 million stolen or lost travel documents, according to the Lyon-based international organization.

Interpol has made warning about the issue for years, and just last month it bemoaned that "only a handful of countries" regularly use its stolen or lost travel documents database of records from 167 countries. For example, the database was searched more than 800 million times last year — but one in eight searches was conducted by United Arab Emirates alone.

On Sunday, Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble said in a statement that his organization has long asked why countries would "wait for a tragedy to put prudent security measures in place at borders and boarding gates."

"Now, we have a real case where the world is speculating whether the stolen passport holders were terrorists, while Interpol is asking why only a handful of countries worldwide are taking care to make sure that persons possessing stolen passports are not boarding international flights," he said.

Noble, who has called passport fraud one of the world's greatest threats, said he hopes "that governments and airlines worldwide will learn from the tragedy of missing flight MH 370 and begin to screen all passengers' passports prior to allowing them to board flights."

The declared thefts of the two passports used — one of Austrian national Christian Kozel in 2012, and one of Luigi Maraldi of Italy last year — were entered into Interpol's database after they were stolen in Thailand, the police body said.

Interpol also said it and national investigators were examining other suspicious passports and working to determine the true identities of those who used the stolen passports to board the Malaysia Airlines flight.

In November, in yet another talk on the subject, Noble said that four of every 10 international passengers are still not screened against the Interpol database, which produced more than 60,000 hits in 2012.

Some countries have taken the threat more seriously than others. In 2006, U.S. authorities scanned the Interpol database about 2,000 times — but did so 78 million times just three years later.

Interpol, which has 190 member countries, says rising international travel is creating a new market for identity theft, and bogus passports have found a market among many people: Illegal immigrants, terrorists, drug runners — pretty much anyone looking to travel unnoticed.

Sometimes, authorities are outmatched: Ticket-buying regulations and border control techniques vary from country to country, and an Interpol official says there's no one-size-fits-all explanation why some countries don't use its database systematically. The U.S, U.K. and the United Arab Emirates are the biggest users, Interpol says.

In Thailand, where immigration police last year caught a Thai man with 5,000 fake passports, officials say international cooperation helps battle the plague — but passport forgers are now using advanced technology.

"It must take great skills and expertise by our officers to detect the fake passports and visa stamps because the system cannot detect them the whole time," said Maj. Gen. Warawuth Thaweechaikarn, commander of the Immigration Police's investigative division. Thai authorities also say some new techniques include finding a lookalike to match the passport, or altering the image on the passport to look like the holder.

Interpol is now reaching out to the private sector. It's preparing an initiative called "I-Checkit" that will let businesspeople in the travel, banking, and hospitality industries screen documents against the lost-documents database when customers book a flight, check into a hotel room or open a financial account. The project is still being worked out, an official said.

With untold millions of state-issued passports in use worldwide, citizens can help with vigilance.

Police Lt. Gen. Panya Maman, told reporters that Maraldi, the 37-year-old Italian, had deposited his passport as a guarantee at a motorbike rental shop. But when he returned the bike, the shop said they'd already given his passport to some guy who looked like him. Maraldi then filed a missing passport report to local police in Phuket in July.

Speaking Sunday in Bangkok, Maraldi said he had no idea who made off with it.___
http://news.yahoo.com/interpol-passports-flights-must-checked-175214048--finance.html

Keep your passport safe at all times! I flew back to New Zealand a month ago on Malaysia Air. During the 3 hour stopover in Kuala Lumpur I got talking to a young Indian guy who seemed to be at home in the transit office but did not seem to be involved in any work.

He said that he had been living in the office for 6 days because his passport had been stolen after he passed through Immigration. His embassy had arranged for a new passport but it would take another 2-4 days for it to be delivered.

While there is a concern that those using the stolen passports may have engaged in an act of terrorism an analyst has pointed out that it is just as likely that they may have been engaged in smuggling drugs.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on March 10, 2014, 08:40:25 PM
Two of the safest ways to travel: airplanes and elevators. The reaction to this is usually a bevy of ignorant comments about never flying again.   

I always try to avoid flying in elevators 



The defence rests
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on March 10, 2014, 09:13:19 PM
Two of the safest ways to travel: airplanes and elevators. The reaction to this is usually a bevy of ignorant comments about never flying again.   

I always try to avoid flying in elevators 

The defence rests

Come back after flying in an elevator and let me know if your opinion has changed. asasasasas
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on March 10, 2014, 09:18:53 PM
Airplanes and elevators (not at the same time or together) are still the two safest modes of transportation. And I know a commode     uuuuuuuuuu   mode when I see one.  
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on March 11, 2014, 11:46:13 AM
Meanwhile ... in the Dem*cratic Pe*ple's Republic of K*rea (DPRK; Chosŏn'gŭl: 조선민주주의인민공화국; Chosŏn Minjujuŭi Inmin Konghwaguk) they have put the 'duh' back in emocracy 

Every North Korean votes for Kim


Quote
With no one else on the ballot, state media reports that supreme leader Kim Jong Un was not only elected to the highest legislative body in North Korea, he won with the unanimous approval of his district, which had 100 per cent turnout.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/9813471/Every-North-Korean-votes-for-Kim

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on March 11, 2014, 01:31:35 PM
Thanks for the quote xwarrior. When I heard it on the News here in OZ, I found it very hard to believe the number of lost or stolen passports that were being spoken about.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Pashley on March 13, 2014, 08:38:37 AM
Canada shuts down "investor visa" program which a lot of wealthy Chinese used:
 
http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelcole/2014/02/13/canada-slams-door-on-45k-chinese-millionaires-with-end-of-visa-program/
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on March 13, 2014, 03:48:53 PM
The last paragraph in the article by Forbes talks about passports being bought in St Kitts which is where my son lives and where I am visiting.


Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on March 13, 2014, 04:15:40 PM
I'm familiar with the situation. It's part of what our business is about. Canada has been saying it was going to cease this program a while ago.  One Chinese lady we know who helps the Chinese to move to North America blogged that Canada is now refusing to admit Chinese nationals. We forced her to to delete her lies. She has moved to the US and is now trying to persuade her clients to go there instead. We still work with her. Funny; the Chinese rep is in the US, and the Canadian rep is in China.

 mmmmmmmmmm

Quebec still has a similar program. Unfortunately (for the Chinese), speaking French is mandatory.

What I try to tell the groups that my g/f and I present to, is that Canada doesn't need millionaires as much as we need skilled workers. The jobs are there, but everybody wants to be management. (I think we lead the world in white collar services oriented jobs).

Personally, I'm glad for the cancelation. It basically was selling a Canadian Citizenship to the wealthy. I prefer somebody who will mesh with the fabric of our society, buy, sell, live, raise a family, all in our borders. Not someone who bought a passport and can now travel and enjoy the benefits of Canada without contributing.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on March 13, 2014, 04:19:52 PM
The last paragraph in the article by Forbes talks about passports being bought in St Kitts which is where my son lives and where I am visiting.




I don't remember if I read it here or somewhere else about Chinese expecting mothers going to an American Pacific island to give birth. This island easily allows Chinese visitors and by their constitution, the baby now becomes an American citizen. Having the mother convert is just a matter of paperwork and process. There are companies on the island that facilitate this quickly for a fee. Of course, these rich Chinese don't have an issue with the cost. The US is looking at how this works and changes are imminent
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on March 13, 2014, 05:54:58 PM
It's silly to stop the program.  They should have just jacked up the minimum amount of cash and minimum time of required investment in a Canadian business.

Maybe Canada doesn't need millionaires, but what country would ever want to turn down billionaires. ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on March 13, 2014, 06:15:31 PM
The amount of money they have is really not a huge factor. What benefit will they bring? Billionaires are fine, but how much of that will stay in Canada?

Are they going to start a company and hire locals? No, they already have this in place somewhere other than Canada, that's why they are rich

Are they going to spend a lot of it in Canada? Maybe, and just a little more than Joe Average

Are they going to blend in? Probably not, these people tend to be older, family already done yaddayaddayadda

The 25-35 year olds have job skills we need adding to the standard of living. They will raise kids, pay taxes (hopefully) contribute to society.  I don't know what the ratio is between a millionaire, billionaire, and average person but for me, I'd rather have 100 people spread across the board (not just doctors and lawyers) than 1 millionaire. This has nothing to do with someone being Chinese even though the vast majority of the applicants are from China. The good news is that most of them won't be sponging off of social welfare. However, why do we need a 60 year old rich guy instead of a guy who is 30 and his wife and kids. Over the course of their lives, the 30 year old guy will leave behind much more money in Canada than the rich older guy
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on March 13, 2014, 06:57:16 PM
Ah, I just read the article more closely - I had a misinterpretation based on a less-accurate article I'd previously read about this issue stuck in my head.  I thought the cancelled plan was closer to the St Kitts investment for citizenship plan (mirrored in more countries than many people think*).

This program wasn't for investors, it was for people making an interest-free loan to the government.  Obviously, that does save the government money, but it still would be far less useful than a 30 year old working another 30 years in country (unless we are talking about some MASSIVE loans).

Under what I thought it was, an investment to citizenship requires a substantial amount of cash to be put into a local company (pre-existing company accepting investor as a partner or else a new one owned by the investor).  Said company needs to hire employees, rent office space, etc., etc.  Done correctly this can generate a lot more tax revenue from a single investor in 3-5 years than allowing a 30 year old with a master's degree and some work experience to come over for a skilled job for 30-40 years.  It's all a matter of crunching the numbers and setting the investment bar high enough.



*Not to name any names, but there's another country very close to Canada where politicians scoff at other countries that "sell" citizenship to investors, all while selling that country's citizenship to investors who have enough cash.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on March 16, 2014, 04:30:38 PM
Airplanes and elevators (not at the same time or together) are still the two safest modes of transportation. And I know a commode     uuuuuuuuuu   mode when I see one.  

I dunno about that!

(http://i953.photobucket.com/albums/ae15/xwarrior6/junk%20-%20odds%20and%20ends%20from%20other%20places/dangers_zps65a3cb46.png) (http://s953.photobucket.com/user/xwarrior6/media/junk%20-%20odds%20and%20ends%20from%20other%20places/dangers_zps65a3cb46.png.html)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on March 16, 2014, 07:29:08 PM
Well if it's on the internet it must be true
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on March 16, 2014, 09:39:13 PM
More from the internet:

Quote
In all of China, an average of 40 elevator accidents occur every year, killing 30 people on average. Eighty percent of the accidents resulted from disrepair, said He Danyang, a researcher into the elevator industry from the Shenzhen-based Qianzhan Research Institute.

On Sept 13, 19 workers were killed at a construction site in Wuhan, Hubei province, after an elevator they were in plummeted hundreds of meters.

Three days before, a 37-year-old mother and her 18-month-old son stepped into an empty elevator shaft on the sixth floor of a building in Rui'an, Zhejiang province. The mother died soon after being sent to a hospital and the toddler suffered a severe skull fracture.

A day before that, an elevator dropped from the 19th floor of a shopping mall in Dongguan, Guangdong province, leaving 20 people injured.
http://www.china.org.cn/china/2012-09/24/content_26610452.htm 

I took an interest in the topic after getting stuck between floors in a lift last month. It was only for 10 minutes, but it seemed much longer.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on March 17, 2014, 02:22:49 AM
I don't want to make light of innocent people dying, however comparing the incidents with the "mileage":

http://www.ask.com/question/elevator-accidents

There are only about 30 to 40 fatal elevator accidents per year. Only 1 in 12 million elevator rides will result in any kind of mechanical failure and elevators are considered to be the safest form of transportation for human. There have been instances where an elevator suffered a serious malfunction and lead to the death of the people inside. One of the biggest tragedies is when someone falls down the elevator shaft. Most accidents in elevators are not fatal.

And any "Made In China" product is as safe and worth about the paper it's stamped on




/end of paranoia
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on March 17, 2014, 01:12:43 PM
I am terrified of being stuck in an elevator (lift). If there is even the slightest delay, my heart starts pounding. I always say and mean, that I would rather face a person with a weapon, than have problems in a lift. That would have been the longest 10 minutes of my life xwarrior, but I'm not sure that my heart would have coped.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: piglet on March 17, 2014, 07:38:37 PM
Just read this rather disturbing article
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2014/03/dead-tourists-and-a-dangerous-pesticide/ (http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2014/03/dead-tourists-and-a-dangerous-pesticide/)

Now how would one avoid that in South East Asia?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on March 18, 2014, 03:19:09 PM
Another reason to always wear protection.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Tree on March 18, 2014, 10:03:18 PM
Another reason to always wear protection.


Make sure what you swallow is wrapped in some sort of digestion proof package you say?

And the braying fades into the evening...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on March 23, 2014, 03:15:44 PM
International study explores growing appeal of "The Chinese Dream" (http://www.china.org.cn/world/Off_the_Wire/2014-03/22/content_31871855.htm)

The "Chinese Dream" enjoys a higher level of awareness than the "American Dream," and a growing number of Chinese will see China as the world's "ideal country" in the coming 10 years, a new study released by Britain-based advertising giant WPP has revealed.

Entitled "The Power and Potential of The Chinese Dream," the 89-page report explores the significance of the Chinese Dream in a larger context of the American Dream and the British Dream.

The report said personal dreams were similar in China, the United States and Britain, with surveys showing people in all three countries want to be healthy, happy and have a good life for their families.

However, the Chinese Dream was different from its American and British equivalents because China's personal and national dreams were "interdependent," with the Chinese expecting to realize their personal dreams by achieving the national dream, the report found.

"The Chinese Dream is different from other large visions that preceded it in China's 5,000-year history. It's a national agenda that incorporates the personal dreams of individual Chinese people," the report said.

Meanwhile, the report discovered the Chinese Dream enjoyed a much higher level of awareness than the American Dream or British Dream thanks to government promotion and social media coverage.

The study said 92 percent of Chinese had heard of the Chinese Dream and 80 percent heard about it on the Internet. In contrast, 81 percent of Americans had heard of the American Dream and only 10 percent of Britons had heard of the British Dream.

The surveys found a growing proportion of Chinese believe China can become one of the world's ideal places to live in 10 years, indicating the increasing appeal of the Chinese Dream among Chinese nationals.

More than one third of the Chinese respondents consider the United States as today's "ideal country", but perceptions change dramatically as 42 percent believe China will also be ideal in the coming 10 years, according to the surveys.

In contrast, Americans and Britons expect little change over the next 10 years. Roughly half of Americans say the United States is the ideal country today and will be tomorrow.

In the study, Chinese, Americans and Britons agree the United States is the world's most powerful nation, with 80 percent of Chinese respondents holding the belief. Only 12 percent of the Chinese today see China as the most powerful country.

By comparison, 44 percent of the surveyed Chinese believe China will equal the United States in power in the coming 10 years, compared to the 45 percent of Chinese who still expect the United States to remain most powerful.

More than two-thirds of Chinese say having a Chinese brand accepted overseas is a manifestation of China's increased global influence. To fulfill the vision of the Chinese Dream, younger Chinese want to transform "Made in China" to "Created in China", the report said.

The report said its findings were based on original research and surveys conducted by market research company Millward Brown, and brought together research and insight from some of the world's largest brand equity databases.



Both hilarious and stupid.


On the other hand, cheap copies made by China of international "products" (even intangible products, such as "dreams") may--*may*, for the love of God, MAY--be where they start on the making of actual "products"....

God, I hope not. If China were ever to grow up, the other aspect of the message above, the overbearing win-lose vibration... would a mature China abandon that?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on March 23, 2014, 06:27:24 PM
Surveys: amusing and deceiving simultaneously.

Remember, just because the majority/everyone believes something, doesn't make it true

Quote
Both hilarious and stupid.
Truer words never spoken
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on March 24, 2014, 03:34:15 PM
Remember, just because the majority/everyone believes something, doesn't make it true

This explains much about how the electoral process works. I personally would like to see the votes on modifying the law of gravity so that everyone could flap their arms and fly. ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on March 26, 2014, 07:41:32 PM
Technology helps build ties across continents (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2014-03/26/content_17378722.htm)

France has consistently been one of China's most important sources of technology, and with common goals, the partnership will continue to develop in a comprehensive way, said an expert on the China-France relationship.

The article goes on to explain that China invented the Renaissance and freed Europe from religious intolerance by inspiring the Enlightenment. Thanks, China!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on March 27, 2014, 04:12:47 AM
The article goes on to explain that China invented the Renaissance and freed Europe from religious intolerance by inspiring the Enlightenment. Thanks, China!


That's what I wrote for my high school exam and I failed!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: cruisemonkey on March 29, 2014, 01:12:21 AM
The article goes on to explain that China invented the Renaissance and freed Europe from religious intolerance by inspiring the Enlightenment. Thanks, China!


That's what I wrote for my high school exam and I failed!

No wonder you failed... everybody (except you) knows that Korea invented the Renaissance and freed Europe from religious intolerance by inspiring the Enlightenment.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on March 29, 2014, 08:41:29 PM
Chinese, German presidents meet on ties (http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/851481.shtml)

(http://www.globaltimes.cn/Portals/0/attachment/2011/53c0638d-8e0e-4f24-99b1-746ed7be916b.jpg)

There was some thought one or the other would break out the polka dots.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: adamsmith on March 30, 2014, 06:13:32 AM
An English teacher in Zhejiang found dead.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/irish-man-23-dies-in-eastern-china-1.1743360
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on April 16, 2014, 02:50:36 AM
Shit - have you guys heard about the lady from Utah that strangled 6 of her newborns.

Massive amounts of WTF
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on April 16, 2014, 05:26:43 PM
At times like this, I'm proud to be from Florida.  The first state in the Union to ban computers! ababababab

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/08/florida-banned-computers_n_3561701.html

I'd email some friends there to ask for details, but they won't be able to answer. ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on April 16, 2014, 05:43:53 PM
At times like this, I'm proud to be from Florida.  The first state in the Union to ban computers! ababababab

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/08/florida-banned-computers_n_3561701.html

I'd email some friends there to ask for details, but they won't be able to answer. ahahahahah

Why don't they just recount the votes. Has Florida ever done a recount before  bfbfbfbfbf
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on April 17, 2014, 02:40:11 AM
only in Florida you say? pity...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on April 17, 2014, 04:38:43 AM
I'm not surprised, some of the people there were around BEFORE the invention of the abacus
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on April 17, 2014, 07:18:36 PM
Oliver Stone shoots self in all future China premieres- or, Oliver Stone Slams Chinese Film Industry at Beijing Festival (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/oliver-stone-slams-chinese-film-697058)

The Oscar winning director sparked tension when he said that that no true co-production is possible until filmmakers in China address Chairman Mao Zedong's controversial legacy.

BEIJING – Oliver Stone caused embarrassment, a little outrage and a fair helping of delight at the Beijing International Film Festival when the Platoon director urged Chinese filmmakers to deal with controversial historical issues such as the painful legacy of the country’s founder Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution he unleashed half a century ago.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: BrandeX on April 17, 2014, 09:35:26 PM
Good for him.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on April 17, 2014, 10:40:43 PM
Why should China address Mao's  vvvvvvvvvv   controversial legacy when (according to Ch officials  ::)) Japan won't address theirs?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on April 18, 2014, 06:50:12 PM
Chinese Government Admits One-Fifth Of Country's Farmland Is Polluted (http://www.businessinsider.com/china-pollution-farms-2014-4)

BEIJING (AP) — China's government says in a report that nearly one-fifth of the country's farmland is polluted, mostly from yearslong accumulations of toxins from factories, mining and agriculture.

The report raises sharp concerns about the country's food safety after years of unbridled industrialization.

Results of a nationwide survey of soil samples taken from 2005 through last year show contamination in 16.1 percent of the country's soil overall and 19.4 percent of its arable land.

More than 80 percent of the pollution is the result of inorganic toxins, with the top three identified as cadmium, nickel and arsenic.

The results were released jointly by China's Environmental Protection Ministry and its Land and Resources Ministry.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on April 18, 2014, 09:29:39 PM
The Chinese govt admitted to something being wrong in China??? Holy sh...I am going to get my binoculars and step outside, I mean, who wouldn't want to get a first look at all the flying pigs???

As for Mr. Stone, how smart of him. As we all know, the Chinese love nothing more than being lectured by rich Westerners about their country and history.... bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Day Dreamer on April 18, 2014, 10:01:02 PM
The Chinese govt admitted to something being wrong in China??? Holy sh...I am going to get my binoculars and step outside, I mean, who wouldn't want to get a first look at all the flying pigs???

As for Mr. Stone, how smart of him. As we all know, the Chinese love nothing more than being lectured by rich Westerners about their country and history.... bibibibibi




They seem to have very little problem lecturing other countries about their country and history
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on April 18, 2014, 11:11:35 PM
One fifth eh. I wonder what the real amount is.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on April 19, 2014, 01:52:04 PM
China's soil pollution: It's much worse than you think (http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2014/04/18/china-soil-pollution-food-security/)

Close to 20% of China's arable land is contaminated by heavy metals, posing severe global economic and political consequences in the coming years.

By Minxin Pei

FORTUNE -- When the Chinese government completed its first national soil pollution survey in 2005, the findings were so alarming that Beijing promptly declared the data a "state secret."

Chinese leaders apparently changed their minds and, a few days ago, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and the Ministry of Land Resources jointly announced the key results of the 2005 survey.

While the rare display of transparency from the Chinese government merits applause, the admission that close to 20% of China's arable land has been contaminated by heavy metal not only demonstrates the severity of China's environmental degradation but also has profound economic and geopolitical consequences for the international community.



That's interesting - food security as the factor making China part of globalization finally.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on April 25, 2014, 03:32:18 PM
China's African Adventure (http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/04/24/chinas_african_adventure)

The disintegration of South Sudan, the world's newest country, is driving a foreign-policy shift in one of the world's oldest.

The  maelstrom of violence in South Sudan shows no signs of abating, with rebel forces reportedly advancing on a pair of key oil-producing regions and massacred civilians piling up by the hundreds. The horrors have prompted outrage from senior officials at the United Nations and the United States -- but the biggest potential impact from the unrest could occur thousands of miles away, in Beijing.

The disintegration of the world's newest country is driving a profound shift in one of the world's oldest. China, which for decades has sought to pair globe-trotting economic ambitions with an inviolable "non-interference" approach to other countries' affairs, is departing from tradition to take an increasingly active role in the Sudan crisis.

China's African envoy, Zhong Jianhua, has blitzed the region in recent months trying to help craft a solution for South Sudan's internal strife, a stark contrast to the much-criticized, stand-off position China held just a few years ago when Khartoum ran roughshod over civilians but kept sending plenty of oil to Beijing. In February, Zhong told Reuters that China's hands-on approach to South Sudan represents a "new chapter" in Beijing's millennial foreign policy. Earlier this year, Zhong offered to facilitate mediations between the country's warring factions designed to wind down the fighting...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on April 26, 2014, 05:08:23 PM
This requires a Voodoo Priest Nylon....the zonkey...it is soooo cute. It is so news. Beautiful news...A donkey and a zebra found love...
http://nyhederne.tv2.dk/udland/2014-04-25-halvt-zebra-og-halvt-%C3%A6sel-se-den-nyf%C3%B8dte-zonkey

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: piglet on April 26, 2014, 11:01:16 PM
Or is it a Debra?
For this source no Vibrating Purple Nose required
http://www.eonline.com/news/535795/a-zonkey-half-donkey-half-zebra-was-just-born-and-it-s-oddly-adorable-see-the-pics
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: BrandeX on April 28, 2014, 01:20:16 AM
I believe they are called "Zedonk"'s.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on May 03, 2014, 04:28:17 PM
11 Surreal Photos From A Pagan Festival In Rural China (http://www.businessinsider.com/photos-of-the-she-huo-festival-2014-5)

In January or February every year, much of the Asian world celebrates the Chinese New Year. That important holiday comes with regional traditions, including the elaborate pagan She Huo festival, celebrated in rural villages in the northwestern Shanxi region.

Villagers dress in elaborate costumes of gods, spirits, and mythical beasts while singing, dancing, and performing to commemorate the 2,500-year-old festival. Chinese photographer Zhang Xiao recently traveled to Shanxi to capture the festival in several cities. He shared some of the photos with us here, and you can check out the rest in his new book, "Shanxi."


(http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/53612eb16bb3f741450c4b44-1000-1000/shanxi%20no.15.jpg)


China invents Darth Maul (http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/53612eb1ecad04cb290f942a-1000-1000/shanxi%20no.75.jpg)


(In other news, what is clicker-bait BusinessInsider doing in China anyway? Hmm? Seems like they moved here. One of them become an English teacher?)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: BrandeX on May 03, 2014, 07:51:07 PM
I take it that article was written by a christian, because they seem to throw that "the rest of you who aren't are pagans" around a fair amount.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on May 04, 2014, 03:30:05 AM
Chuck Lorre responds... (http://www.chinasmack.com/2014/stories/chuck-lorre-responds-to-the-big-bang-theory-ban-in-china.html)

Judging from the comments, I'm wondering what American sitcom they were actually watching.

The Big Bang Theory - a documentary speculating how one tiny South Korean boy band made it Big.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on May 04, 2014, 01:58:04 PM
re. 11 Surreal Photos From A Pagan Festival In Rural China

I do not know Darth Maul but this could be his brother:

(http://i953.photobucket.com/albums/ae15/xwarrior6/Culture%20in%20China%20-%20village%20parade%20Dan%20Jia%20Cun/IMG_9435.jpg) (http://s953.photobucket.com/user/xwarrior6/media/Culture%20in%20China%20-%20village%20parade%20Dan%20Jia%20Cun/IMG_9435.jpg.html)

One day, while serving on the North West Frontier, I came across a festival celebration similar to the one featured in the article. I was teaching at a college in Baoji (a small city  said to be the original home of Han), which is located in Shaanxi (which is not to be confused with the province next door that has only one 'a' in its name) at the time.

The festival was held at Dan Jia Cun. I had not planned to be there but as the locals had blocked the road to through traffic I got off my bus to find out what was happening.

Other photos from that day are at  http://raoulschinasaloon.com/index.php?topic=6215.msg117743#msg117743
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on May 08, 2014, 06:52:14 PM
The World's Most Dangerous Water Fight (http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/05/07/the_worlds_most_dangerous_water_fight)

China's muscular efforts to extend its control over broad reaches of the South China Sea have already clashed -- literally -- with neighboring countries such as Vietnam and the Philippines that appear increasingly determined to push back against Beijing.

Just days after Beijing dispatched an oil rig to waters claimed by both China and Vietnam, Chinese naval vessels apparently rammed and damaged at least one Vietnamese patrol boat in the area. Though no shots were reported to have been fired, Vietnamese media said Chinese ships used water cannons to enforce an unusually large three-mile no-go zone the Chinese have established around the rig.

The incident, the latest escalation in a regional flashpoint already primed for conflict, underscores the lengths China seems prepared to go to defend its ambitious territorial claims as well as the unintended consequences of China's take-no-prisoners approach to foreign relations. More specifically, experts on the region said that China risks creating a coalition of the exasperated among the oft-bickering nations of Southeast Asia who are increasingly speaking out against Beijing's aggressive territorial claims....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on May 08, 2014, 06:55:26 PM
Vietnam Releases Video of China Ramming Ships (http://thediplomat.com/2014/05/vietnam-releases-video-of-china-ramming-ships/)

Earlier today Shannon and myself noted that Vietnam and Chinese vessels had collided in the South China Sea as Hanoi tried to prevent China from setting up an oil rig in the disputed waters.

On Wednesday, Ngo Ngoc Thu, vice commander of the High Command of Vietnam Marine Police, held a press conference on Wednesday to discuss the matter. During the press conference, a video was played in the background that appeared to show Chinese vessels backed by helicopters trying to obstruct the movement of Vietnam’s vessels. The footage from the video was provided by the Vietnamese fisheries surveillance force, according to Vietnam’s Ministry of Defense.

A low-quality version of that video has been posted on Youtube. It appears to have been taped by one of the media outlets that attended the press conference. English language subtitles of Thu’s remarks also appear on the video:

[video]

As previously noted, Vietnam has said that it had deployed up to 25 naval and civilian vessels to prevent China from setting up the oil rig. Tran Duy Hai, deputy chairman of the Vietnam National Border Committee, told the press conference on Wednesday that China had deployed around 80 of its own vessels to accompany and guard the oil rigs. He said this included: 7 military ships, 33 marine patrol boats and surveillance ships as well as other smaller ships such as fishing vessels.

According to Vietnamese media outlets, a total of eight Vietnamese ships were rammed, hit or sprayed with high pressure hoses. At least two ramming incidents have occurred, one early May 3 and the other early May 4. The first of these took place at such high velocity that the windows of the Vietnamese vessels were smashed, causing injury to Vietnamese crew members, as depicted in the videos.

At the press conference, Thu warned: “Vietnam has exercised restraint. But if Chinese vessels continue ramming Vietnamese ships, we’ll have to act out of self-defense.” Vietnam has also called for China to remove the vessels and oil rigs and then engage in talks with Vietnam.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on May 10, 2014, 02:15:24 AM
Wheat vs. Rice: How China’s North-South Culinary Divide Shapes Personality (http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/05/09/wheat-vs-rice-how-chinas-north-south-culinary-divide-shapes-personality/?mod=chinablog)

In China, as in many countries, the north-south divide runs deep. People from the north are seen as hale and hearty, while southerners are often portrayed as cunning, cultured traders. Northerners are taller than southerners. The north eats noodles, while the south eats rice—and according to new research, when it comes to personality, that difference has meant everything.

A study published Friday by a group of psychologists in the journal Science finds that China’s noodle-slurping northerners are more individualistic, show more “analytic thought” and divorce more frequently. By contrast, the authors write, rice-eating southerners show more hallmarks traditionally associated with East Asian culture, including more “holistic thought” and lower divorce rates.

The reason? Cultivating rice, the authors say, is a lot harder. Picture a rice paddy, its delicate seedlings tucked in a bed of water. They require careful tending and many hours of labor—by some estimates, twice as much as wheat—as well as reliance on irrigation systems that require neighborly cooperation. As the authors write, for southerners growing rice, “strict self-reliance might have meant starvation.”...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on May 14, 2014, 08:13:50 PM
UK executive accused in GlaxoSmithKline China probe (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-27403914)

Chinese authorities have accused a British GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) executive of ordering staff to bribe hospital officials to use its products.

The move helped generate billions of yuan in "illegal revenue", police said.

The UK man, Mark Reilly, and two other colleagues were also suspected of bribing government officials in Beijing and Shanghai, they said.

Police had finished their investigation and passed the case to prosecutors, officials said.

Chinese authorities announced in July last year that they were investigating GSK, detaining four Chinese GSK executives.

They accused the drug-maker of using travel agencies and consultancies to transfer hundreds of millions in bribes over several years.

GSK said then that it was co-operating with the investigation and that it had zero tolerance for such behaviour.

It has already apologised for employees apparently acting outside of its internal controls, reports the BBC's John Sudworth in Shanghai, but denies the sums of money are anything like as high as those alleged to have been paid.

GSK "departments offered bribes to hospitals and doctors as well as personnel to boost their sales. The money involved was in the billions of yuan [hundreds of millions of dollars]", a ministry of public security official told a Beijing press conference.

Mr Reilly, the company's former head of China operations, is believed to be inside China, according to an investigator.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: xwarrior on May 18, 2014, 06:35:50 PM
It is Sunday, so this might be a good time to announce:


TV resurrection for leader's lover
North Korean leader's ex-girlfriend appears alive and well, nine months after being executed.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/10057514/Kims-executed-girlfriend-makes-TV-comeback
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on May 26, 2014, 04:03:22 AM
There was a news item last night about overweight and obese people in China. 

They said it was as high as 1/3 of Chinese now have a weight problem.  In most countries, it is the poor who are obese due to poor diet.  In China it is the middle class that are becoming obese.  Fast food restaurants and consumption of soda pop etc are part of the problem. 

I couldn't find a up to date written article about it but I have the news clip (video).

http://video.theloop.ca/news/watch/-/3586563020001#.U4H1HHaIZGM


Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Isidnar on May 26, 2014, 05:45:42 AM
...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on May 26, 2014, 02:05:20 PM
Being overweight is also fast becoming a major problem in Australia, particularly amongst the younger folk.  People are going crook here about the change to our laws whereby the aged pension age will rise to 70yrs. I don't think many of these young folk will ever get to that age.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on May 29, 2014, 02:58:15 AM
This is actually pretty interesting, not necessarily for the Citibike story, which I skimmed, but for the fact that a similar service has opened here in my not-quite-boonies town! It also, against my scoffing, appears to have been a fairly instant success. People actually ride the damn things and do seem to pay.

Citi Bikes Are a Wild Success, But Will They Survive? (http://mashable.com/2014/05/27/citi-bike-one-year-anniversary/)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on May 29, 2014, 02:00:43 PM
I've seen the service in a couple of smaller cities near Changsha and it's very successful. Free rental for locals. You use your debit card to unlock the rack. You can use the bikes for 4 hours. After that, you are charged, but as long as you return the bike to any station, you can immediately take another. The system has been up and running for a few years and they keep the bikes maintained well.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on May 31, 2014, 12:38:50 PM
A company has, apparently, invented some kind of pink goo which is a substitute for real food...company name...Soylent!
https://www.yahoo.com/food/is-food-just-fuel-soylent-sparks-debate-87212997526.html

It is called Soylent...one can only wonder exactly what goes into making the "Beyond Meat" shakes... aoaoaoaoao
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on June 02, 2014, 05:34:42 PM
(http://th06.deviantart.net/fs71/150/f/2011/143/b/5/soylent_cola_by_mangakadanieru-d3h1mif.png)

(http://laughingsquid.com/wp-content/uploads/soylent-green-20110222-123658.jpg)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on June 02, 2014, 08:52:50 PM
Meet the new Da Shan

OMG: In China, This Language Teacher Has Swag (http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/06/02/omg-in-china-this-language-teacher-has-swag/)

Jessica Beinecke gets this reaction a lot: She’s walking down the street in a Chinese city, and she’ll be recognized by one of her 400,000 Weibo followers or even one of the 40 million who have watched her videos. With platinum blonde hair and big blue eyes, the young woman who has taught Americans how to say “twerk” in Mandarin and students in China how to talk about “House of Cards” stands out.

“They’ll say, ‘Eh? Bai Jie?’ And then we’ll take a selfie,” says the 27-year-old Ohio native who takes learning a language to a whole new level.

Ms. Beinecke, known to her Chinese fans as Bai Jie (白洁), has made a name for herself since 2011 with her bright, funny and short explanations of English slang – including “twerk,” “swag,” “freaking out,” “awesome,” and “life hack,” as part of a daily Voice of America online video program called OMG Meiyu, or OMG American English.

She says she chose her name in college to sound a bit like her given name. Directly translated, bai means white and jie means “clean” or “pure,” she says. Step aside, Justin Bieber...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: cruisemonkey on June 02, 2014, 10:59:26 PM
OMG, I'm all like... gag me with a spoon!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on June 06, 2014, 02:34:17 PM
(http://i0.wp.com/img.chinasmack.com/www/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/what-parking-space-number-is-the-car-parked-in-english-translation.jpg?resize=600%2C422)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on June 06, 2014, 10:29:51 PM
Simple. 
SuareRoot of (7571 - 127 + ln1 + i2)
 ababababab
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on June 06, 2014, 11:11:27 PM
I know...I know...it's number two from the right. The one with the car in it...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: cruisemonkey on June 07, 2014, 09:45:34 AM
It seems I will never be a Hong Kong first grade elementary school student.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on June 07, 2014, 09:34:08 PM
(http://i57.tinypic.com/2hegjfl.jpg)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: cruisemonkey on June 08, 2014, 04:45:04 PM
Only Aussies and Kiwis should be able to enter a HK elementary school.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on June 08, 2014, 06:14:28 PM
Well, I did find the answer within the allotted 20 seconds  ababababab

(I first saw the pic on my phone so it was easy an easy step from "could they be...?" to "goddamn!").
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on June 08, 2014, 06:16:44 PM
China taps tech training to tackle labor market mismatch (http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/08/us-china-labour-education-idUSKBN0EJ01A20140608)

(Reuters) - China is waking up to a potentially damaging mismatch in its labor market.

A record 7.27 million graduates - equivalent to the entire population of Hong Kong - will enter the job market this year; a market that has a shortage of skilled workers.

Yet many of these university and college students are ill-equipped to fill those jobs, prompting the government to look at how it can overhaul the higher education system to bridge the gap. The problem is part structural, part attitude.

While most liberal arts students are still looking for work after graduating this summer, 22-year-old Li Xidong is preparing to start a job as an electrician that he landed well before finishing three years of training at a small vocational school.

Li's diploma may appear less impressive, but his coveted job in a tight labor market may hold the key to the employment conundrum in the world's second largest economy. The machinery sector alone projects a gap of 600,000 computer-automated machine tool operators this year, media have reported.

"We're trained as skilled workers, it's quite easy for us to find jobs while still in school," said Li, who is in the final stretch of a 3-year program at Hebei Energy College of Vocation and Technology in Tangshan, an industrial city 180 kms (112 miles) east of Beijing.

"Seventy percent of our class found work and some others are starting their own businesses," Li noted, as he waited for a friend at a recruitment fair in the capital, where fewer than a third of this year's university graduates had found work by end-April.

The government has said it plans to refocus more than 600 local academic colleges on vocational and technical education - replacing literature, history and philosophy with technology skills such as how to maintain lathes and build ventilation systems. Course curricula will be tailored to meet employers' specific needs.

Pilot programs will be launched this year, and 150 local universities have signed up for the education ministry's plan, the official Xinhua news agency has reported.

"NOT GOD'S GIFT"

After 13 years of aggressive policy to expand academic colleges, China had almost seven times as many freshmen last year than in 1998. That rapid growth compromised educational quality, especially in local colleges established after 1999, experts say.

"Understanding of oneself and the job market, and training and education to face the job market, these are all missing in our ivory-tower style education," said Chen Yu, director of the China Institute for Occupation Research at Peking University.

Part of the problem lies with the students, too, who harbor unrealistic expectations, especially as China's economic growth loses momentum.

Chinese graduates are less willing than their Western peers to take blue-collar jobs, work in smaller companies or start their own businesses, hoping to land steady jobs instead in the government or high-paying white-collar work, Chen said.

"College students should know they are not God's gift and it's difficult to find jobs, so they can adjust their attitude and don't necessarily have to join the civil service or big state-owned firms," he added.

For instance, China's call-center sector needs 20 million workers to cater to its vast consumer population, but currently employs just 2 million due to a dearth of trained workers, says Yako Yan, chairman of the China Call Center and Business Process Outsourcing Association. "Call centers are technical labor ... graduates often don't have the technical ability. Some think it's relatively low-end and disapprove of it," says Yan.

That attitude and the harsher reality of China's jobs market today has left many graduates feeling helpless. In a changing market, many graduates with big dreams and high scores find they have few marketable skills.

"What we studied has no use in finding jobs," said Xu Ke, 23, who was at the same Beijing job fair and is soon to finish her course majoring in general marketing planning at an agricultural institute in eastern Jiangsu province. "In college, we thought companies would be queuing up to hire us. Now, I just hope I can find a job soon."

VOCATIONAL VS ACADEMIC

    The government plans to reform the national college entrance exam system by setting up a technical training exam separate to the academic exam, Education Vice Minister Lu Xin was reported by Xinhua as saying. The ministry would also turn more than 600 local universities into higher-education vocational colleges, Lu said. China has 879 public universities and colleges, according to a 2013 ministry list.

"Vocational education has a bearing on China's economic transformation and upgrading ... and on the employment of hundreds of millions in the labor force," Yu Zhengsheng, the fourth-ranked member in the elite Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party, told a meeting of the national political advisory body earlier this month.

The ministry declined to comment for this article.

In recent years, graduates from higher vocational schools, which rank below universities in the Chinese system, have consistently done better in finding jobs than standard college graduates, Lu told the People's Daily, the official newspaper of the ruling Communist Party, in a separate interview.

    Apart from the economic concern, the government is keen to move graduates into suitable jobs to prevent any formation of a restive young population - which played a major role in the 1989 pro-democracy movement. For years, Beijing has encouraged students to accept more lowly positions, such as village officials, especially in the less developed western regions, and to start their own businesses.

    About 80 percent of higher vocational school graduates last year found jobs, while only around two-thirds of college graduates secured work, according to a report from the 21st Century Education Research Institute. Vocational college graduates also had a higher average starting salary - at 3,291 yuan ($530) a month versus an average 3,157 yuan among students from China's top-100 universities.

"We don’t necessarily need to sit in an office after graduating. I can start in the factories and work my way up, step by step," said Li, who hopes to pick up the practical skills that will allow him to move on to more advanced electrical work.



Quoted in full because omg.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: old34 on June 08, 2014, 06:19:59 PM
And the right answer is.......? (Hint: it's not "87")
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on June 08, 2014, 08:20:19 PM
"L8"?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: old34 on June 09, 2014, 12:46:22 AM
"L8"?

 agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Isidnar on June 09, 2014, 01:46:48 AM
...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on June 09, 2014, 05:38:37 AM
Of course....need to make those children competitive as early as possible... agagagagag agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on June 10, 2014, 06:59:21 PM
Xi: China Must Take Technological Future Into Own Hands (http://thediplomat.com/2014/06/xi-china-must-take-technological-future-into-own-hands/)

Speaking at a conference held by two of China’s top research institutes, President Xi Jinping advocated for a new era of Chinese innovation. “We cannot always dress up our tomorrow in other peoples’ yesterdays,” Xi told 1,300 researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering. “We cannot always rely on others’ science and technology to raise our own technological level.” The full Chinese-language speech was the featured headline on Xinhua’s website Monday.

Making sure that there would be no misunderstanding, Xi emphasized that the future of China’s science and technology industries should be “innovation, innovation, and innovation.” To nurture innovation, Xi called for a national system to encourage creativity, including more resources for science and technology development and the removal of systemic obstacles. The impetus for the push was apparent in Xi’s call for Chinese scientists to “take key technologies into our own hands.”

Early in his speech, Xi made it clear that China must become a “technologically strong country” in order to complete the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.” He compared the current period to China’s historical period of suffering — a time when China’s lack of technological prowess caused great anguish for the Chinese people. Based on that experience, Xi declared that “science is the foundation for a country’s prosperity.” Science, he said, will determine the fate of all countries and all peoples...



Science as an innovation engine? What a novel idea.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on June 20, 2014, 02:17:29 PM
China’s Deafening Silence on Iraq (http://thediplomat.com/2014/06/chinas-deafening-silence-on-iraq/)

The Iraq crisis again shows that even as China demands major power status, it remains entirely unwilling to act like one.

As Shannon noted earlier this week, China has remained remarkably silent as the situation in Iraq has deteriorated over the last week and a half.

In the middle of last year, many Western media outlets became aware of the fact that China had won the Iraq War. That is, while the Chinese contributed nothing to toppling Saddam Hussein’s government, or stabilizing the country afterward, it reaped the benefits of his removal by investing copiously in post-Saddam Iraq’s oil industry. The China National Petroleum Corporation alone has invested $4 billion in Iraq’s oil industry, according to the New York Times. China is also the destination for nearly half of Iraq’s oil exports. Additionally, roughly 10,000 Chinese nationals reside in Iraq working on oil and infrastructure projects.

Yet the Chinese government has been almost entirely silent about the crisis in Iraq, even as many other international powers have fixated on it. On Wednesday, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying did finally say a few words on Iraq, noting that Beijing does not want to see a repeat of the situation in Libya in 2011 when China had to evacuate 36,000 Chinese nationals in just over a week. Hua also promised that the Chinese government will “take all necessary measures to safeguard the security of Chinese citizens in Iraq.”

Still, Hua’s remarks are amazingly concise and unremarkable given that it’s been well over a week since Sunni militants began taking control over large parts of the country. So what gives?...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Just Like Mr Benn on June 20, 2014, 04:28:13 PM
ISIS are in the north. the oil fields are in the South.

I would guess that ISIS will find it a lot harder to gain ground in the South.

This situation is of course horrible, but it does present some extremely good opportunities for creating a better relationship with Iran (either by USA or China) and tacitly supporting the breaking up of Iraq to include a separate Kurdistan, which as long as it doesn't screw up Turkey would be a good thing.

I'm not at all sure that Iraq as a country is a terribly good idea anyway. I heard the other day that the last time the Sunnis and Shias successfully shared power there was about 1,100 years ago.

Not that anything's that simple of course, but what else exactly is China supposed to do?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on June 24, 2014, 12:05:38 AM
Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to read this drivel.
In accordance with relevant experiences and scientific practices, don't read it all at once.

The Internet in China
Foreword (http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90776/90785/7017177.html)
I. Endeavors to Spur the Development and Application of the Internet (http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90776/90785/7017198.html)
II. Promoting the Extensive Use of the Internet (http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90776/90785/7017199.html)
III. Guaranteeing Citizens' Freedom of Speech on the Internet (http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90776/90785/7017200.html)
IV. Basic Principles and Practices of Internet Administration (http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90776/90785/7017201.html)
V. Protecting Internet Security (http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90776/90785/7017202.html)
VI. Active International Exchanges and Cooperation (http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90776/90785/7017203.html)
Concluding Remarks (http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90776/90785/7017204.html)

Now more than ever, attaching great importance.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on June 24, 2014, 12:18:04 AM
Also, China invented football (http://english.people.com.cn/n/2014/0616/c90782-8741653.html)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on June 30, 2014, 02:15:10 PM
The Future of English in Korea (http://thediplomat.com/2014/06/the-future-of-english-in-korea/)

President Park Geun-hye’s confident use of English points to changing attitudes and ability for Koreans.

In the 1950s South Korea was a country devastated by war. Per capita GDP was a meager $300 a year and fewer than 50 companies had more than 200 employees. Those who spoke English had an incredibly lucrative skill. They could work for the U.S. military, for embassies, for foreign companies, or as middlemen and get paid in foreign currency, making enough money to help their extended families survive.

From this came the idea that you could be rich by speaking English in Korea. Sixty years later and South Korea is now a wealthy nation. Still, sixty years is not that long ago, and many Koreans have held onto the idea that the ability to speak English is worth its weight in gold. That was until President Park Geun-hye came to power in 2013.

Previous presidents Lee Myung-bak, Roh Moo-hyun, Kim Dae-jung and Kim Young-sam grew up in a Korea where you could become rich if you spoke English. Park saw Korea rise out of poverty as she grew up, and English is not what did it.

In The Local Constructions of a Global Language, Joseph Park wrote about how Koreans thought of the English language, which is through the concepts of necessitation, self-deprecation and externalization. It is viewed as a necessary language, you have to be humble when speaking it and keep in mind that it is the language of the out-group. That was until Park came to power....



Interesting metric. We have until the highest-ranked Chinese official gives televised speeches in English.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on July 02, 2014, 06:21:59 AM
The Future of English in Korea (http://thediplomat.com/2014/06/the-future-of-english-in-korea/)

President Park Geun-hye’s confident use of English points to changing attitudes and ability for Koreans.

In the 1950s South Korea was a country devastated by war. Per capita GDP was a meager $300 a year and fewer than 50 companies had more than 200 employees. Those who spoke English had an incredibly lucrative skill. They could work for the U.S. military, for embassies, for foreign companies, or as middlemen and get paid in foreign currency, making enough money to help their extended families survive.

From this came the idea that you could be rich by speaking English in Korea. Sixty years later and South Korea is now a wealthy nation. Still, sixty years is not that long ago, and many Koreans have held onto the idea that the ability to speak English is worth its weight in gold. That was until President Park Geun-hye came to power in 2013.

Previous presidents Lee Myung-bak, Roh Moo-hyun, Kim Dae-jung and Kim Young-sam grew up in a Korea where you could become rich if you spoke English. Park saw Korea rise out of poverty as she grew up, and English is not what did it.

In The Local Constructions of a Global Language, Joseph Park wrote about how Koreans thought of the English language, which is through the concepts of necessitation, self-deprecation and externalization. It is viewed as a necessary language, you have to be humble when speaking it and keep in mind that it is the language of the out-group. That was until Park came to power....



Interesting metric. We have until the highest-ranked Chinese official gives televised speeches in English.

Do you think that the Chinese would go for that though?

They never had the thing of speaking English as a way out of poverty, they managed to maintain the integrity of their dictators
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on July 02, 2014, 09:11:12 PM
Dunno. What is the Chinese construction of the global language? People used to say, vaguely, it was for foreign trade. I don't know that people say it's for anything these days.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on July 02, 2014, 09:15:48 PM
Has anyone seen this happening?

In China, Women Graduates Spurn Cap and Gown for Wedding Dresses (http://online.wsj.com/articles/in-china-women-graduates-spurn-cap-and-gown-for-wedding-dresses-1404268202)

White Tulle Gowns Are the Fashion in Photo Shoots to Commemorate Degrees; 'Makes Things Feel More Meaningful'

BEIJING—On an overcast June day, 20 women in white gowns stood in a row on a grassy field. They had spent the morning fussing with one another's hair and makeup, and now, for the big moment, smiled into the camera.

But this was a graduation celebration, not a wedding.

Here in China, college women are spurning caps and gowns and choosing to commemorate their graduations in white tulle, instead.

"Who doesn't like wedding dresses?" said Liu Xiangping, who was among those posing for graduation shots that day, along with nearly two dozen fellow classmates clad in white. (Their four male classmates wore suits.)

It isn't happening just at Xi'an Polytechnic University in central China, where Ms. Liu graduated this year with a degree in international economics and trade. Across China, graduation season looks a lot like wedding season, with young women flocking to stores to rent wedding gowns....



Photo Essay: In China, Wedding Gowns Aren’t Just For Weddings (http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/07/02/photo-essay-in-china-wedding-gowns-arent-just-for-weddings/)

(http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-DN022_dress_G_20140702004452.jpg)

(http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-DN027_dresse_G_20140702010629.jpg)

(http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/P1-BQ591_GOWNS_G_20140701191202.jpg)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on July 14, 2014, 02:57:36 PM
China's star TV anchor arrested just before airtime (http://edition.cnn.com/2014/07/13/world/asia/china-tv-anchor-detained/index.html)

Beijing (CNN) -- Rui Chenggang's anchor chair was left empty for Friday night's national newscast on China Central Television after prosecutors detained the star journalist shortly before airtime, according to state media.

The detention of the controversial TV anchor, known for his "big get" interviews as well as nationalistic sentiment, is the latest twist in a widening anti-corruption campaign in China.

Prosecutors took Rui into custody less than an hour before the start of "Economic News," which his co-anchor presented alone.

Speculation about Rui's troubles began last month when his longtime patron Guo Zhenxi, the head of state-run CCTV's financial news channel, was detained for allegedly accepting bribes. Several other senior figures at the channel were also implicated, the government said....


(http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/dam/assets/140713132755-rui-chenggang---restricted-story-top.jpg)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on July 26, 2014, 08:47:08 PM
Top 1% control a third of China's wealth - report (http://news.xin.msn.com/en/regional/top-1percent-control-a-third-of-chinas-wealth-report-2)

The top one percent of households in Communist-ruled China control more than one third of the country's wealth, while the bottom 25 percent control just one percent, official media said, citing an academic report.

The 2012 figures contained in a Peking University report released late Friday reveal the massive breadth of China's social inequality, a widespread source of anger in the country.

The wealth gap is also of significant concern for the ruling Communist Party, which places huge importance on preserving social stability to avoid any challenge to its grasp on power.

"One percent of households at the top level nationwide control more than one third of the country's wealth. Twenty-five percent of families at the bottom level only own one percent of the country's wealth," the website of the People's Daily newspaper said late Friday in a report on the university's statistics.

"The difference between wages in the cities and the rural areas is the main reason behind China’s unequal wealth," the newspaper added.

The report includes an alarmingly high Gini coefficient, a measure of inequality with 0 representing total equality and 1 representing total inequality.

Government statistics claim the figure stood at 0.47 in 2012, which would put it close to the US, which had an index figure of 0.56 in 2009, according to the World Bank.

The Peking University report puts the figure for "family households" in China in 2012 at 0.73, the People's Daily said.

It is unclear if the social groups analysed in the report are different to those surveyed by authorities.

Since taking office as president last year, Xi Jinping has touted the catchphrase "Chinese dream" which, though vaguely defined, is meant to encourage unity, national rejuvenation and pride.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on July 31, 2014, 03:49:51 PM
Breaking Through China’s Great Firewall (http://thediplomat.com/2014/07/breaking-through-chinas-great-firewall/)

Can the US and EU use the WTO to halt Beijing’s blocks on Google, the New York Times and other sites?

BEIJING – Beijing’s leaders haltingly opened connections to the Internet toward the close of the last century. Since then, though, they have been constantly fortifying the Great Firewall that encircles China and censors information flowing into the long-isolated country.

This Chinese wall now blocks more than 18,000 websites operated across the planet, and is patrolled by tens of thousands of cyber-sentries, according to scholars in the United States and Europe who closely track Beijing’s Internet security structures.

But these experts also say many of China’s digital barricades violate World Trade Organization rules, and believe that the U.S. and the EU should challenge Beijing before the WTO’s dispute resolution council....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 11, 2014, 01:46:55 PM
Meet China’s Boomerang Kids: One-Third of Graduates Still Rely on Parents, Survey Says (http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/08/07/meet-chinas-boomerang-kids-one-third-of-graduates-still-rely-on-parents-survey-says/)

Caught amid a glut of job applicants fresh out of college, many of China’s newly minted graduates are choosing a time-worn path the world over: relying on their parents for hand-outs.

According to a new survey conducted by Peking University, more than one-third of recent Chinese graduates continue to live off their parents.

A still-greater number are failing to save any money, the survey found, with 40% reporting that they live paycheck to paycheck.

The survey, which covered some 350,000 respondents, found that students graduating nationwide this year had an average monthly salary of 2,443 yuan ($396) — approximately enough to buy half of an iPhone in China, as the Beijing Youth Daily put it. The figure marked an increase of 324 yuan from the previous year. In big cities such as Beijing, figures were slightly higher, with recent graduates commanding an average starting salary of 3,019 yuan....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: eggcluck on August 12, 2014, 04:50:04 AM
Breaking Through China’s Great Firewall (http://thediplomat.com/2014/07/breaking-through-chinas-great-firewall/)

Can the US and EU use the WTO to halt Beijing’s blocks on Google, the New York Times and other sites?

BEIJING – Beijing’s leaders haltingly opened connections to the Internet toward the close of the last century. Since then, though, they have been constantly fortifying the Great Firewall that encircles China and censors information flowing into the long-isolated country.

This Chinese wall now blocks more than 18,000 websites operated across the planet, and is patrolled by tens of thousands of cyber-sentries, according to scholars in the United States and Europe who closely track Beijing’s Internet security structures.

But these experts also say many of China’s digital barricades violate World Trade Organization rules, and believe that the U.S. and the EU should challenge Beijing before the WTO’s dispute resolution council....



I have always had my suspicions that the wall has not always been just about the big C. But also as a means to allowed connected guys to start their own "unique" Chinese internet business. Much easier to do when you have already got the original and already established foreign competitors out of the way. I wonder how many of these main Chinese sites could have prospered if the locals had 100% world access.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 12, 2014, 02:48:42 PM
Civilians in Abandoned McDonald’s Seize Control of Wandering Space Satellite (http://betabeat.com/2014/08/civilians-in-abandoned-mcdonalds-seize-control-of-wandering-space-satellite/)

Their mission control console is a refurbished flat screen and some parts found on eBay. Yes, this is really happening.

For the first time in history, an independent crew is taking control of a NASA satellite and running a crowdfunded mission. They’re doing it all from a makeshift mission control center in an abandoned McDonald’s in Mountain View, California, using old radio parts from eBay and a salvaged flat screen TV.

“If I could come up with another absurd detail, I would,” Keith Cowing, the project’s team lead, told Betabeat.

The ISEE-3 is a disco-era satellite that used to measure space weather like solar wind and radiation, but went out of commission decades ago. Now, a small team led by Mr. Cowing has taken control of the satellite with NASA’s silent blessing...



Sci-fi, here we come.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: cruisemonkey on August 14, 2014, 03:10:16 PM
Civilians in Abandoned McDonald’s Seize Control of Wandering Space Satellite (http://betabeat.com/2014/08/civilians-in-abandoned-mcdonalds-seize-control-of-wandering-space-satellite/)

See... the truth IS stranger than fiction! Nobody could make up stuff like this.  ahahahahah ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on August 15, 2014, 02:49:18 PM
Checking out the #Ferguson hashtag on twitter is a good way to feel horrified, if anyone's interested.

A good set of articles about the situation.

The Nation is Watching Fergurson (http://www.vox.com/2014/8/11/5993609/michael-brown-ferguson-shooting-protests-riots-police-violence-unarmed)

A reminder as we deal with race relations in China what it can still be like in a 'more enlightened' and experienced culture.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: piglet on August 15, 2014, 07:18:15 PM
This would suggest that local police are pretty damn efficient.comments?
http://www.lostlaowai.com/news/australian-expat-dongguan-tied-apartment-robbed/ (http://www.lostlaowai.com/news/australian-expat-dongguan-tied-apartment-robbed/)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 16, 2014, 03:06:35 PM
How we'd cover Ferguson if it happened in another country (http://news.yahoo.com/wed-cover-ferguson-happened-another-154002591.html;_ylt=A0LEVzLxre5TYRMAvQxXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTEzdnFyZW5rBHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDMQRjb2xvA2JmMQR2dGlkA1ZJUDUwMl8x)

FERGUSON — Chinese and Russian officials are warning of a potential humanitarian crisis in the restive American province of Missouri, where ancient communal tensions have boiled over into full-blown violence.

"We must use all means at our disposal to end the violence and restore calm to the region," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in comments to an emergency United Nations Security Council session on the America crisis.

The crisis began a week ago in Ferguson, a remote Missouri village that has been a hotbed of sectarian tension. State security forces shot and killed an unarmed man, which regional analysts say has angered the local population by surfacing deep-seated sectarian grievances. Regime security forces cracked down brutally on largely peaceful protests, worsening the crisis.

"we can and should support moderate forces who can bring stability to America"

America has been roiled by political instability and protests in recent years, which analysts warn can create fertile ground for extremists.

Missouri, far-removed from the glistening capital city of Washington, is ostensibly ruled by a charismatic but troubled official named Jay Nixon, who has appeared unable to successfully intervene and has resisted efforts at mediation from central government officials. Complicating matters, President Obama is himself a member of the minority sect protesting in Ferguson, which is ruled overwhelmingly by members of America's majority "white people" sect.

Analysts who study the opaque American political system, in which all provinces are granted semi-autonomous self-rule, warned that Nixon may seize the opportunity to move against weakened municipal rulers in Ferguson. Missouri's provincial legislature, a traditional "shura council," is dominated by the opposition faction. Though fears of a military coup remain low, it is still unknown how Nixon's allies within the capital will respond should the crisis continue.

Now, international leaders say they fear the crisis could spread.

"The only lasting solution is reconciliation among American communities and stronger Missouri security forces," Chinese President Xi Jinping said in a speech from his vacation home in Hainan. "However, we can and should support moderate forces who can bring stability to America. So we will continue to pursue a broader strategy that empowers Americans to confront this crisis."

Xi's comments were widely taken as an indication that China would begin arming moderate factions in Missouri, in the hopes of overpowering rogue regime forces and preventing extremism from taking root. An unknown number of Kurdish peshmerga military "advisers" have traveled to the region to help provide security. Gun sales have been spiking in the US since the crisis began.

Analysts warn the violence could spread toward oil-producing regions such as Oklahoma or even disrupt the flow of American beer supplies, some of the largest in the world, and could provide a fertile breeding ground for extremists. Though al-Qaeda is not known to have yet established a foothold in Missouri, its leaders have previously hinted at assets there....



Awkward lol
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: eggcluck on August 16, 2014, 03:56:03 PM
This would suggest that local police are pretty damn efficient.comments?
http://www.lostlaowai.com/news/australian-expat-dongguan-tied-apartment-robbed/ (http://www.lostlaowai.com/news/australian-expat-dongguan-tied-apartment-robbed/)

The guy appears to be some kind of wanted business man/engineer / rich guy. I wonder if they would be so eager to help an English teacher. Plenty stories around of how the police have not done just done little but the foreigner has been blamed, especially if the other is a rich guy.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 20, 2014, 03:49:52 PM
Chinese newspaper calls for sanctions against Clive Palmer's businesses and bar him from the country (http://www.theage.com.au/world/chinese-newspaper-calls-for-sanctions-against-clive-palmers-businesses-and-bar-him-from-the-country-20140820-1062te.html)

BEIJING Clive Palmer’s live television tirade could prove the last straw for worsening Australia-China relations, a Chinese state-owned newspaper has claimed, in an editorial that also calls for the country to impose sanctions against the Palmer United Party leader's businesses, and bar him from entering the country.

“China must let those prancing provocateurs know how much of a price they pay when they deliberately rile us,” The Global Times said, in an editorial published in both its Chinese and English editions on Wednesday.

“China cannot let him off, or show petty kindness just because the Australian government has condemned him. China must be aware that Palmer's rampant rascality serves as a symbol that Australian society has an unfriendly attitude toward China.”...



I don't know much about Australian politics at the moment (except that Tony Abbot is a miserable bastard and "we stopped the boats" is the shittiest asylum policy in the world). I'm guessing too that Clive Palmer is not ultimately in Australia's best interest. (We seem to have barely concealed White Australians doing White Australia things for a White Australia future every few political cycles, and we need a new word - it'd be better if redneck, yokel, and Australian didn't end up being synonymous.) Howevaire... I'm reminded yet again that when nations speak, they oh so often are not describing as they claim to be the outside world, but instead are describing their own shadows. So often, their rhetoric is bizarrely unfocused on the target, and so often drawn instead from some realm of "this is not us, truly we are not these rascals we speak of". they talk about their own worst selves.

What Palmer actually said was neither provocative nor rascally. It was a direct and disdainful maligning of the race, or whoever he thought he was referring to when he said "the Chinese". He says he was talking about the governing body of that country. You can witness his actual on-screen rant in the link above.


Anyway, he's a fat old racist fuck with more power and money than is suitable, but how about if he was calling a rascal a rascal. He said "the Chinese" are mongrels because they shoot their own people. China, by the way, presently regards itself as too big and too indispensible to the global economy to have anymore to show "petty kindness" to the rest of the world, so I'm guessing we'll be seeing more of this soft-not-soft power in the future.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on August 21, 2014, 10:05:57 PM
Chinese newspaper calls for sanctions against Clive Palmer's businesses and bar him from the country (http://www.theage.com.au/world/chinese-newspaper-calls-for-sanctions-against-clive-palmers-businesses-and-bar-him-from-the-country-20140820-1062te.html)

BEIJING Clive Palmer’s live television tirade could prove the last straw for worsening Australia-China relations, a Chinese state-owned newspaper has claimed, in an editorial that also calls for the country to impose sanctions against the Palmer United Party leader's businesses, and bar him from entering the country.

“China must let those prancing provocateurs know how much of a price they pay when they deliberately rile us,” The Global Times said, in an editorial published in both its Chinese and English editions on Wednesday.

“China cannot let him off, or show petty kindness just because the Australian government has condemned him. China must be aware that Palmer's rampant rascality serves as a symbol that Australian society has an unfriendly attitude toward China.”...



I don't know much about Australian politics at the moment (except that Tony Abbot is a miserable bastard and "we stopped the boats" is the shittiest asylum policy in the world). I'm guessing too that Clive Palmer is not ultimately in Australia's best interest. (We seem to have barely concealed White Australians doing White Australia things for a White Australia future every few political cycles, and we need a new word - it'd be better if redneck, yokel, and Australian didn't end up being synonymous.) Howevaire... I'm reminded yet again that when nations speak, they oh so often are not describing as they claim to be the outside world, but instead are describing their own shadows. So often, their rhetoric is bizarrely unfocused on the target, and so often drawn instead from some realm of "this is not us, truly we are not these rascals we speak of". they talk about their own worst selves.

What Palmer actually said was neither provocative nor rascally. It was a direct and disdainful maligning of the race, or whoever he thought he was referring to when he said "the Chinese". He says he was talking about the governing body of that country. You can witness his actual on-screen rant in the link above.


Anyway, he's a fat old racist fuck with more power and money than is suitable, but how about if he was calling a rascal a rascal. He said "the Chinese" are mongrels because they shoot their own people. China, by the way, presently regards itself as too big and too indispensible to the global economy to have anymore to show "petty kindness" to the rest of the world, so I'm guessing we'll be seeing more of this soft-not-soft power in the future.

I'm not sure, it seemed pretty explicit that he was talking about Chinese business and government rather than the race

Chinese government do shoot their own people as a policy and do let Chinese businesses cheat non Chinese businesses whenever they can.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 21, 2014, 10:51:00 PM
I think it's one of those times where he's got a specific bone to pick (something about getting screwed in business) and he wants to explain why his bone has generalisable elements. That is, it's not just that he's losing a bitter legal case with very large sums of money at stake. He wants to say that included inside the specific losing case are elements that helped everything go wrong and would help anything go wrong. So, it's not just CITIC's business approach, it's something built in to relationships between us and them. CITIC aren't the mongrels, "the Chinese" are. The style of speech with the relatively incautious generalization is perilous close to racism.

If he toned it down to "the current Chinese system of management and infrastructure that allows, even encourages corruption and very nearly mandates the exclusion of foreigners so that we can't do business as we best understand it and must always be on our guard because, hell, they shoot each other over there and really can't be relied on...." or something similar, then we might get a good story out of the deal and learn a few things. In which case it might not be racism so much as governance.

I'll admit to liking the blunt talk.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on August 22, 2014, 02:22:44 AM
Racism in Australia is a common issue (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2727063/Sydney-Cafe-owner-admits-told-Australian-citizen-job-black.html)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on August 22, 2014, 03:48:22 AM
Yes, but that was a Chinese person from Shanghai who refused to hire a 'black' person.  The local 'white' folk felt it was wrong for that to happen.  I know a large percentage of Chinese people in China are very racist against people from Africa.  When I was working in Wuxi they call the African graduate students 'black ghosts'.   llllllllll llllllllll

That newspaper article implies that the cafe owner (Chinese) was racist.  He hired a Japanese national to work but wouldn't hire someone he perceived was from Africa (even though the gentleman was from Brazil). 

I truly wish people were 'colour'  blind.  It is the person beneath the skin that is important not the external beauty/ugly/colour that is important.   bjbjbjbjbj
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on August 22, 2014, 05:00:31 AM
I think it's one of those times where he's got a specific bone to pick (something about getting screwed in business) and he wants to explain why his bone has generalisable elements. That is, it's not just that he's losing a bitter legal case with very large sums of money at stake. He wants to say that included inside the specific losing case are elements that helped everything go wrong and would help anything go wrong. So, it's not just CITIC's business approach, it's something built in to relationships between us and them. CITIC aren't the mongrels, "the Chinese" are. The style of speech with the relatively incautious generalization is perilous close to racism.

If he toned it down to "the current Chinese system of management and infrastructure that allows, even encourages corruption and very nearly mandates the exclusion of foreigners so that we can't do business as we best understand it and must always be on our guard because, hell, they shoot each other over there and really can't be relied on...." or something similar, then we might get a good story out of the deal and learn a few things. In which case it might not be racism so much as governance.

I'll admit to liking the blunt talk.

I totally agree it was terribly phrased, specially since Australia seems to have quite bad form for anti Asian racism

I'm always amazed when these billionaires go on TV and make arses of themselves, they must employ people on large salaries just to make sure they say something along the lines of your post rather than what he actually said. It just distracts from the valid point when they are so clumsy....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on August 22, 2014, 01:11:14 PM
I also can not understand why a very wealthy person such Clive, goes into politics. If I had a young family and plenty of money  I think that I would be enjoying life with them. Clive does not appear fit or healthy to me, so in his shoes, I would not be wasting what may well be a short life of good health. bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 22, 2014, 01:17:58 PM
Clive's always been in politics, hasn't he? I had a look at his wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Palmer) to see how he grew up (and it says nothing much except that he was suburban kid with a family rich enough to support his education), and it suggests he's been screwing around in political stuff since before 1970.

The thing is, Australia has a fair bit of anxiety about China, right? Reading newspapers from time to time over the last few years you see worries about the amount of real estate Chinese companies buy in Sydney, the number of resource companies they want, and so on. So when Clive-y says, "They're Communists, they shoot their own people, they haven't got a justice system, and they want to take over this country," he might well have his finger on the pulse. Or one of the pulses. The primary replies, as far as can be judged by a brief scan of the news, are only two: "that's racist!" and "omg, our trade links!" Both strike me as inadequate. The Chinese reply - "that's absurd and irresponsible" (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-19/government-extending-olive-branch-to-china-after-palmer-tirade/5681118) - is equally shallow. The Chinese embassy in Australia said:

"We believe that a sound China-Australian relationship serves the fundamental interests of both countries. It is and will always be supported by the two peoples."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-19/government-extending-olive-branch-to-china-after-palmer-tirade/5681118

Imputing China-serving beliefs to these "two peoples" is not racist, obviously, but it is as broad a generalization as Clive's and possibly even more self-serving.

In sum, there might be a fair number of otherwise normal Australia citizens saying, well yeah, Clive, we know what you mean (though you're kind of racist about it and omg our trade ties). How many other politicians are actively addressing the zeitgeist? Lord help us if the only other one is Jackie Lambie.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on August 23, 2014, 01:07:56 AM
I'm sure I read somewhere that Australia dodged the 2008 financial crisis by cutting deals with China to sell a lot of the countries minerals to them for pretty cheap?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 23, 2014, 12:44:48 PM
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I do recall reading an opinion that Abbott and co are such mediocre politicians because they have nothing much left to do. The opinion claimed Australia's stability is build on a foundation of economic policy laid down a political generation ago by pollies like Paul Keating and co. (Conveniently, Keating et al were Labour while Abbott etc are Liberal.)

I also recall reading a possibly irrelevant statistical claim that the actual Chinese presence in Australia's property market is pretty small, like a percentage point or less. They supposedly have a disproportionate effect because companies build towering apartment blocks that might stay mostly empty and individuals avoid auctions by buying houses over the odds and driving up prices.

There's a lot of "hot money" about the place, supposedly, and it's been making people weird because it's "Chinese".
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on August 24, 2014, 01:30:18 PM
Yes Calach, Clive has apparently always had an interest in politics. I should have been specific. I meant, why would you start a new political party and, to my way of thinking, waste so much time, energy and money on it? I was thinking in terms of his children and his health. I guess you know the old saying "to each his own said the old girl as she kissed the cow". I would be off enjoying my family and my possibly limited lifespan. bfbfbfbfbf :candyraver: :dancemj: bgbgbgbgbg
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: eggcluck on August 24, 2014, 06:00:15 PM
I think i once read a study
  about this very thing. The answer was something like, what do they do when they got financial sucess? Seek power of course!  Goes with the buddisht thought of "never enough" always wanting more more more, so stop wanting.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 24, 2014, 06:59:58 PM
China's Cesarean Section Delivery Rate too High (http://www.medindia.net/news/chinas-cesarean-section-delivery-rate-too-high-140378-1.htm)

A new commentary published (20 August) in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (BJOG) suggests that efforts must be made to decrease China's increasing caesarean section rate.

China has one of the highest caesarean delivery rates in the world. Of 16 million babies born in 2010, approximately half were by caesarean. Although the exact rate is not known, the current Chinese language literature on caesarean rates in China reports total caesarean rates ranging from 36% to 58%. However, before the 1980s, the caesarean rate was below 5% and it did not rise above 10% until after 1990.

The commentary, offering an analysis into reasons for the increase in caesarean section in the last few decades, concludes that China's high caesarean section rate appears to be driven by three factors: the structure of the obstetric care system, provider incentives and cultural aspects of patient preference....



Yet another reason..
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on August 24, 2014, 11:30:27 PM
Yes Calach, Clive has apparently always had an interest in politics. I should have been specific. I meant, why would you start a new political party and, to my way of thinking, waste so much time, energy and money on it? I was thinking in terms of his children and his health. I guess you know the old saying "to each his own said the old girl as she kissed the cow". I would be off enjoying my family and my possibly limited lifespan. bfbfbfbfbf :candyraver: :dancemj: bgbgbgbgbg

What they usually do and seems like the obvious thing to do if you were a billionaire would be to cultivate friends and influence in political parties rather than appealing directly to the public via the media, that way you are getting other people to look stupid for you and probably having more influence...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on August 25, 2014, 01:11:55 AM
China's Cesarean Section Delivery Rate too High (http://www.medindia.net/news/chinas-cesarean-section-delivery-rate-too-high-140378-1.htm)

A new commentary published (20 August) in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (BJOG) suggests that efforts must be made to decrease China's increasing caesarean section rate.

China has one of the highest caesarean delivery rates in the world. Of 16 million babies born in 2010, approximately half were by caesarean. Although the exact rate is not known, the current Chinese language literature on caesarean rates in China reports total caesarean rates ranging from 36% to 58%. However, before the 1980s, the caesarean rate was below 5% and it did not rise above 10% until after 1990.

The commentary, offering an analysis into reasons for the increase in caesarean section in the last few decades, concludes that China's high caesarean section rate appears to be driven by three factors: the structure of the obstetric care system, provider incentives and cultural aspects of patient preference....



Yet another reason..

Had a conversation with some friends about this recently. They all agreed that caesarean delivery is safer than natural delivery.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 25, 2014, 02:02:22 AM
Yeah, according to the article too:

"Additionally, patient preferences are an important factor when considering the caesarean section rate in China. The authors note that in the second generation of the One Child Policy, there is a demand for a perfect outcome and both patients and doctors now view caesarean delivery as more effective than harmful. Fear of labour on wards that do not offer pain control, epidurals, nursing support or family support reinforces this expectation, state the authors."

According to the internet, natural childbirth recovery time is 1-2 weeks. For C-section, it's 5-6. I have no idea. It's a topic fraught with peril.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on August 25, 2014, 08:24:31 PM
This would suggest that local police are pretty damn efficient.comments?
http://www.lostlaowai.com/news/australian-expat-dongguan-tied-apartment-robbed/ (http://www.lostlaowai.com/news/australian-expat-dongguan-tied-apartment-robbed/)

The guy appears to be some kind of wanted business man/engineer / rich guy. I wonder if they would be so eager to help an English teacher. Plenty stories around of how the police have not done just done little but the foreigner has been blamed, especially if the other is a rich guy.

Anyone rich enough to have 450k in cash and jewelry laying around the apartment probably lived in a place with lots and lots of high quality security cameras.

Even so, Good Job Dongguan PSB! agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on August 25, 2014, 08:26:30 PM
Had a conversation with some friends about this recently. They all agreed that caesarean delivery is safer than natural delivery.

I'm sure that TCM practitioners must have been endorsing it as safer for many thousands of years.  At least, that's how my lovely wife seems to make most of her medical decisions.  ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 26, 2014, 07:14:43 PM
Australian Lawmaker Apologizes to China for Tirade (http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/australian-mining-lawmaker-apologizes-china-25123579)

Australian mining magnate turned lawmaker Clive Palmer has apologized to China over an extraordinary tirade on national television in which he accused the Chinese of shooting their own people and having no system of justice.

Following the volatile multimillionaire's Aug. 18 outburst on Australian Broadcasting Corp.'s "Q & A" program, government ministers accused him of threatening Australia's relationship with its biggest trading partner and distanced themselves from his views. Palmer, meanwhile, largely avoided commenting on the issue.

But Palmer, who was elected to Parliament last September from his own Palmer United Party, released on Tuesday the text of an apology letter to China's ambassador to Australia, Ma Zhaoxu.

"I most sincerely apologize for any insult to Chinese people caused by any of the language I used," Palmer wrote in the letter, dated Aug. 25....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 28, 2014, 09:10:51 PM
Is society being reshaped on a microbiological and epigenetic level by the way women give birth? (http://blogs.crikey.com.au/croakey/2014/08/28/is-society-being-reshaped-on-a-microbiological-and-epigenetic-level-by-the-way-women-give-birth/)

The debate about the relative benefits and disadvantages of Caesarean Sections versus vaginal births is one of the most complex and contentious in the medical and health sphere.  In this fascinating piece, Hannah Dahlen, Professor of Midwifery, University of Western Sydney, approaches this issue from a microbiological and epigenetic perspective and discusses the evidence for a causal link between labor and birthing processes and diseases later in life, such as asthma and diabetes.  These fields of research are relatively new and not without their skeptics. However, if proven to be correct this research could potentially have major implications for birthing practices in countries, like Australia, with very high rates of Caesarian sections, and provide important insights into the cause of the ‘chronic disease epidemic’ facing our society today.  Professor Dahlen writes:

In 1915, when caesarean section was rare, Kendall proposed that microbes, which colonise the baby’s gastrointestinal tract following vaginal birth, ‘may be protective’ He said, “Very shortly after birth bacteria make their appearance in the mouth of the newborn, and organisms appear in the meconium from four to twenty hours post partum (Kendall, 1915 p 209). Colleagues of Kendall had previously undertaken experiments sterilizing the environments (including undertaking caesareans) and foods of newly born/hatched animals, observing that development became affected under these conditions. This led Kendall to conclude that these bacteria may be protective under ‘ordinary conditions’.

In the intervening 100 years intervention in childbirth has climbed higher than ever before in the history of humankind. Vaginal births without a medical intervention are becoming increasingly rare in both Australia and many other developed nations. In 2012 we published a paper showing only 15% of low risk first time mothers giving birth in private hospitals in NSW did so without intervention compared to 35% in public hospitals. In 2014 we published a follow up paper showing that babies born to low risk women in the private sector, where the intervention rates were so much higher, were more likely to have a problem following birth and to be readmitted to hospital in the first 28 days for morbidities associated with interventions, such as forceps and vacuum birth (scalp trauma) and being delivered early (breathing difficulties, feeding difficulties, sleep and behavioural difficulties and jaundice). However this is only giving us a short-term glimpse at the impact of obstetric intervention....



Or, for when Crikey puts the article behind their paywall, the evidence isn't in but it looks a bit like vaginal birth is, in general, beneficial because the birthed infant gets stressed in a good ways and... PREHISTORIC MICROBES, WOOHOO!

IRL I will not pat a pregnant belly nor do I bequeath valuable old wives tales to tell the heaving birther what's right and wrong with everything she's ever done. I just happened to see these articles and, unfortunately, reposted them.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 29, 2014, 02:14:45 PM
Students Join Teacher in Brawl Against Military Instructors (http://www.chinasmack.com/2014/pictures/students-join-teacher-in-brawl-against-military-instructors.html)

(http://i1.wp.com/img.chinasmack.com/www/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/42-injured-in-clashes-between-students-and-military-instructors-01.jpg?resize=600%2C640)

Hunan Military Instructors Clashed with Teachers and Students; More Than 40 Injured

On [August] 24th, a clash occurrd among the Longshan county, Hunan province Huangcang High School freshmen during military education and training. Internet reports claim the military [drill] instructor used “corporal punishment” on the students, even stepping on them with his foot, and that the teacher in charge of the class was even beaten for intervening. Then, when the students stood with the head teacher in opposition against the military instructor, other military instructors joined in on the brawl. School officials say a lot of people were involved, and that the incident resulted in over 40 people being injured, with the head teacher’s injuries being relatively severe. Photo is of an injured female student....

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 29, 2014, 03:17:39 PM
People’s Altercation Army (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/aug/28/inside-china-peoples-altercation-army/)

An ugly melee this week between People’s Liberation Army training officers and their high school trainees at a high school in central China sent dozens of students and teachers to the hospital with injuries, some serious.

The incident occurred Aug. 25 in Huangcang High School in Hunan province when the officer in charge of mandatory military training physically abused male students for suspected disrespect of military instructors.

After the young male students were severely beaten and kicked by the military officers, the class’ civilian teacher tried to summon emergency help. Enraged by the teacher’s act, the officer in charge ordered the military instructors to beat the teacher. That prompted the male students to charge the officers in an effort to rescue their teacher, who had passed out. In the melee, the students suffered severe injuries, including broken bones and profuse bleeding.

When all was over, 42 people were taken to the hospital, including 40 students, one teacher and one officer.

Fearing the incident could ignite wider social unrest, Communist Party officials promised a swift investigation. In a rare move, they lifted a ban on news reports about the melee, fearing that hiding information could further worsen civilian-military relations amid the recent exposure of widespread military corruption....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 29, 2014, 03:32:17 PM
Bloody Brawl Breaks Out During Military Training -- at a Chinese High School (http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/08/27/bloody_brawl_military_training_chinese_high_school)

Chinese social media can't agree whether to blame an out-of-control military or spoiled youth.

A recent ugly brawl between paramilitary drill instructors and high schoolers in central China has exposed a fault line between China's military and its people. The bloody Aug. 24 incident, which landed 40 freshmen in the hospital with bone fractures and gashes, is being parsed on China's active social web as either evidence of the wholesale corruption of the Chinese military, or the hopeless degeneration of China's youth.

The conflict occurred during a week of military training at Huangcang High School in Hunan's Longshan, a county of half a million people known for its karst caves. (The bulk of Chinese military recruits are rural youth and the unemployed, not students, but military training sessions are routine at high schools and colleges across China.) The incident was traced back to what several media outlets describe as a playful tiff between a female student and a drill instructor. The liberal Beijing News reported Aug. 26 that the girl's classmates came to her defense and ended up pinning the instructor in what was then still a lighthearted dispute. According to the report, that impertinence led to punitive pushups later in the day for the class, and when students balked, other drill instructors ended up attacking the male students. A teacher who tried to intervene was also reportedly beaten.

The Beijing News quoted one student as saying that drill instructors had been drinking, and its story came with photos of a student in military fatigues cradling a hand with bloody, mangled fingers while a tearful female classmate stood next to him. But some facts are contested: Xinhua, China's official news agency, reported that some of the more serious injuries were caused by students running up to the fourth floor of a school building and punching out glass windows in a rage.

There's also deep disagreement about the meaning of the incident....[more] (http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/08/27/bloody_brawl_military_training_chinese_high_school)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on August 29, 2014, 10:53:37 PM
Girl flirts with guy in uniform, boyfriend wannabe gets peeved and before you know it, all hell breaks loose.

I've been to Longshan County. It's is way out in the boonies.

Interesting that they decided to allow the news.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 30, 2014, 12:28:44 AM
I don't think there's a way for the drill instructors to not be at fault in this story.

Unless, for instance, the authority of the military really does supersede that of the teaching staff of a teaching institution with respect to enrolled students of that institution. Arguably then when the teacher intervened, he would have been undermining the educational and spiritual role of the invited trainers. And when the students first mobbed the playfully tiffing instructor, they would have been in the wrong too, and all of them should have been disciplined. The invited trainers derive their legitimacy from whatever mandated their presence in the first place, and as far as I know, that was the government, the one party.

The (hopefully different) instructors are due here in a few days. In times past I've seen them providing what looked like salutary instruction to the freshmen. They make them march, get coherent, possibly soak up some values, and sing. They make the atmosphere a bit more antagonistic for me, hit on without actually hitting a few girls, possibly score, then leave. The students ditch their uniforms and suddenly look older. Class begins.

There's probably no chance the students don't know the Longshan story by now. I don't know what's going to happen. If the instructors that turn up here are worth anything, they'll know how to tell that story the right way and the students will end up knowing something worth knowing. There might even be a propaganda victory in it. But the dudes who made the violence come true in the first place.... they, I think, remain dicks.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 31, 2014, 08:10:59 PM
I GHOSTWRITE CHINESE STUDENTS' IVY LEAGUE ADMISSIONS ESSAYS (http://www.vice.com/read/i-ghostwrote-hundreds-of-chinese-students-ivy-league-admissions-essays-897)

Hey China, you’re welcome. When you think about your future multi-million dollar shipping moguls, innovative tech giants, and up-and-coming diplomats, please remember a small handful of them probably received their Ivy League degrees thanks to me.

I’m a black market college admissions essay writer, and over the last three years I’ve written over 350 fraudulent essays for wealthy Chinese exchange students. Although my clients have varied from earnest do-gooders to factory tycoon’s daughters who communicate primarily through emojis, they all have one thing in common: They’re unable to write meaningful sentences.

Sometimes this inability has stemmed from a language barrier, but other times they have struggled to understand what American college admissions committees are looking for in a personal essay. Either way, they have all been willing to pay me way more than my old waitressing job ever paid me....



Made up or real?

Because, I remember reading a similar story but by a male author and set, as I recall, in Australia. He would write assignments rather than admissions essays. But it was the same story of suffering writer selling words coming out of the closet yet not quite deciding to stop.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on August 31, 2014, 11:43:33 PM
I written several of there recently but not for Ivy league schools yet.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on September 01, 2014, 12:22:02 AM
What are your rates? I wrote one, many years ago, but that was for fun. (Student was granted a place and insisted on buying a meal, I doubt the essay decided the deal though because she was a good student anyway.) whoops, no i didn't, that was a reference letter.

The news article though seems to me like it might be advertising. It is an article. It is in the news. (Sorta.) But I've seen almost the exact same weirdly self-congratulatory, self-flagellatory tone in this other article a few years ago. That other article, as I recall, had the dude actually quitting the words-for-hire biz. He claimed big bucks and burn out. But I don't know what's the purpose. They want to normalise the practice of writing other people's assignments? Get some kudos of some kind? Or some new clients? I find it weird.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on September 02, 2014, 02:41:57 PM
CCTV asks if ‘expats unqualified for language teaching in China?’ (http://www.lostlaowai.com/blog/expat-stuff/teaching-esl-in-china/cctv-asks-expats-unqualified-language-teaching-china/)

With school starting up again this week, a recent CCTV news report may hint at an increase in crackdowns on illegally employed ESL teachers.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on September 06, 2014, 02:00:07 PM
Chinese man sues telecoms provider over blocked Google access in rare challenge to 'Great Firewall' (http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1585772/chinese-man-sues-telecoms-provider-over-blocked-google-access-rare)

Wang Long says China Unicom's inability to give him access to the search engine is a breach of responsibility

A Chinese man threw a rare official spotlight on the country’s internet controls when he sued a state-owned telecom operator for denying him access to US search engine Google, documents and reports showed on Friday.

Authorities in China impose strict limits on the internet, censoring domestic content and blocking foreign websites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube using a system known as the “Great Firewall”.

Google partially withdrew from mainland China in 2010 and moved its servers to Hong Kong after a fallout with the central government.

Access to its services has been blocked or disrupted since shortly before June’s 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown.

Wang Long, who describes himself as a “law worker”, sued China Unicom over his lack of access to Google at the Futian People’s Court in Shenzhen.

The hearing took place on Thursday, a document on the city’s official litigation service website showed.

On his account on Weibo, Wang said that China Unicom’s lawyer hesitated to answer when the judge asked whether Google’s websites can normally be accessed.

Eventually, the advocate said that he was “not sure whether he can tell [the court] or not”, sparking laughter from the gallery, Wang said....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on September 15, 2014, 03:22:02 PM
The Mathematics of Ebola Trigger Stark Warnings: Act Now or Regret It (http://www.wired.com/2014/09/r0-ebola/)

The Ebola epidemic in Africa has continued to expand since I last wrote about it, and as of a week ago, has accounted for more than 4,200 cases and 2,200 deaths in five countries: Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone. That is extraordinary: Since the virus was discovered, no Ebola outbreak’s toll has risen above several hundred cases. This now truly is a type of epidemic that the world has never seen before. In light of that, several articles were published recently that are very worth reading.

The most arresting is a piece published last week in the journal Eurosurveillance, which is the peer-reviewed publication of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (the EU’s Stockholm-based version of the US CDC). The piece is an attempt to assess mathematically how the epidemic is growing, by using case reports to determine the “reproductive number.” (Note for non-epidemiology geeks: The basic reproductive number — usually shorted to R0 or “R-nought” — expresses how many cases of disease are likely to be caused by any one infected person. An R0 of less than 1 means an outbreak will die out; an R0 of more than 1 means an outbreak can be expected to increase. If you saw the movie Contagion, this is what Kate Winslet stood up and wrote on a whiteboard early in the film.)

The Eurosurveillance paper, by two researchers from the University of Tokyo and Arizona State University, attempts to derive what the reproductive rate has been in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. (Note for actual epidemiology geeks: The calculation is for the effective reproductive number, pegged to a point in time, hence actually Rt.) They come up with an R of at least 1, and in some cases 2; that is, at certain points, sick persons have caused disease in two others.

You can see how that could quickly get out of hand, and in fact, that is what the researchers predict. Here is their stop-you-in-your-tracks assessment:

Quote
In a worst-case hypothetical scenario, should the outbreak continue with recent trends, the case burden could gain an additional 77,181 to 277,124 cases by the end of 2014.

That is a jaw-dropping number....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on September 18, 2014, 02:29:23 PM
A Tale of Two Chinas (http://thediplomat.com/2014/09/a-tale-of-two-chinas/)

A new survey underscores the relative deprivation of China’s rural population.

A new survey released this week emphasizes that the biggest divide between Chinese citizens continues to be among rural and urban residents.

This week Gallup and Healthways released their annual Global Well-Being Index, “a global barometer of individuals’ perceptions of their well-being.” The survey explores the notion of well-being from a holistic perspective. Besides financial and physical well-being, the index also measures factors like social well-being (“having supportive relationships and love in your life”), community well-being (“liking where you live, feeling safe, and having pride in your community”), and purpose well-being (“liking what you do each day and being motivated to achieve your goals”).

Overall, China ranks poorly on many of these indicators. Just 9 percent of Chinese are thriving in purpose compared to 13 percent in the Asia-Pacific and 18 percent worldwide. Similarly, with regard to community well-being, just 16 percent of Chinese citizens are thriving compared to 25 percent in the region and 26 percent globally. China is also slightly below the regional and far below the global average on social well-being, and the 25 percent of Chinese who are thriving financially is the same as the regional and global averages. Only on physical well-being is China above average both regionally and globally.

However, a closer look at the data reveal that there is a clear divide among rural and urban Chinese on most metrics of well-being. For example, rural Chinese are nearly twice as likely to be suffering financially as urban Chinese (29 percent and 16 percent respectively). In other words, urban Chinese are slightly more likely to be thriving financially than the regional and global average, but rural Chinese are nearly 40 percent less likely to be thriving financially than Asians and the world writ large.

The Chinese scored lowest when it came to liking what they do each day and being motivated [to achieve] their goals, with 35 percent suffering compared to just 9 percent thriving. Indeed, Gallup recently concluded that “China still has one of the lowest rates of employee engagement in the world. Just 6% of Chinese workers overall are engaged in their jobs, while 68% are biding their time in the ‘not engaged’ category and 26% are actively disengaged and likely to be disrupting the efforts of their coworkers.” Still, office workers (largely concentrated in cities) fare better than their non-office counterparts in the purpose category, with 30 percent of the former suffering compared with 40 percent for the latter.

Rural Chinese are suffering when it comes to community well-being as well. Around 23 percent of urban Chinese are thriving on this measurement, compared to 25 percent of the region and 26 percent of the world. On the other hand, only 14 percent of rural Chinese are thriving when it comes to their community well-being.

The survey’s findings underscore that — despite the Hu Jintao-Wen Jiabao administration’s constant pledges to concentrate on rural residents — the rural-urban divide remains the predominant one among Chinese citizens. On the other hand, the survey suggests that the current Chinese administration’s efforts to increase the pace of urbanization should generally increase the well-being of Chinese citizens and likely strengthen regime stability.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on September 19, 2014, 03:17:01 PM
China Just Gave Foreign Pharmacy Retailers A Big Green Light (http://www.forbes.com/sites/benjaminshobert/2014/09/17/china-just-gave-foreign-pharmacy-retailers-a-big-green-light/)

It is not every day that the world’s most populous nation sends such a clear signal to a very specific sector that it is ready and open for business, and yet last week, China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOC) did precisely this when it set in motion a pilot project in 34 cities to sever pharmaceutical costs from patient’s bills.  This may seem an incremental and obvious decision to make, but if so, you would be overlooking the more important outcome the MOC has in mind.

As Caixin wrote last week, the intent behind the reforms was quite obvious: “The commerce ministry’s notice said large qualified drugstores should take the place of hospital pharmacies, and says that doctors should be responsible for making diagnoses and writing prescriptions that patients get filled at the private drugstores.”  The two Caixin reports added further on, “the notice also says more drugstores will be incorporated into the country’s medical insurance system, which allows patients to get reimbursed for spending on health care and medicines.”

This is the sort of groundbreaking pilot that is big enough (30+ cities) and specific enough (get hospitals out of the prescription sale business and incentivize private pharmacies by expanding what the national insurance plan pays for), that should be a huge green light to foreign pharmacy retailers.  If foreign companies wait too long to develop a coherent China strategy, they will find the pharmacy retail and OTC health retail sector – currently a fragmented mess in China – consolidating solely under the influence of Chinese pharmacy retail companies....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on September 19, 2014, 03:23:19 PM
Gov't Moves to Separate Hospitals from Medicine Sales to Lower Costs (http://english.caixin.com/2014-09-10/100727107.html)

Public has long complained drugs are too expensive, and government says reform will start in 34 cities across nation

(Beijing) – The government has published a notice saying it will try separating medical services and drug sales in pilot cities across the country, a move interpreted as an attempt to lower the high cost of medicines.

The Ministry of Commerce published the notice on its website on September 9. It said it is working on the reform with several other government bodies, including the National Health and Family Planning Commission.

The former Ministry of Health, which was folded into the commission last year, had pursued a separate reform.

The commerce ministry's notice said large qualified drugstores should take the place of hospital pharmacies, and says that doctors should be responsible for making diagnoses and writing prescriptions that patients get filled at the private drugstores.

The goal of the reform is to lower the costs of medicines by encouraging more competition among drugstores, a source at the commission said....



I always had the vague idea getting a prescription in China was some kind of difficult, untrustworthy operation. Turns out "prescription" has had, in effect, a different definition here. Who knew!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: eggcluck on September 20, 2014, 04:46:37 PM
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-29282407

For all the talk of not support ting blah blah and not allowing blah blah to blah the world, seems The US has no problem feeding money to such a company. Of course No doubt many US companies are guilty and are getting away with god knows what.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: BrandeX on September 22, 2014, 04:37:27 AM
Drugs aren't expensive here from what I have seen.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: BrandeX on September 22, 2014, 04:40:17 AM
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-29282407

For all the talk of not support ting blah blah and not allowing blah blah to blah the world, seems The US has no problem feeding money to such a company. Of course No doubt many US companies are guilty and are getting away with god knows what.
If Jack Ma gets any wealthier and more powerful, he's going to start getting a swelled head.


Oop, too late.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on September 22, 2014, 07:19:47 PM
DuckDuckGo joins Google in being blocked in China (http://www.techinasia.com/duckduckgo-joins-google-blocked-china/)

(http://cdn.techinasia.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/DuckDuckGo-joins-Google-in-being-blocked-in-China.jpg?17bc4c)

Privacy-oriented search engine DuckDuckGo is now blocked in China. We noticed this over the weekend, and on Sunday DuckDuckGo founder and CEO Gabriel Weinberg confirmed to Tech in Asia that the team has noticed the blockage in China:

"@SirSteven @duckduckgo @jasonqng we did get blocked as far as we know — Gabriel Weinberg (@yegg) September 21, 2014 "

Weinberg added that he’s “no idea” when it happened exactly. We also cannot pinpoint an exact date, but it was accessible in China earlier in the summer. DuckDuckGo had been working fine in mainland China since its inception, aside from the occasional ‘connection reset’ experienced when accessing many overseas websites from within the country. But now the search engine is totally blocked in China....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on September 22, 2014, 10:39:03 PM
I'm sure it happened as soon as iOS 8 for the iPhone was in beta and it was found that Baidu or Bing could be replaced as the default search engine with DuckDuckGo on the iPhone.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on September 26, 2014, 09:49:58 AM
For best effect, skip the text and go straight to the clip:  llllllllll

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/09/fox-host-asks-whether-female-pilot-bombing-isis-means-we-have-boobs-on-the-ground/
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on October 02, 2014, 07:15:53 PM
China Strikes Back (http://www.chinafile.com/library/nyrb-china-archive/china-strikes-back)

When Deng Xiaoping arrived at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington in January 1979, his country was just emerging from a long revolutionary deep freeze. No one knew much about this 5-foot-tall Chinese leader. He had suddenly reappeared on the scene after twice being cashiered by Mao, who famously described him as “a needle inside a ball of cotton.” But in 1979 he knew exactly what he wanted: better relations with the U.S. He and President Jimmy Carter appeared to be serious about resolving differences. While reporting on these meetings, I had the impression that they were aware they were appearing in a kind of buddy film, and were using the opportunity to suggest clearly that they were ready to cooperate.

“Today we take another step in the historic normalization of relations which we have begun this year,” Carter said in welcoming Deng at a state dinner in the White House.


Quote from: Jimmy Carter
We share in the hope which springs from reconciliation and the anticipation of a common journey.... Let us pledge together that both the United States and China will exhibit the understanding, patience, and persistence which will be needed in order for our new relationship to survive.

They then took off for Atlanta, Houston, and Seattle, with the most unforgettable moment occurring in Simonton, Texas. Deng was attending a rodeo when a cowgirl galloped up on horseback to his front-row arena seat to present him with a ten-gallon Stetson hat. When he clapped this symbol of Americana on his diminutive head, it almost came down over his eyes. But he accomplished his goal: demonstrating to people in both countries—it was China’s first live broadcast from abroad—that bygones were bygones and it was time start anew....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on October 08, 2014, 08:09:35 PM
China Battles Worst Dengue Fever Outbreak in 20 Years (http://thediplomat.com/2014/10/china-battles-worst-dengue-fever-outbreak-in-20-years/)

Over 23,000 cases have been reported in China’s Guangdong province alone.

Southern China is in the midst of an outbreak of dengue fever, a mosquito-borne illness that affects tropical regions. China’s health agency called the situation “severe” and said the outbreak was the worst in 20 years.

Xinhua reports that over 23,000 cases of dengue fever have been reported in China’s Guangdong province. Over 1,000 new cases were identified on each of the past three days, with 1,661 new cases confirmed on Tuesday. So far, Guangdong’s provincial health and family planning commission had reported six deaths, including five in Guangzhou, the capital of the province. While Guangdong has been the worst hit, the provinces of Guangxi, Fujian, and Hunan are also reporting new cases of dengue fever daily.

Earlier, Chinese media warned that the outbreak might be exacerbated by the week-long holiday that follows China’s October 1 National Day. Many Chinese travel during this “Golden Week,” and locations in southern China are popular tourist destinations for both their warmer climate and their scenic locations. Bearing out these fears, there have been nearly 10,000 new cases reported since September 30, the day before the holiday began. China’s National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC) issued a special warning for those traveling in south China to take precautions to prevent mosquito bites and to seek medical treatment immediately if symptoms develop....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on October 11, 2014, 08:44:18 PM
CORE SECRETS: NSA SABOTEURS IN CHINA AND GERMANY (https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/10/10/core-secrets/)

(https://prod01-cdn00.cdn.firstlook.org/wp-uploads/sites/1/2014/10/Screen-Shot-2014-10-10-at-5.11.39-PM-article-display-b.jpg)

The National Security Agency has had agents in China, Germany, and South Korea working on programs that use “physical subversion” to infiltrate and compromise networks and devices, according to documents obtained by The Intercept.

The documents, leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, also indicate that the agency has used “under cover” operatives to gain access to sensitive data and systems in the global communications industry, and that these secret agents may have even dealt with American firms. The documents describe a range of clandestine field activities that are among the agency’s “core secrets” when it comes to computer network attacks, details of which are apparently shared with only a small number of officials outside the NSA.

“It’s something that many people have been wondering about for a long time,” said Chris Soghoian, principal technologist for the American Civil Liberties Union, after reviewing the documents. “I’ve had conversations with executives at tech companies about this precise thing. How do you know the NSA is not sending people into your data centers?”

Previous disclosures about the NSA’s corporate partnerships have focused largely on U.S. companies providing the agency with vast amounts of customer data, including phone records and email traffic. But documents published today by The Intercept suggest that even as the agency uses secret operatives to penetrate them, companies have also cooperated more broadly to undermine the physical infrastructure of the internet than has been previously confirmed.

In addition to so-called “close access” operations, the NSA’s “core secrets” include the fact that the agency works with U.S. and foreign companies to weaken their encryption systems; the fact that the NSA spends “hundreds of millions of dollars” on technology to defeat commercial encryption; and the fact that the agency works with U.S. and foreign companies to penetrate computer networks, possibly without the knowledge of the host countries. Many of the NSA’s core secrets concern its relationships to domestic and foreign corporations.

Some of the documents in this article appear in a new documentary, CITIZENFOUR, which tells the story of the Snowden disclosures and is directed by Intercept co-founder Laura Poitras. The documents describe a panoply of programs classified with the rare designation of “Exceptionally Compartmented Information,” or ECI, which are only disclosed to a “very select” number of government officials....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on October 20, 2014, 09:24:10 PM
‘Rule of Law’ or ‘Rule by Law’? In China, a Preposition Makes All the Difference (http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/10/20/rule-of-law-or-rule-by-law-in-china-a-preposition-makes-all-the-difference/)

Writing about the annual plenary meetings of the Chinese Communist Party’s top leadership, never an easy task since they usually take place under heavy security in a military-owned hotel, is even more difficult this year.

The problem: how to translate the theme of this year’s meetings, which according to party announcements is 法治 (pronounced “fazhi”), a word composed of characters meaning “law” and “to govern.”

In official media coverage of the meetings, which begin today in Beijing and are scheduled to run through Thursday, the phrase in English has been rendered as “rule of law” – as the official Xinhua news agency did in a Sunday commentary that argued rule of law was “vital” to reforms in a market-oriented economy.

That’s a fairly straightforward-seeming translation, and one that would seem to make sense since one focus of the plenum is on reforms aimed at insulating the country’s courts from political interference.

In fact, China scholars say, it’s not straightforward at all.

“Using ‘rule of law’ is profoundly misleading, and I think intentionally misleading,” says John Delury, a China historian at Yonsei University....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on October 21, 2014, 01:52:25 PM
Chinese government launches man-in-middle attack against iCloud (http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/10/chinese-government-launches-man-in-middle-attack-against-icloud/)

Targeting new iPhone users to capture user credentials, monitors find.

GreatFire.org, a group that monitors censorship by the Chinese government’s national firewall system (often referred to as the “Great Firewall”), reports that China is using the system as part of a man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack on users of Apple’s iCloud service within the country. The attacks come as Apple begins the official rollout of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus on the Chinese mainland.

The attack, which uses a fake certificate and Domain Name Service address for the iCloud service, is affecting users nationwide in China. The GreatFire.org team speculates that the attack is an effort to help the government circumvent the improved security features of the new phones by compromising their iCloud credentials and allowing the government to gain access to cloud-stored content such as phone backups.

Chinese iCloud users attempting to log in with Firefox and Chrome browsers would have been alerted to the fraudulent certificate. However, those using Mac OS X’s built-in iCloud login or another browser may not have been aware of the rerouting, and their iCloud credentials would have been immediately compromised. Using two-step verification would prevent the hijacking of compromised accounts.

This is hardly the first time that the Chinese government has used its control of the nation’s Internet infrastructure to attack the security of cloud and Web services. In August and early September, there was an apparent MITM attack on the Chinese messaging platform Weibo and on Google Plus. Earlier this month, there was a similar attack on Yahoo.com, apparently targeted at monitoring what citizens read online and allowing for content filtering of any news about the ongoing protests in Hong Kong. There is also an ongoing MITM attack against Microsoft’s Outlook.com Web mail platform.



Also: Chinese government hijacking iCloud, Microsoft logins, reports say (http://www.electronista.com/articles/14/10/20/users.being.redirected.to.dummy.sites/)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on October 24, 2014, 03:55:36 AM
news from Canada  aoaoaoaoao

The hysteria over terrorism has been getting out of hand lately, but when people really start doing some of these things, I have to wonder what's gotten into the water. First, some clown in Quebec decides to attack a couple of off-duty soldiers and then runs them down, then another just shoots a soldier standing on guard duty at the war memorial in Ottawa then tries to attack Parliament Hill single handed. Thankfully he was stopped cold before he could do any more damage, but you have to wonder wtf is going through these people's heads.

anyone remember those CIA drug experiments from the dark ages, when they would feed LSD to unsuspecting subjects then manipulate their behaviour? I wonder if something of the kind is at the root of the "homegrown terror" behavior we're seeing now. How else to explain it?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Con ate dog on October 29, 2014, 07:12:45 AM
I'd say: a couple of nut jobs. I'm glad the latter guy didn't have access to an assault rifle.

I'm less bothered by the tragic incidents themselves (2 murders in a country of 34 million is a smaller deal than is being made of it) than my government's reaction to it.  To wit:

Here's our next prime minister Justin Trudeau's wonderful address on the subject: http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/Politics/ID/2568016031/
The gist: We grieve our loss, but talk of losing our innocence is inaccurate: we have never been innocent to the threats and dangers of the world. These attacks were designed to intimidate us, but they will fail: they only serve to remind us of what we stand for.

Here's our current prime minister Shithead Harper's version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zy8acMKab1A
Terrorist terrorism, terroristically terrorizing us, will not intimidate us.  I am introducing sweeping 'security' measures and redoubling our 'efforts' abroad.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on November 04, 2014, 04:12:05 PM
http://www.chinasmack.com/2014/pictures/student-photographs-teacher-with-phone-during-its-confiscation.html
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on November 05, 2014, 01:59:56 PM
Is China Swarming with Foreign Spies? (http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/11/04/china_espionage_spies_spooks_cyber_xi_jinping)

The Communist Party is finally getting serious about ferretting out Western spooks. But a new counterespionage law, passed on Nov. 1, may be just a finger in the dike.

Sometime in 2011, Gen. Jin Yinan gave what he thought was a closed-door briefing at a corporate conference in China, where he spoke about the dangers of espionage. In September of that year, what appeared to be the official video of his remarks turned up briefly on the Chinese video sharing site tudou.com, before being taken down. Jin gave tantalizing details of eight recent cases in which senior Chinese officials had allegedly spied for foreign governments, several of which had never previously been made public. The highest-ranking official was Kang Rixin, a member of the elite Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership body, the Central Committee, and head of China National Nuclear Corporation, which oversees China's nuclear programs. The official version held that Kang was sentenced to life in prison in November 2010 for bribe-taking. But Jin said the real sentence was espionage: Kang had sold nuclear secrets to an undisclosed foreign nation, in a case that made the top leadership "extremely nervous."

Concerns about foreign espionage in China seem only to have grown. On Nov. 1 of this year, Xi signed a Counterespionage Law, replacing the 1993 National Security Law. The biggest change appears to be a greater emphasis on rooting out both foreign spies and their Chinese collaborators. When Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Secretary Xi Jinping and President Barack Obama meet in Beijing on Nov. 11 and 12, cyberspying will almost certainly be part of their discussion. But the new law suggests that it's the potential of human spies to wreak havoc that has China really worried.

It's difficult to build an open-source picture of foreign espionage operations in China: as in Kang's case, the Chinese authorities appear to hide espionage cases behind other crimes, to save themselves embarrassment. It's likely that many arrests and trials simply never come to public attention....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on November 12, 2014, 07:09:23 PM
Universities in damage control after widespread cheating revealed (http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/universities-in-damage-control-after-widespread-cheating-revealed-20141112-11kzj0.html)

NSW universities are in damage control following a Fairfax Media investigation that revealed hundreds of students across the state were engaging the services of an online essay writing business.

On Wednesday, the Herald exposed an online business called MyMaster, run out of Sydney's Chinatown, that had provided more than 900 assignments to students from almost every university in NSW, turning over at least $160,000 in 2014....



Yingying Dou: The mastermind behind the University essay writing machine (http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/yingying-dou-the-mastermind-behind-the-university-essay-writing-machine-20141111-11kk50.html)

At the helm of the company embroiled in a large-scale academic cheating scandal is a Chinese-born businesswoman named Yingying Dou.

The enterprising 30-year-old, who also goes by "Serena", has used her accounting degree to build a lucrative ghostwriting service, called MyMaster, aimed at Chinese international students.

As a flyer for MyMaster exemplifies, Ms Dou has ingeniously capitalised on the anxiety experienced by many overseas students.

"Are you racking your brains on your school work? Do you worry about spending $3000 retaking tuition on the failing subject? Leave your worries to MyMaster and make your study easier!," one flyer posted on a toilet door at the University of Technology, Sydney, read. ...

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on November 22, 2014, 01:47:20 AM
Chinese state media give profs a chilling warning (http://news.yahoo.com/chinese-state-media-profs-chilling-warning-065430052.html)

BEIJING (AP) — Over two weeks, the Communist Party-run Liaoning Daily newspaper sent reporters to sit in on dozens of university lectures all over the country looking for what the paper said were professors "being scornful of China."

During visits to more than 20 schools, the regional paper wrote last week, it found exactly what it said it was looking for: Some professors compared Mao Zedong, first leader of China's communist government, to ancient emperors, a blasphemy to party ideology upholding Mao as a break from the country's feudal past. Other scholars were caught pointing out the party's failures after taking power in 1949. Some repeatedly praised "Western" ideas such as a separation of powers in government.

"Dear teachers, because your profession demands something higher of you, and because of the solemnity and particularity of the university classroom, please do not speak this way about China!" implored the article, since widely distributed on social media throughout China....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on November 22, 2014, 02:19:39 PM
Sex Scandals and Victim-Blaming Bedevil Chinese Universities (http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/11/21/sex_scandal_chinese_universities_harassment_victim_blaming)

Professors are harassing students, then facing surprisingly light punishment.

Reporting sexual harassment and bringing culprits to justice isn't easy anywhere, and Chinese universities are no exception. In the past two months, two sensational cases have highlighted the social shame and institutional barriers that female students in China face when professors abuse positions of power -- and the progress that's already being made to ensure they face real consequences.

On Nov. 20, liberal newspaper Beijing News revealed that Yu Wanli, an associate professor of international relations at the prestigious Peking University in Beijing, had sexually harassed an exchange student on numerous occasions, and that the student was pregnant with Yu's child. The scandal quickly flooded Weibo, China's huge microblogging platform. A post on the verified account of Communist Party mouthpiece People's Daily condemned the professor's conduct, declaring that "chasing beautiful women should not become professors' secondary careers." But hundreds of other comments blamed the exchange student, positing that "the girl was also chasing the professor" and "while you are scolding the professor, don't forget the girl -- [sexual contact on] numerous occasions, she ended up pregnant.... I'm very suspicious." While Yu has now been expelled from the party, the exchange student is calling on the university to expel Yu from his position entirely. Yu refused to speak to the media, stating that "the university has already dealt with this matter; I have nothing to say." The university's decision has not yet been made public.

This was the second nationally publicized case of a professor harassing female students in as many months. On Oct. 10, at a large banqueting table in the Weichang Pavilion restaurant in Chongqing, a city of around 7 million people in southwest China, a recently retired art professor, Wang Xiaojian, shared a dinner with two young female students from the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute. Three days later, a blogger who had been dining in the same restaurant the same night as Wang uploaded to Weibo photos of Wang, ignoring the young students' protestations, forcibly kissing them both. The photos provoked hundreds of responses online, split between attacking and defending Wang. One article on the women's issues website Niubo commented, "I hope those bloggers trying to clear Wang Xiaojian's name remember, to refuse is not to flirt.... It just means no." But a defender of Wang wrote in the comments section of Chinese state media platform the Paper, "This kind of thing is very common, but it is not always as people think." The author added that Wang's "heart was kind" and that it was ultimately the photographer "who has caused the girls to lose their pride."...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on November 26, 2014, 03:27:16 AM
VOA EXCLUSIVE: Hotel in Guangzhou Serves as China’s Loose Ebola Quarantine (http://www.voanews.com/content/voa-exclusive-hotel-in-guangzhou-serves-as-chinas-loose-ebola-quarantine/2533378.html)

GUANGZHOU—A hotel in China’s southern port Guangzhou is a key part of the country’s largely unreported measures to prevent the deadly Ebola virus from reaching its shores and spreading. 

The “Hotel Canton” is like many others in Guangzhou, bustling with business, conferences as well as Chinese and international customers. But what few know is that it is also being used as a loose quarantine for recently arrived travelers from Ebola-hit countries in Africa.
 
Sources tell VOA that more than 90 people from Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia and the Democratic Republic of Congo are currently staying at the hotel. Along with public security officers and doctors, they occupy up to five floors of the state-owned business.
 
All of those being monitored for the virus stay at the hotel for free and can freely travel in the city, in exchange for carrying a GPS-equipped mobile phone, and submitting to twice daily health checks.  ...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on November 28, 2014, 07:42:03 PM
Confessions of a panda hugger (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/nov/26/inside-the-ring-william-reinsch-says-china-is-dang/)

William A. Reinsch, former undersecretary of commerce for export administration under President Bill Clinton, offered a surprising mea culpa in the latest annual report by the U.S.- China Economic and Security Review Commission made public earlier this month.

Once among the more dovish U.S. officials toward China, Mr. Reinsch, the commission’s vice chairman, has described China as “dangerous.”

“It is a real disappointment for me to write these things,” Mr. Reinsch stated in an “Additional Views” section. “I have always been an optimist about the relationship, but that view is becoming increasingly untenable, as China asserts itself in ways that are inevitably going to bump up against our interests in the region and in multilateral fora.”...



/nobody else's new is good news
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: cruisemonkey on November 29, 2014, 07:52:08 AM
He used too many big words for the average citizen to understand.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on November 30, 2014, 02:38:06 PM
What's in the news? Absolutely nuthin's in the news.

Chinese Students Make Foreign Teachers Eat “Spicy Sticks” (http://www.chinasmack.com/2014/pictures/chinese-students-make-foreign-teachers-eat-spicy-sticks.html)

(http://i1.wp.com/img.chinasmack.com/www/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/chinese-students-making-foreign-teachers-eat-spicy-sticks-latiao-22.jpg?resize=570%2C300)


At first I was like, is "spicy sticks" a euphemism? But no. You have been warned.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on November 30, 2014, 04:20:19 PM
I have already informed my students that any such prank pulled on me would result in me writing their exam in Danish...and then I gave them a quiz in Danish which I told them counted as 25% of their daily score just to make my point....no pranks of this sort has since been pulled on me. And those Sticks are not that spicy nor disgusting.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on December 02, 2014, 03:26:40 AM
I feel somewhat left out. None of my students this year have tried the "lets see if the the foreign monkey can eat this" prank on me. Not that it matters, I can ingest a far great variety of questionable comestibles than most and continue to function. I wish I had some really, really piquant hot sauce, hotter than my rather ordinary tabasco, to counter-challenge the kids with. Perhaps they have developed an intuitive sense of danger?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: cruisemonkey on December 02, 2014, 01:17:30 PM
Perhaps they have developed an intuitive sense of danger?

Mine have - they know not to 'eff around' with teacher Cruisemonkey... the consequences are dire!  bfbfbfbfbf
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on December 02, 2014, 04:05:01 PM
I feel somewhat left out. None of my students this year have tried the "lets see if the the foreign monkey can eat this" prank on me. Not that it matters, I can ingest a far great variety of questionable comestibles than most and continue to function. I wish I had some really, really piquant hot sauce, hotter than my rather ordinary tabasco, to counter-challenge the kids with. Perhaps they have developed an intuitive sense of danger?

Check your local Carrefour or GweiloMart and see if they carry the Habanero sauce from Tabasco.  Less flavorful, but noticeably hotter.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: El Macho on December 05, 2014, 08:22:26 PM
Ugh.

Quote
Shunyi Foreign Foster Parent of 11 Disappears, Critically Ill Child at Hospital (http://www.thebeijinger.com/blog/2014/12/05/shunyi-foreign-foster-parent-11-disappears-after-dropping-ill-child-hospital?utm_source=The+Sinocism+China+Newsletter&utm_campaign=4dbc7fb73a-Sinocism12_05_1412_5_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_171f237867-4dbc7fb73a-24564481&mc_cid=4dbc7fb73a&mc_eid=6207b73d67)

Police are seeking the whereabouts of a fifty-something foreigner they suspect of child abuse whose eight-year-old foster daughter is recovering from surgery at a Beijing hospital.

The Legal Daily reported Thursday that the girl, called Phoebe, is one of 11 ethnic Chinese foster children the man has been raising in various apartments around Beijing, most recently at Capital Paradise in Shunyi.

The girl, who at 20 kilos is underweight for her age, is still in critical condition at the hospital after three surgeries to relieve a duodenal obstruction and kidney damage that doctors believe were caused by external blunt force. A volunteer attending to the girl claims she said she had been beaten by her foster father, who has not been seen nor heard from since November 24.

Reports say the man, referred to as Ray, lived for a time this year in a two-bedroom flat in Capital Paradise, where neighbors complained that the foster kids would occasionally be caught rifling through the trash to look for food. Area residents say the man was a frequent customer at the Pinnacle Plaza Starbucks where he would sip coffee while his children played in and around the store.

According to hospital officials, Phoebe is fluent in English and speaks only simple Chinese. She is extremely withdrawn and in her current condition is mostly too scared to talk to anyone.

The bulk of the Legal Daily report was based on an interview with a foreign volunteer using the pseudonym Xu Qiang, who claims to have helped the man take care of his 11 foster kids for several years.

This was the girl’s third trip to the hospital, the first two times being brought in by her foster father and also being checked out by him before doctors were satisfied that she had fully recovered. The third time she was brought in, on November 24, she was brought by a volunteer. Since then the man, nor his ten other foster children, has not been heard from.

Xu said Ray has been in China for over 30 years, speaks Chinese fluently, and as far as he knows, has not held a regular job. He has been raising orphans from infancy since at least 2004, with most of the children abandoned by their natural parents because of birth defects such as cleft palate and mental retardation.

Xu said Ray and an "old Chinese lady" occasionally found the children abandoned at train stations and other locations, while others had been brought to him. Ray posts the stories of the orphans onto a website at www.rayschildren.org and accepts donations to pay for the children's corrective surgeries, and the children typically remained with him afterward.

Xu and an additional witness contacted by the Beijinger claims Ray was harsh to the children in public, often pushing them, twisting their ears or yelling at them.

Xu said he volunteered at Ray’s house three times per week and would bring food each time, but it never seemed to be enough to feed the children, who seemed to subsist on potato chips and other junk food. The kids were trained to not answer the door unless it was a foreign face on the other side.

None of the children were formally educated and typically lived together in one room of a two-bedroom apartment in squalid conditions. The children were home-schooled and all have some level of reading and writing skills, although lagging behind kids of their age, Xu said.

On at least one occasion the children were spotted begging, in fluent English, in front of a foreign supermarket wearing tattered and dirty clothes.

Xu said that Ray would move every several months, and after each month would cease to contact former volunteers. Reporters interviewed Capital Paradise security guards who say he has since moved out, and Xu's latest attempts to contact the man via email and phone have failed.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on December 06, 2014, 12:32:51 PM
How very sad EL Macho. I hope that the Chinese Authorities can catch up with him VERY soon, rescue the children and throw him in jail. I really hate to think what these children are being used for, or will be used for as they grow older. bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on December 07, 2014, 03:41:16 PM
What kind of diseased mind could even come up with a plan to abuse children like this? aaaaaaaaaa
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: El Macho on December 08, 2014, 01:36:06 AM
Update on what I posted above. This is starting to sound fishy…I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I'm starting to wonder about how true some points in the original story were.

Quote
Children in Alleged Abuse Case Taken into Protective Custody, American Foster Father Still Missing (http://www.thebeijinger.com/blog/2014/12/07/children-alleged-abuse-case-taken-protective-custody-american-foster-father-still)


Nine of the 10 children at the center of alleged cases of child abuse have been taken into protective custody by Chinese officials, an American expatriate source familiar with the situation and a report in Legal Daily indicated Sunday.

The situation first came to light on Thursday, when reports surfaced that an eight-year-old girl, ethnically Chinese but speaking English and only basic Mandarin, was dropped off by a male foreigner at a Beijing hospital on November 21 for treatment. The foreigner has not returned, however that person may not be the man identified as American Ray Wigdal. His whereabouts are currently unknown.

On Friday, Wigdal arranged to move the children to a location near the Lido with the help of some volunteers, the source told the Beijinger. "The volunteers arranged to have three vans to transport the kids so they were safe. The volunteers picked up the kids and were planning to take them to breakfast somewhere in the Shunyi area, as the kids said they hadn’t eaten breakfast and were very hungry. The volunteers drove in a caravan back from Lido towards Shunyi area on the Airport Expressway and when they exited at the Beigao exit, authorities and child protection officials stopped the cars and instructed the volunteers to follow them with the kids to an approved child protection safe house," the source said.

"When the volunteers arrived at the child protection center and entered with the kids it took a little time to get things organized and worked out as this is a very serious case involving 10 kids and the authorities were very sensitive and wanted to make sure things were done correctly.  The volunteers, child psychologist, social worker, and professional counselor were with the kids the entire time and the kids were safe and treated kindly and with great patience and compassion," the source said.

In a story from Saturday night's Legal Daily, an elderly Chinese lady identified as "Granny Guo," who claims to have been assisting Wigdal in taking care of the children offered a possible alibi. She told reporters that Widgal was in the US when the girl first was injured, and suggests her injuries were more likely the case of an injury from a bike accident worsened by roughhousing amongst the children. She did admit that Wigdal had struck the children before, which could explain why the girl told volunteers that her foster father had hit her.

Wigdal has adopted 10 Chinese children ranging in ages from three months to 17 years old, according to Legal Daily, although group photos of the children show none over the age of 12 or 13. Wigdal and the children once lived at Shunyi residence compound Capital Paradise. He was often spotted by area residents say the man was a frequent customer at the Pinnacle Plaza Starbucks nearby, where he would sip coffee while his children played in and around the store.

The children have said little, but have asked "Where is he," referring apparently to Wigdal, and also allegedly said, "We do not like him, but we don't want to be separated from our brothers and sisters," according to Legal Daily.

It is unclear what legal action Wigdal may face. A key element is that he is not the legal adoptive parent of some or all of the children.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: El Macho on December 08, 2014, 06:01:54 PM
So the police interviewed him but didn't hold him? And the media is running with the story as an opportunity to wave the anti-foreigner flag. People on twitter have talked about seeing him and the kids and not thinking the kids seemed underfed. Hard know know what's true and what isn't.
Quote
Girl at Center of Suspected Abuse Case Stops Breathing, on Ventilator: Report (http://www.thebeijinger.com/blog/2014/12/08/girl-center-american-foster-parent-abuse-case-stops-breathing-ventilator-report)

An eight-year-old girl at the center of what authorities suspect might be child abuse stopped breathing Sunday night and had been placed on a ventilator, according to Chinese reports at 163.com.

The girl, who was brought to the hospital on November 24, stopped breathing on her own around 8pm Sunday night. Suffering from an intestinal obstruction and kidney problems that began some time in September, this is her third trip to the hospital since the injury. As of Sunday night's report she has been breathing with a ventilator.

Volunteer caregivers who have assisted Ray Wigdal, identified as the American foster father of the girl and 10 other Chinese children, told reporters that her injuries were the result of a bicycling accident; however authorities suspect the girl's injuries may have been inflicted by Widgal, as Chinese media reports claim that the girl told the hospital staff she had been hit by him.

Wigdal is reported to have been in China for over 30 years, speaks Chinese fluently, and has been raising orphans from infancy since at least 2004, with most of the children abandoned by their natural parents because of birth defects such as cleft palate.

Chinese media reports have gone sensational with headlines that have presumed Widgal's guilt, such as 163.com's use of the headline "Chinese Girl Tortured by Foreigner Stops Breathing (被老外虐待中国养女停止呼吸)".

Wigdal's whereabouts remain unknown and has not been to the hospital to visit the girl since her admittance November 24, although the 163.com report states that he was interviewed by police on Sunday. Beijing Police released no further information on the matter, including whether or not they had detained him.

A woman identified as Ms. Zhang, one of the volunteers, said that Wigdal had "almost collapsed," although it is unclear whether this occurred before or after his meeting with the police. "He said that raising children is a part of his life and he can't believe the situation has developed into this," Zhang told The Mirror Chinese newspaper.

The report also says Wigdal called the children via one of the volunteers Sunday night, saying, "No matter where you are, I'm still the boss."

The other 10 children were taken into protective custody by Beijing authorities and children protection staff on Friday, December 5, with reports coming from a trusted American source familiar with the case saying  "the kids were safe and treated kindly and with great patience and compassion."

It remains unclear whether Wigdal has legally adopted any of the children. A Chinese elderly volunteer, identified in reports as "Granny Guo," told reporters that she is not aware of Wigdal processing any proper paperwork for fostering or adopting the children.

However, one report added that since most of the children Widgal has been caring for were abandoned due to birth defects, they lack any formal Chinese paperwork such as birth certificates or IDs that would be necessary for proper registration.

Police said they planned to use DNA testing to attempt to establish the children's identities.

Authorities have stated that in order for Wigdal to claim any of them from protective custody, Wigdal will have to prove that he is their legal adoptive parent.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: El Macho on December 08, 2014, 09:32:52 PM
The girl died. (http://www.fawan.com.cn/html/2014-12/08/content_525553.htm) What a sad story.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on December 09, 2014, 12:00:19 AM
http://rayschildren.org/

Bit of a weird site. No public story, just ten years worth of selected snaps.


The reported claim about the kid (or kids) having minimal Mandarin is a worry. If true, seems to suggest they've been kept out of society (of their peers and in general).

Also, there may be reasons he's not at the hospital 24/7, but it doesn't look good.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on December 15, 2014, 03:15:24 PM
How Wal-Mart Made Its Crumbling China Business Look So Good for So Long (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/wal-mart-china-stores-inflated-203946432.html;_ylt=A0SO8zvpNI5UFWYAr3BXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTEzOWF1OGpjBHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDMQRjb2xvA2dxMQR2dGlkA1ZJUDUyM18x)

After years of heralding China as one of its best markets, Wal-Mart (WMT) in August said its performance there was among the worst in its major countries. A management shake-up and job cuts have followed.

Although the reversals seem abrupt, cracks in the foundation of Wal-Mart's retail business in China have been developing for years, hidden by questionable accounting and unauthorized sales practices, according to employees and internal documents reviewed by Bloomberg....



And that's why Dove is everywhere in China.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on December 19, 2014, 11:01:31 AM
Heee heeee.  Canada isn't the same as China for exams   ahahahahah ahahahahah  The University of Waterloo is one of Canada's top universities.  A student I tutored in Dalian is now a student at that university.  Hopefully he will be honest.

CTV Kitchener
Published Wednesday, December 17, 2014 3:11PM EST
Last Updated Wednesday, December 17, 2014 6:33PM EST

A 20-year-old woman and 21-year-old man face charges in connection with an alleged unusual bout of cheating at the University of Waterloo.

The woman, Kaiwen Qian, is a student at the school.

She appeared Wednesday in a Kitchener court on charges of personation and uttering a forged document, and was released on $3,000 bail.

 She is accused of getting the man – Longhua Wang, a student at York University – to write an exam for her.

Nick Manning, a spokesperson for the school, says staff were alerted to the possibility one or more students would be cheating during a specific math exam.

“(We) put measures in place to detect that cheating, and we discovered that a male student from a different university had been paid to come and take an exam for one of our students,” he told CTV News.

Wang, Manning said, somehow came into possession of a fake Waterloo student ID containing his picture and Qian’s name.

It’s alleged that Wang was paid more than $900 to write the exam.

Qian returns to court in January.

School officials say they continue to investigate the fake student ID, and whether any others were issued.

“We know that students are under immense pressure to pass exams … and inevitably some will find ways to cheat, which is a great shame,” Manning said.

“We … expect them to uphold very high standards of integrity, which means not cheating.”




Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on December 31, 2014, 03:23:37 PM
NSA has [VPN]s in Vulcan death grip—no, really, that’s what they call it (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/12/nsa-has-vpns-in-vulcan-death-grip-no-really-thats-what-they-call-it/) (nb: link is robo-copped)

[VPN] traffic repositories used to find keys, crack encryption of target traffic.

The National Security Agency’s Office of Target Pursuit (OTP) maintains a team of engineers dedicated to cracking the encrypted traffic of virtual private networks (VPNs) and has developed tools that could potentially uncloak the traffic in the majority of VPNs used to secure traffic passing over the Internet today, according to documents published this week by the German news magazine Der Speigel. A slide deck from a presentation by a member of OTP’s VPN Exploitation Team, dated September 13, 2010, details the process the NSA used at that time to attack VPNs—including tools with names drawn from Star Trek and other bits of popular culture.

OTP’s VPN exploit team had members assigned to branches focused on specific regional teams, as well as a “Cross-Target Support Branch” and a custom development team for building specialized VPN exploits. At the regional level, the VPN team representatives acted as liaisons to analysts, providing information on new VPN attacks and gathering requirements for specific targets to be used in developing new ones.

While some VPN technologies—specifically, those based on the Point-to-Point Protocol (PPTP)—have previously been identified as being vulnerable because of the way they exchange keys at the beginning of a VPN session, others have generally been assumed to be safer from scrutiny. But in 2010, the NSA had already developed tools to attack the most commonly used VPN encryption schemes: Secure Shell (SSH), Internet Protocol Security (IPSec), and Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption.

The NSA has a specific repository for capturing VPN metadata called TOYGRIPPE. The repository stores information on VPN sessions between systems of interest, including their “fingerprints” for specific machines and which VPN services they’ve connected to, their key exchanges, and other connection data. VPN “fingerprints” can also be extracted from XKEYSCORE, the NSA’s distributed “big data” store of all recently captured Internet traffic, to be used in identifying targets and developing an attack. Because XKEYSCORE includes data from “untasked” sources—people and systems not designated as under surveillance—the OTP VPN Exploitation Team’s presentation requested, “Try to avoid relying on (XKEYSCORE) workflows due to legal and logistical issues.” But XKEYSCORE, it was noted, is best for attacks on SSH traffic.

Analysis of TOYGRIPPE and XKEYSCORE data, as well as from “daily VPN exploits,” is fed into BLEAKINQUIRY—a metadata database of “potentially exploitable” VPNs. This database can be searched by NSA analysts for addresses matching targeted individuals or systems and to generate requests for the VPN Exploit crew to convert the "potentially" into an actuality.

When an IPSec VPN is identified and “tasked” by NSA analysts, according to the presentation, a “full take” of its traffic is stored in VULCANDEATHGRIP, a VPN data repository. There are similar, separate repositories for PPTP and SSL VPN traffic dubbed FOURSCORE and VULCANMINDMELD, respectively.

The data is then replayed from the repositories through a set of attack scripts, which use sets of preshared keys (PSKs) harvested from sources such as exploited routers and stored in a key database called CORALREEF. Other attack methods are used to attempt to recover the PSK for each VPN session. If the traffic is of interest, successfully cracked VPNs are then processed by a system called TURTLEPOWER and sorted into the NSA’s XKEYSCORE full-traffic database, and extracted content is pushed to the PINWALE “digital network intelligence” content database.

But for those that aren’t successfully cracked, the VPN Exploit Team’s presentation noted, the team works to “turn that frown upside down” by doing more data collection—trying to capture IPSec Internet Key Exchange (IKE) and Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP) traffic during VPN handshakes to help build better attacks. In cases where the keys just can’t be recovered, the VPN Exploit Team will “contact our friends for help”— gathering more information on the systems of interest from other data collection sites or doing an end-run by calling on Tailored Access Operations to “create access points” through exploits of one of the endpoints of the VPN connection.



Thanks, NSA.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on January 08, 2015, 01:38:23 PM
Dalian is in the news.  Very interesting video.  Hope you can get it in China.  It is about the newly rich in China.   agagagagag

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/video/playlist/world-economy/bling-dynasty-china-wealthiest-1-110000881.html
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on January 08, 2015, 01:42:51 PM
Wanted by Police: Trojan Horse in Hack-Averse China (http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2015/01/07/wanted-by-police-trojan-horse-in-hack-averse-china/)

When the subject of cyberspying pops up, China’s line has remained consistent: Beijing opposes hacking and China is a victim.

Perhaps the message wasn’t heard in the eastern Chinese city Wenzhou.

The police department in an economic-development zone there in December said on an official website that it planned to award a 149,000 yuan ($24,000) contract to a domestic state-run company to supply it software services for what it described as a “Trojan Horse.” A Trojan Horse is a program that helps others pilfer information from an unsuspecting user.

The notice from the Wenzhou Economic and Technological Development Zone’s public security bureau explained the purpose of the Trojan Horse program and a related delivery system: “targeting mobile phones using the Android system or iPhone after jailbreak for real-time surveillance on information like phone calls, text messages and photos on mobile phones.” “Jailbreak” refers to the steps phone owners sometimes take to modify their gadget’s software to get around restrictions placed by manufacturers and carriers so that users can tap multiple app stores and other services....



And it's not just Wenzhou either.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: gonzo on January 08, 2015, 02:00:24 PM
Dalian is in the news.  Very interesting video.  Hope you can get it in China.  It is about the newly rich in China.   agagagagag

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/video/playlist/world-economy/bling-dynasty-china-wealthiest-1-110000881.html

The newly VERY rich. Only the French could have such a casual sense of entitlement to wealth though. The pronunciation on the clip reminds me of Mme. de Gaul when asked what she looked forward to in her husband's retirement. She answered "A penis". "No, no, no" said Charles. "You mean 'happiness'".
Apocryphal maybe, but it should be true!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on January 13, 2015, 12:12:11 PM
China media: Charlie Hebdo march (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-30774737)

Papers in China continue to call for limitations on press freedom as millions marched in France to condemn the attack on the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

The assault on the offices of the magazine and separate attacks on police officers and a kosher supermarket killed 17 people.

More than 1.5m people marched in the capital on Sunday in a show of unity. The French government said the rally turnout was the highest on record.

About 40 world leaders joined the start of the Paris march, linking arms in an act of solidarity.

China's official Xinhua News Agency, however, says it's important to "reflect on the reasons behind the tragedy".

"After Charlie Hebdo was attacked..., Western societies expressed much support for press freedom," the Xinhua News Agency observes.

The state-run news agency points out that the French magazine had been criticised for their controversial cartoons in the past, but it "insisted on its own way".

"The world is diverse and there should be a limit on press freedom… For the sake of peaceful living, mutual respect is essential. Sarcasm, insults and freedom of speech without limits and principles are not acceptable," says the article.

Another Xinhua commentary and an article in the China Daily echo similar views.

"It is high time for the Western world to review the root causes of terrorism to avoid more violence in the future," says Xinhua.

The China Daily asks: "What on earth are the boundaries between respect for religions and freedom of the press?".

The Global Times says "its staff firmly stands with Europe's people in condemning terrorism" and "nothing in the world can justify acts of terrorism".

The daily, however, reminds the people that they "should not be tricked into falling into a clash of civilizations" because global anti-terrorism efforts "can't be extended to a fight of ideologies".



Defending Islam from free speech: Column (http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/01/11/defending-islam-free-speech-muslim-oic-un-hate-speech-criticism-column/21609273/)

Many have taken false comfort in blaming the cold-blooded attack of Charlie Hebdo on the fanatical action of a small minority of Muslims. But attributing the horror perpetrated in Paris to a band of Salafist radicals alone betrays a willful blindness to a longstanding campaign by broad-based Islamic groups to silence those they consider blasphemers.

The Islamic State and al-Qaeda are by no means the most powerful purveyors of the destructive idea that Islam demands unqualified protection against perceived insult. In the aftermath of the Paris attack, reputable Muslim groups around the world have denounced the violence, but important bodies such as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the Arab League, as well as many of the individual states comprising these groups, must bear responsibility for nurturing an environment that breeds violence in the name of defending Islam.

Moderates, radicals agree

The OIC, whose member states range from moderate U.S. allies such as Jordan to adversaries such as Iran, describes itself as the world's largest international body after the United Nations. For more than a decade, "the collective voice of the Muslim world" has spread the belief that any insult directed against the Muslim faith or its prophet demands absolute suppression. Quashing "defamation of Islam" is enshrined as a chief objective in the organization's charter.

With countless internal resolutions, relentless lobbying of the international community and block voting on resolutions advocating a prohibition on defamation of religion at the U.N., the OIC continuously pushes to silence criticism of Islam.

Translated into practice inside Islamic nations and increasingly elsewhere, this toxic vision breeds contempt for freedom of religion and expression, justifies the killing of Muslims and non-Muslims alike, and casts a pall of self-censorship over academia and the arts.

By building the expectation that dissent or insult merits suppression, groups such as the OIC and the Arab League have emboldened extremists to take protection of Islam to the next level. With the most authoritative Muslim voices prepared to denounce violence but not to combat the idea that Islam should be immune from criticism, a meaningful response to counteract the resulting violence continues to be glaringly absent.

An OIC statement released after a 2011 Charlie Hebdo issue "guest-edited" by the prophet Mohammed typifies this troubling position: "Publication of the insulting cartoon ... was an outrageous act of incitement and hatred and abuse of freedom of expression. ... The publishers and editors of the Charlie Hebdo magazine must assume full responsibility for their ... incitement of religious intolerance."

This ominously prescient declaration tepidly closed by urging that Muslims exercise restraint.

Blasphemy is a crime

Likewise, after the attack last week, the OIC "strongly condemned the terrorist act," but quickly added "that such acts of terror only represent the criminal perpetrators."

It had nothing to say about the principle of free speech. Perhaps that is because blasphemous speech is a crime in a vast arc of Islamic countries from Morocco in the West to Indonesia in the East.

If the OIC, Arab League and Muslim states genuinely want to distance themselves and the religion of Islam from such ghastly acts of terror, they must reversethe years spent advancing the motive that spawned them. As a start, they should stop punishing their own citizens for failure to properly respect Islam.

Support for a prohibition on defamation of religion must be decisively repudiated. To counteract the damage that has been done, OIC members should embrace the promotion of tolerance, including sponsorship of moderation and tolerance efforts in mosques and madrassas globally. The OIC and its members should compensate Charlie Hebdo and the victims' families.

Clinging to the position that a prohibition on defamation of Islam is somehow a justifiable and measured response to perceived insult will continue inciting attempts to silence critics.

With millions marching in France and increasing unrest across Europe focused on Muslim immigrants, let's hope the leaders of the Muslim world acknowledge that the effort to turn blasphemy into a crime has done more to breed religious intolerance than any cartoon or YouTube video.

-- Robert C. Blitt
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: BrandeX on January 16, 2015, 02:40:24 PM
That hard hitting, investigative Chinese journalism:
http://www.china.org.cn/china/2015-01/15/content_34569527.htm

Man falls asleep on subway, ashamed that he didn't offer seat to pregnant lady.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: English Gent on January 17, 2015, 03:12:12 PM
Man runs over son while fleeing Chengguan
http://www.china.org.cn/china/2015-01/16/content_34581618.htm

I've been here too long, I didn't go 'aww', i went 'hmph' when i read it.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on January 30, 2015, 03:50:28 PM
The cost of doing business in China: Spying (http://money.cnn.com/2015/01/29/technology/security/china-business-spying/index.html)

If you're a tech company and want to do business in China, you'll have to hand over the keys to your kingdom first.

Strict, new Chinese government rules will subject foreign companies to tailor their products for use within China -- making them less secure.

Companies that provide back-end IT infrastructure, such as Cisco (CSCO, Tech30), would have to install back-doors into their hardware for Chinese authorities to access. If Microsoft (MSFT, Tech30) software runs on ATMs, it'll have to expose its source code -- the company's secret sauce. If Chinese bank employees use Juniper (JNPR) software to log in from outside the office, the company will have to use Chinese-approved encryption.

It won't affect these companies' products outside China. But it makes the act of doing business in China a monumental pain.

This week, 18 major American business groups protested and asked Chinese communist party leaders to reconsider restrictions they called an "opaque, discriminatory approach to cybersecurity."...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on January 31, 2015, 08:31:54 PM
'Western values' forbidden in Chinese universities (http://www.cnbc.com/id/102384558)

China's education minister has vowed that "western values" will never be allowed into the country's classrooms as the Communist party steps up efforts to consolidate autocratic rule and stave off demands for democracy and universal human rights.

"Never let textbooks promoting western values enter into our classes," Yuan Guiren said, according to an official account of his remarks. "Any views that attack or defame the leadership of the party or smear socialism must never be allowed to appear in our universities."

China has tightened controls over all aspects of public life and clamped down hard on freedom of expression since President Xi Jinping took over as leader in 2012....



There goes my plan to teach queuing.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on January 31, 2015, 09:32:17 PM
Also innovation and invention through science and technology - won't be looking up to that anymore. That and queuing are all about hastening the decline of China as the society we deserve.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on February 13, 2015, 03:52:27 PM
Listen To "Cyberspace Spirit," China's Anthem To Internet Censorship (http://gizmodo.com/listen-to-cyberspace-spirit-chinas-anthem-to-interne-1685528410)

[youtube video]

It would be easy to make fun of China's new anthem glorifying internet censorship. But I don't want to pan"Cyberspace Spirit" or mock the Cyberspace Administration of China choral group signing it, because they literally don't know what they're missing.

The Great Firewall of China truly sucks. If you or I tried living a day behind it, we'd quickly realize how much we take free speech and—perhaps more importantly—the freedom to read that speech for granted. There are nearly 3,500 websites that are blocked in China, including Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Vimeo, most of Wikipedia, and nearly all of Wordpress. How much would it screw up your cyberspace spirit if you couldn't access these key services?

According to The New York Times, this anthem to censorship was performed at a Beijing Internet Association event this week—and the Chinese government has been deleting the video evidence ever since. "Can China now claim to have censored the online celebration of its own Internet censorship agency?," asks the NYT. "The Beijing Internet Association did not respond to a request for comment."

Luckily, video does still exist, along with translated lyrics:

Devotedly keeping watch over the space every day,
Taking up our mission as the sun rises in the east,
Innovating every day, embracing the clear and bright,
Like warm sunshine moving in our hearts.
Unified with the strength of all living things,
Devoted to turning the global village into the most beautiful scene.

An Internet power: Where the Internet is, so is the glorious dream.
An Internet power: From the distant cosmos to the missing home.
An Internet power: Tell the world that the Chinese Dream is uplifting China.
An Internet power: I represent my nation to the world.

In this world all rivers flow to the sea,
Assuming the measure of Chinese civilization.
Five thousand years of history condensed to illuminate innovation,
Integrity is the clear ripple of a nationality.
We are unified between heaven and earth,
Faith and devotion flow like the Yellow River and Yangtze.

An Internet power: Where the Internet is, so is the glorious dream.
An Internet power: Thinking of home from the distant cosmos.
An Internet power: Tell the world that the Chinese Dream is uplifting China.
An Internet power: I represent my nation to the world.

There's nothing like the steady cadence of a military march to celebrate a government—especially when that government makes it impossible for its citizens to find out what it's up to.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on February 13, 2015, 04:05:36 PM
Now in Glorious Subtitlevision:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QlNjvWlWZk
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on March 04, 2015, 01:54:26 AM
Under The Dome, Chai Jing's self-funded anti-pollution presentation/documentary. It's in the news because...

Over the weekend, tens of millions of Chinese web users watched a new documentary on the country's air pollution problem that is leading an unprecedented national discussion.

http://online.thatsmags.com/post/as-former-cctv-presenters-pollution-documentary-is-watched-by-millions-what-does-it-say-about-upcoming-reform

The whole thing, nearly two hours worth of presentation, in Chinese with Chinese subtitles, is in the link above.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: old34 on March 04, 2015, 04:20:01 AM
TED style, but too long. Stole the Al Gore Inconvenient Truth docu/info style, But still a good watch. Glad it's still being allowed here and millions are watching.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on March 05, 2015, 01:19:42 AM
Did you watch the whole thing? I haven't made time for it yet but I did look at the first few minutes. Then I saw an ultrasound and it seemed like with her tone and style she was telling the audience what reaction to have...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on March 05, 2015, 06:39:10 PM
I think "allowed" doesn't cover it.  Some of the politicians interviewed claimed they lacked the power to correct things.  The timing of this coming out correlates to some big meetings where environmental regulation is being discussed.  The powers that be want popular support firmly lined up before they make some big corporations very unhappy.

A little obvious, but still a very good move to make.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on March 05, 2015, 08:18:59 PM
Someone eventually will subtitle the damn thing. Meanwhile, even if it is Upworthy:

See Read it here: exclusive English translation of powerful viral Chinese documentary 'Under the Dome' (http://www.upworthy.com/see-it-here-exclusive-english-translation-of-powerful-viral-chinese-documentary-under-the-dome?c=hpstream)

Retired investigative journalist Chai Jing's self-funded documentary "Under the Dome" about the long-term effects of air pollution in China went massively viral in early March 2015, racking up over 150 million views in its first weekend.

We at Upworthy felt it was so important to share the documentary with non-Mandarin speakers that we commissioned exclusive translations of the first and last 10 minutes of the documentary, which I have embedded below.

To fill in the middle, however, we called on Upworthy Head of Product Mike Su, who grew up in Taiwan and speaks fluent Mandarin, to provide a summarized play-by-play.


[link] (http://www.upworthy.com/see-it-here-exclusive-english-translation-of-powerful-viral-chinese-documentary-under-the-dome?c=hpstream)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on March 08, 2015, 03:53:45 PM
The Coming Chinese Crackup (http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-coming-chinese-crack-up-1425659198)

The endgame of communist rule in China has begun, and Xi Jinping’s ruthless measures are only bringing the country closer to a breaking point

On Thursday, the National People’s Congress convened in Beijing in what has become a familiar annual ritual. Some 3,000 “elected” delegates from all over the country—ranging from colorfully clad ethnic minorities to urbane billionaires—will meet for a week to discuss the state of the nation and to engage in the pretense of political participation.

Some see this impressive gathering as a sign of the strength of the Chinese political system—but it masks serious weaknesses. Chinese politics has always had a theatrical veneer, with staged events like the congress intended to project the power and stability of the Chinese Communist Party, or CCP. Officials and citizens alike know that they are supposed to conform to these rituals, participating cheerfully and parroting back official slogans. This behavior is known in Chinese as biaotai, “declaring where one stands,” but it is little more than an act of symbolic compliance.

Despite appearances, China’s political system is badly broken, and nobody knows it better than the Communist Party itself. China’s strongman leader, Xi Jinping , is hoping that a crackdown on dissent and corruption will shore up the party’s rule. He is determined to avoid becoming the Mikhail Gorbachev of China, presiding over the party’s collapse. But instead of being the antithesis of Mr. Gorbachev, Mr. Xi may well wind up having the same effect. His despotism is severely stressing China’s system and society—and bringing it closer to a breaking point....



DAVID SHAMBAUGH is the author. Apparently people who know his China scholarship are surprised by this article, and take it seriously, though many disagree.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on March 08, 2015, 09:32:26 PM
Revisit the magic. Experience the joy.

Under the Dome: Watch the viral video documentary about pollution that is scaring the Chinese government (http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/under-the-dome-watch-the-viral-video-documentary-about-pollution-that-is-scaring-the-chinese-government-20150308-13yag6.html)

Now with English subtitles.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on March 14, 2015, 07:45:33 PM
Myanmar Bombings in Yunnan Killed 4 Chinese (http://thediplomat.com/2015/03/its-official-myanmar-bombings-in-yunnan-killed-4-chinese-citizens/)

Chinese media, including Xinhua, CCTV, and People’s Daily, have confirmed that four Chinese citizens have been killed as a result of a misjudged bombing run by the Myanmar Air Force on Friday. These reports come after a Chinese foreign ministry press conference earlier this week confirmed bombings by Myanmar jets on the Chinese side of the China-Myanmar border, in Yunnan province, last weekend. However, the press conference noted that though a civilian domicile was damaged, no Chinese lives were lost.

Today’s reports additionally note that Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin has summoned Myanmar’s envoy to China, Thit Linn Ohn, to lodge “solemn representations.” The bombing, which claimed four lives and resulted in nine injuries and took place after the press conference earlier this week, suggested repeated cross-border strikes by Myanmar jets. Myanmar’s Air Force has been conducting air strikes against ethnic Chinese Kokang rebels along the country’s northeastern border with China.

According to Xinhua, a bomb released by a Myanmar jet struck “a sugarcane field in the border city of Lincang and killed four people working there on Friday afternoon. Nine others were also injured.” Liu, the vice foreign minister, has condemned the incident and urged Myanmar to “thoroughly investigate the case and inform the Chinese side of the result.” Liu additionally recommended that Myanmar “punish the perpetrator.”

Earlier this week, in a press conference, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hong Lei noted that the “Chinese side has expressed grave concerns to the Myanmar side, asking them to get to the bottom of this incident as soon as possible and take effective measures to ensure that such incident will never happen again.” Obviously, given these reports, China’s earlier diplomatic pressure failed. As I noted earlier this week, the cross-border bombings put Beijing in a difficult position. News of Chinese casualties will only render the situation more severe and test the limits of China’s policy of non-interference in the affairs of other countries.

It remains to be seen if the incident will draw a widespread nationalist backlash in China, prompting the government to take action against Myanmar. Although the central leadership would in all likelihood prefer to resolve this situation diplomatically, nationalists may fear that inadequate action could erode perceptions of China’s resolve  and credibility as a rising power.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on March 14, 2015, 10:31:40 PM
The Coming Chinese Crackup (http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-coming-chinese-crack-up-1425659198)

The endgame of communist rule in China has begun, and Xi Jinping’s ruthless measures are only bringing the country closer to a breaking point


DAVID SHAMBAUGH is the author. Apparently people who know his China scholarship are surprised by this article, and take it seriously, though many disagree.

http://onpoint.wbur.org/2015/03/10/china-corruption-xi-jinping-economy-growth-communist-party

Recent podcast from Tom Ashcroft starts with David Shambaugh's article and continues to a discussion of Xi's anti-corruption campaign and China's future. Interesting mix of comments and predictions from a distinguished trio of guests. More positive than negative, I think.  But, I'm confused about this supposed return to populism, (Mao-era style), that they say has come back into vogue.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on March 14, 2015, 11:37:06 PM
But, I'm confused about this supposed return to populism, (Mao-era style), that they say has come back into vogue.

Confused as in whether or not it exists?

'Xi Dada Loves Peng Mama' (http://english.cri.cn/12394/2014/11/24/2361s853616.htm)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on March 15, 2015, 04:16:25 AM
More as to why.  Never got the idea that Mao is greatly missed/respected except by some of the very old and poor.  On the contrary. Didn't think a politician could make hay here with that. Nostalgia?  For a more egalitarian and noble time?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on March 15, 2015, 01:53:08 PM
I have no idea what Chinese people do with the political imagery they receive, but is the idea that he's putting them consciously in mind of Mao era pageantry or just that he, and however many hundreds of people manage these things, is himself using the same style. High up in the Party, where it would seem they "draw lessons of history" all day long, they'd know what he's recalling, and maybe people old enough to have lived it would be getting shudders, but who else has sufficient political and media savvy? Everyone, perhaps? I have no idea.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: cruisemonkey on March 16, 2015, 01:15:59 AM
I have no idea.

Neither do I.  kkkkkkkkkk  mmmmmmmmmm
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on March 21, 2015, 08:54:01 PM
China’s Coming Education Crisis (http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2015/03/20/chinas-coming-education-crisis/)

Yao Xinyu, founder of a popular software hosting service called GitCafe, opted not to attend college because he felt he could do a better job teaching himself what he needed to be successful in the real world.

His parents disapproved but he stuck to his guns, studied on his own and built the successful startup after attracting 3 million yuan in capital from Greenwood Asset Management in late 2013. The 24-year old doesn’t see much chance that colleges in China will change to better meet the shifting needs of China’s economy, he said, since demand is high, their business model is profitable and there’s little incentive to adapt.

“I just decided I knew how to develop my own career,” he added.

One the knottiest problems China faces as its economy slows is a mismatch between people’s education levels and the needs of an economy increasingly reliant on technology and innovation, the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development said Friday in a report on China.

China’s productivity is decelerating and it’s important to reverse this “worrisome” trend given the nation’s rapidly aging population and the related prospect of slower rates of savings and investment, the Paris-based organization said.

“The knowledge taught and skills nurtured at school do not sufficiently match labor market needs,” it said. “Workplace training-based vocational education arrangements are woefully inadequate.”

While China has aggressively stepped up its spending on research, this isn’t translating sufficiently into innovation, the 34-member OECD said. China’s spending on research and development hit 2% of gross domestic product in 2013, which is above the European Union average, and has set a target of 2.5% of GDP by 2020. But innovation remains weak as measured by international patenting and trademark registration, the report said. “And the bulk of university research is not relevant for business,” the OECD said.

Many of China’s past gains in productivity were related to capital, but the country’s future focus should be on the economic benefits of better trained workers, said Angel Gurria, secretary general of the Paris-based group. “Productivity, productivity, productivity, it’s not a choice, it’s a must,” he said. “Without it, China’s not going to be able to continue growing at this cruising speed.”

China has targeted economic growth of 7% this year, a reduction from last year’s 7.4% which was its slowest pace in nearly a quarter century.

A 2013 survey by the MyCOS Research Institute of 150,000 graduates found the skills they learned in school often did not match the needs of companies, particularly in management, programming and “soft” areas of expertise like negotiating, trouble shooting and analysis. Many of these skills are important if China is going to expand its service industry and reduce its dependence on manufacturing, investment and exports, the OECD said.

While more money is being spent on education, average starting salaries for teachers are comparatively low amid stark inequalities over access to schooling, the report said.

Another major problem is that China’s school system has too often tended to emphasize theory over practice, said Tang Min, chairperson of the YouChange Foundation that funds education projects and a former official with the Asian Development Bank and China’s State Council. While the country has vocational schools, most of them are trying to convert to four-year academic institutions that are more lucrative and prestigious, he said.

“China’s education system is relatively backward and exam-oriented,” Mr. Tang said, adding that changing the system will take time. “That’s one reason for the slowing economy. Business is moving fast, there’s more competition from abroad and the comparative advantages of China are less.”

China has initiated various reforms. Last fall it announced a plan to reduce the singular importance of the gaokao, the national college exam, by including more information on prospective entrants’ high school records in university applications. And in January, the State Council issued a draft proposal making it easier to start private schools and giving provinces the authority to approve institutions of higher learning. But critics say reform is slow and doesn’t go far enough.

The Chinese education system’s inordinate focus on test scores discourages creativity and critical inquiry, analysts say. But it has at least fueled development of one creative sector. Blistering pressure to get into top schools leads to “myriads of cunning techniques and keeps afloat an industry of innovators, producers and suppliers of cheating devices,” the OECD said.

– Mark Magnier


So if I'm teaching things like management, trouble shooting, and analysis, that means higher salaries for me, right?

Right?

Yeah, right.


Actually, it might do if it were the companies doing the paying and they had an actual requirement. But as it's the government, the institutions, and the parents...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on March 21, 2015, 10:50:54 PM

So if I'm teaching things like management, trouble shooting, and analysis, that means higher salaries for me, right?

Right?

Yeah, right.


Actually, it might do if it were the companies doing the paying and they had an actual requirement. But as it's the government, the institutions, and the parents...

I think it means you should start your own teaching or consulting business. But, imagine the patience that would require.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on April 08, 2015, 03:46:02 PM
Stil, this dude lives in your neck of the woods.   afafafafaf bibibibibi

Not sure how long he will remain alive if the 17 girlfriends decide he shouldn't   ahahahahah ahahahahah

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/11520060/Chinese-man-with-17-girlfriends-caught-out-at-hospital.html
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on April 17, 2015, 07:06:58 PM
Universities embroiled in foreign student 'feeding frenzy' driven by corrupt middlemen (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-17/universities-foreign-student-feeding-frenzy-corrupt-middlemen/6398922)

Australian universities are paying more than an estimated $250 million each year to unregulated middlemen for the recruitment of international students, despite widespread acknowledgement that a number of these agents are corrupt and deal in fraudulent documents.

The commissions paid by universities, which in just the past four years may have totalled more than $1 billion of public funds, are often not disclosed.

Now a Four Corners investigation has unearthed evidence that some major education agents in China, representing many of Australia's most prestigious universities (including Sydney, Melbourne and the Australian National University), are colluding in the submission of fraudulent student applications.

And the universities have long-known they are dealing in murky waters....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: china-matt on April 22, 2015, 07:10:52 PM
Thought you might get a kick out of this story from Taiwan (I've been translating/summarizing Taiwanese news lately).

http://www.totaltaipei.com/dragon-king-claims-to-cure-cancer-with-breast-fondling/ (http://www.totaltaipei.com/dragon-king-claims-to-cure-cancer-with-breast-fondling/)“Dragon King” Claims to Cure Cancer with Breast Fondling

A self-proclaimed “Dragon King” fortune teller in New Taipei duped women into getting naked and giving him money. His powers that supposedly improved blood circulation could only work when the women were completely naked. He made about NT$300,000/mo.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on April 23, 2015, 02:54:04 PM
Damn.  All the entertaining jobs are already taken. ananananan
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on April 29, 2015, 03:13:42 PM
Mapping China’s middle class (http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/consumer_and_retail/mapping_chinas_middle_class)

Generational change and the rising prosperity of inland cities will power consumption for years to come.

The explosive growth of China’s emerging middle class has brought sweeping economic change and social transformation—and it’s not over yet. By 2022, our research suggests, more than 75 percent of China’s urban consumers will earn 60,000 to 229,000 renminbi ($9,000 to $34,000) a year.

In purchasing-power-parity terms, that range is between the average income of Brazil and Italy. Just 4 percent of urban Chinese households were within it in 2000—but 68 percent were in 2012.2 In the decade ahead, the middle class’s continued expansion will be powered by labor-market and policy initiatives that push wages up, financial reforms that stimulate employment and income growth, and the rising role of private enterprise, which should encourage productivity and help more income accrue to households.3 Should all this play out as expected, urban-household income will at least double by 2022.

Beneath the topline figures are significant shifts in consumption dynamics, which we have been tracking since 2005 using a combination of questionnaires and in-depth interviews to create a detailed portrait by income level, age profile, geographic location, and shopping behavior.4 Our latest research suggests that within the burgeoning middle class, the upper middle class is poised to become the principal engine of consumer spending over the next decade.

As that happens, a new, more globally minded generation of Chinese will exercise disproportionate influence in the market. Middle-class growth will be stronger in smaller, inland cities than in the urban strongholds of the eastern seaboard. And the Internet’s consumer impact will continue to expand. Already, 68 percent of the middle class has access to it, compared with 57 percent of the total urban population (see “China’s e-tail revolution”)....



The projections later in the article are damn interesting. Tier 3 is where it's at, baby! Unfortunately, turns out I am a member of the Chinese mass middle, not the emerging upper middle. Meanwhile, someone should teach this stuff, you know? It's a little bit ridiculous that students still name anyone with disposable income "rich man".
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on May 03, 2015, 07:07:36 PM
China's cyberspace extremely vulnerable to overseas cyberattacks (http://digital.asiaone.com/digital/news/chinas-cyberspace-extremely-vulnerable-overseas-cyberattacks)

China's massive Internet infrastructure is extremely vulnerable to overseas cyberattacks, experts warned on Thursday after a server malfunction redirected a large number of requests to wrong pages for days.

The country has seen an increasing number of attacks targeting key Internet infrastructure, government bodies and influential industrial organisations, according to a report.

This was released on Thursday by the National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team Coordination Center, a nongovernmental agency that monitors China's Internet safety.

"Although protection methods have improved generally, the risk level for basic Internet infrastructure remains high," the report said.

Last year, the centre detected more than 1,500 major security flaws from telecom carriers, triple the amount found a year previously.

Four days before the agency issued its warning, Internet users on the Chinese mainland were finding it difficult to access a large number of websites that allow visitors to log in using Facebook accounts.

Page view requests to these sites were hijacked and redirected to two addresses-wpkg.org, the home page of an open source software, and ptraveler.com, a travel blog.

The incident affected a long list of sites, including cnn.com, yahoo.com.jp and the site of Emirates airline.

A senior staff member overseeing Internet operations at the coordination centre said: "It was a rather strange case because the hackers were directly targeting the telecom carriers' servers. It has rarely happened before.

"China Telecom was the biggest victim because it is the largest Internet service provider. ... It is impossible to estimate the damage at the moment."

Access to the sites affected had been restored by Thursday afternoon.

In a statement, the centre said the redirection was caused because some of the servers in China were "contaminated" by malware from overseas servers.

Experts said it will be difficult to trace the source of the attack because it is technically possible to carry it out by remotely controlling the servers.

No group or individual has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Shen Yi, a researcher at Fudan University, said China has been on the receiving end of foreign online hacking.

"The country lags far behind the West in building an anti-hacking system. When the worst happens, we cannot find an effective way to defend Internet safety."

Shen added that China is focusing on improving cybersafety levels, but the vulnerabilities have been easy to find.



o_O
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on June 12, 2015, 11:15:56 PM
Also, btw, Zhou Yongkang was sentenced to life in prison.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on June 14, 2015, 02:48:35 PM
British spies removed from operations after Russia and China crack codes to leaked Snowden files (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/11673533/British-spies-removed-from-operations-after-Russia-and-China-crack-codes-to-leaked-Snowden-files.html)

MI6 has been forced to pull spies out of operations due to Russia and China cracking encrypted documents stolen by US whistleblower Edward Snowden

Britain has had to remove its spies from live operations after Russia and China allegedly cracked top secret files stolen by US whistleblower Edward Snowden, a source has claimed.

MI6 has been forced to pull spies out of operations due to Russia and China cracking encrypted documents stolen by the former contractor to the US National Security Agency, a government source has told the BBC.

The source said the countries "have information" that led to agents being moved but added there was "no evidence" any had been harmed.

It comes after Home Secretary Theresa May told the Commons' home affairs select committee in March the leaks about Britain's surveillance capabilities had caused "damage" to the country's security.

She said Snowden's actions, after he stole and disclosed thousands of top secret files, had led to "an impact on the ability of our agencies to do the work they need to do".

Snowden, now in Russia, leaked intelligence data two years ago.

According to the Sunday Times, Western intelligence agencies have been forced to pull agents out of "hostile countries" after "Moscow gained access to more than one million classified files" held by Mr Snowden.

"Senior government sources confirmed that China had also cracked the encrypted documents, which contain details of secret intelligence techniques and information that could allow British and American spies to be identified," the newspaper added.

Last year the Telegraph revealed GCHQ had lost track of some of the most dangerous crime lords and has had to abort surveillance on others after Snowden exposed their tactics.

The spy agency has suffered “significant” damage in its ability to monitor and capture serious organised criminals following the exposes by the former CIA contractor.

Intelligence officers are now blind to more than a quarter of the activities of the UK’s most harmful crime gangs after they changed their communications methods in the wake of the Snowden leaks.



/bullshit
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Guangzhou Writer on June 14, 2015, 10:08:39 PM
.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on June 14, 2015, 10:59:57 PM
That's a conspiracy theory too far for me. There are incongruities in all of what's happened over the last two years, but the simpler explanation is Snowden is/was smarter than we normally think someone hung out in public can be. If the CIA were behind it all, we'd have to credit them with outlandish new close-up magic abilities. Have there been similar media circuses orchestrated by the CIA that drew so much attention to spying itself? I do not doubt there have been media circuses orchestrated in the past, but surely they go out of their way to avoid any hint of meta-texts. The involvement of agencies is meant to be invisible.

What we're used to in the world of whistleblowers are people like Chelsea Manning, which is to say, people who get caught and crushed. They don't get away with it. The whole story is how horrible it is for them in prison after the fact. The leap we have to make to accept Snowden is he had what we haven't seen before, a strategy that keeps him out of the hands of the government. He gets away.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Guangzhou Writer on June 15, 2015, 03:52:58 AM
.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on June 15, 2015, 02:45:46 PM
There is a case for saying what he leaked is nothing new. It relies some on minimising the difference between some people suspecting and lots of people having it reported in newspapers for them. It's possible also that the value of Snowden lies entirely in what political mileage various US agencies can get out of the supposed chaos he has created. But that does rather minimise any issues the people may have now. He said he was doing it so the people could be informed and that choice could be put back in their hands. Granted, most people are saying we don't care, just gimmie my gmail. But still, do we have to see what happened over the last two years as a story of unchanged power institutions just doing what they usually do?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Guangzhou Writer on June 16, 2015, 04:53:32 AM
...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on June 16, 2015, 05:48:55 PM
Is there any evidence they have changed? I can't find it, not that I'm pessimistic, I just don't see it.

Seeds of change. Given that the powers themselves are prone more to overreach than self limitation, actual change depends on legislation. And that, in idealistic theory, depends on the people. So if the people are on their way to some kind of change, then viola!

Quote
On the positive side...

I'm just encouraged by what I see as Russia interrupting plans for NATO's humanitarian bombing Syria. After Libya, perhaps China and Russia will not be so compliant to no-fly zones. I think a balance of power is necessary between USA-Russia-China, otherwise whoever's on top just gets too powerful, and such an arrangement might be effective in curtailing the CIA, MI6, et al.

Competition is where it's at for balancing power. The internet makes information competition possible. BRICS bank or China's new AIIB might be competition for the World Bank and IMF, and their NATO collection agency, lol, so competition here might be good, too. And military competition would be best avoided.

My first instinct is to say this sounds less a balance and more a nightmare. I don't like or trust what the world would be under Chinese and to a lesser extent Russian guidance. I'll probably have to think about it more though because that's mostly my prejudice talking.  bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on June 16, 2015, 11:18:17 PM
More protests over private-car services like Uber in China (https://www.techinasia.com/protests-privatecar-services-uber-china/)

The question of whether China should legalize private-car ridesharing apps like Uber has been a hot topic in tech and transit circles for months, but increasingly it’s spilling over into the streets. Last week, drivers and bystanders protesting the arrest of a Didi Dache private-car driver caused a traffic jam and forced police to intervene. Over the weekend, two more major Chinese cities experienced large-scale protests sparked by private-car ridesharing apps.

According to reports on Weibo, another large-scale protest unfolded on Friday night in Hangzhou after several taxi drivers reportedly ‘hooked’ a private-car driver by booking him through an app and then handing him over to transit authorities when he showed for the pickup. Private-car drivers responded by showing up on the scene en masse, refusing to let transit authorities take the car away. After causing a four-hour traffic jam, the incident was finally broken up by riot police. During the protest Uber apparently sent a message to its Hangzhou drivers (pictured) warning them to stay away from protests and threatening to use GPS data to identify and cut ties with any drivers found to be sticking around the scenes of a mass incident. The message ends: “If you are on the scene, please leave immediately. Trust Uber.”

On Monday, a similar scene played out Wuhan, where Caixin reports and videos show bystanders and drivers protesting authorities as they attempt to arrest a private-car driver. The situation reportedly got out of control, with police forced to fire warning shots in an attempt to disperse the crowd.

Like last week’s protests in Guangzhou, both incidents this weekend were sparked by the arrest of a private-car driver for operating an illegal cab. And both incidents also led to demonstrations so large that riot police had to be called in to manage the crowds. Uber is apparently already spooked enough that it’s threatening to fire drivers who participate in protests, and with good reason. If things are regularly escalating to the point that riot police need to be called for what should be routine traffic enforcement, Chinese authorities may consider cracking down hard on the source of all these protesters: private-car ridesharing apps like Uber.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on June 20, 2015, 02:53:17 PM
Is This the “Golden Age” for Chinese Web Authors? (http://publishingperspectives.com/2015/06/is-this-the-golden-age-for-chinese-web-authors/)

Chinese “web literature” sites are making some amateur web authors wealthy by offering tools that enable fans to reward their favorite writers.

At ChinaDaily USA, Xu Jing examined the explosive growth of Chinese internet literature, noting that some writers are currently earning more than 10 million yuan ($1.6 million) per year.

And while the nation has seen rapid growth and development in online literature sites, many writers began by publishing their work on online forums. Bu Feiyan, an author and Chinese literature lecturer at Renmin University, told ChinaDaily that initially, she was just writing for fun when she started on tianya.cn, now China’s largest internet forum.

“I was a common college student in 2002,” she told Xu. “[One day] I made up a wuxia (martial arts) story in my mind, but none of my classmates wanted to hear it, so I decided to write it down on the internet. A very simple intention, but soon, I was surprised that so many people liked my work. About four months later, a publisher left a message on my blog and asked if I wanted to publish my work.”...
Title: Bizarre Kiwi
Post by: cruisemonkey on June 20, 2015, 09:40:58 PM
I thought I was fairly worldly and knew all about 'kinky'. Apparently not!  kkkkkkkkkk  This Kiwi has left me speechless... and I'm sure, his victims mumbling for a while -

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/world/article/new-zealand-tooth-fetish-sex-offender-jailed#sthash.fxU4UiQf.dpbs
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on June 25, 2015, 07:03:09 PM
Chinese Universities Told to Recruit a Student 'Army' to Patrol the Internet (http://chronicle.com/article/article-content/231131/)

Students in China are being recruited in large numbers by their universities as an ‘army’ of online contributors to bolster the official party line, in a new drive by the Communist Youth League of China that will draw universities squarely into the country’s attempts to control the internet within its borders.

The existence of hired internet commentators has been known for some years, but the latest campaign represents a scaling up, an unprecedented top-down organisation of the volunteer army and a major focus on recruiting within universities.

Some four million students must be recruited on campuses by the end of this month according to targets set by the Communist Youth League or CYL.

A league notice released earlier this year said a new “internet civilisation” campaign would involve more than 10.5 million volunteers across the country including four million volunteers on the university “battlefront”.

“The university battlefront shall cover each and every university,” according to the CYL notice made public in February. It includes private institutions.

Millions of high school students will also be recruited in the propaganda drive. “The school battlefront must be fully developed as a major force, comprehensively mobilising young students to participate,” according to the CYL guidelines.  ...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: rattie on June 25, 2015, 10:40:25 PM
Somehow brings to mind the glory days of 1966 to 1976...yaay..the intellectual abilities and logic functions of 16 and 17 year old Chinese kids, and college kids...when I have a sign hung around my neck announcing that I've been watching Black Sails instead of The Yellow Haired Girl, and enjoyed it..and am made to parade around the running track in my shame it may be time to drift back to the antipodes.
Rx
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: cruisemonkey on June 26, 2015, 01:05:51 AM
Rattie,

You expressed my thoughts exactly... but with more eloquence -

"Damn! It's just like the Cultural Revolution... except with more advanced technology. The little buggers will be reporting my online porn search habits."
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on June 26, 2015, 02:46:52 AM
I wonder how they verify posting activity. If it's not some kind of honour system where posters report to a team leader who reports to a supervisor who reports to a etc and so on, then what are they doing?

Incidentally, it's not entirely as if this doesn't happen outside China. There's some schools of thought saying major copyright holders spend some amount of their budgets on work-at-home people who post anonymously on, say, torrent sites, downgrading the supposed quality of a given movie torrent, or talking up scare stories, to turn casual downloaders away.

This "army" does seem to have some different quality to it, though.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: eggcluck on June 27, 2015, 01:53:17 AM
http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/24/asia/china-smuggled-meat/

Passing nicety required .
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on June 27, 2015, 07:58:27 PM
http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/24/asia/china-smuggled-meat/

Passing nicety required .

Yeah, fun stuff. This is in Changsha, fortunately the dog meat is fresh.

(http://changshanotes.smugmug.com/photos/i-SsnkWPL/1/1200x1200/i-SsnkWPL-1200x1200.jpg)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: BrandeX on June 28, 2015, 04:19:20 PM
Passing nicety required .
No it's not.
(Or may be due to me using https://github.com/huhamhire/huhamhire-hosts/releases )
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on July 02, 2015, 10:19:08 PM
NSA's hacking tool is apparently as easy to use as a Google search (http://www.engadget.com/2015/07/01/nsas-hacking-tool-is-apparently-as-easy-to-use-as-a-google-sear/)

It's been a couple of years since Edward Snowden and The Guardian introduced us to the NSA's spying tool called XKeyscore. Now, The Intercept has published new details about it from 48 documents Snowden provided, revealing that it's a lot more powerful than previously thought. Apparently, it's fed a constant flow of data from all over the world straight from fiber optic cables, can store content from three to five days and metadata for even longer (up to around 45 days). Based on these new documents, the publication has confirmed that the tool helped the agency look up other private info beyond emails and chats, including "pictures, documents, voice calls, webcam photos, web searches, advertising analytics traffic, social media traffic, botnet traffic, logged keystrokes, computer network exploitation (CNE) targeting, username and password pairs, file uploads to online services, Skype sessions and more." The NSA even tracked phone connections to Google Play and Samsung's App Store.

XKeyscore isn't only powerful, though: it's also incredibly easy to use. Toucan Systems CEO and security researcher Jonathan Brossard told The Intercept that hacking remote computers using the tool takes just a few "minutes, if not seconds." Plus, doing so is as simple as typing words into Google search -- it's so easy that the agency can train personnel on how to use the tool effectively within a single day....



XKEYSCORE global spy system detailed in new Snowden leaks (http://www.itnews.com.au/News/406039,xkeyscore-global-spy-system-detailed-in-new-snowden-leaks.aspx)

Staggering scale of surveillance revealed.

Top secret documents leaked by former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden have cast further light on the secretive XKEYSCORE analysis system used to process information captured from taps on internet fibre-optic backbones and other communications channels.

Published by The Intercept, the documents date back to 2013 and detail a global mass surveillance system that indiscriminately takes in every bit of data it can for NSA analysts to process.

XKEYSCORE is a distributed system for querying tens of billions of records stored in its databases. It is used by spy agencies within the Five Eyes alliance - Australia, the US, NZ, Canada and Britain.

The system had around 150 field sites globally in 2008, some located in Australia and New Zealand where local and visiting US intelligence analysts also have access to the captured data.

Content is stored in XKEYSCORE for three to five days, but metadata such as call records and browsing history is kept much longer, for 30 to 45 days, the documents showed.

The extent of the full collection of internet users, businesses and other organisations' data with XKEYSCORE is substantial, and includes, among other things:

Emails
Chats
Website traffic
Pictures
Documents
Voice calls, including internet voice calls
Webcam photos
Search engine traffic
Advertising analytics traffic
Social media traffic
Botnet traffic
Logged keystrokes
Computer network exploitation (CNE) targeting
Intercepted username and password pairs
File uploads to online services
Skype sessions

The NSA defended its use of systems such as XKEYSCORE to The Intercept, arguing they were ;necessary to protect the US, its populations and its allies against a wide range of serious threats....



/all the things
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on July 26, 2015, 03:25:24 PM
China's '300': When Spartans met the Beijing police (http://edition.cnn.com/2015/07/23/asia/china-spartans-marketing-police/index.html)

Dozens of half-naked models, dressed as Spartan warriors -- familiar to Chinese moviegoers from the 2006 action-fantasy film "300" -- were subdued by Beijing police while taking part in a marketing stunt, promoting a salad delivery service Wednesday...

Related:

(http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z181/MSantor/model-caught-1.jpg)

(http://news.asiaone.com/sites/default/files/styles/w641/public/original_images/Jul2015/beijingspartans_3.jpg?itok=PBtEaQH6)

And... boom

(http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z181/MSantor/spartans-shirtless4.jpg)

This. Is. CHIINAAAAAAH!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on July 27, 2015, 01:59:14 PM
I must assume that the police take-down wasn't part of the planned marketing stunt.   bibibibibi bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on July 27, 2015, 04:12:53 PM
Authoritarianism can't be just a hobby. This was a planned mass gathering, meant to take place over three days. Society should be grateful.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: cruisemonkey on July 27, 2015, 04:48:49 PM
Society should be grateful.

... and besides, the cops should be on top.  ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: BrandeX on July 27, 2015, 06:12:46 PM
Good investment. No one will remember their stunt, nor salad, by next week.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on July 28, 2015, 12:44:05 AM
That'd probably - possibly - be true in a normal society, that notoriety adds rather than subtracts from market value. But in this one? A company or product that manages to fall under the eye of sauron is one we... support?

Could be, I suppose. One of major mistakes in marketing is to imagine that "the market" is all people. "The market" for a product or service is always and only those people willing, interested, and able with respect to that product or service. Are there people in Beijing for whom offending mordor is attractive in a salad?

Well, people are people and reasons for purchase are many, so maybe. Which I suppose is why the agents of mordor do so often clash with underdressed men.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on July 28, 2015, 02:06:39 PM
It was simple enforcement of truth in advertising regulations.

Real Spartans wouldn't promote a salad restaurant.  Real Spartans would only do this for a steak restaurant.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on July 28, 2015, 03:59:52 PM
Well I was curious so I looked it up. Spartans ate, for preference, a thing call black broth, made from blood, vinegar and boiled pig's leg. Probably would have fit right in in China. But that was the Spartans of 300. The Spartans of the sequel, 300:Rise of An Empire, well those hairless fools certainly ate salad. On a related note, archaeologists apparently discovered that roman gladiators were more than likely vegetarian.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2007/05_may/02/gladiator.shtml
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: CWL on July 29, 2015, 08:32:43 AM
Chinese woman trapped in escalator dies, but saves toddler son

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/07/27/chinese-woman-dies-after-being-trapped-in-escalator-but-saves-2-year-old-son/ (http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/07/27/chinese-woman-dies-after-being-trapped-in-escalator-but-saves-2-year-old-son/)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on July 29, 2015, 11:57:15 PM
Well I was curious so I looked it up. Spartans ate, for preference, a thing call black broth, made from blood, vinegar and boiled pig's leg. Probably would have fit right in in China. But that was the Spartans of 300. The Spartans of the sequel, 300:Rise of An Empire, well those hairless fools certainly ate salad. On a related note, archaeologists apparently discovered that roman gladiators were more than likely vegetarian.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2007/05_may/02/gladiator.shtml

Also, real Spartans would have worn clothes and, was battle expected, they would have been encased in bronze armour since that was the custom of Greek hoplites.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on July 30, 2015, 11:30:39 PM
Also, real Spartans would have worn clothes and, was battle expected, they would have been encased in bronze armour since that was the custom of Greek hoplites.

Silly Eric. You trust what some boring people wrote down to fill dusty pages in history books and journals while ignoring the clear visual evidence from blockbuster Hollywood movies created solely to bring highly detailed  factual re-creations of historical events to educate the public. bibibibibi

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on August 01, 2015, 04:48:09 PM
Adhering to simple facts is not education, just plain common sense. If I really got miffed about inaccuracies, I could comment on how idiotically exaggerated that whole  300 Spartans at Thermopolae is, as there were a couple of thousand Spartan slaves, Helots and a rather large contingent of other soldiers. Also, Ephialtes, not a Spartan.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 01, 2015, 06:41:59 PM
They must have been the ones in the leather pants then.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on August 04, 2015, 03:18:12 PM
Adhering to simple facts is not education, just plain common sense. If I really got miffed about inaccuracies, I could comment on how idiotically exaggerated that whole  300 Spartans at Thermopolae is, as there were a couple of thousand Spartan slaves, Helots and a rather large contingent of other soldiers. Also, Ephialtes, not a Spartan.

So some dead "historian" makes a few claims about "facts".  How can that possibly compare to the visual proof offered in an incredibly accurate Hollywood educational film? yyyyyyyyyy
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Nolefan on August 05, 2015, 07:37:27 PM
Peter Hessler's latest:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/08/10/learning-to-speak-lingerie

I've never been a big fan of his but this has got to be some of the best writing i've read this year.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 07, 2015, 08:14:43 PM
MILLIONS OF SONGS DELETED IN PIRACY CRACKDOWN (https://torrentfreak.com/millions-of-songs-deleted-in-piracy-crackdown-150806/)

After issuing a stern warning last month which ordered the country's streaming music providers to stop offering unlicensed tracks, the Chinese government is reporting progress. Following the expiration of a July 31 deadline, the National Copyright Administration says that more than two million songs have already been deleted.

Just like the citizens of most developed nations, the Chinese public has developed a healthy appetite for movies, music and TV shows. However, much to the disappointment of countries such as the United States, many have become accustomed to obtaining that content for free.

Faced with a massive piracy problem that will take years to erode, Chinese companies have been looking towards improving legitimate services in an effort to tempt more than 650 million Internet users away from the dark side.

Leading international record labels including Sony and Warner have forged local licensing deals but revenues remain low, in part due to cheap licensed services (one offered by Internet giant Tencent costs just $1.60 per month) and in part due to online piracy.

Now, after years of relative inaction, the Chinese government seems willing to do more for the music industry. Early July an announcement from the National Copyright Administration of the People’s Republic of China (NCAC) made it clear that unlicensed music would no longer be tolerated.

As part of the “Sword Net 2015″ anti-piracy campaign designed to strengthen copyright enforcement supervision, promote the establishment of “good order” and develop the online music ecosystem, NCAC said that it was drawing a line in the sand.

Starting last Saturday, all online music providers were ordered to cease distribution of unlicensed music and permanently remove such content from their systems. Or, if they prefer, face criminal consequences....



But, but... why?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: ericthered on August 07, 2015, 09:29:26 PM
Because China is a well-organized, by-the-book, law-and-order abiding nation where any breach of etiquette or law is most severely frowned upon and...grhghth...hahahahaha....sorry, thought I could but...mwahahaha......because there is a whole  bunch of jackasses in Beijing who  all looked up "Tyranny" "Draconian" and "Machiavellian" and thought those sounded like super great ideas. Best basis for leadership ever, especially Machiavelli. They must love him.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 18, 2015, 02:41:07 PM
So... is there poison rain in Tianjin?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Nolefan on August 18, 2015, 11:08:48 PM
we'll know tonight... Beijing is about to get one hell of a downpour
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 21, 2015, 06:21:55 PM
In case anyone missed it:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2015/aug/14/eyewitness-tianjin-china-chemical-explosion-video


/kaboom
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on August 22, 2015, 02:58:49 AM
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/21/chinese-authorities-investigate-mass-fish-death-near-tianjin-explosion-site

Authorities say that the dead fish are not related to the explosion  ahahahahah ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on August 22, 2015, 04:49:20 AM
My wife's cousin lives less than 2 km from teh blast site. Windows were shattered, and residents evacuated. She figures when she and her family get back, they will probably find their doors kicked in and their home ransacked. She also figures the official estimates of dead/injured are greatly underestimated.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: dragonsaver on August 23, 2015, 03:07:29 PM
Another one, hope it is just a coincidence.   aoaoaoaoao

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-34029202
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on September 02, 2015, 06:13:38 PM
Commentary: Debates on V-Day Parade Indicate China's Progress (http://en.people.cn/n/2015/0902/c90000-8944550.html)

China will hold its first military parade commemorating the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II on September 3, which has undoubtedly been a hot topic amongst the Chinese social media recently.

Everyone seems to have their own concerns about the parade. Some people wish to take a glimpse of the foreign troops; some want to widen their knowledge of the armaments; others are making efforts to get tickets that could get them into the scene. Still, some are complaining about the inconvenience caused by the recent traffic control and other regulations.

These are all normal reactions in a Chinese society where an important event is approaching. Chinese people have become more willing to express their own feelings, share their personal experiences, and take different perspectives. It is encouraging to see people taking diverse look at the current issues rather than agreeing or disagreeing on something altogether. Such a phenomenon truly indicates China as a more open, tolerant, and advanced society. It is also important for us to think, amongst all the emotions, what core facts of the happenings are and what reflection we could gain from it.

Last week, China’s latest model of military jets performed a display during parade rehearsals in Beijing. Many of those who were able to take photos of the scene and then post online were actually those who got stuck on the road by temporary roadblocks. With the sounds of the rolling tanks rumbling pass, and with all the photos of the heroic soldiers on news reports, one can hardly act indifferently about the significant progress China has made during its past 70 years.

Indeed, China has gone through too many things in the past century, and people view and judge them differently. But when speaking of the end of WWII and the victory of the Chinese People's War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, the majority of Chinese people hold a solidary attitude of pride and excitement. Therefore, on the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII, is it appropriate to revive the old spirit that once supported us during the anti-war period? Is it meaningful for modern China to commemorate the legacy of the wars and to rethink the development of our country? The answer is YES.

Because of this, it is respectable of people to pay constant attention to the parade, bear some inconveniences in this period of time, and share their true feelings in this. In some way, it is like the annual travel rush during Spring Festival, people have to make all efforts to book a train ticket in the midnight, prepare all kinds of New Year’s gifts for extended families, and change from one vehicle to another just for family reunion. Once all family members are reunited, all exhaustion will be washed away. And same thing applies to this V-Day parade. Compared with some daily inconveniences, the inner fulfillment people will get is far more significant.

Liang Qichao, a famous Chinese scholar and journalist, once compared a young nation to a teenager, who needs not only physical growth but also the development of mind. During the past years, China has grown from a teenager to a young man, who is now facing more challenges and responsibilities. In some sense, the upcoming parade and many other efforts China has made, such as improving the legal system, commemorating the history, as well as highlighting heroes and heroines, are of great significance. More importantly, we also need to build a modern country with strong mobilization ability.

In this way, the heated discussion on the upcoming V-Day parade shows that Chinese people are actively participating in thinking about the development of their country. How can we make September 3 a more meaningful day? How should we maintain memorial constructions and hold commemorative activities? And what can we learn from the war of resistance against aggression? People across the nation have been thinking deeply about these questions. It also indicates that Chinese people are making new progress.



/manyfold ironies.


best quote:

With the sounds of the rolling tanks rumbling pass, and with all the photos of the heroic soldiers on news reports, one can hardly act indifferently about the significant progress China has made during its past 70 years.


Let us all take a moment to attach great importance.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: BrandeX on September 02, 2015, 10:14:58 PM
With the sounds of the rolling tanks rumbling pass, and with all the photos of the heroic soldiers on news reports, one can hardly... forget that only the "bad guys" march their military through the streets in a public display of power to their citizens.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on September 06, 2015, 09:40:24 PM
Google looking to return to China with new app store (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/google-looking-to-return-to-china-with-new-app-store-2015-09-05)

Google Inc. is in talks with Chinese government officials and handset makers about launching a new Android app store there, according to people familiar with matter, a move that would mark the Internet company’s return to the world’s second-largest economy.

For more than a year, Google GOOG, -0.92%   has been working on a version of its Play app store that includes only apps and services approved by the Chinese government, those people said. This app store would come installed on new smartphones made for the Chinese market that run on Google’s licensed version of Android, the people said.

One of the people said Google hopes the new phones will be available by the end of the year, though it isn’t clear if the company will hit that target. Google needs licenses from the Chinese government and it isn’t known whether those have been approved, the people said....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on September 10, 2015, 09:00:56 PM
Why China's 'Retired' Leaders Don't Leave Quietly (http://thediplomat.com/2015/09/why-chinas-retired-leaders-dont-leave-quietly/)

Unlimited power and little supervision encourage officials to seek to influence politics long after they retire.

Under mainland China’s long-standing institutional system, having elders interfere in government has been a serious problem. Some veteran cadres worked conscientiously all their lives, never turning crooked. They retired at 60 – but then found that they can no longer easily supplement their meager salaries. After retirement, it’s hard for them to go out, to see a doctor, or even to live. So in the past few years, we’ve seen the rise of the “59-year-old phenomenon”: some leading cadres, just before retirement, turned especially corrupt in order to provide themselves with a “retirement fund.”

The Chinese idiom that “when a person leaves, the tea gets cold” doesn’t refer literally to tea. Instead, the tea stands for power. Some leading cadres, especially the top local leaders, use the cadre appointment system to promote their own people before retirement. Then, these leaders officially retire but don’t actually retire — they rule from behind the curtains and continue to interfere in politics. It’s almost enough to make one think that China’s 2,000-year-old tradition of dynasties has returned.

These “elders” who are unwilling to leave their official posts (and their trusted followers) are corrupt “tigers.” When it comes to these tigers, the saddest thing is that they have failed to bring any benefits to the people during their long time in office, nor did they make essential and necessary changes to the system. If these “retired” cadres were trying to win power in the name of justice and fairness, it could be accepted. However, that’s not the case. They are simply letting their descendants and followers continue to enjoy the power these cadres arranged while they were still in office. The common people will clap and cheer when these “elders” are taken down and their families are broken up....



(a) Guess who the article's referring to
(b) well, gosh darn, even "The Diplomat" is doing Chinese propaganda telegraphing now? That thing, which is part of Chinese political life, where not very cryptic musings get published as guidance and warnings. What's next, big-character posters on Facebook?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on October 06, 2015, 03:52:00 PM
An International Victory, Forged in China’s Tumultuous Past (http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/10/05/china-nobel-prize-youyou-tu-chinese-traditional-medicine-cultural-revolution/)

Nobel Laureate Tu Youyou never studied abroad, never got a doctorate, and never bothered to climb the bureaucratic ladder.

On Oct. 5, a share of this year’s Nobel Prize in medicine went to 84-year-old Chinese pharmacologist Tu Youyou for her discovery, decades ago, of the anti-malarial drug artemisinin. Tu and her team made the discovery during the Cultural Revolution, a decade-long period of chaos and militant Communist ideology in the 1960s and 1970s. After scouring traditional herbal remedies, a 1,600-year old Chinese medicinal text led Tu to a local plant called sweet wormwood, and she found that an extract from the plant cured malaria patients. The resulting drug, artemisinin, has now been used for years to save millions of lives around the world.

Tu’s prize marks numerous firsts: The first Chinese citizen to receive a Nobel prize for scientific research performed in China; the first Chinese woman Nobel laureate; and the recipient of the highest award ever given to research inspired by Chinese traditional medicine, an ancient holistic health system highly valued within China but often dismissed by outsiders.

But Chinese netizens are more interested in three things that Tu isn’t. On Weibo, China’s huge microblogging platform, Tu has been dubbed the “three withouts” scientist: she won the Nobel without a doctoral degree, without holding a top position at a research institution, and without ever having pursued study overseas. Tu’s nickname reveals the insecurities that many within China still feel about their swiftly developing nation, frustration towards calcified bureaucracies holding it back, and the hopes that many harbor for its future....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on October 06, 2015, 06:32:23 PM
I'd nominate her for another prize if she'd also publish a book on traditional treatments that are useless or even harmful.  It's not just a Chinese thing.  Anytime one (of many thousands) of traditional treatments is shown to work, some people (my lovely wife included) instantly believe that this proves all the other treatments are automatically validated. kkkkkkkkkk
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on October 06, 2015, 10:49:03 PM
I heard there were some deaths in the Panyu and Shunde areas of Guangdong from the typhoon that hit the area. I know BrandeX lives there. Everything ok man? You live in the Clifford Estates right?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: old34 on October 07, 2015, 04:45:14 AM
I'd nominate her for another prize if she'd also publish a book on traditional treatments that are useless or even harmful.  It's not just a Chinese thing.  Anytime one (of many thousands) of traditional treatments is shown to work, some people (my lovely wife included) instantly believe that this proves all the other treatments are automatically validated. kkkkkkkkkk

I saw an article sourced from the Nobel announcement where the Nobel spokesman made EMPHATIC responses to Chinese reporters that Tu's Nobel was based on her scientific research, not on the qualities of TCM. Though on my social websites, I'm getting a lot of this noise, including my former English dean at a TCM university who made his mark in Translating medical texts for the TCM uni. Gloating can be good sometimes.

I'm more impressed by the social webs here that point her out as one of the Three-Nos: No
postgrad degree, no foreign education/research experience, no leading role in one of the Chinese Academies (of Science, Social Science, Engineering, etc.)

Indeed, most of her initial research was done during the Korean War and Cultural Revolution. Maybe China's past is catching up, at last, to China's future. This Nobel award recognises that.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on October 14, 2015, 03:00:43 PM
New data retention laws begin today, this is what you need to know (http://www.news.com.au/technology/online/new-data-retention-laws-begin-today-this-is-what-you-need-to-know/story-fn5j66db-1227567715454)

BEGINNING today, every phone call you make [in Australia], text message you send and email you write [in Australia] will be tracked by the [Australian] government under a new metadata retention scheme.

This scheme is allegedly being implemented to protect the country against organised crime and terrorism, but it is also being slammed as a major invasion of privacy.

An Essential poll from early in the year showed that around 40 per cent of Australians support the introduction of the new metadata laws and 44 per cent did not, while 16 per cent had no idea what it was....



We'd all be wildly unwise to imagine China does not already do this, with metadata, and maybe even actual data, though they'd need truly massive storage capacities, but now Australia's gone and made it a legitimate national policy. Thanks Australia. Can't wait for the rest of the world to follow suit.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on October 16, 2015, 03:35:08 PM
How the NSA can break trillions of encrypted Web and Very Passable Nicety connections (http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/10/how-the-nsa-can-break-trillions-of-encrypted-web-and-Very Passable Nicety-connections/)

Researchers show how mass decryption is well within the NSA's $11 billion budget.

For years, privacy advocates have pushed developers of websites, virtual private network apps, and other cryptographic software to adopt the Diffie-Hellman cryptographic key exchange as a defense against surveillance from the US National Security Agency and other state-sponsored spies. Now, researchers are renewing their warning that a serious flaw in the way the key exchange is implemented is allowing the NSA to break and eavesdrop on trillions of encrypted connections.

The cost for adversaries is by no means modest. For commonly used 1024-bit keys, it would take about a year and cost a "few hundred million dollars" to crack just one of the extremely large prime numbers that form the starting point of a Diffie-Hellman negotiation. But it turns out that only a few primes are commonly used, putting the price well within the NSA's $11 billion-per-year budget dedicated to "groundbreaking cryptanalytic capabilities."

"Since a handful of primes are so widely reused, the payoff, in terms of connections they could decrypt, would be enormous," researchers Alex Halderman and Nadia Heninger wrote in a blog post published Wednesday. "Breaking a single, common 1024-bit prime would allow NSA to passively decrypt connections to two-thirds of Very Passable Nicetys and a quarter of all SSH servers globally. Breaking a second 1024-bit prime would allow passive eavesdropping on connections to nearly 20% of the top million HTTPS websites. In other words, a one-time investment in massive computation would make it possible to eavesdrop on trillions of encrypted connections."...



The NSA... and any nation state with sufficient computing power.

NB: the url won't work - you'll need to replace "Very Passable Nicety" with the appropriate lowercase acronym
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on October 19, 2015, 03:27:25 PM
As China Cracks Down On Cultural Fringe, Indie Rock Finds A Home In Beijing (http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/10/18/449160304/as-china-cracks-down-on-cultural-fringe-indie-rock-finds-a-home-in-beijing)

"Some guys have sports cars — I have this."

That's how Michael Pettis, an American economist based in Beijing, has always explained his rather extravagant hobby: running his very own corner of the Chinese music scene via his record label, Maybe Mars, and a couple of gritty rock dives.

As a label- and club-owner, Pettis has been key in curating a specific, traditionally American sound aligned with his own background in the noisy, avant-garde, punk-aligned no wave scene of 1980s New York. He's assembled a stable of Chinese bands similar in sound to American and British groups from that era, like Sonic Youth, Television and The Fall....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Nolefan on October 22, 2015, 05:53:03 AM
As China Cracks Down On Cultural Fringe, Indie Rock Finds A Home In Beijing (http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/10/18/449160304/as-china-cracks-down-on-cultural-fringe-indie-rock-finds-a-home-in-beijing)

"Some guys have sports cars — I have this."

That's how Michael Pettis, an American economist based in Beijing, has always explained his rather extravagant hobby: running his very own corner of the Chinese music scene via his record label, Maybe Mars, and a couple of gritty rock dives.

As a label- and club-owner, Pettis has been key in curating a specific, traditionally American sound aligned with his own background in the noisy, avant-garde, punk-aligned no wave scene of 1980s New York. He's assembled a stable of Chinese bands similar in sound to American and British groups from that era, like Sonic Youth, Television and The Fall....


Michael did a great job with D22 and literally helped shape the scene in Beijing... that place is sorely missed!
That said, he had his share of misses with XP an what followed. Still, the guy's contribution will never be recognized for its importance.

 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on October 23, 2015, 01:34:52 AM
Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe awarded 'China's Nobel peace prize' (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/22/zimbabwes-robert-mugabe-awarded-chinas-nobel-peace-prize)

Confucius peace prize chairman defends decision to give award to leader accused of using systematic violence and torture to maintain grip on power

The chairman of an award dubbed China’s Nobel peace prize has defended the decision to honour Robert Mugabe, the Zimbabwean president, for supposedly “injecting fresh energy” into the global quest for harmony.

Mugabe, who has been accused of using systematic violence and torture to maintain his 35-year grip on power, recently became the latest recipient of China’s Confucius peace prize.

The Beijing-run Global Times newspaper said 91-year-old Mugabe had beaten off competition from candidates including the Microsoft founder, Bill Gates, and the South Korean president, Park Geun-hye....



In your face, Ghandi.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on October 23, 2015, 01:47:49 PM
Mugabe!?! aoaoaoaoao Are you sh!tting me?  This post should perhaps better be located in the Bull bqbqbqbqbq Room
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on October 23, 2015, 02:41:27 PM
The Confucius Prize has a long history and has belonged to China since ancient times.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on October 25, 2015, 02:48:53 PM
Mark Zuckerberg gives 20-minute speech in Chinese (http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/24/technology/mark-zuckerberg-speech-chinese/index.html)

Mark Zuckerberg just revealed the mission behind Facebook -- in Chinese.

The Facebook CEO shared his thoughts about the company's purpose in a 20-minute speech in Chinese that he gave while visiting Tsingua University in Beijing on Saturday.

In true Zuckerberg form, the milestone was accompanied by a Facebook post.

"I just gave my first ever speech in Chinese," he wrote.

Zuckerberg said he talked about the importance of having a "strong sense of mission" to effect meaningful change in the world....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on October 27, 2015, 05:32:15 PM
Here we go. These are gonna go over like a fart in church.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/27/us-southchinasea-usa-idUSKCN0SK2AC20151027

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/10/19/china-hacks-americans-companies-one-day-obama-declares-no-hacking-deal/

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on October 27, 2015, 06:19:20 PM
China 'social credit': Beijing sets up huge system (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-34592186)

In most countries, the existence of a credit system isn't controversial. Past financial information is used to predict whether individuals will pay their mortgages or credit card bill in the future.

But China is taking the whole concept a few steps further. The Chinese government is building an omnipotent "social credit" system that is meant to rate each citizen's trustworthiness.

By 2020, everyone in China will be enrolled in a vast national database that compiles fiscal and government information, including minor traffic violations, and distils it into a single number ranking each citizen.

That system isn't in place yet. For now, the government is watching how eight Chinese companies issue their own "social credit" scores under state-approved pilot projects.

One of the most high-profile projects is by Sesame Credit, the financial wing of Alibaba. With 400 million users, Alibaba is the world's biggest online shopping platform. It's using its unique database of consumer information to compile individual "social credit" scores.

Users are encouraged to flaunt their good credit scores to friends, and even potential mates. China's biggest matchmaking service, Baihe, has teamed up with Sesame to promote clients with good credit scores, giving them prominent spots on the company's website.

"A person's appearance is very important," explains Baihe's vice-president, Zhuan Yirong. "But it's more important to be able make a living. Your partner's fortune guarantees a comfortable life."...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on October 28, 2015, 10:17:25 PM
Damn.  I'll be the first person to have a negative score primarily due to excessive jaywalking.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on October 30, 2015, 04:07:00 AM
China to end one-child policy (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-34665539)

China has decided to end its decades-long one-child policy, Xinhua news agency reports.

All couples will now be allowed to have two children, the state-run news agency said, citing a statement from the Communist Party...



/gameover
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on October 30, 2015, 11:33:26 PM
Well timed.  I was just wondering who was going to pay the fine for a relative of mine who decided to go for 2 and deal with the consequences later. kkkkkkkkkk

Now the big question is, "If a second child is allowed, will the penalties for #3, 4, 5, etc. be in increased or decreased?"
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on November 06, 2015, 07:41:33 PM
It's not news. It's likely little more than an ad for Emirates. But HOT DAMN!

Watch Two Guys In Jetpacks Chase An Emirates A380 Through The Skies Over Dubai (http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2015/11/watch-two-guys-in-jetpacks-chase-an-emirates-a380-through-the-skies-over-dubai/)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on November 07, 2015, 08:50:03 PM
Now I know what I want for Christmas.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on November 13, 2015, 09:16:22 PM
Mao money, Mao problems: China's cash machines ‘snub’ new hi-tech 100-yuan notes (http://www.scmp.com/news/china/economy/article/1878443/mao-money-mao-problems-chinas-cash-machines-snub-new-hi-tech-anti)

Problems occur on Friday - one day after the red note worth just under US$16, emblazoned with a portrait of Communist China’s founder Mao Zedong on the front, went into circulation

(http://cdn1.scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/486x302/public/2015/11/13/aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-hong_kong_chinese_new_rmb_banknotes_xkc103_53959137.jpg?itok=wc1U5KBa)

China’s new 100-yuan banknote, acclaimed by authorities as bearing hi-tech features that make it harder to forge, is being rejected by cash machines, a report said on Friday.

The red note, emblazoned with a portrait of Communist China’s founder Mao Zedong, is worth just under US$16 and remains the highest denomination available in the country.

It went into circulation on Thursday and has been dubbed the “high-roller gold” for the colour of its main “100”.

The government said it had more security features than previous notes to make it “easier for machines to read” and “more convenient for the public to distinguish authentic notes from fake ones”.

(http://www.scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/486w/public/2015/11/13/aaaaaxaa-china-economy-money_qt1170_53956469.jpg?itok=704w0xuD)
Top: new; Bottom: ole faithful...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on November 13, 2015, 09:21:13 PM
Courtesy Yahoo! Finance (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/mao-money-mao-problems-cash-machines-snub-chinese-051808680.html):

(http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/Tigx.svG2r7UcOrcUh8awA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3NfbGVnbztmaT1maWxsO2g9ODA5O2lsPXBsYW5lO3B5b2ZmPTA7cT03NTt3PTk2MA--/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/afp.com/bc44ec26cafc2c621ba6d18b7f715b57def87837.jpg)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on November 13, 2015, 09:49:54 PM
I'm still hoping to see a 6th series RMB come out, preferably including 500 and 1000 RMB notes.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on November 21, 2015, 06:40:29 PM
China breaks up $64 billion underground banking network (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/china-breaks-64-billion-underground-090315988.html)

SHANGHAI (AP) — Authorities in China have cracked the country's biggest-ever underground banking network, which handled illegal foreign exchange transactions worth 410 billion yuan ($64 billion), police said Friday.

The bust comes amid a monthslong crackdown on illicit outflows, which officials say disrupt China's financial management, facilitate corruption and help terrorists and criminals launder their dirty money.

Over 370 people were detained, prosecuted or otherwise reprimanded in the case, police in Jinhua city said in a statement on their website. Jinhua is in Zhejiang province on China's eastern coast, a zone known for its shadowy financial networks.

Police said one leader of the Zhejiang network was a man named Zhao Mouyi, who transferred over 100 billion yuan overseas using 850 different bank accounts and a dozen Hong Kong front companies. It took police nearly a year to sort through over 1.3 million suspicious transactions, they said.

Since April, Chinese authorities have uncovered over 170 big cases of underground banking and money laundering worth over 800 billion yuan ($126 billion), the state-run People's Daily reported....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on November 23, 2015, 03:03:02 PM
After British man abused, Taiwan debates its hidden racism (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-34882824)

Many people in Taiwan thought racism and prejudice didn't exist in their society - until a viral video of a British man and his Taiwanese girlfriend being verbally abused on the subway last week touched off a soul-searching debate that's continued to trend.

Last month, Christopher Raymond Hall and his girlfriend were taking the subway in Taipei when, Hall says, his girlfriend noticed a Taiwanese man staring and mouthing words at her. They moved to the next carriage, but the man followed and began insulting them.

The man, later identified as a Mr Liao, told the couple: "Just look at his ugly face. Just look at you, this kind of whore, with this piece of trash foreigner… The whole of Taiwan despises you."

Liao continued to insult Hall for several minutes, calling him a "loser" who came to Taiwan because he couldn't find a girlfriend back home. Hall tried to ask a series of questions and find out the man's name, without much luck, and when the train stopped, he and his girlfriend got off.

But the girlfriend had filmed the whole conversation. And since Hall, 34, posted the video to YouTube on 11 November, it's been reported on around the world and watched more than 2 million times. Within Taiwan, the debate has brought out deeply held views that aren't often aired....



Is it racism if it's ineffectual?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on November 25, 2015, 04:43:51 PM
Yes, it's still racism if it were ineffectual.

Why would this instance be considered ineffectual?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on November 25, 2015, 04:57:51 PM
Nice young white man gets mildly abused by a walking Asian stereotype, and it makes the newspapers. How effectual is this racism if it makes the supposed racists look like losers and the nice young white men look like talented internationalists?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on November 25, 2015, 05:39:05 PM
Missed the part where the white guy is nice, but anyway;

The moved cars because of what was being said. The felt uncomfortable enough to video it. They felt it was worth posting it.

How did it effect the rest of the couple's day?
Does the guy feel a little more distrustful around Taiwanese people he doesn't know.... or even knows?
Does he start feel paranoid about the conversations going on around him?
Will they feel some apprehension the next time they take the metro. Does the girl decide that this is happening too much for her and she can't take it anymore, so leaves the guy? The straw that breaks the camels back kind of thing?
Is it added to the list of reasons, that the guy wants to go back to Britain, so he leaves a little earlier than he might have.
Does the guy think it's a big deal but the girl thinks it's nothing, so they argue... vice-versa?
Does it remind him of the look the girl's father gives him every time he has dinner at her family home?
Maybe he hasn't met the family and is now thinking about it more.
Does he feel uncomfortable making friends so starts spending more and more time alone?

Other people think racism is wrong, so it is ineffectual? What the fuck are you talking about?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on November 25, 2015, 06:23:00 PM
In the video he is interviewed after the fact. He is revealed to be a maintainer of a hipster chin beard, talks about his feelings, and he appears to be a competent mandarin speaker. Ergo, he is "nice". He is also young. He was disturbed by this incident. The potentially nice, probably young Taiwanese outcast he is shacked up with reports they don't often go out. They feel the pressure all the time, even before this incident.

But... are there any institutional effects? Is he more likely to be arrested while in taiwan hanging out with that girl? Is his salary lower than might reasonably be expected for his skill? If he's a student, do teachers grade him more harshly? Or, does he, at worst, have to pay higher prices for supermarket purchases?

Is there some chance he will be cornered in an alley and have his testicles cut off because he took one of "our" women?



There's a lot of power on the nice young man's side of the racism equation however actually racist the subway antagonist was being.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on November 26, 2015, 02:57:22 AM

But... are there any institutional effects? Is he more likely to be arrested while in taiwan hanging out with that girl? Is his salary lower than might reasonably be expected for his skill? If he's a student, do teachers grade him more harshly? Or, does he, at worst, have to pay higher prices for supermarket purchases?

Is there some chance he will be cornered in an alley and have his testicles cut off because he took one of "our" women?


You think none of this is possible?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on November 26, 2015, 02:42:38 PM
I think it's more likely they encountered a dude with mental health issues than it is this dude should accurately represent the people of Taiwan.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Stil on November 29, 2015, 05:36:19 PM
You think the man on the subway was mentally ill?

What percentage of people in Taiwan need to think the same way as him before it could be considered representative.

Are cops in the US racist, or most, or some, or a very small percentage? Does it make any difference to the people that are shot... their families... their friends... their peers?

If the culture is less prone to verbalise/take action on their racists thoughts, does that make any difference?

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on November 29, 2015, 08:22:51 PM
I think, the more power available to a person when they are in distress, the less need there is to identify their distressors as part of a bloc or a movement. The amount of time spent determining how racist Taiwanese people are against certain classes of people should by inversely proportional to how much privilege that class of person has and how much influence the individual can bring to bear when addressing the racist event. In general, the more the person can use their privilege to ameliorate their distress, the less value there is in noting that they were distressed in the first place.

Plus, since the issue is taiwanese people suddenly worrying that they might be racist because a nice white boy's abuse video went viral, we're talking about a positive process. Their society, at least at the edges, is gaining some ability to be less insular. Being "racist" ie irredeemably so, is something different.

Apparently I using a claim that racism is intractable. A racist can't see beyond race. Identifying a racist would suggest that person isn't merely reacting poorly or in bad faith. Then again, intractable racism offers normal people the tool of bad faith, so shrugging off some rant as "merely" bad behaviour is questionable.

I don't know. Why do you want that guy to be the racist?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on December 07, 2015, 07:46:45 PM
I recall discussing streaming recently, and then finding a story...

Already bigger than Spotify, China’s search engine giant doubles down on streaming music (https://www.techinasia.com/china-streaming-music-baidu-alibaba-battle/)

Spotify claims to be the biggest music service in the world with about 75 million active users and 20 million paying subscribers. But there is one that’s larger – albeit one confined to China. That’s the music portal run by search engine giant Baidu.

Baidu Music now has 150 million monthly active users, the company said yesterday. But there’s no word on how many paying users it has for the “VIP” streaming, which costs a meager RMB 10 (US$1.56) per month. Spotify, which is available in dozens of countries, none of which are China, costs about US$10 per month.

The Baidu Music subscription includes higher quality streaming and downloads, a sound equalizer, and no ads....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: TrevorTheTee on December 09, 2015, 12:35:18 PM
Quote
he jumped on a table, dropped his trousers and popped his penis out. Then he cut it off. I couldn't believe it."


Snausages dog snack. Now introducing Polish flavor.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on December 30, 2015, 03:30:39 PM
China’s Anti-Terrorism Law Could Mean Trouble For Apple Encryption, US Tech Companies (http://www.ibtimes.com/chinas-anti-terrorism-law-could-mean-trouble-apple-encryption-us-tech-companies-2242991)

Technology companies in the United States might soon have no choice but to drastically rethink their business strategy in China or consider abandoning the world’s second-biggest market altogether. That’s thanks to a Chinese anti-terrorism law that will go into effect Jan. 1, when U.S. vendors will be required to provide the Chinese government with sensitive corporate and user data as part of broad criminal investigations.

The controversial law, passed Sunday, requires technology companies to help investigators access otherwise encrypted information and prevent the spread of terrorism-related messages, among other provisions. It was passed despite objections from U.S. President Barack Obama and the U.S. technology industry, which has asserted the law is a thinly veiled attempt to stifle free speech and curb foreign competition.

U.S. companies will need to wait to see how the law is enforced before making any major decisions, experts say, but the language in the measure appears to take direct aim at Apple and other vendors whose products, including smartphones and tablets, feature end-to-end encryption. Also affected will be American hardware makers like IBM, Dell and Hewlett-Packard, as well as networking gear specialists like Cisco....



Two sets of products, different services based on location, a free hand for local companies (who follow the law) to become large fish in a large pond. Pfft.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on January 09, 2016, 07:56:05 PM
Giant gold-painted statue of Mao Zedong 'demolished' in China (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-09/mao-zedong-gone-as-giant-statue-of-communist-leader-demolished/7077842)

(http://www.abc.net.au/news/image/7069616-3x2-700x467.jpg)

A gargantuan gold-painted statue of Communist China's founding father Mao Zedong has suddenly been demolished, apparently for lacking government approval, state media says, days after images of it went viral.

Images of the statue of a seated Mao towering 37 metres over empty fields in the central province of Henan made worldwide headlines this week.

But the 3 million yuan ($640,000) structure has been destroyed, the People's Net news portal cited local officials as saying, adding the reason was "unclear"...



My impression of any large scale construction project in China is they exist so funds can disappear. Big invoices get made bigger and the difference disappears. Official banquets go like this too. As such it always seems disingenuous when some grand project is offered as something good for me. But a gigantic steel and concrete Mao painted gold, that's probably for real.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on January 09, 2016, 07:58:14 PM
(http://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/styles/story_large/public/thumbnails/image/2016/01/05/23/maostatue.jpeg)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on January 20, 2016, 03:06:39 PM
On Being a China Lawyer and on Doing Business In China: An Interview (http://www.chinalawblog.com/2016/01/on-being-a-china-lawyer-and-on-doing-business-in-china-an-interview.html)


Not sure it's news but it is an interesting interview and seems timely. I'd almost send it to my students and see what they thought too.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on January 21, 2016, 01:45:54 PM
Swedish activist Peter Dahlin paraded on China state TV for 'scripted confession' (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/20/swedish-activist-peter-dahlin-paraded-on-china-state-tv-for-scripted-confession)

The human rights activist had been arrested in January but friends dismiss the TV stunt as ‘ridiculous and absurd’

Supporters of Peter Dahlin, the Swedish human rights activist being held by Chinese police, have dismissed allegations he was a foreign agent attempting to undermine the Communist party as ridiculous and absurd.
Dahlin, a Beijing-based campaigner who was detained in early January, was paraded on Chinese television on Tuesday night to make what friends and colleagues describe as a “forced confession”. ...



Hurt any feelings lately?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on February 11, 2016, 03:26:18 PM
Wanted in China: More Male Teachers, to Make Boys Men (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/07/world/asia/wanted-in-china-more-male-teachers-to-make-boys-men.html?_r=0)

FUZHOU, China — The history class began with a lesson on being manly.

Lin Wei, 27, one of a handful of male sixth-grade teachers at a primary school here, has made a habit of telling stories about warlords who threw witches into rivers and soldiers who outsmarted Japanese troops. “Men have special duties,” he said. “They have to be brave, protect women and take responsibility for wrongdoing.”

Worried that a shortage of male teachers has produced a generation of timid, self-centered and effeminate boys, Chinese educators are working to reinforce traditional gender roles and values in the classroom....



Looking forward to the propaganda drive. TEACHING! ACTION PACKED AND EXCITING! DANGER AT EVERY TURN! FULFIL YOUR DESTINY! BE A MAN!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on February 11, 2016, 03:29:00 PM
China issues "patriotic education" plan to encourage nationalism, also targets increased masculinity in schools (http://www.inquisitr.com/2783514/china-issues-patriotic-educationplan-to-encourage-nationalism-also-targets-increased-masculinity-in-schools/)

China has issued a new directive, in which it is calling for an improved system of “Patriotic Education” in its schools.

This edict — which was issued by the country’s Ministry of Education and its Communist Party organization and officially approved in January — has been relayed to “education officials,” reported upon by China’s state-run news agency, Xinhua, and re-posted by the New York Times. It also comes at a tenuous time in the country’s history as, also per the New York Times, debate continues to rage regarding potential de-masculinization within its overall school system.

According to the Ministry of Education’s memorandum, students in China need to be better molded to become “even more patriotic and devoted to the party,” even in cases where they are, in fact, cracking books in universities abroad....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on February 11, 2016, 04:12:52 PM
Worried that a shortage of male teachers has produced a generation of timid, self-centered and effeminate boys, Chinese educators are working to reinforce traditional gender roles and values in the classroom....[/i]

So we can have a generation of aggressive, self-centered, and sexist boys? Would that really be an improvement??? mmmmmmmmmm

What would be better would be a generation of bold children who understand that in any society, devotion to the common good should be placed above devotion to personal gain.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on February 11, 2016, 09:32:45 PM
What even is traditional Chinese masculinity?

http://people.brandeis.edu/~monsoon/articles/zhou_masculinity.htm

The ideal image of a masculine man in China in 1840 bears almost no resemblance to its western contemporaries or its predecessor a thousand years ago. Westerners at that time perceived Chinese men as �sexless� or �feminine,� while the Chinese perceived western men as �barbarians equipped with advanced weapons.�

Lol. Equipped with advanced weapons.  afafafafaf
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on February 12, 2016, 01:09:56 PM
It's not only a problem in China! I am watching young children here who are being so pampered, that they would not last five minutes in a difficult situation, particularly if mummy wasn't there to help them! bibibibibi They would not have lasted five minutes in my childhood.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on March 02, 2016, 02:47:00 PM
China’s Coming Ideological Wars (http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/03/01/chinas-coming-ideological-wars-new-left-confucius-mao-xi/)

In the reform era, economic growth reigned supreme. But now, a revival of competing beliefs has polarized Chinese society.

For most Chinese, the 1990s were a period of intense material pragmatism. Economic development was the paramount social and political concern, while the various state ideologies that had guided policy during the initial decades of the People’s Republic faded into the background. The severe ideological struggles that had marked the end of both the 1970s and the 1980s had exhausted the population, leaving it more than eager to focus single-mindedly on an unprecedented bevy of economic opportunities.

Now the tide is changing yet again. Chinese society is apparently rediscovering, or at least re-prioritizing, its moral and ideological cravings. Over the past several years, ideological forces and divisions have moved back to the center of Chinese political and social life, and ideological tensions among Chinese elite are now arguably higher than at any point since the immediate aftermath of the 1989 protests. The image of a “post-ideological” China has become increasingly outdated....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: cruisemonkey on March 03, 2016, 09:36:10 AM
Wanted in China: More Male Teachers, to Make Boys Men (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/07/world/asia/wanted-in-china-more-male-teachers-to-make-boys-men.html?_r=0)

FUZHOU, China — The history class began with a lesson on being manly.

Lin Wei, 27, one of a handful of male sixth-grade teachers at a primary school here, has made a habit of telling stories about warlords who threw witches into rivers and soldiers who outsmarted Japanese troops. “Men have special duties,” he said. “They have to be brave, protect women and take responsibility for wrongdoing.”

Worried that a shortage of male teachers has produced a generation of timid, self-centered and effeminate boys, Chinese educators are working to reinforce traditional gender roles and values in the classroom....



Looking forward to the propaganda drive. TEACHING! ACTION PACKED AND EXCITING! DANGER AT EVERY TURN! FULFIL YOUR DESTINY! BE A MAN!

They should hire some of the jack-booted, mindless, militant, lesbian feminists that attended my alma mater in Canada.

Ooops!... sorry. I can't use the term alma mater - it's sexist. ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Just Like Mr Benn on March 03, 2016, 02:01:50 PM
Last year one of my students said that there had never been a significant female scientist. When I cited Roslalind Franklin and said that she had helped to discover dna, he pretty much freaked out. I think he was Crick and Watson's lawyer in a previous life. This was before a Chinese woman won the Nobel prize for Science, though I suspect that caused his head to explode.

i have a cracking job, but one potential problem is that the vast majority of students at the Uni are boys, and probably most classes are all-boy classes. luckily most of the teachers are also men, and prefer the all-boy classes, leaving me with the mixed, but mostly female, classes. Sometimes in the break I go to the loo and overhear the boys saying all the things that they can't say in class.

I'm not really a fan of Chinese masculinity. I am aware of the stupidity of making blanket statements, but i can't be having with Chinese men. I've been in China a while now and I've barely met a chinese male I'd want to socialise with. Of course Chinese guys are all different and it's daft to generalise, but the more they conform to the idea of chinese masculinity, the more I'm likely to dislike them.

To b fair, though I've had this prejudice about Chinese males for a while, the amount of male students means that I've inevitably met quite a few at the Uni that I quite like. I think I probably can't stand about 98% of chinese guys. It's just the sheer number of guys i come into contact with that has resulted in my meeting Chinese guys I like, who for the sake of simplicity I think of as mutants. Whenever i say that i like Chinese people, i'm secretly only talking about half of them.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on March 03, 2016, 03:18:16 PM
Speaking just in a school environment, I find Chinese men in leadership positions creepy. It might well be the nature of the position attracting a certain type of man but they're watchful, disdainful, and for brief periods plausibly hospitable too, all at the same time. I have met literally two males I consider to be a real people. The one I've known the longest is resentful of all teaching institutions even though he continues to work in them, and cheerful otherwise. The other is easy going and intelligently objective. He avoids leadership positions (though he'll probably end up in one eventually).

As for males in class... well, these are mostly English majors so the boys are "pandas", and right now they're about half and half. Half strike one as effeminate in mannerism, with one or two being downright bitchy, and half seem classically "boy"-ish with the grunting and the basketball. They're all still male. They all still occupy positions of relative privilege. The nature of their lordship is tamped down considerably by sheer numbers of opposing girl values, and they adopt different strategies to get by. Some assimilate. Some have circled the wagons. I rather appreciate the fact that these days more boys can get out of the back row and work with teams in other parts of the room.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Isidnar on March 04, 2016, 02:27:00 AM
...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on March 04, 2016, 02:55:00 PM
How [Duolingo] got 110 million users without spending a dollar on marketing (https://www.techinasia.com/how-duolingo-got-110-million-users)

“How many of you have had to fill out a web form after being asked to read a distorted sequence of characters like this? … How many of you found it really, really annoying? … I invented that!”

Luis von Ahn, inventor of captchas and computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, always gets a laugh with those lines at the start of his talks, and so he did at the Surge conference in Bangalore last week.

But the captchas – which confirm users are humans and not robots – are only an ice-breaker for talking about his current passion. Luis is the co-founder and CEO of Duolingo, a free language learning app with 110 million users worldwide. It’s the most downloaded app in the education category on both Google Play Store and iTunes...



The whole story is interesting, but a stand out excerpt is this one:

Luis and his investors – among whom is the actor Ashton Kutcher – remain committed to keeping the app free for users and without ads. One of the ways it makes money is the option to take a test to certify proficiency in English or any of the other languages on the app. Users take the test online through live video to ensure they’re doing it themselves.

This year 12 premier universities in the US will run an experiment to compare Duolingo English tests with those of traditional tests like TOEFL and ESL for their applicants. The idea is to see whether to accept Duolingo test certificates as an alternative to those like TOEFL which are ten times more expensive and much less convenient.

The size of this market is huge. In China alone, points out Luis, there are 400 million people learning English who require some form of certification to prove their proficiency for a job or studies abroad. So testing and certification for English is a massive and inefficient industry that Duolingo hopes to disrupt.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on April 03, 2016, 06:47:42 PM
Crackdown in China: Worse and Worse (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/04/21/crackdown-in-china-worse-and-worse/)

“As a liberal, I no longer feel I have a future in China,” a prominent Chinese think tank head in the process of moving abroad recently lamented in private. Such refrains are all too familiar these days as educated Chinese professionals express growing alarm over their country’s future. Indeed, not since the 1970s when Mao still reigned and the Cultural Revolution still raged has the Chinese leadership been so possessed by Maoist nostalgia and Leninist-style leadership.

As different leaders have come and gone, China specialists overseas have become accustomed to reading Chinese Communist Party (CCP) tea leaves as oscillating cycles of political “relaxation” and “tightening.” China has long been a one-party Leninist state with extensive censorship and perhaps the largest secret police establishment in the world. But what has been happening lately in Beijing under the leadership of Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping is no such simple fluctuation. It is a fundamental shift in ideological and organizational direction that is beginning to influence both China’s reform agenda and its foreign relations.

At the center of this retrograde trend is Xi’s enormously ambitious initiative to purge the Chinese Communist Party of what he calls “tigers and flies,” namely corrupt officials and businessmen both high and low. Since it began in 2012, the campaign has already netted more than 160 “tigers” whose rank is above or equivalent to that of the deputy provincial or deputy ministerial level, and more than 1,400 “flies,” all lower-level officials.1 But it has also morphed from an anticorruption drive into a broader neo-Maoist-style mass purge aimed at political rivals and others with differing ideological or political views....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on April 04, 2016, 08:24:32 PM
The Panama Papers: how the world’s rich and famous hide their money offshore (http://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/03/the-panama-papers-how-the-worlds-rich-and-famous-hide-their-money-offshore)

The hidden wealth of some of the world’s most prominent leaders, politicians and celebrities has been revealed by an unprecedented leak of millions of documents that show the myriad ways in which the rich can exploit secretive offshore tax regimes.

The Guardian, working with global partners, will set out details from the first tranche of what are being called “the Panama Papers”. Journalists from more than 80 countries have been reviewing 11.5m files leaked from the database of Mossack Fonseca, the world’s fourth biggest offshore law firm.

The records were obtained from an anonymous source by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and shared by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists with the Guardian and the BBC.

Though there is nothing unlawful about using offshore companies, the files raise fundamental questions about the ethics of such tax havens – and the revelations are likely to provoke urgent calls for reforms of a system that critics say is arcane and open to abuse.

The Panama Papers reveal:

Twelve national leaders are among 143 politicians, their families and close associates from around the world known to have been using offshore tax havens.

A $2bn trail leads all the way to Vladimir Putin. The Russian president’s best friend – a cellist called Sergei Roldugin - is at the centre of a scheme in which money from Russian state banks is hidden offshore. Some of it ends up in a ski resort where in 2013 Putin’s daughter Katerina got married.

Among national leaders with offshore wealth are Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan’s prime minister; Ayad Allawi, ex-interim prime minister and former vice-president of Iraq; Petro Poroshenko, president of Ukraine; Alaa Mubarak, son of Egypt’s former president; and the prime minister of Iceland, Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson.

Six members of the House of Lords, three former Conservative MPs and dozens of donors to UK political parties have had offshore assets.

The families of at least eight current and former members of China’s supreme ruling body, the politburo, have been found to have hidden wealth offshore.

Twenty-three individuals who have had sanctions imposed on them for supporting the regimes in North Korea, Zimbabwe, Russia, Iran and Syria have been clients of Mossack Fonseca. Their companies were harboured by the Seychelles, the British Virgin Islands, Panama and other jurisdictions.

A key member of Fifa’s powerful ethics committee, which is supposed to be spearheading reform at world football’s scandal-hit governing body, acted as a lawyer for individuals and companies recently charged with bribery and corruption.

One leaked memorandum from a partner of Mossack Fonseca said: “Ninety-five per cent of our work coincidentally consists in selling vehicles to avoid taxes.”...



See the details is coming days, and say goodbye to The Guardian.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on April 05, 2016, 02:16:52 PM
China's working age (15-64) population has peaked and is set to decline (http://www.businessinsider.com/chinas-working-age-population-peaked-2016-4)

China's working age population is starting to decline, which could have dire consequences for the second largest economy in the world.

The number of workers aged 16 to 59 dropped by a record 4.87 million in 2015, down from the previous year's drop of 3.71 million, according to China's National Bureau of Statistics, cited by the WSJ.

The number of "potential workers" — or those aged 15 to 64 — first started falling in 2012, according to the FT....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on April 23, 2016, 04:48:53 PM
In pictures: Chernobyl's eerie exclusion zone 30 years on (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35824880)

(http://ichef-1.bbci.co.uk/news/660/cpsprodpb/FC8A/production/_88805646_0013.jpg)


In Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (1), there's a mission set in Pripyat. By way of introduction, one character says, "Fifty thousand people used to live in this city. Now it's a ghost town... I've never seen anything like it." And every time I'm like, pffft, haven't you been to China?! This looks just like China!

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on April 30, 2016, 06:39:35 PM
China introduces female-only bus service (http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/04/29/china-introduces-female-only-bus-service/83692132/)

BEIJING — A female-only bus service aimed at protecting women from sexual harassment launched this week in China, drawing praise and criticism.

The Zhengzhou 3rd bus company introduced the service on a popular route in the central city of Zhengzhou. It will run during busy commuting hours until early August.

"During the summer, women usually wear thinner clothes, making it easier for them to be harassed in crowded buses. … The all-female service will increase their convenience and safety," said Kong Chaoping, the firm's chairman, according to the Beijing Youth Daily newspaper....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on May 01, 2016, 07:56:00 AM
... Why not beyond "early August"? mmmmmmmmmm
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on May 01, 2016, 03:18:54 PM
Presumably in the cooler months women put their clothes back on and are no longer "asking for it". Alternatively, perhaps the female commuter's interest in stuffed toys is seasonal.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on May 13, 2016, 12:49:20 AM
Move over Captain America, “Captain China” is on the way (http://qz.com/680045/move-over-captain-america-captain-china-is-on-the-way/)

The directing duo behind Marvel Studios’ blockbuster Captain America franchise has signed on with a Chinese production firm to create an original Chinese superhero trilogy that’s already been nicknamed “Captain China.”

Joe and Anthony Russo, directors of the Marvel franchise’s last two films, will co-produce China’s own version of Captain America, Chinese media reported this week, just as Captain America: Civil War hit screens worldwide. The film had the fifth-largest opening weekend of all time, earning $182 million in the US. China’s opening gross is a strong $96 million.

Now the world’s second-largest film market will make its own national superhero franchise, with Hollywood’s help. Chinese production firm Fangjin Media (Beijing) has signed a deal with the Russo brothers and their team to make an action sci-fi trilogy featuring an original Chinese superhero. The first film, The Hero’s Awakening, will go into production at the end of 2016 and hit theaters in early 2018, said Fangjin Media spokesperson Su Zhenping....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: BrandeX on May 14, 2016, 03:43:29 PM
Captain Shanzhai?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on May 14, 2016, 07:05:04 PM
Five years ago, but I only just happened across this today:

Almost 600,000 foreigners counted in China (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-04/30/content_12425212.htm)

Beijing - Nearly 600,000 foreigners were living on the Chinese mainland at the end of 2010, results from the sixth national census released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Friday showed.

It is the first time the country has included foreigners who would stay on the mainland for at least three months in its once-in-a-decade population census, as "they've been playing an increasingly important role for the nation's social and economic development", said Zhai Zhenwu, dean of Renmin University's school of sociology and population.

According to the census, the top three home countries of the foreigners on the mainland were the Republic of Korea (ROK), the United States and Japan....


(http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/images/attachement/jpg/site1/20110430/0013729e4abe0f2594db09.jpg)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on May 16, 2016, 04:24:23 PM
They never came around and counted me. ananananan
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on May 28, 2016, 11:46:31 PM
This caught my eye, today ~

http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20160527-children-of-the-chinese-super-rich-arent-all-burning-money
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on May 31, 2016, 06:46:32 PM
Foreigners and Chinese came together to rejoice on celebrating China Daily's 35th anniversary (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/opinion/2016-05/31/content_25551348.htm)


There you go again, China Daily, celebrating diversity and difference.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Isidnar on June 12, 2016, 01:19:09 AM
...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on June 12, 2016, 02:00:08 AM
Is this for real? Have any of you heard anything about this?

http://www.eastasiatribune.com/north-asia/china-bans-interracial-marriages-for-females-no-plans-to-restrict-men/ (http://www.eastasiatribune.com/north-asia/china-bans-interracial-marriages-for-females-no-plans-to-restrict-men/)

lol

Quote
Meanwhile, industry groups representing ESL teachers in China have also criticized the new policy. “The majority of teachers are male, and most end up wedding local women,” said a spokesperson for a chain of English-teaching cram schools in Shanghai. “If our teachers are banned from marrying Chinese girls, they may not stay in the country as long, and we risk losing talented staff.”

unfortunately, the internet is saying hoax.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on June 13, 2016, 05:08:26 PM
These guys are like The Onion, only with local flavor.  I recognize 2 earlier stories my lovely wife told be about as "factual". bibibibibi

Love the one about odd/even numbered breathing days. bjbjbjbjbj

There's also one claiming that Strip Mahjong was invented in Dongguan.  Oh wait, that one might be real. ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on June 19, 2016, 01:20:40 AM
Whole villages submerged, cars flipped by landslides and rescue teams on kayaks:
Images show havoc wreaked by severe floods in China that have killed 25 people and displaced more than 30,000
(http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3647884/Images-devastation-wreaked-severe-floods-China.html)

(http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/06/18/08/356BCE9000000578-3647884-image-a-59_1466234995163.jpg)

(http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/06/18/08/35525B3000000578-3647884-image-a-65_1466234995597.jpg)

(http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/06/18/08/356B77F600000578-3647884-image-a-62_1466234995207.jpg)


More in the link
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on June 19, 2016, 09:17:00 AM
 aoaoaoaoao ananananan

Hope all the Saloonies on the region(s) are safe :wtf:
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on June 22, 2016, 03:42:07 PM
We got some massive storms about a week back.  Looks like some areas of Guangdong don't have quite as good of drainage. ananananan
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on June 28, 2016, 07:16:47 PM
Calach ~ you will find your latest news item Upstairs


Gentle Reminder To All Members

Please refrain from posting anything that may upset the local constabulary.  We do not want them to close us down. kkkkkkkkkk :wtf:
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on July 07, 2016, 02:31:01 PM
Incredible pictures show floods wreaking havoc in China - but people are still living their lives (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/incredible-pictures-show-floods-wreaking-6132129)

The downpours hitting the country this week have caused chaos, and the economic costs are still going up for many

(http://i4.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article6131899.ece/ALTERNATES/s615/China-floods.jpg)

(http://i1.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article6131900.ece/ALTERNATES/s615b/China-floods.jpg)

(http://i1.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article6131898.ece/ALTERNATES/s615b/China-floods.jpg)

Chinese Students Run On Water, Wuhan Flood Photos & Videos (http://www.chinasmack.com/2011/pictures/chinese-students-run-on-water-wuhan-flood-photos-videos.html)

(http://i2.wp.com/www.chinasmack.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/wuhan-china-2011-floods-graduation-photos-01.jpg)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on July 08, 2016, 10:12:45 PM
Took a couple pounding storms in YiChun earlier this week.  The river got within a meter of the horizontal supports for one of the lower bridges.  Lucky for me that express train routes are more flood resistant than regular trains.  Saw some normal trains with delays of over 6 hours on the big board at the Yichun station.  No delays getting there or back for me. agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: rattie on July 09, 2016, 07:00:24 AM
My place is on a bend in the Yangzte, my city is part of the flood plain...fortunately I was out of town for the days of the main flooding drama.

Coming home hasn't been great, stairwell is saturated up to the 2nd floor- I live on the 3rd - black mould on everything inside my place, roaches have run upstairs, great! And this evening a rat in the bathroom  bibibibibi It's not fun.

Went down to the river this afternoon, and it s well flooded over the usually pleasant walking paths, halfway up the trunks of the shade trees planted there.

It's not been fun...now to find a way to do something about the rats, Kostya says we should name them all and they each get their own food bowl, he likes company  kkkkkkkkkk
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on July 09, 2016, 08:19:06 PM
Glad you missed most of the fun.  I'll bet there were more rats when the lower levels first flooded. aoaoaoaoao

Since you have your own semi-rodent, snap traps are a bad idea. Thanks to Stripey Emperor, I've had to banish all of my snap traps to the roof.  Live catch cage traps in places only acrobatic rodents can reach may be a good solution.   The only bad part is what to do once you've caught one. amamamamam
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on July 09, 2016, 11:35:57 PM
Dallas sniper attack: 5 officers killed, suspect identified (http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/08/us/philando-castile-alton-sterling-protests/index.html)

The ambush started with gunshots that killed five officers and sent screaming crowds scrambling for cover. It ended when a Dallas police bomb squad robot killed a gunman after negotiations failed.

Investigators identified the dead attacker as Micah Xavier Johnson, 25, of Mesquite, Texas, a military veteran who'd served in Afghanistan.

Police searched his home Friday and found bomb-making materials, ballistic vests, rifles, ammunition and a personal journal of combat tactics. They are analyzing information in the journal, police said in a statement....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: rattie on July 10, 2016, 02:59:31 AM
Oh Calach, the madman in the the U.S. is actually a truly ugly story...

Now, back to more pressing matters. Absolutely correct Mr. Lunatic, I had to think about little Kostya Tzyu 'world lightweight boxing champion' with so many knockout wins it's a bigger number than I can count to.....can't have him injured or poisoned.

So I did a rat trap shopping patrol with the little guy, and we came home with the most claggy, sticky, nasty kind of paper traps that the little uninvited rodents' feet get bogged in. I have unwrapped them and baited them with a mixture of aromatic Pakistani basmati rice and 'settle in for a good chew' Thai brown Jasmine rice, they may well be foodie rats so I pulled all stops and tried to account for all tastes. Shop guy said they get their feet stuck first then they struggle and get more stuck, then they get tired and lie down and then they're totally fucked agagagagag

Let's hope it works as I am not feeling charitable, they knocked my herb containers off the pantry shelf and have been leaving evidence of their travels aaaaaaaaaa on the bathroom ledge where I keep my toothbrush and such other intimate personal care items..I love monsoon season, NOT.

Now apparently we should all be bunkering in for the incoming typhoon, somehow I believe them this year and will bring my basil and rosemary indoors tomorrow when the sky darkens.

Anhui is actually quite nice, but geez we take a battering sometimes.
R and K and all the little ratties playing inside the unreachable places XXX
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on July 10, 2016, 06:33:05 AM
 aoaoaoaoao

Stay very safe, R&K :wtf: 

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on July 10, 2016, 02:40:27 PM
Take care rattie and Kostya! bfbfbfbfbf
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on July 10, 2016, 08:54:16 PM
CHINA DEBUTS ANBOT, THE POLICE ROBOT (http://www.popsci.com/china-debuts-anbot-police-robot)

(http://www.popsci.com/sites/popsci.com/files/styles/large_1x_/public/anbot_2.jpg?itok=1rbqT-rC&fc=50,50)

On April 21, at the 12th Chongqing Hi-Tech fair, the National Defense University, a hotbed of Chinese military innovations, debuted the world's first armed (albeit less than lethal) police robot. The Ministry of Public Security was very excited about the Anbot. As People's Daily extols, "AnBot is able to patrol autonomously and protect against violence or unrest."

The 1.5 meter tall, 78 kg Anbot looks like a cross between Star Wars' R2D2 and Doctor Who's Daleks, with a touchscreen on top. It has enough battery power for 8 hours of operations, autonomous navigation and intelligent video analysis, and can reach speeds of 18 kmh to chase down fleeing criminals or respond to emergencies. The Anbot can also rush over to the scene if a bystander cries for help, and it can even recharge itself without human intervention (bad news in the event of a robot uprising). NDU promises that in addition to standard police patrolling, the Anbot can undertake riot control, by remotely firing its electroshock weapons (or by running over unruly protesters).

While police and prison robot prototypes have been with us for quite a while now, Anbot has several features to take robotic law enforcement up a notch. Bystanders and civilians can use the Anbot to call for help through an SOS button on the Anbot's touchscreen. NDU also has programmed the Anbot to use its audio and visual sensors to recognize and record illegal activities, identify fugitives, and autonomously decide where to patrol....


AND IT HAS A TAZER!

But then, the Sharp Claw (http://www.popsci.com/blog-network/eastern-arsenal/chinas-new-military-robots-pack-more-robots-inside-starcraft-style)'s been around for a while too.... WHY DIDN'T I KNOW ABOUT THIS SOONER!!!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on July 12, 2016, 04:46:01 PM
Another shooting spree, this time with a new weapon:

(http://www.viralthread.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/85075900-768x1024.jpg)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on July 15, 2016, 10:14:45 PM
Terror attack in Nice, France.  84 people dead, including many children.


http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36801671
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on July 17, 2016, 08:47:52 PM
ISIS are a hateful bunch and have claimed the Nice attack, but that guy, Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, seems not to have been political at all. His was a violent and terrible assault, but I don't know that it was a terror attack.

But Europe and America and even Australia are definitely on their way to substantial anti-immigrant positions.

Having spent all this time in China I can't make too much sense of anti-immigrant positions, but I do recall my brief stint in Sydney and thinking then that - somehow - even there, there were tensions on the streets all the time. I might have been making the vibes rather than picking them up, but there it is.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on July 21, 2016, 01:18:31 PM
Feds Seize Kickass Torrents Piracy Site Domain Names, Announce Arrest of Alleged Ringleader (http://variety.com/2016/digital/news/feds-bust-kickass-torrents-piracy-arrest-1201818775/)

The U.S. Department of Justice has seized seven domain names associated with Kickass Torrents — purportedly the most-visited piracy site in the world — and charged the man they allege is its owner and operator with criminal copyright infringement and and money laundering.

Federal authorities said Artem Valuin, 30, of Kharkiv, Ukraine, was arrested Wednesday in Poland and that the U.S. will seek to extradite him to the States. Valuin allegedly owns and operates Kickass Torrents, which since launching in 2008 has let users illegally download movies, TV shows, video games, music and other media collectively worth an estimated $1 billion.

Kickass Torrents has consistently listed movies still in theaters that can be downloaded using file-sharing apps, according to the charges. Recent titles include “Captain America: Civil War,” “Now You See Me 2,” “Independence Day: Resurgence,” and “Finding Dory,” officials said.

“Copyright infringement exacts a large toll, a very human one, on the artists and businesses whose livelihood hinges on their creative inventions,” Zachary T. Fardon, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago, said in a statement. “Vaulin allegedly used the Internet to cause enormous harm to those artists.”...



/gameover
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on July 22, 2016, 12:01:10 PM
Calach, I don't/can't download anything. I go to the theatre at least twice a week and sometimes my neighbour and I  are the only ones there. I wonder how long it will be until we no longer have theatres?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on July 22, 2016, 01:55:27 PM
And yet:

2015:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/film-studio-is-profitable-871676

2014:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/studio-profitability-report-whos-up-781672
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on July 22, 2016, 02:17:38 PM
The morality of downloading eludes me. It's not criminal, but nor is it victimless. And while torrenting, I function as a distributor for anything I've downloaded.

 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Ever since I've had computers I've leaned toward shareware and freeware tools. Probably the strongest opinion I have about downloading is I wish I could have downloaded music when I was young. The few cds I bought as a kid were ill-informed and so much less attractive than the things I now know existed.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on July 31, 2016, 10:00:50 PM
Study Finds Chinese Students Excel in Critical Thinking. Until College. (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/31/world/asia/china-college-education-quality.html)

BEIJING — Chinese primary and secondary schools are often derided as grueling, test-driven institutions that churn out students who can recite basic facts but have little capacity for deep reasoning.

A new study, though, suggests that China is producing students with some of the strongest critical thinking skills in the world.

The unexpected finding could recast the debate over whether Chinese schools are doing a better job than American ones, complementing previous studies showing Chinese students outperforming their global peers in reading, math and science.

But the new study, by researchers at Stanford University, also found that Chinese students lose their advantage in critical thinking in college. That is a sign of trouble inside China’s rapidly expanding university system, which the government is betting on to promote growth as the economy weakens....



FYI: the report says comparative data for US students is not available yet. The study compares Chinese results against Russian.

The report also notes that these robust critical thinkers are saying things like "[University] Teachers don’t know how to attract the attention of students." Supposedly these geniuses already know how to identify assumptions, test hypotheses and draw relationships between variables, but maybe the corrupting influence of university already had them by the time they were asked what was wrong.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: old34 on August 01, 2016, 05:03:35 AM
For those of us for whom The NYTIMES is blocked, could you please cut-and-paste the whole article, please. This subject is one of the main themes I use in my own classes with my own students. (Critical  Thinking and Creativity, not the blocking).

If you want to cite blocked articles, cut-and-paste the whole thing, not blocked links. Thanks.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 01, 2016, 01:08:42 PM
Study Finds Chinese Students Excel in Critical Thinking. Until College.

By JAVIER C. HERNÁNDEZ JULY 30, 2016

BEIJING — Chinese primary and secondary schools are often derided as grueling, test-driven institutions that churn out students who can recite basic facts but have little capacity for deep reasoning.

A new study, though, suggests that China is producing students with some of the strongest critical thinking skills in the world.

The unexpected finding could recast the debate over whether Chinese schools are doing a better job than American ones, complementing previous studies showing Chinese students outperforming their global peers in reading, math and science.

But the new study, by researchers at Stanford University, also found that Chinese students lose their advantage in critical thinking in college. That is a sign of trouble inside China’s rapidly expanding university system, which the government is betting on to promote growth as the economy weakens.

The study, to be published next year, found that Chinese freshmen in computer science and engineering programs began college with critical thinking skills about two to three years ahead of their peers in the United States and Russia. Those skills included the ability to identify assumptions, test hypotheses and draw relationships between variables.

Yet Chinese students showed virtually no improvement in critical thinking after two years of college, even as their American and Russian counterparts made significant strides, according to the study.

“It’s astounding that China produces students that much further ahead at the start of college,” said Prashant Loyalka, an author of the study. “But they’re exhausted by the time they reach college, and they’re not incentivized to work hard.”

The findings are preliminary, but the weakness in China’s higher education system is especially striking because Chinese leaders are pressing universities to train a new generation of highly skilled workers and produce innovations in science and technology to serve as an antidote to slowing economic growth.

Continue reading the main story
The government has built hundreds of universities in recent years to meet soaring demand for higher education, which many families consider a pathway into the growing middle class. Enrollment last year reached 26.2 million students, up from 3.4 million in 1998, with much of the increase in three-year polytechnic programs.

But many universities, mired in bureaucracy and lax academic standards, have struggled. Students say the energetic and demanding teaching they are accustomed to in primary and secondary schools all but disappears when they reach college.

“Teachers don’t know how to attract the attention of students,” said Wang Chunwei, 22, an electrical engineering student at Tianjin Chengjian University, not far from Beijing. “Listening to their classes is like listening to someone reading out of a book.”

Others blame a lack of motivation among students. Chinese children spend years preparing for the gaokao, the all-powerful national exam that determines admission to universities in China. For many students, a few points on the test can mean the difference between a good and a bad university, and a life of wealth or poverty.

When students reach college, the pressure vanishes.

“You get a degree whether you study or not, so why bother studying?” said Wang Qi, 24, a graduate student in environmental engineering in Beijing.

The merits of the Chinese education system are a perennial subject of debate, in the United States as much as in China. The Obama administration has held up the stronger performance of Chinese high school students on international exams in math, science and reading as an example of stagnation in the United States.

Critics argue that Chinese teachers place an unhealthy emphasis on test preparation and rote memorization at the expense of critical thinking skills and creativity. They also say international exams overstate the strength of China’s system because they exclude students from poorer regions.

The Stanford study, based in part on exams given to 2,700 students at 11 mainland universities, has its own limitations. It does not account for people who are not enrolled in universities, a large swath of Chinese youth. It looks exclusively at students in computer science and engineering programs. And while it measures critical thinking, it does not offer insight into creativity, a topic often hotly debated in discussing the Chinese education system.

Still, the researchers found stark differences when they compared Chinese students with their overseas counterparts.

In addition to examining critical thinking skills, the study looked at how Chinese students compared in math and physics. While testing for the United States is not yet available, the researchers found that Chinese students arrived at college with skills far superior to their Russian counterparts.

After two years of college, though, the Chinese students showed virtually no improvement while the Russians made substantial progress, though not enough to catch up.

The Stanford researchers suspect the poor quality of teaching at many Chinese universities is one of the most important factors in the results. Chinese universities tend to reward professors for achievements in research, not their teaching abilities. In addition, almost all students graduate within four years, according to official statistics, reducing the incentive to work hard.

“They don’t really flunk anyone,” said Scott Rozelle, an economist who has studied Chinese education for three decades and a co-author of the study. “The contract is, if you got in here, you get out.”

The problems plaguing the higher education system have taken on new urgency as China’s ruling Communist Party tries to navigate a difficult transition from an economy fueled by manufacturing and assembly-line work to one led by growth in fields such as information technology and clean energy.

Eric X. Li, a venture capitalist in Shanghai who helped finance the Stanford study, said the success of Chinese secondary schools in teaching critical thinking could mean more innovation among younger Chinese that would help the economy.

“The common narrative that we hear is that Chinese educational system kills creativity and kills innovation,” he said. “But China is probably one of the most entrepreneurial societies in the world.”

The slowing economy has made it difficult for university graduates to find work, with about one-fifth remaining unemployed immediately after graduation and many settling into low-paying jobs.

Lu Jiawei, 22, who studies engineering management at Beijing Information Science and Technology University, said the gloomy job market was to blame for a lack of motivation among students.

“Some students just give up, because no matter how hard they work, they still will never get their dream jobs,” she said.

The shortcomings of the higher education system have left students struggling to find programs that match their aspirations.

Niu Fuzhi, an aspiring computer scientist at Harbin University of Commerce, had high hopes when she enrolled in 2014. But she was quickly disappointed. Professors focused on teaching high-level theories, she said, and classrooms were chaotic.

“I feel like the past two years were a waste,” said Ms. Niu, 20, who ranks near the top of her class.

But Ms. Niu is hoping to make up for the skills she failed to learn in college — by enrolling in graduate school.



/boom
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 05, 2016, 02:46:36 PM
Legends say China began in a great flood. Scientists just found evidence that [a] flood was real. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2016/08/04/legends-say-china-began-in-a-great-flood-scientists-just-found-evidence-that-the-flood-was-real/)

It's said the flood looked like "endless boiling water," surging across the landscape. A wave as tall as a 30-story building would have crashed over the banks of the Yellow River, demolishing everything in its path. It soaked the streets of ancient China's nascent cities and washed away the surrounding farmland.

"The flood is pouring forth destruction. Boundless and overwhelming, it overtops hills and mountains," goes a quote attributed to the legendary Emperor Yao. "Rising and ever rising, it threatens the very heavens."

If civilization was to survive, the people needed a hero who could tame the floodwaters and restore the land. That man was Yu, founder of China's first dynasty, the Xia. Over the course of decades, Yu organized a dredging campaign, dug channels that would carry the water back to its source, and pioneered a tradition of great Chinese public works.

"He brings order out of the chaos and defines the land, separating what would become the center of Chinese civilization," said David Cohen, an anthropologist and early Chinese history expert at National Taiwan University. "He is essentially establishing the political order and the ideologies of rulership."

It is a powerful foundation myth, but many believed that was all it was. Some 4,000 years after the flood was supposed to have happened, historians had found no archaeological evidence of its effect or firsthand accounts of its destruction. There are no historical artifacts from Yu, or the Xia dynasty he founded. All researchers had to go on were stories written long after the fact, dramatized and politicized to justify the ends of those who wrote them.

Until Wu Qinglong, a geologist at Nanjing Normal University, found signs of the flood in the sediments beneath his feet....



/spooky
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 05, 2016, 02:53:04 PM
Have Scientists Found Evidence of the Great Flood of China? (http://mentalfloss.com/article/84209/have-scientists-found-evidence-great-flood-china)

Along the banks of the Yellow River in northwest China’s Qinghai province, scientists have discovered evidence of one of the most cataclysmic floods on Earth in the past 10,000 years.

This disaster, which occurred nearly 4000 years ago, might match the Great Flood of Chinese legends. Historians have debated whether this flood was merely a myth, part of a founding story to bolster the legitimacy of China’s dynasties. But the findings published in the journal Science today, August 4, offer the first physical evidence of such a catastrophe.

The scope of the flood that the researchers describe is difficult to imagine. According to their reconstructions, a wall of water some 427 feet high—one-third of the height of the Empire State Building—burst through a natural dam in the Jishi Gorge and then rushed downstream at a rate of 300,000–500,000 cubic meters per second. After the dam broke, the Yellow River rose 125 feet above its normal level.

“To put that into perspective, that's roughly equivalent to the largest flood ever measured on the Amazon river, the world's largest river,” study co-author Darryl Granger, a geologist at Purdue University in Indiana, told reporters during a press conference Wednesday. “It's among the largest known floods to have happened on Earth during the past 10,000 years. And it's more than 500 times larger than a flood we might expect on the Yellow River from a massive rainfall."...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 07, 2016, 06:49:51 PM
Edward Snowden Not Dead (http://sputniknews.com/military/20160807/1044016775/snowden-dead-man-switch-greenwald.html)

‘He’s Fine’ Says Glenn Greenwald After Mysterious Tweet

Snowden issued a cryptic 64-character code via Twitter leading to concern that the whistleblower was captured or killed triggering a "dead man’s switch" message designed to release if he didn’t check into his computer at a certain time.

A journalist with The Intercept who has worked extensively with the whistleblower in the past says that Snowden is “fine,” but refused to elaborate further. The response from the journalist comes in the wake of two mysterious tweets by the famed NSA whistleblower who exposed a rampant regime of domestic surveillance by US intelligence agencies....


Edward Snowden tweeted gibberish and people are trying to figure out what it all means (http://mashable.com/2016/08/05/edward-snowden-tweet-code/)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on September 16, 2016, 06:23:26 PM
Tips from Global Times on how to pick up chicks in China (http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1006076.shtml):

Besides patting on the head, Pope [Pope, 25, an English teacher from the US who is based in Beijing] has also heard of other classic moves many Chinese men use to hit on girls, including tying their shoes, fastening their seat belt, kissing them on the forehead, hugging them from behind and pushing them to the wall and then kissing them.

"My Chinese friends told me that if men behave this way, they could not help but fall in love with them instantly," she said


And despite the efficacy of corny lines in the western world ("Kiss me if I'm wrong, but dinosaurs still exist, right?", "Excuse me, do you know if there's an airport nearby? Or was that just my heart taking off because you walked past?", "Can I get your picture to prove to my friends that angels do exist?"), don't try them here.

You're welcome.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on September 17, 2016, 01:32:27 PM
Calach, if they see the movie "Nerve", they might pick up a few more ideas. bfbfbfbfbf agagagagag ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on September 17, 2016, 07:52:53 PM
This is everything Edward Snowden revealed in one year of unprecedented top-secret leaks (http://uk.businessinsider.com/snowden-leaks-timeline-2016-9?r=US&IR=T)

Here is everything that Snowden's leaks revealed between 2013 and 2014:

• With a top-secret court order, the NSA collected the telephone records from millions of Verizon customers. — June 6, 2013

• The NSA accessed and collected data through back doors into US internet companies such as Google and Facebook with a program called Prism. — June 7, 2013

• An 18-page presidential memo shows Obama ordering intelligence officials to draw up a list of overseas targets for cyberattacks. — June 7, 2013

• Documents reveal the NSA's Boundless Informant program, which gives the agency near real-time ability to understand how much intelligence coverage there is on certain areas through use of a "heat map." — June 8, 2013

• The NSA was hacking computers in Hong Kong and mainland China, few of which were military systems. — June 13, 2013

• Britain's GCHQ (its intelligence agency) intercepted phone and internet communications of foreign politicians attending two G-20 meetings in London in 2009. — June 16, 2013

• Top-secret procedures show steps the NSA must take to target and collect data from "non-US persons" and how it must minimize data collected on US citizens. — June 20, 2013

• Britain's GCHQ taps fiber-optic cables to collect and store global email messages, Facebook posts, internet histories, and calls, and then shares the data with the NSA. — June 21, 2013

• The NSA has a program codenamed EvilOlive that collects and stores large quantities of Americans' internet metadata, which contains only certain information about online content. Email metadata, for example, reveals the sender and recipient addresses and time but not content or subject. — June 27, 2013

• Until 2011, the Obama administration permitted the NSA's continued collection of vast amounts of Americans' email and internet metadata under a Bush-era program called Stellar Wind. — June 27, 2013

• The US government bugged the offices of the European Union in New York, Washington, and Brussels. — June 29, 2013

• The US government spies on at least 38 foreign embassies and missions, using a variety of electronic surveillance methods. — June 30, 2013

• The NSA spies on millions of phone calls, emails, and text messages of ordinary German citizens. — June 30, 2013

• Using a program called Fairview, the NSA intercepts internet and phone-call data of Brazilian citizens. — July 6, 2013

• Monitoring stations set up in Australia and New Zealand help feed data back to NSA's XKeyscore program. — July 6, 2013

• The NSA conducts surveillance on citizens in a number of Latin American countries, including Venezuela, Colombia, Argentina, Panama, Ecuador, Peru, and others. The agency also sought information on oil, energy, and trade. — July 9, 2013

• The Washington Post publishes a new slide detailing NSA's "Upstream" program of collecting communications from tech companies through fiber-optic cables to then feed into its Prism database. — July 10, 2013

• Germany's Federal Intelligence Service, BND, helps contribute data to the NSA's XKeyscore program. — July 20, 2013

• NSA analysts, using the XKeyscore program, can search through enormous databases of emails, online chats, and browsing histories of targets. — July 31, 2013

• The US government paid Britain's GCHQ roughly $155 million over three years to gain access and influence over its spying programs. — August 1, 2013

• Seven of the world's leading telecommunications companies provide GCHQ with secret, unlimited access to their network of undersea cables. — August 2, 2013

• The NSA provided surveillance to US diplomats in order to give them the upper hand in negotiations at the UN Summit of the Americas. — August 2, 2013

• The NSA sifts through vast amounts of Americans' email and text communications going in and out of the country. — August 8, 2013

• Internal NSA document reveals an agency "loophole" that allows a secret backdoor for the agency to search its databases for US citizens' emails and phone calls without a warrant. — August 9, 2013

• NSA collection on Japan is reportedly maintained at the same priority as France and Germany. — August 12, 2013

• The NSA broke privacy rules thousands of times per year, according to an internal audit. — August 15, 2013

• NSA analysts revealed to have sometimes spied on love interests, with the practice common enough to have coined the term LOVEINT, or love intercepts. (It was unclear whether this report came from Snowden docs.) — August 23, 2013

• Britain runs a secret internet-monitoring station in the Middle East to intercept emails, phone calls, and web traffic, The Independent reports, citing Snowden documents. Snowden denies giving The Independent any documents, alleging the UK government leaked them in an attempt to discredit him. — August 23, 2013

• The top-secret US intelligence "black budget" is revealed for 2013, with 16 spy agencies having a budget of $52.6 billion. — August 29, 2013

• Expanding upon data gleaned from the "black budget," the NSA is found to be paying hundreds of millions of dollars each year to US companies for access to their networks. — August 29, 2013

• The US carried out 231 offensive cyberattacks in 2011. — August 30, 2013

• The NSA hacked into Qatar-based media network Al Jazeera's internal communications system. — August 31, 2013

• The NSA spied on former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto (then a candidate). — September 1, 2013

• Using a "man in the middle" attack, NSA spied on Google, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications, and the Brazilian oil company Petrobras. — September 2, 2013

• A US intelligence "black budget" reveals Al Qaeda's effort to jam, hack, and/or shoot down US surveillance drones. — September 3, 2013

• A joint investigation by ProPublica, The New York Times, and The Guardian finds the NSA is winning its war against internet encryption with supercomputers, technical know-how, and court orders. — September 5, 2013

• The NSA has the ability to access user data for most major smartphones on the market, including Apple iPhones, BlackBerrys, and Google Android phones. — September 7, 2013

• The NSA shares raw intelligence data (with information about American citizens) to Israel with an information-sharing agreement. — September 11, 2013

• The NSA monitors banks and credit institutions for a comprehensive database that can track the global flow of money. — September 16, 2013

• Britain's GCHQ launched a cyberattack against Belgacom, a partly state-owned Belgian telecommunications company. — September 20, 2013

• The NSA spies on Indian diplomats and other officials in an effort to gain insight into the country's nuclear and space programs. — September 23, 2013

• The NSA's internal "wiki" website characterizes political and legal opposition to drone attacks as part of "propaganda campaigns" from America's "adversaries." — September 25, 2013

• Since 2010, the NSA has used metadata augmented with other data from public, commercial, and other sources to create sophisticated graphs that map Americans' social connections. — September 28, 2013

• The NSA stores a massive amount of internet metadata from internet users, regardless of whether they are being targeted, for up to one year in a database called Marina. — September 30, 2013

• The NSA and GCHQ worked together to compromise the anonymous web-browsing Tor network. — October 4, 2013

• Canada's signals intelligence agency, CSEC, spied on phone and computer networks of Brazil's Ministry of Mines and Energy and shared the information with the "Five Eyes" intelligence services of the US, Canada, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand. — October 7, 2013

• The NSA collected more than 250 million email contact lists from services such as Yahoo and Gmail. — October 14, 2013

• NSA surveillance was revealed to play a key role in targeting for overseas drone strikes. — October 16, 2013

• The NSA spied on French citizens, companies, and diplomats, and monitored communications at France's embassy in Washington and its UN office in New York. — October 21, 2013

• The NSA tapped the mobile phone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. — October 23, 2013

• The NSA spied on Italian citizens, companies, and government officials. — October 24, 2013

• The NSA monitored the phone calls of 35 world leaders and encouraged other government agencies to share their "Rolodexes" of foreign politicians so it could monitor them. — October 25, 2013

• The NSA spied on Spanish leaders and citizens. — October 25, 2013

• The NSA stations surveillance teams at 80 locations around the world. — October 27, 2013

• A joint program between the NSA and Britain's GCHQ called Muscular infiltrates and copies data flowing out of Yahoo and Google's overseas data centers. One slide boasted of "SSL added and removed here!" with a smiley face. — October 30, 2013

• The NSA spied on the Vatican. (The Panorama website did not cite Snowden as the source.) — October 30, 2013

One slide boasted of "SSL added and removed here!" with a smiley face.
• Australia's intelligence service has surveillance teams stationed in Australian embassies around Asia and the Pacific. — October 31, 2013

• One document reveals tech companies play a key role in NSA intelligence reports and data collection. — November 1, 2013

• Britain's GCHQ and other European spy agencies work together to conduct mass surveillance. — November 1, 2013

• Strategic missions of the NSA are revealed, which include combatting terrorism and nuclear proliferation, as well as pursuing US diplomatic and economic advantage. — November 2, 2013

• Australia's Defense Signals Directorate and the NSA worked together to spy on Indonesia during a UN climate change conference in 2007. — November 2, 2013

• The NSA spied on OPEC. — November 11, 2013

• GCHQ monitored the booking systems of 350 high-end hotels with a program called Royal Concierge, which sniffed for booking confirmations sent to diplomatic email addresses that would be flagged for further surveillance. — November 17, 2013

• Australia's DSD spied on the cellphones of top Indonesian officials, including the president, first lady, and several cabinet ministers. — November 18, 2013

• The NSA spied on millions of cellphone calls in Norway in one 30-day period. — November 19, 2013

• The British government struck a secret deal with the NSA to share phone, internet, and email records of UK citizens. — November 20, 2013

• A NSA strategy document reveals the agency's goal to acquire data from "anyone, anytime, anywhere" and expand its already broad legal powers. — November 22, 2013

• The NSA infected more than 50,000 computer networks worldwide with malware designed to steal sensitive information. — November 23, 2013

• The NSA gathers evidence of visits to pornographic websites as part of a plan to discredit Muslim jihadists. — November 26, 2013

• Working with Canadian intelligence, the NSA spied on foreign diplomats at the G-8 and G-20 summits in Toronto in 2010. — November 28, 2013

• The Netherlands' intelligence service gathers data on web-forum users and shares it with the NSA. — November 30, 2013

• A draft document reveals Australia offered to share information collected on ordinary Australian citizens with the NSA and other "Five Eyes" partners. — December 1, 2013

• The NSA siphons billions of foreign cellphone location records into its database. — December 4, 2013

• Widespread spying is revealed in Italy, with the NSA spying on ordinary Italians as well as diplomats and political leaders. — December 5, 2013

• Swedish intelligence was revealed to be spying on Russian leaders, then passing it on to the NSA. — December 5, 2013

• A document reveals the extent of the relationship between NSA and Canadian counterparts, which includes information-sharing and Canada allowing NSA analysts access to covert sites it sets up. — December 9, 2013

• Intelligence operatives with NSA and GCHQ infiltrate online video games such as "World of Warcraft" in an effort to catch and stop terrorist plots. — December 9, 2013

• Piggybacking on online "cookies" acquired by Google that advertisers use to track consumer preferences, the NSA is able to locate new targets for hacking. — December 10, 2013

• The NSA has the ability to decrypt the common A5/1 cellphone encryption cipher. — December 13, 2013

• The NSA secretly paid the computer security firm RSA $10 million to implement a "back door" into its encryption. — December 20, 2013

• A document reveals how Britain's GCHQ spied on Germany, Israel, the European Union, and several nongovernmental organizations. — December 20, 2013

• With a $79.7 million research program, the NSA is working on a quantum computer that would be able to crack most types of encryption. — January 2, 2014

• Using radio transmitters on tiny circuit boards or USB drives, the NSA can gain access to computers not connected to the internet. — January 14, 2014

• The NSA scoops "pretty much everything it can" in untargeted collection of foreign text messages for its Dishfire database. — January 16, 2014

• The NSA scoops up personal data mined from smartphone apps such as Angry Birds. — January 27, 2014

• A GCHQ program called Squeaky Dolphin monitors YouTube, Facebook, and Blogger for "broad real-time monitoring of online activity." — January 27, 2014

• The NSA spied on negotiators during the 2009 UN climate change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. — January 29, 2014

• CSEC, Canada's national cryptologic agency, tested a pilot program with the NSA that captured metadata from users who had logged into free airport Wi-Fi. — January 30, 2014

• Britain's GCHQ waged war on hacker groups such as Anonymous and Lulzsec, mounting Distributed Denial-of-Service attacks and infiltrating their chat rooms. — February 5, 2014

• The NSA reportedly monitored former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder in the run-up to the Iraq war. — February 5, 2014

• Britain's GCHQ used "dirty tricks" such as computer viruses and sexual "honey traps" to target adversaries. — February 7, 2014

• The US's "targeted killing" program of drone strikes relies mostly on cellphone metadata and geolocation, rather than on-the-ground human intelligence. — February 10, 2014

• An American law firm was monitored by the Australian Signals Directorate while representing the government of Indonesia during a trade dispute. — February 15, 2014

• The NSA and Britain's GCHQ reportedly monitored traffic to the WikiLeaks website and considered a move to monitor communications going to or from WikiLeaks and the Pirate Bay. — February 18, 2014

• Britain's GCHQ conducts covert operations to disrupt and shape online discourse. — February 24, 2014

• Britain's GCHQ, using a program called Optic Nerve, intercepted and stored webcam images from millions of Yahoo users, then passed them on to the NSA's XKeyscore database. — February 28, 2014

• The NSA shared intelligence that helped the Dutch navy capture a ship hijacked by pirates off Somalia, and the Netherlands regularly shares information with the NSA regarding Somalia and Afghanistan. — March 5, 2014

• The NSA has an advice columnist similar to "Dear Abby" who writes an "Ask Zelda" column distributed on the agency's internal network. — March 7, 2014

• NSA developed sophisticated malware "implants" to infect millions of computers worldwide. In one example, the NSA posed as a fake Facebook server to infect a target's computer and steal files. — March 12, 2014

• Document reveals that, while many foreign governments share information with NSA, few senior officials outside of the intelligence or defense sphere have any knowledge of it. — March 13, 2014

• The NSA built a system capable of recording "100%" of a foreign country's phone calls with a voice intercept program called Mystic. The Washington Post did not name the countries where the program was used. — March 18, 2014

• The NSA specifically targets foreign systems administrators to gain access to their networks. — March 20, 2014

• The NSA closely monitored the Chinese technology firm Huawei in attempt to reveal ties between the company and the Chinese military. The agency also spied on Chinese banks and other companies, as well as former President Hu Jintao. — March 22, 2014

• Malaysia's political leadership is a high-priority intelligence target for the US and Australia — March 30, 2014

• NSA and Britain's GCHQ discussed various methods of deception, use of propaganda, mass messaging, and pushing stories on social media sites — April 4, 2014

• The Norwegian Intelligence Service is developing a supercomputer, called Steel Winter, to decrypt and analyze data from Afghanistan, Russia, and elsewhere. — April 26, 2013

• Britain's GCHQ asked the NSA for "unsupervised access" to the NSA's vast databases. It was unclear whether the request was granted. — April 30, 2014

• The NSA physically intercepts routers, servers, and other computer networking equipment before it's exported outside the US, implants "back door" surveillance tools, then repackages them with a factory seal and ships them out. — May 12, 2014

• The NSA is intercepting, recording, and archiving virtually every cellphone call in the Bahamas and one other country, which The Intercept redacted. It also reveals metadata collection on Mexico, Kenya, and the Philippines. — May 19, 2014

• After giving journalist Glenn Greenwald a 72-hour warning to reveal the nation redacted from his previous report on mass surveillance of an entire country, WikLeaks reveals the country in question is Afghanistan. — May 23, 2014

• The NSA harvests millions of faces from web images for use in a previously undisclosed facial recognition database. — May 31, 2014

Author's note: I've tried my best to be thorough in sifting through the hundreds of leaks that have come to light thus far. I have not included Snowden's movements, legal situation, or any of the political drama surrounding the leaks. This timeline only shows the many reports stemming from documents the ex-NSA contractor handed over to journalists.

If I have missed any leaks in the hundreds of news stories on these items, that mistake is mine alone.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on September 20, 2016, 04:16:58 PM
The zombie apocalypse may finally have begun. aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/breaking-news/os-naked-home-invasion-dies-20160917-story.html

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on September 23, 2016, 02:39:40 PM
Along with the Dalek invasion:

http://en.people.cn/n3/2016/0922/c90000-9118480.html

(http://en.people.cn/NMediaFile/2016/0922/FOREIGN201609221412000458876803921.jpg)
AnBot, China's first intelligent security robot, starts work at Shenzhen airport.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on September 23, 2016, 03:18:42 PM
Whatever you to, don't press the EXTERMINATE button. aoaoaoaoao
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on September 26, 2016, 04:06:18 PM
Guns don't kill people.  Angry Chinese women having gun battles with armed home invaders kill people. bababababa

She was firing one handed.  Anyone care to guess why before viewing the videos? ahahahahah

http://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2016/09/23/woman-shoots-at-burglars-during-home-invasion-dnt.wsb

http://news10.com/2016/09/23/woman-shoots-at-burglars-killing-one-during-home-invasion/

http://nbc4i.com/2016/09/23/woman-kills-one-suspect-after-unloading-her-gun-during-home-invasion/
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on October 13, 2016, 11:03:16 PM
Chinese lecturer to use facial-recognition technology to check boredom levels among his students (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/12/facial-recognition-technology-used-in-chinese-classroom-to-check/)

A Chinese university lecturer is using facial-recognition technology on his students to help determine the level of interest in his classes, a tool he said could be used in wider education.

Science professor Wei Xiaoyong developed the new “face reader” to identify emotions which suggest if students are bored or stimulated.

His technique produces a “curve” for each student showing how much they are either “happy” or “neutral”, and that data can indicate whether they are bored, he said.

“When we correlate that kind of information to the way we teach, and we use a timeline, then you will know where you are actually attracting the students’ attention,” Professor Wei told The Telegraph.

“Then you can ask whether this is a good way to teach that content? Or if this content is OK for the students in that class?”...



Automating this kind of measurement means the next step is countermeasures. Special makeup, certain hairstyles, unusual frames for glasses, even just happy face masks. And eventually it means legal measures, like a codification of what aspects of your own public presentation you own or don't own. The old rule of "you own nothing in public" is an inadequate convention precisely because these days it serves only the interests of the data collectors.

Buy your emoticon shroud now. Or make your own! Draw a smiley face on a pillowcase and never be spotted again.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: latefordinner on October 17, 2016, 07:32:40 AM
you need state of the art facial-recognition technology to know if your students are bored? Another case of technology making us stupider than we were before.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on October 27, 2016, 02:58:21 PM
China officials stuff cotton gauze into air monitoring equipment to falsify results (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/26/china-officials-stuff-cotton-gauze-into-air-monitoring-equipment/)

China has detained five local officials after they jammed cotton gauze into sensors used to monitor pollution in an attempt to improve air quality readings, media reported.

The environmental officials had also tampered with computers to alter the results of pollution monitoring in the northern city of Xi’an, reports said.

China has vowed to wage a “war on pollution” and Beijing has set targets for local governments to cut levels of smog.

Authorities are also trying to collate emissions data to help them punish high-polluting businesses, but ensuring information is reliable has proved a challenge.

A member of staff from the Environmental Protection Bureau in Xi’an’s Chang'an district confirmed to The Telegraph that police had detained a group of officials in an investigation into falsified air quality data.

The Global Times newspaper citied local reports saying: “Officials in charge of environmental protection blocked the samplers to make the data ‘look better’ and avoid penalties for high pollution in their area of responsibility.”

Readings of PM2.5 – toxic particles small enough to deeply penetrate the lungs – can decrease by 30-50 per cent if cotton is used to cover air-monitoring equipment, an expert cited by The Beijing News said....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on October 31, 2016, 08:18:24 PM
Average salary in major Chinese cities is $900 and growing (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2016-01/21/content_23183484.htm)

The average salary among 32 major cities in China stands at 6,070 yuan ($922.64) for job vacancies posted online for the winter of 2015, with Beijing topping the list at 9,227 yuan, followed by Shanghai (8,664 yuan) and Shenzhen (7,728 yuan), thepaper.cn reported according to online data released by zhaopin.com, a leading job hunting website....


China Daily, so who knows if the figures are real, but I was looking up average salaries today because a shopkeeper I know asked me mine and when I told him he was about set to lose his shit, which is something I haven't seen the locals do in freaking years and I just wondered because doesn't everyone know foreigners aren't automatic "rich man" these days? Don't they see regular staff owning cars and houses and put two and two together? I think they probably do but I wondered
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on December 06, 2016, 06:03:30 PM
Trump 'tantrums' signal trouble for China-US relations – state media (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/06/trump-tantrums-signal-trouble-for-china-us-relations-state-media)

After president-elect controversially spoke with Taiwan leader, Communist party-controlled tabloid warns Beijing must be ready to ‘strike back’

China must prepare to strike back against Donald Trump’s reckless “tantrums”, a Communist party-controlled tabloid has warned, as a series of snubs to Beijing from the US president-elect continued to generate diplomatic aftershocks.

Trump’s decision to hold a protocol-trampling conversation with Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen last Friday and his subsequent Twitter attacks on China have caused consternation in Beijing.

China’s official public reaction has so far been measured....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on December 09, 2016, 11:15:12 PM
Trump 'tantrums' signal trouble for China-US relations – state media (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/06/trump-tantrums-signal-trouble-for-china-us-relations-state-media)

After president-elect controversially spoke with Taiwan leader, Communist party-controlled tabloid warns Beijing must be ready to ‘strike back’

China must prepare to strike back against Donald Trump’s reckless “tantrums”, a Communist party-controlled tabloid has warned, as a series of snubs to Beijing from the US president-elect continued to generate diplomatic aftershocks.

Trump’s decision to hold a protocol-trampling conversation with Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen last Friday and his subsequent Twitter attacks on China have caused consternation in Beijing.

China’s official public reaction has so far been measured....


The Trump team's nuanced response to criticism.

Updated 12:10 AM ET, Tue December 6, 2016

(CNN)Stephen Moore, a former economic adviser to Donald Trump, defended the President-elect's recent call with the president of Taiwan, saying in a local radio interview that he didn't care if it upset China.

"Taiwan is our ally," Moore said in a radio interview Monday on the Big John and Ray Show on WLS AM890. "That is a country that we have backed because they believe in freedom. We oughta back our ally, and if China doesn't like it, screw 'em."
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on December 10, 2016, 04:52:43 PM
I'm of two minds re The Trump. On the one hand, he's really and truly not presidential at all. George Bush Jr at least had the pedigree. Trump by contrast is like a used car salesman. All that Art of The Deal crap is not special wisdom carted down through the ages. It's just, frankly, situational boorishness. But on the other hand, as a wild card he gets to say all the stuff "people" want to say, but to say it from a position of power. Which is kind of cool, even as it is inherently destablising.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on December 11, 2016, 12:44:03 AM
I'm of two minds re The Trump. On the one hand, he's really and truly not presidential at all. George Bush Jr at least had the pedigree. Trump by contrast is like a used car salesman. All that Art of The Deal crap is not special wisdom carted down through the ages. It's just, frankly, situational boorishness. But on the other hand, as a wild card he gets to say all the stuff "people" want to say, but to say it from a position of power. Which is kind of cool, even as it is inherently destablising.

Well I hope the first brain is dominant. I have no doubt that he is a total sham. But, one who actually believes that he's the best and brightest. I also like that he can say things that others don't and wants to turn the system inside out. However, I don't believe he has the qualities to put it back together again in any workable way. This was a Change election and he was its agent. But, change isn't about blowing everything up, it's about bringing something new forward. Sanders was probably that person, but the DNC just had to put its thumb on the scale and snuff him out.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on December 12, 2016, 02:32:30 PM
Trump Says U.S. Not Necessarily Bound by “One China” Policy (http://fortune.com/2016/12/11/trump-one-china-policy/)

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump questioned whether the United States had to be bound by its long-standing position that Taiwan is part of “one China” and brushed aside Beijing’s concerns about his decision to accept a phone call from Taiwan’s president.

“I fully understand the ‘one China’ policy, but I don’t know why we have to be bound by a ‘one China’ policy unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things, including trade,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News Sunday....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on December 12, 2016, 11:31:03 PM
The not-so-great T.rump R is at it again bibibibibi







T.rump = T.rex cousin, with small hands, large mouth and smaller brain
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on December 21, 2016, 07:22:44 PM
China asks foreigners to put questions to Premier Li (http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-politics-premier-idUSKBN14916K?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews)

China's central government has for the first time asked foreigners what they would like to ask Premier Li Keqiang as he prepares his annual work report for next March's meeting of the country's largely rubber-stamp parliament.

China has previously solicited questions from ordinary Chinese people for Li, which can be submitted online, but is now unusually using English to offer foreigners the same opportunity.

"Are you living, working, studying, traveling in China or doing business with Chinese companies? Do you want to have your say about what is happening in China, how it is making government policies and how you are benefiting?" the government said in an English statement on its website.

"Premier Li Keqiang wants to hear your views and include them in China's policy making," it said, next to a cartoon picture of a smiling Li.

"Individuals, businesses and other organizations with an interest in or expert knowledge on any issue can help shape the government work report in 2017. The Chinese government welcomes and appreciates your participation."

Underneath, foreigners are invited to offer comments on areas such as the environment, tax and "internet integration".

A few comments, apparently some from foreigners judging by their names, are also shown, though nothing on sensitive issues like human rights or censorship.

"I hope the government could do more to curb pollution," wrote someone identified as Adam.

"Cut more administrative fees and licenses," said another person called Gary.

The announcement appeared on the website on Tuesday.

Big Chinese cities like Beijing and Shanghai have thriving foreigner communities, and the government is also trying to attract highly qualified foreigners to live longer-term in China, especially those with science qualifications.

But it has run into problems with the country's notorious smog and tight internet controls putting some people off. The government has also had limited success introducing a U.S.-like "green card" system allowing people to become permanent residents.



Link: http://topic.media.gov.cn/topicdata/en/index.html
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on December 21, 2016, 07:34:00 PM
Imma go out on a limb and say not one of those "SELECTED COMMENTS" was native spoken.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on December 22, 2016, 05:10:18 PM
Oooohhhh!!!!  Can I be in charge of making new taxi policies?  All I need is a little time and some firing squads to fix a lot of problems.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on December 22, 2016, 07:51:15 PM
Oooohhhh!!!!  Can I be in charge of making new taxi policies?  All I need is a little time and some firing squads to fix a lot of problems.

Why yes, yes you can.

Here is where you make your application: http://topic.media.gov.cn/topicdata/en/index.html
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on February 01, 2017, 02:51:08 PM
How to drink baijiu: Beijing's pros share their tips (http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/29/foodanddrink/how-to-drink-baijiu-china/)

(http://i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170130075612-1-baijiu-exlarge-169.jpg)

Beijing (CNN)It's the most widely drunk hard liquor in the world but it's rarely found on cocktail menus.

Baijiu, distilled from sorghum and rice, rules every festive occasion in China, where it's the tipple of choice for everything from wedding receptions to business banquets.

It's especially popular during celebrations for the Lunar New Year, which began Saturday, when shot glasses filled with the potent spirit are thrown back and slammed down on the table in endless rounds of toasts.

"Many (foreigners) find baijiu off-putting, but it's not about the liquor itself," says Bill Isler, co-founder of Beijing's Capital Spirits, the world's first baijiu-themed bar.

Isler says the drink's fearsome reputation comes from visitors being coerced into excessive drinking by Chinese friends or coworkers -- persuading people to drink is a gesture of generosity and "being a good host," he says....



 agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on February 01, 2017, 03:58:01 PM
 agagagagag jjjjjjjjjj
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on February 16, 2017, 08:50:43 PM
His Dark Materials follow-ups announced by author Philip Pullman (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38978023)

Author Philip Pullman has announced the publication of the long-awaited follow-up to his best-selling His Dark Materials series of novels.

The new trilogy is called The Book of Dust and the first novel will come out in October, 17 years after the last instalment.

He says the books are an "equel", rather than a prequel or sequel....



Hell yes this is too news. Vive La Lyra Belacqua!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on February 20, 2017, 04:53:57 PM
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C5BGGbHWAAEAuSF.jpg)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on February 20, 2017, 04:55:36 PM
(https://scontent-amt2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/16830824_10154568736268918_2409396143316642856_n.jpg?oh=5d5bc8a8252532c514b759dcb8af5cb4&oe=593802B3)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on February 23, 2017, 01:35:16 PM
China to Permit Lab Poised to Study World's Most Dangerous Pathogens (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/china-to-permit-lab-poised-to-study-worlds-most-dangerous-pathogens/)

Maximum-security biolab is part of a plan to build more of these facilities across the country

A laboratory in Wuhan is on the cusp of being cleared to work with the world’s most dangerous pathogens. The move is part of a plan to build between five and seven biosafety level-4 (BSL-4) labs across the Chinese mainland by 2025, and has generated much excitement, as well as some concerns.

Some scientists outside China worry about pathogens escaping, and the addition of a biological dimension to geopolitical tensions between China and other nations. But Chinese microbiologists are celebrating their entrance to the elite cadre empowered to wrestle with the world’s greatest biological threats.

“It will offer more opportunities for Chinese researchers, and our contribution on the BSL‑4-level pathogens will benefit the world,” says George Gao, director of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Key Laboratory of Pathogenic Microbiology and Immunology in Beijing. There are already two BSL-4 labs in Taiwan, but the National Bio-safety Laboratory, Wuhan, would be the first on the Chinese mainland....



Game over, man. Game over. All hail shambling, bleeding, vomiting zompocalypse!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on February 23, 2017, 02:17:49 PM
 aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on February 24, 2017, 02:18:42 PM
Oh my.  They want how many???  aqaqaqaqaq

Quite some time back, I read about the protocols for Level 4.  Let's just say I hope they've been subsequently tightened.  Anything like this needs multiple supervisors who are willing to lock people away in a deep underground isolation vault for weeks or months if there's even a slight risk of contamination, without regard to the rank or connections of the person or persons who are going to be locked away.

I dread the thought of what could happen if someone bypassed some level of precautions or if the soap dispenser didn't get refilled one day.

aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on February 24, 2017, 04:39:57 PM
From the article:

"But worries surround the Chinese lab, too. The SARS virus has escaped from high-level containment facilities in Beijing multiple times, notes Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey. Tim Trevan, founder of CHROME Biosafety and Biosecurity Consulting in Damascus, Maryland, says that an open culture is important to keeping BSL-4 labs safe, and he questions how easy this will be in China, where society emphasizes hierarchy. “Diversity of viewpoint, flat structures where everyone feels free to speak up and openness of information are important,” he says."


And the plan puts this BSL-4 in Wuhan. High speed rail links Beijing-Wuhan and Wuhan-Guangzhou. The apocalypse is gonna draw a line right down the middle of this rooster.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on February 27, 2017, 05:51:28 PM
Maybe you could get them to study viruses which are fatal to pigeons? ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on March 17, 2017, 07:34:39 PM
Chinese researchers announce designer baby breakthrough (http://www.foxnews.com/science/2017/03/16/chinese-researchers-announce-designer-baby-breakthrough.html)

Science has taken another step toward delivering the perfect newborn – or at least a bouncing baby free of certain genetic defects.

Chinese researchers used a genome editing technique called CRISPR to rid normal embryos of hereditary diseases that cause blood disorders and other ailments, according to New Scientist. Experts who reviewed the project told the publication that, even though it involved just six embryos, it carries promise.

“It is encouraging,” Robin Lovell-Badge, a human genome expert at the Francis Crick Institute in London, told New Scientist....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: cruisemonkey on March 17, 2017, 08:44:09 PM
Ok... it rids the embryo of hereditary diseases. But, when the embryo grows up and reproduces, can it pass on the defective gene to its offspring? If so, the diseases will become more and more prevalent.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on March 20, 2017, 02:55:24 PM
If their are really editing out genes in a fertilized egg, those genes won't be available to pass on.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on March 20, 2017, 04:05:34 PM
China's Severe Winter Haze Tied to Climate Change (http://www.news.gatech.edu/2017/03/15/chinas-severe-winter-haze-tied-effects-global-climate-change)

China's severe winter air pollution problems may be worsened by changes in atmospheric circulation prompted by Arctic sea ice loss and increased Eurasian snowfall – both caused by global climate change....


There have been a few articles on this topic recently. The basic idea is pollution in China is going to get worse whether emissions are cut down or not.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: china-matt on March 28, 2017, 11:40:32 PM
Thought you guys might get a kick out of what's going on over on that rebellious isle that shall remain nameless...
Online retailers seek to capitalize on family pet market for Tomb Sweeping Day
Yup, they're selling doggy and kitty stuff to honor the dearly departed pet on Qingming.
http://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3126606
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on March 30, 2017, 01:46:15 PM
Google makes its Translate mobile apps available for users in China (https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/28/google-translate-china/)

Google has reintroduced its Translate mobile apps to China, where they can now be accessed and used without the need for software to bypass local censorship.

The U.S. tech giant left China more than seven years ago when it redirected its local search engine to Hong Kong and many of its services are censored in the country. Today’s low-key relaunch marks the first time it has revived a service specifically for users in China.

Google has maintained a web-based version of Translate that has been accessible since its China exit, but with half of China’s 1.4 billion population using the internet on mobile, according to the latest government figures, these apps will give the service wider reach. The iOS version of Translate is available in the Chinese App Store, while Google is directing Android users to a direct download from its servers here. Previously, those in China could only use the app when connected to a VPN to evade the government’s internet censorship system.

“Google Translate has been available in China for more than eight years. Today, we’re making our Translate app work better for Chinese users,” a spokesperson told TechCrunch....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on April 06, 2017, 03:09:23 PM
Anyone want an upgrade-able spouse?

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2084389/chinese-engineer-marries-robot-after-failing-find-human-wife
 
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: psd4fan on April 06, 2017, 09:19:51 PM
Told you they were dangerous.

http://intriguedboredom.com/woman-arrested-for-training-squirrels-to-attack-her-ex-boyfriend/
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: cruisemonkey on April 07, 2017, 01:28:23 AM
Told you they were dangerous.

http://intriguedboredom.com/woman-arrested-for-training-squirrels-to-attack-her-ex-boyfriend/

That should have been published on April 1. 

Maybe CP can get some squirrels and train them to take out the pigeons and his neighbours.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: old34 on April 07, 2017, 05:36:47 AM
Told you they were dangerous.

http://intriguedboredom.com/woman-arrested-for-training-squirrels-to-attack-her-ex-boyfriend/ (http://intriguedboredom.com/woman-arrested-for-training-squirrels-to-attack-her-ex-boyfriend/)

That should have been published on April 1. 

Maybe CP can get some squirrels and train them to take out the pigeons and his neighbours.


Speaking of squirrels, whatever happened to ETR. Haven't seen him around here since Hector was a pup. Did he (ETR, not Hector) transgender and move to Detroit?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on April 08, 2017, 01:02:25 PM
Dinner-time missile strike leaves China having to reassess Trump (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/07/dinner-time-syria-airstrike-china-xi-jinping-reassess-trump)

US decision to bomb Syria during meeting with Xi Jinping will have irked China, but it will be more concerned about the future implications

For China’s president, Xi Jinping, it was supposed to be a chance to show himself as the political titan whom Communist party propagandists fete as the “leader of China’s great revival”.

During a two-day visit to Donald Trump’s glamorous Mar-a-Lago estate, Xi would grab headlines as a globe-trotting statesman whose nation could now stand side by side with the world’s leading superpower.

But Trump’s decision to unleash a barrage of cruise missiles against Syria, a decision made just before he sat down to dinner with Xi, has upended those plans and risks derailing an embryonic rapprochement that followed months of tensions between the leaders of the world’s two largest economies....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on April 08, 2017, 01:07:06 PM
Donald Trump hails friendship with China's Xi as missiles head to Syria (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/07/donald-trump-hails-friendship-with-chinas-xi-as-missiles-head-to-syria)

US president talks of ‘great relationship’ with China but timing of Syria attack likely to create anger and fear, say experts

Donald Trump has hailed the start of “a very, very great relationship” with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, after months of Twitter attacks and tension culminated in a candle-lit steak dinner at the billionaire’s palm-dotted Mar-a-Lago resort.

When Xi came to the US two years ago, Trump attacked Barack Obama’s red-carpet welcome, claiming he would have offered a Big Mac rather than a state dinner to a leader whose country he has accused of “raping” the American economy.

But pan-seared Dover sole, New York strip steak and Sonoma chardonnay were on the menu after the Communist party chief touched down in Florida with his wife, the chart-topping singer, Peng Liyuan on Thursday afternoon for two days of talks.

“It is a great honour to have the president of China and his incredibly talented wife – a great, great celebrity in China and a great singer … in the United States,” Trump told his guests.

“We’ve had a long discussion already and so far I have gotten nothing, absolutely nothing,” he joked. “But we have developed a friendship – I can see that – and I think in the long term we’re going to have a very, very great relationship and I look very much forward to it.”

Before the summit, trade disputes and North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs were tipped to top the list of discussions between Trump and Xi, who returns to China on Friday afternoon.

But as the leaders of the world’s two largest economies retired from their first evening together, a rapidly escalating crisis in Syria threatened to overshadow their long-awaited meeting as Trump ordered cruise missile strikes in response to the deadly chemical attack on the town of Khan Sheikhun....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on April 08, 2017, 01:24:49 PM
And because it wouldn't be Trump without something being stupid:

Pro-Trump Media Is Falsely Claiming That The Chemical Attack In Syria Was A Hoax (https://www.buzzfeed.com/claudiakoerner/a-conspiracy-theory-is-falsely-claiming-that-the-chemical?utm_term=.rg6qak5R1#.unJZJyDwb)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on April 09, 2017, 02:10:33 PM
http://www.ranker.com/list/what-bathrooms-in-foreign-countries-are-like/jacob-shelton?utm_content=inf_10_3514_2&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=pd_inf&utm_campaign=SE&tse_id=INF_3961ef001bcb11e7a54ec308f37c7cce


 aoaoaoaoao Interesting link, if you're considering travel to "foreign" parts kkkkkkkkkk
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on April 15, 2017, 04:37:06 PM
Beijing Subway Passenger Bloodied by Expat Sparks Angry Backlash Against Foreigners (http://www.thebeijinger.com/blog/2017/04/13/beijing-subway-passenger-bloodied-expat-sparks-massive-backlash)

Days before news about a "Chinese" passenger being forcibly dragged off a United Airlines flight caused massive outrage in China, Beijingers were already angry over an incident of their own in which a Chinese man was victimized by yet another foreigner.

Chinese news reported last week that a male expatriate made a "wanton" attack upon a Chinese subway commuter on Beijing Metro Line 10 during the Thursday morning rush hour.

Photos of the incident show the male Chinese victim with a stream of blood trickling down his nose standing next to a Caucasian man whose face is spattered with blood....


(http://www.thebeijinger.com/sites/default/files/thebeijinger/blog-images/307891/line_10_subway_assault_laowai_photo_06.jpg)

(http://www.thebeijinger.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/line_10_subway_assault_laowai_photo_01.jpg)

(http://www.thebeijinger.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/line_10_subway_assault_laowai_photo_04.jpg)


Chinese man and foreigner in bloody Beijing subway brawl (http://www.thestar.com.my/news/regional/2017/04/14/chinese-man-and-foreigner-in-bloody-beijing-subway-brawl/)

BEIJING: Photos and a video being circulated online showing a brawl between a Chinese man and a foreigner on the Beijing subway have become a topic of debate, according to Chinese media reports.

The Chinese man had entered into a dispute with the foreigner during the morning rush hour last week, news portal Sohu.com reported.

In the incident that took place around 8.20am last Thursday, the foreigner, who was accompanied by a woman, had been seated on the floor of the train on the southern-bound Line 10 on the Beijing subway.

The Chinese man then approached the foreigner, asking him in English to stand up and give way for passengers to move into the train, according to the report.

His request, however, sparked a quarrel between the two men, and the foreigner then punched the Chinese man in the face, two witnesses told the news portal.

Photos and the video circulating on Chinese social media showed the Chinese man bleeding from the nose and spatters of blood on the foreigner’s face....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on April 22, 2017, 10:26:18 PM
Fansubs for TV shows and movies are illegal, court rules (https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/04/fan-made-subtitles-for-tv-shows-and-movies-are-illegal/)

Anti-piracy group tells Dutch court they damage the industry.

Fansubbing—the unofficial creation of fan-made subtitles for TV shows and movies—is illegal, a Dutch court ruled this week.

The Free Subtitles Foundation, after coming under fire from the Netherlands' anti-piracy association BREIN, decided to raise some money and take BREIN to court. The Foundation's lawyer told TorrentFreak that the lawsuit sought to clarify whether the creators of a TV show or movie can reserve the right to create and distribute subtitles.

And indeed, that's exactly what the court ruled: that subtitles can only be created and distributed with permission from the rights holders. Doing so without permission is copyright infringement, and thus punishable with either jail time or a fine, depending on where you live....


Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on April 29, 2017, 07:42:08 PM
NSA BACKS DOWN ON MAJOR SURVEILLANCE PROGRAM THAT CAPTURED AMERICANS’ COMMUNICATIONS WITHOUT A WARRANT (https://theintercept.com/2017/04/28/nsa-backs-down-on-major-surveillance-program-that-captured-americans-communications-without-a-warrant/)

THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY on Friday suddenly announced it is curtailing one of its major surveillance programs.

Under pressure from the secret court that oversees its practices, the NSA said its “upstream” program would no longer grab communications directly from the U.S. internet backbone “about” specific foreign targets — only communication to and from those targets....



NSA ends spying on messages Americans send about foreign surveillance targets (https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/04/nsa-stops-collection-of-us-citizens-e-mails-about-intel-targets/)

Today, a spokesperson for the National Security Agency announced that the agency would end the practice of "upstream" collection of messages sent by American citizens—messages that were not directed to targets of NSA intelligence collection but referred to "selectors" for those targets in the body of the communications. According to the statement, the NSA has put an end to that practice, which has been authorized since 2008 under the agency's interpretation of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)....


/xkeyscore mofos
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on May 03, 2017, 02:02:27 PM
'Disgusting' and 'extraordinary' scenes as Chinese delegation shouts down welcome ceremony (http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/disgusting-and-extraordinary-scenes-as-chinese-delegation-shouts-down-welcome-ceremony-20170502-gvxbou.html)

Participants at an intergovernmental meeting hosted by Australian foreign minister Julie Bishop in Perth have described "disgusting" and "extraordinary" scenes as the Chinese government delegation shouted over the welcome to country ceremony and forced the suspension of proceedings....


Chinese Delegation Blows Up at Anti-Conflict Diamond Meeting to Sideline Taiwan (http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/05/02/china-delegation-taiwan-australia-conflict-minerals-meeting-one-china-policy-diplomatic-dispute-kimberley-process/)

Chinese diplomats threw protocol and respect out the window when they loudly disrupted a welcome ceremony at an international conference in Australia, sparking sharp rebuke from other foreign diplomats....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: cruisemonkey on May 04, 2017, 01:38:46 AM
Jeez... the Chinese government has been admonishing their ordinary citizens to behave when they go abroad as tourists. Now, it seems they should do the same with their 'diplomats'.
 bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on May 04, 2017, 04:11:20 AM
I think whenever something like this happens, the first audience is always the people at home. These diplomats are speaking first and foremost to Beijing. I don't know what exactly it means that their performance will be well-received, but I'm going to assume that it will be. I think the same is probably true for the fervour you see in Chinese students abroad and in the "community" organizations Australia in particular seems to be seeing more of lately. These kinds of demonstration are one of the tangible ways in which China is and remains the center of the(ir) world.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on May 04, 2017, 07:04:31 PM
And as fate would have it, coin side two other:

'I am Fan Yusu': China gripped by Dickensian tale of a migrant worker's struggle (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/03/i-am-fan-yusu-china-gripped-by-dickensian-tale-of-a-migrant-workers-struggle)

The online essay chronicling the dismal plight of millions of Chinese has turned its unassuming author into an overnight literary sensation...

“I Am Fan Yusu” – Beijing Migrant Worker’s Writing Takes Chinese Internet by Storm (http://www.whatsonweibo.com/fan-yusu-beijing-migrant-workers-writing-takes-wechat-storm/)

A moving essay by a Beijing migrant worker has gone viral over Chinese social media this week. Although the article named “I Am Fan Yusu” (我是范雨素) is currently the best-read article in China, the 44-year-old author, who has become China’s literary sensation overnight, just hopes she can live her life in peace....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on May 19, 2017, 02:49:59 PM
Music Video: The Belt and Road, Sing Along (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98RNh7rwyf8)


Hey diddle diddle, cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the mooooooo...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on May 23, 2017, 04:26:35 PM
Explosion, Panic and Death at Ariana Grande Concert in England (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/22/world/europe/ariana-grande-manchester-police.html)

MANCHESTER, England — An explosion that may have been a suicide bombing killed at least 19 people on Monday night and wounded dozens at an Ariana Grande concert filled with adoring adolescent fans in what the police were treating as a terrorist attack....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: china-matt on May 25, 2017, 05:14:11 PM
The rebellious island that shall remain nameless has ruled that same-sex marriage is legal and must change the constitution to reflect the law within two years.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-taiwan-lgbt-marriage-idUSKBN18K0UN
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on May 25, 2017, 10:18:01 PM
That will put an interesting item on the table when the negotiations for status like HK and Macao finally begin.

Will the mainland stick to the One Country - Two Systems plan, or will it say "There are some changes you need to make before we let you guys back into the club and run up the flag?"  If the former, how will the mainland handle same sex marriages between two mainlanders on vacation or same sex marriages between a mainlander and a person from that offshore province?  How about a married same sex couple moving to the mainland?

Should be interesting to watch and see what develops.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on June 19, 2017, 12:31:41 AM
Chinese students are losing interest in working at international firms (http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/15/news/china-graduates-dream-jobs-alibaba-huawei/index.html)

The desire to work for international companies is waning amongst China's best and brightest.

Scoring a job at a big Western firm used to carry serious cache in China, but now just 18% of Chinese college students say they want to work for an international company, according to a new survey conducted by research firm Universum. That's down from 28% two years ago.

Local companies are growing faster and seen as more innovative, according to William Wu, Universum's country manager for China.

"In that sense, the international companies do not have a clear advantage anymore," Wu said. "There are more good employers on the market now, and they're not just international brands."...



/no more English, no more books, no more teacher's foreign looks
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on June 26, 2017, 02:57:04 PM
And so ends the dream:

http://shanghaiist.com/2017/06/22/straddling-bus-gone.php

Monster buses riding over traffic (and crushing anything crossing their paths) will have to wait.  The one and only track for the project is being ripped up. ananananan

Meanwhile, those looking for the next "What can possibly go wrong?" concept in transportation can still pin their hopes on autonomous cars and flying cars. ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on July 04, 2017, 04:24:53 PM
You break it, you bought it.  uuuuuuuuuu

http://nypost.com/2017/06/29/tourist-faints-in-store-after-breaking-44000-bracelet/

Maybe next time, check the price before trying it on. ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on July 22, 2017, 01:56:25 PM
You won't belieb what China did next!!!

Justin Bieber banned from China for 'bad behaviour' (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/21/justin-bieber-banned-from-china-bad-behaviour-purify-discontent)

Beijing’s culture bureau says star has caused ‘discontent among the public’ and his exclusion is needed to ‘purify’ arts

“I just need one more shot, second chances,” Justin Bieber sings on his latest album.

Not least, it seems, with Chinese authorities who have announced the Canadian pop idol will not be allowed to perform in the People’s Republic because of his on and offstage antics.

Bieber will jet into Asia later this year as part of his Purpose World Tour with shows scheduled in Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore and Hong Kong. But Beliebers in mainland China look set to be disappointed....



#notTheOnion
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Nolefan on July 24, 2017, 05:30:30 PM
You won't belieb what China did next!!!

Justin Bieber banned from China for 'bad behaviour' (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/21/justin-bieber-banned-from-china-bad-behaviour-purify-discontent)

Beijing’s culture bureau says star has caused ‘discontent among the public’ and his exclusion is needed to ‘purify’ arts

“I just need one more shot, second chances,” Justin Bieber sings on his latest album.

Not least, it seems, with Chinese authorities who have announced the Canadian pop idol will not be allowed to perform in the People’s Republic because of his on and offstage antics.

Bieber will jet into Asia later this year as part of his Purpose World Tour with shows scheduled in Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore and Hong Kong. But Beliebers in mainland China look set to be disappointed....



#notTheOnion

things like these make me almost believe in this country... best thing ever! we trust the party to keep us safe from Bieber
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on July 25, 2017, 01:29:48 AM
Bieber is the new Google.

Probably banned for much the same eventual reason. To protect local competitors.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on July 27, 2017, 04:41:30 PM
You won't belieb what China did next!!!

Justin Bieber banned from China for 'bad behaviour' (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/21/justin-bieber-banned-from-china-bad-behaviour-purify-discontent)

Beijing’s culture bureau says star has caused ‘discontent among the public’ and his exclusion is needed to ‘purify’ arts

“I just need one more shot, second chances,” Justin Bieber sings on his latest album.

Not least, it seems, with Chinese authorities who have announced the Canadian pop idol will not be allowed to perform in the People’s Republic because of his on and offstage antics.

Bieber will jet into Asia later this year as part of his Purpose World Tour with shows scheduled in Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore and Hong Kong. But Beliebers in mainland China look set to be disappointed....



#notTheOnion

Thank you China!!!   bjbjbjbjbj agagagagag btbtbtbtbt agagagagag bjbjbjbjbj

(Now if only we can get the central gov't to explain to certain foreign fast food chains that a chicken sandwich is not, never has been, and never will be a "burger")
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 13, 2017, 01:45:52 PM
Wrong A-level choices prevent poorer students gaining elite university places (https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/aug/12/poor-students-miss-out-on-elite-universities)

Best degree courses snub vocational options popular with low-income pupils

Students from poorer backgrounds may be held back by their A-level subject choices when applying for respected degree courses, such as law, at leading universities.

New research suggests that those taking vocational A-levels in law, accounting or business are less likely to attend elite universities than students who opt for traditional academic subjects such as sciences, mathematics, languages, history and geography....



If there were an educational deathstar I'd call it "academia"
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 16, 2017, 08:56:46 PM
'Stupid laowai': Chengdu rapper comes out with incredibly racist diss track against foreigners (http://shanghaiist.com/2017/08/14/stupid-laowai.php)

A nationalistic Chengdu rapper has raised a ruckus online with China's latest offensively awful summer jam in which he boasts that he wants to make foreigners polish his boots before shooting them with a gun.

In his new single Xie Di (謝帝), who goes by the moniker "Fat Shady" (and even has Eminem's face inked on his arm), frequently angrily spits out the words"gua laowai" (瓜老外), meaning "stupid foreigners" -- using “gua,“ a common insult in the Chengdu dialect and the term "laowai," an informal way of referring to foreigners which can be a slur depending on the context....


"Fuck Off Foreigners" (Gua Laowai)ENGLISH TRANSLATION - Fat Shady (Xie Di) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTHR_omZtXc)


I suspect it's probably wrong to assume no one knows the irony inherent in Chinese using rap to be offensively nationalist. In fact, in an era of Psy Gangnam Style pop culture, some tattooed Chengdude going old skool hip hop to get jiggy on the streets and make finger pistols at foreign straw people is, wait for it.... comedy. And actually not bad rap. But the comedy is very likely comedy he knows he's making and is being entertained by. (Contrast this with the dildoes from CD-REV, for instance, who do appear to be dummies of the variety that will eventually claim rap was invented in China.)

 bfbfbfbfbf bfbfbfbfbf bfbfbfbfbf
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on August 17, 2017, 12:27:18 PM
Tell him to come to Oz and sing that song to all the Asian folk who are in my city of Brisbane! bjbjbjbjbj :wtf:
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 17, 2017, 01:43:02 PM
The - let's call them "ideas" - in the song don't come out of nowhere. For a while in China there was a formulation for managing foreign relations inside China. I forget the actual slogan, but it went something like accept the good, reject the bad. The apparent idea was that in the service of China's development, full-on "westernization" was completely out of the question, but that stuff like high technology and material education was okay. And while that looks like it hides a core of xenophobic hysteria, in fact it was probably just yet another way for the Party to maintain its own legitimacy as the appropriate steward of China and what is Chinese. Anyway, point is, this "Fat Shady" tune makes that same vague, disingenuous distinction between "foreign friends" who are okay and "stupid foreigners" who can fuck off.

I don't know if it's a fair comparison really but someone might pull this out of their backside: perhaps Australia already does this kind of foreigner tagging but the terms are "asylum seeker" and "economic refugee" and "queue jumper" and of course the classic "boat people".
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on August 18, 2017, 12:26:14 PM
Calach, I'm wondering how long it will be before English is the second language in Oz. bibibibibi I'm still trying to decide which language will take over. Whenever I get in a lift at "the den", I have a bet with myself that the occupants will be speaking another language. I am correct most of the time. bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on August 18, 2017, 03:52:36 PM
Got cleavage?  Get a discount. ahahahahah

https://www.foodbeast.com/news/sexist-restaurant-discount/
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 18, 2017, 04:39:18 PM
Calach, I'm wondering how long it will be before English is the second language in Oz. bibibibibi I'm still trying to decide which language will take over.

Without an actual military invasion and dissolution of the government by a foreign power probably not any time soon. According to the 2016 census, 70% of Oz households speak only English. The next most common first language spoken in homes is Mandarin, and that only in 2.5% of homes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Australia

Quote
Whenever I get in a lift at "the den", I have a bet with myself that the occupants will be speaking another language. I am correct most of the time. bibibibibi


Ideally, or at least theoretically, isn't it a wonderful thing to have some many bilingual people in one place. The whole world at home. And all of them gambling too! Economic and social cohesion at its finest!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on August 19, 2017, 12:19:10 PM
Calach, I wonder what a 2018 census would indicate? As a matter of interest, one of the lifts (at the entrance to "the den") only uses Mandarin to get messages across. bibibibibi The Casino recognizes the majority of its clients. bjbjbjbjbj
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 19, 2017, 01:41:01 PM
The census results are a little misleading by themselves. They indicate which languages are used for primary communication in homes, and in that sense Mandarin is not in the least bit challenging the primacy of English in Oz. But there are in fact a great many more Mandarin speakers in Australia.

And actually, I went looking for numbers on which languages are spoken in Oz and found for instance in Sydney, the second most commonly spoken language is Arabic. Mandarin is third.

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/talk-of-the-town-youre-all-talking-my-language-20140710-zt3s9

And the statistics make it look like language groups congregate. (Or at least that language clusters exist.)

http://www.smh.com.au/data-point/sydney-languages

And one can find quotes like this one:

Non-English speakers outnumber English speakers in one in five [Sydney] suburbs, cementing the city's status as one of the world's most linguistically diverse cities.

But grouping languages as English and not-English really doesn't tell us much. I'm pretty sure that English compared to any one other language will show English as massively dominant, but I don't have ready numbers available at the moment



Anyway, the reason I've been going into this a bit more is there's one of those globalisation, naturalisation, humanisation processes at work, and it stumbles on the same point that similar equalisation trends do: when the dominant population is unwilling to give up the fruits of domination. You can see it in modern debates about feminism. Women and girls talk about not being feminists because feminism is toxic now, and men come up with men's rights groups, and people talk about waves and progress and backsliding and so on, and it's all bullshit because entirely and only the one stumbling block is men. men are obliged to stop asserting their "natural" rights, and they don't want to. They're supposed to recognise when they are asserting unnatural authority, and to stop doing it. But they don't because it means not just ceding power, it means extra work for them - the work of not stepping on other's opportunity. I'm not expressing this well, it's just something I've observed in such debates, that men want to keep the privileges of former dominance mostly because they have to do less communicative work as a result: the dominant population sits in power while the subordinate population orbits around them.

Long story short, it works for language too. Where English is dominant, the English speakers can tell all other language groups, "This is Australia, speak English" and that mostly benefits only the English speakers.

It's quite remarkable the parallels too. I recall people used to say how convenient and natural it was for men to work and women to mind the home. And look, how convenient and natural it is for any bugger coming to Australia being allowed or not allowed based on English ability.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 21, 2017, 01:01:59 PM
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/SE2017Aug21T.gif)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on August 22, 2017, 03:53:25 PM
Stood outside staring at the sun all day yesterday and didn't see the eclipse. kkkkkkkkkk

Guess I should have used my binoculars or a telescope.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 22, 2017, 07:23:28 PM
I couldn't see it either. The Moon got in the way.

 ababababab


https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2017/sdo-views-2017-solar-eclipse-171-angstrom
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 22, 2017, 07:37:24 PM
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/8/21/16171826/solar-eclipse-2017-photos
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on September 21, 2017, 08:28:10 PM
Chinese students question Australian education sending chills through industry (http://www.smh.com.au/world/chinese-students-question-australian-education-sending-chills-through-industry-20170919-gykfgi.html)

Beijing: The plight of a Chinese student whose parents sold their home to pay for an Australian university education but only found a job handing out product samples has sparked debate in China questioning the value of overseas education.

The worsening job prospects for graduates returning to China could send a chill through Australia's third largest export market – international education – which is worth $21.8 billion annually, Australian trade officials have told Fairfax Media.

The trend is so marked that the once affectionate moniker for Chinese students returning home, "sea turtles", has changed to "seaweed". ...



I question Australian education too when what the Chinese students are questioning is the utility of a higher education gained in Australia to a person intending to return to China.

But as for the "seaweed", yeah, it's about time. Question the hell out of that, and push for something better in your own homeland.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on October 05, 2017, 07:16:02 PM
Let the punishments begin! cbcbcbcbcb

https://www.shanghaiexpat.com/news/china-punishes-airlines-and-airports-frequently-see-delays

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Nolefan on October 10, 2017, 12:21:02 AM
Let the punishments begin! cbcbcbcbcb

https://www.shanghaiexpat.com/news/china-punishes-airlines-and-airports-frequently-see-delays

funny thing is that the airlines are not at fault... they're only allowed to use one small part of of the airspace which is the real cause of all the delays. Once there's a turbulence in one particular area, it's almost impossible to re-route and thus everything gets clogged. Unless they change the rules and open it up, no chance in hell for real changes
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on November 26, 2017, 11:26:21 PM
Deaths as major explosion flattens part of Chinese port city (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/26/major-explosion-in-chinese-port-city-injures-dozens-say-reports)

Buildings collapse and vehicles destroyed as explosion in eastern port city of Ningbo leaves more than 30 casualties

A factory explosion in a port city south of Shanghai on Sunday killed at least two people and injured at least 30 others as it knocked down buildings and left streets littered with damaged cars and debris, news reports said.

The explosion struck a factory in a riverfront neighborhood in Ningbo, one of China’s busiest ports, the official Xinhua News Agency and other outlets reported. A police statement said the cause of the 8.55am blast was under investigation....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: old34 on December 11, 2017, 07:42:19 AM
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/ooqslvnah6-ENzip8KbAGw (https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/ooqslvnah6-ENzip8KbAGw)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on December 17, 2017, 08:32:19 PM
China's [Maker, Naomi Wu, aka] 'sexy cyborg' took on Silicon Valley bro culture — and won (http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-china-sexy-cyborg-2017-story.html)

There’s no mistaking Naomi Wu amid Shenzhen’s deliverymen and investors.

Her long, auburn-dyed hair falls over tight, low-cut tops; her miniskirts reveal more. Wu often wears these outfits in do-it-yourself videos that show her devising an LED-lit skirt or creating heels that hide hacking tools.

Wu calls herself a “sexy cyborg.” She also calls herself a “maker,” the term for tech hobbyists who build creative DIY projects. Her endeavors have earned Wu 157,000 subscribers on YouTube and more than 43,000 Twitter followers in a country that blocks both platforms. She has more than 700 supporters on Patreon, a crowd-funding site.

But in recent weeks she’s received even more attention — first from skeptical online commentators and then from Dale Dougherty, a California executive who helped launch the maker movement. They accused her of fraud....



Quotable: "...or her technical skills (she taught herself to code because she was an English major and needed work)."

Was almost going to post this article for my students, but then thought mmmmmm, no.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on December 28, 2017, 01:37:25 AM
In one metric of diversity, China comes in dead last (https://qz.com/1163632/china-still-has-the-smallest-share-of-incoming-migrants-in-the-world/)

China is changing fast. Over the past several decades, the country has transformed economically and culturally at a pace the world has rarely seen.

Despite this metamorphosis, one thing remains the same: China has almost no migrants coming to the country. According to recently released estimates from the United Nations, as of July 2017 there were almost exactly 1 million migrants in mainland China. (People born in Hong Kong and Macau now living in China are considered migrants by the UN.) That’s just 0.07% of all people in the country, meaning China has the fewest share of migrants of any country in the world. By comparison, migrants make up 15.6% of the US population...



At 15 years in, I am #notamigrant
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on December 29, 2017, 06:07:03 PM
According to the article, you need permanent residency to be counted as a migrant.  If all goes according to plan, I'll be getting mine in about 3 months.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on January 08, 2018, 11:09:41 PM
Molten roadways down under.  aoaoaoaoao

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/australia-heatwave-weather-hot-road-melting-highway-emergency-services-warning-latest-a8145366.html

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on January 09, 2018, 12:03:28 PM
No wonder I'm "hot stuff" EL! afafafafaf uuuuuuuuuu ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on January 09, 2018, 03:24:23 PM
GM, you are the hottest! akakakakak

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/sydney-clocks-the-hottest-place-on-earth-as-hot-weather-continues-20180107-h0etl6
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on February 03, 2018, 08:18:07 PM
How WeChat came to rule China (https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/1/16721230/wechat-china-app-mini-programs-messaging-electronic-id-system)

China’s most popular messaging app, WeChat, has always had a close relationship with the Chinese government. The app has been subsidized by the government since its creation in 2011, and it’s an accepted reality that officials censor and monitor users. Now, WeChat is poised to take on an even greater role: an initiative is underway to integrate WeChat with China’s electronic ID system....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on February 09, 2018, 09:08:23 PM
Missing:  One red Tesla.  Last seen being driven away by a guy in a white suit.

https://www.space.com/39618-elon-musk-falcon-heavy-spacex-reaction.html
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on February 27, 2018, 03:27:37 PM
Specter of one-man rule looms as China lifts Xi’s term limit (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/china-removes-online-criticism-of-plan-to-extend-xis-rule/2018/02/26/48d7c276-1acf-11e8-98f5-ceecfa8741b6_story.html?utm_term=.e4de2dec0368)

BEIJING — For some Chinese, their feelings about plans to lift term limits to allow President Xi Jinping to rule indefinitely can be represented best by a cuddly stuffed bear.

Social media users shared images of Winnie the Pooh hugging a jar of honey along with the quote, “Find the thing you love and stick with it.”

The Disney bear’s image has often been compared to Xi, prompting periodic blocks on the use of Pooh pictures online.

Other online commenters wrote, “Attention, the vehicle is reversing” — an automated announcement used by Chinese delivery vehicles — suggesting that China is returning to the era of former dictator Mao Zedong or even imperial rule.

Analysts say the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s move to enable Xi to stay in power indefinitely will ensure some degree of political stability while also reviving the specter of a return to one-man rule....



is it just me or is this country getting ready to not need me no more...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Nolefan on March 05, 2018, 07:56:00 PM
https://curiousmindmagazine.com/harvard-psychologist-says-adhd-largely-fraud/ (https://curiousmindmagazine.com/harvard-psychologist-says-adhd-largely-fraud/)

Harvard Psychologist, rated higher than Pavlov, calls out ADHD as bullshit
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on March 06, 2018, 12:41:27 PM
Over-diagnosed ? YES
Over-prescribed ? YES

Total BS?  NO
Would love to see him manage a school room with 4 preteens who all have ADHD
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on May 23, 2018, 10:00:40 PM
Chinese government 'considering scrapping limits on family size' (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/22/chinese-government-considering-scrapping-limits-on-family-size)

Shares in Chinese companies that make and sell baby products have surged after a report said China is considering plans to scrap limits on the number of children a couple can have.

Companies like Shanghai Aiyingshi, which runs a chain of stores selling baby products, infant care device makers, and others saw their shares rise as much as 10% on Tuesday. China’s Shanghai Composite index rose 0.51 points to its highest close in more than a month.

On Monday, Bloomberg reported that China’s state council has commissioned research on the impacts of ending limits on the number of children families can have, citing anonymous sources familiar with government deliberations....



Yay?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on May 25, 2018, 09:29:45 PM
I think the government was hoping the 2 child limit would result in a larger increase in the birth rate than actually happened.  As living standards increase, the number of 0 and 1 child families tends to rise in nearly every country.  Poverty eradication efforts reduce the "I need lots of kids to keep me fed in my old age" mindset.

I think it now comes down to "how to we get more children, but not an excessively large supply of children?"  Maybe some special exceptions like the old 1 child policy could be applied to the 2 child policy.  Maybe a 3 child policy would be needed.  Or, maybe unlimited is what we'll see in a few years.  I'd love to see how they set up their computer models to analyze the probable outcomes of different policy changes.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on May 26, 2018, 06:18:21 PM
I don't get any sense of what a large Chinese family would look like. It'd be damn interesting to find out, I guess. But I don't know anyone who is geared to that kind of functioning. For giggles I sometimes ask classes about having kids and I get no sense at all that anyone knows what a family is beyond the usual pressure funnel: 4 grandparents press on 2 parents who press on 1 child. Asking about 2 or more children is like saying that model is wrong, which makes people look at me sideways.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on May 27, 2018, 01:16:22 PM
I hadn't really thought about it, but perhaps it explains my observations of Chinese folks at "the den". I find many of them to be all about themselves and what they can get. I guess that they don't really have to consider anyone else if they grow up in a small family. bjbjbjbjbj
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on May 29, 2018, 05:44:48 PM
What's amazing to me is the number of Chinese families who "missed the memo".  I know a lot of people born after the original policy who have one or more younger siblings.  Also, penalties varied widely.  I've met a few parents who said "It's ok, we'll just pay the fine."  Don't forget that the the old policy had quite a few exceptions.  Of those with families I've met, I don't think I know very many only children with no aunts or uncles.

As standards of living improve, average family sizes go down.  Individual exceptions happen, but the averages hold up well around the world.  If things continue on this path, world populations should peak somewhere in the 10-11 billion range, and then will start to slowly decline.  Who knows, some countries may eventually put in a minimum 2 children per couple policy.



Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on May 30, 2018, 11:57:55 AM
I like to sit and observe people in my local shopping centre and other places. I am constantly saying that if I were in charge, I wouldn't allow 90% of people to breed. bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on July 25, 2018, 01:57:46 PM
Not Feeling Safe in China (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/07/23/american-academic-leaves-china-citing-concerns-about-physical-safety)

American academic leaves China after losing his post, saying that “China has reached a point where I do not feel safe being a professor and discussing even the economy, business and financial markets.”

By Elizabeth Redden
July 23, 2018

An American professor who lost his post at an elite Chinese university is now leaving China, citing concerns about his personal safety.

“China has reached a point where I do not feel safe being a professor and discussing even the economy, business and financial markets,” Christopher Balding wrote in a blog post about his departure from Peking University HSBC Business School, in Shenzhen, and his subsequent decision to leave China.

Balding has a prolific presence on Twitter, which is blocked in China, and frequently appears in the media commenting on issues related to the Chinese economy, including as a television commentator for Bloomberg and in opinion pieces for Bloomberg and Foreign Policy. In August of last year, Balding spearheaded a petition calling on Cambridge University Press to resist the Chinese government’s demand that it censor articles in the China Quarterly journal. (Cambridge originally assented to the government’s request to block access to hundreds of journal articles in mainland China, but reversed course after coming under heavy criticism from academics like Balding.)...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Just Like Mr Benn on July 26, 2018, 04:39:30 AM
probably a good idea. I didn't think he was safe either. In fact I was waiting for him to be deported to establish some canary in a coalmine parameters for just how vocal an opponent of the government one could be.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 10, 2018, 02:06:17 PM
Chinese leadership is facing a rare backlash for its handling of the US trade dispute (https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/09/handling-of-us-trade-dispute-causes-rift-in-chinese-leadership-source.html)

A growing trade war with the United States is causing rifts within China's Communist Party, with some critics saying that an overly nationalistic Chinese stance may have hardened the U.S. position, according to four sources close to the government.

President Xi Jinping still has a firm grip on power, but an unusual surge of criticism about economic policy and how the government has handled the trade war has revealed rare cracks in the ruling Communist Party.

A backlash is being felt at the highest levels of the government, possibly hitting a close aide to Xi, his ideology chief and strategist Wang Huning, according to two sources familiar with discussions in leadership circles....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 12, 2018, 02:36:32 PM
United Nations fears more than one million could be detained in China in ‘secret internment camp’ (https://www.news.com.au/world/asia/united-nations-fears-more-than-one-million-could-be-detained-in-china-in-secret-internment-camp/news-story/165197c061ac2090647845724e348850)

CHINA could have more than one million people detained in what United Nations officials have described as a “massive internment camp that is shrouded in secrecy”.

Many credible reports suggest that Uighurs and Muslim minorities have been forced into “political camps for indoctrination” in western Xinjiang, according to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

Western Xinjian is an autonomous region of China, and UN officials believe Beijing could be treating ethnic minorities as “enemies of the state”....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 29, 2018, 05:56:58 PM
China moves to end two-child limit, finishing decades of family planning (https://edition.cnn.com/2018/08/28/asia/china-family-planning-one-child-intl/index.html)

The Chinese government could be moving to end birth restrictions, amid growing concerns over an aging population and a dropping birth rate.

Under current family planning rules, the majority of Chinese couples are limited to two children, following an easing of the country's notorious "one-child policy" in 2016. These restrictions now look set to be further relaxed under a new draft reform to the country's Civil Code, potentially allowing families to have multiple children for the first time in decades.

According to a brief statement released Tuesday by the National People's Congress, the new revised code "will no longer retain the relevant content of family planning."...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on August 30, 2018, 12:42:08 PM
Given the number of Chinese folk I see in Oz, there should now be plenty of room left in China for more people. bjbjbjbjbj
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on August 30, 2018, 05:40:51 PM
I had a feeling they'd relax the policy further.  I'm just a little surprised that they are taking it all the way (instead of having a 3 child policy as the next step) and are planning to do this so soon.  Looks like 2020 is the target.

Given the number of Chinese folk I see in Oz, there should now be plenty of room left in China for more people. bjbjbjbjbj

LMAO!  You're outnumbered. ahahahahah

If one Chinese person in 50 moved to Australia, the population of Australia would more than double.


Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on August 31, 2018, 12:25:55 PM
Give them time EL! bibibibibi I can tell you that I feel outnumbered at "the den". I often look around the room and find that I'm the only non Asian there. I know that there are quite a few really big Asian gamblers who play the tables. As for the "pokies",the majority that I see, play small amounts, but regularly. All I know is that it has become very hard to win on the pokies; I keep records.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on September 03, 2018, 04:26:26 PM
Give them time EL! bibibibibi I can tell you that I feel outnumbered at "the den". I often look around the room and find that I'm the only non Asian there. I know that there are quite a few really big Asian gamblers who play the tables. As for the "pokies",the majority that I see, play small amounts, but regularly. All I know is that it has become very hard to win on the pokies; I keep records.

Sounds like your opponents are better at calculating the odds than you.  Either that or it's harder for you to spot those subtle "tells" to let you know who's bluffing.  You might want to spend a day or two just watching them play poker and see if you can catch any of those little details.  It should be easier to do while you don't have your own cards to worry about.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on September 04, 2018, 12:21:56 PM
EL, I don't play table games and never have done. I only play the Poker Machines and then I only play 50cents a go an some machines and $1 on the others. I could not afford to play the tables with the minimum bet $20. bibibibibi The BIG table games gamblers are the Asian folks and it is usually the males.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on September 04, 2018, 04:10:20 PM
Maybe your casino has rigged the machines, since the tourists don't stick around long enough to keep records.  They either could have reduced total payouts or else reduced the number and amount of small payouts in favor of a few more BIG wins - since that would likely start a stampede of players (who don't understand the long term odds) seeing how fast they could feed money into the machines.  Either way, the casino wins more and unless you hit a big jackpot, you win less. kkkkkkkkkk
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on September 05, 2018, 12:46:33 PM
EL, I used to play one type of poker machine at $3 a spin, but that was over 10yrs ago. I just had a quick check and I had at least four big wins in the 20 and 30 thousand dollars each. The "Den" had a magazine and with one's permission, photos were taken of the big winners. Big cardboard cheques were written and the winner would hold one for the photo. I noticed that things started to change, possibly because of the influx of overseas gamblers and the increase in numbers of the local and interstate gamblers. This was not only on the poker machines, but also at the gaming tables. I decided then that I would only play for fun, hence my only playing one and two cent poker machines at 50cents or one dollar a go. Some of the table games have minimum bets of $200 or more aoaoaoaoao I have told you who usually plays these tables. bjbjbjbjbj
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on September 05, 2018, 03:31:49 PM
I shudder to think what the minimums must be in the high stakes VIP rooms. aoaoaoaoao
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on September 06, 2018, 12:07:59 PM
Me too EL! aoaoaoaoao Even if I had the money, I couldn't play the amounts that some folks play.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on September 12, 2018, 06:21:21 PM
A government institute gave China’s biggest celebrity a low 'social responsibility’ rating. She hasn’t been seen for months. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/09/11/government-institute-gave-chinas-biggest-celebrity-low-social-responsibility-rating-she-hasnt-been-seen-months/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.09468104d6ae)

Fan Bingbing is one of China’s biggest celebrities, a ubiquitous actress, model and singer who earned more in 2016 than Hollywood A-listers such as Amy Adams and Charlize Theron, according to Forbes.

But in July, the “X-Men” actress suddenly vanished. And in the weeks since, the mystery surrounding her disappearance from public view has only deepened amid speculation that she ran afoul of Chinese authorities.

The latest clue emerged Tuesday after a state-affiliated think tank and Beijing university ranked Fan dead last in their annual “Social Responsibility Report” — she earned a 0 out of 100 — citing her “negative social impact,” among other things....


/weird
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on October 06, 2018, 06:20:01 PM
French police probe Interpol president Meng Hongwei's disappearance (https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/05/europe/interpol-president-meng-hongwei-disappearance-intl/index.html)

The Chinese president of Interpol, the international police agency, has vanished.

Meng Hongwei was not on French soil when he was last seen, according a senior French law enforcement official, who declined to say whether he was in China.

Meng's wife went to police in Lyon, where Interpol is based, Thursday night to report his disappearance, according to a statement released by the French Interior Ministry on Friday. The spouse told police that she had last heard from him 10 days ago and had recently received threats via social networks and by telephone, according to the statement....



fingered by Fan Bingbing most like
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on February 17, 2019, 01:38:57 AM
Breast size unaffected by coconut drink, Chinese maker admits after ads fall flat (https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2186311/breast-size-unaffected-coconut-drink-chinese-maker-admits-after)

The Chinese beverage company which claimed its coconut milk would enlarge women’s breasts has bowed to public pressure and replaced its offending advertising campaign with a more wholesome, less misleading, version.

Xu Dongdong, a representative from Hainan Coconut Palm Group, also admitted to local media on Wednesday that his company’s product did not have breast enlarging properties.

Coconut Palm was criticised on Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, for its adverts featuring large-chested women in skimpy tops alongside slogans such as “drink one can every day, [your] curves will excite people, whiter and more plump”, “I drink from small to big” and “drinking more coconut milk every day can make [your] breasts fuller”....


#breakingnews, #burstingnews, #letdown, #deflated
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on February 18, 2019, 03:39:32 PM
When I first came to China, there was this looong TV commercial about some sort of pushup bra (almost a corset) that also pushed pressure points on the body to make breasts grow.

Obviously, if it worked, it would be the most popular bra in the world by now.  Still, I miss the commercials. afafafafaf
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on February 18, 2019, 11:19:03 PM
Zara blames China for freckles

(http://img2.chinadaily.com.cn/images/201902/18/5c69f528a3106c65fffa498d.jpeg)

#proof
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on February 19, 2019, 11:51:24 AM
Calach, I don't think that I have seen an Asian person with freckles. I will start to take notice. Why does she blame China? bjbjbjbjbj
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on February 19, 2019, 02:42:33 PM
Story is a definite a beatup. Online toxicity isn't news except when Chinese news media try to be Korean and make out like online sandboxes, aka "netizens", are part of society.


Zara was forced to explain itself after Chinese netizens said its feature of a freckle-faced top model was insulting (https://www.businessinsider.my/zara-was-forced-to-explain-itself-after-chinese-netizens-said-its-feature-of-a-freckle-faced-top-model-was-insulting/)

Gigi Hadid, Emma Watson, Lucy Liu, Kylie and Kendall Jenner – these are just some of the world’s beautiful women who have not been afraid to show the world their freckled complexions.

But when Chinese top model Jing Wen went au naturel on a recent Zara campaign, some netizens were not pleased.

The 25-year-old Guangdong native’s face sparked debate over the weekend when Spanish fast fashion brand Zara posted photos of her with minimal make up on its Weibo page....



"Netizens" complained too that she wasn't cheerful. It could be "refreshing", I suppose, when Chinese "netizens" don't get "fashion". Maybe a brave new world of imagery awaits us.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on February 19, 2019, 04:08:07 PM
I'll concur that she doesn't look cheerful in the photos.  Still, she's very attractive. akakakakak

I do not understand this obsession Chinese females have for looking paler than ghosts. mmmmmmmmmm
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on February 19, 2019, 08:51:17 PM
Interesting idea I read recently. It said whiter skin isn't the simple cultural phenomenon it used to be anymore because nowadays individuals can purchase whiteness for themselves. Bleaching creams, face masks, makeup of all sorts, are available at the level of the consumer, meaning we have to ask what we're seeing when we see whitened skin: is it a beauty ideal or an instance of someone construing consumption as social agency (they buy whitening cremes and thereby make themselves better). I suppose this idea applies to all beauty products and probably men's fashion too and not just skin bleachers. But in the case of skin whitening, it's interesting, the thought that people aren't (wholly) expressing a beauty ideal but instead harping on the existence of their own agency. Maybe people's jimmies rustled most of all because showing a fashion model who was neither white nor even uniformly pink suggests, paradoxically, that celebrating normal looking people *removes* those normal looking people's ability to better themselves.

 aoaoaoaoao



Plus, she has freckles anyway. No smiles in that life.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on February 20, 2019, 01:01:14 PM
 When I was young, most of the girls liked to be tan, so we spent a long time in the sun. I still prefer to not be white; fortunately I have olive skin. As a matter of interest, there was an older Asian man in the elevator with me and I couldn't believe he had freckles. It just goes to show that I don't "perv" on the men. ahahahahah  I am definitely going to take more notice of the Asian ladies as well. bfbfbfbfbf
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on February 20, 2019, 03:07:12 PM
Chinese Bodybuilder Fights China’s Internet Police After Her Video was Called ‘Pornographic’ (https://nextshark.com/lara-zhang-female-bodybuilder/)

Lara Zhang, a Chinese female bodybuilder based in Australia, became engaged in a social media feud with China’s internet police after she was accused of posting obscene video content online.

In the video, which was posted in Zhang’s Weibo account, the International Federation of BodyBuilding and Fitness (IFBB) Bikini competitor can be seen wearing a bikini typical of professional bodybuilders during competition.

Zhang then demonstrates several poses she performs in competitions, according to SupChina (https://supchina.com/2019/02/18/chinese-female-bodybuilder-in-feud-with-internet-police-over-bikini-videos/).



#nofreckles
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on March 18, 2019, 11:08:58 PM
The Intercept Shuts Down Access to Snowden Trove (https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-intercept-shuts-down-access-to-snowden-trove)

First Look Media, the company that owns the Intercept, also announced that it was laying off several of the researchers who had been charged with maintaining the documents.

First Look Media announced Wednesday that it was shutting down access to whistleblower Edward Snowden’s massive trove of leaked National Security Agency documents.

Over the past several years, The Intercept, which is owned by First Look Media, has maintained a research team to handle the large number of documents provided by Snowden to Intercept journalists Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald.

But in an email to staff Wednesday evening, First Look CEO Michael Bloom said that as other major news outlets had “ceased reporting on it years ago,” The Intercept had decided to “focus on other editorial priorities” after expending five years combing through the archive.

“The Intercept is proud of its reporting on the Snowden archive, and we are thankful to Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald for making it available to us,” Bloom wrote.

He added: “It is our hope that Glenn and Laura are able to find a new partner—such as an academic institution or research facility—that will continue to report on and publish the documents in the archive consistent with the public interest.”...


 eeeeeeeeee
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on May 07, 2019, 06:22:53 PM
2019 Pentagon Report to Congress on Chinese Military Development (https://news.usni.org/2019/05/03/2019-pentagon-report-to-congress-on-chinese-military-development)

The following is the Pentagon’s annual report to Congress, Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2019. The report was released on May 2, 2019.

From the report
WHAT IS CHINA’S STRATEGY?

China’s leaders have benefited from what they view as a “period of strategic opportunity” during the initial two decades of the 21st
century to develop domestically and expand China’s “comprehensive national power.”

Over the coming decades, they are focused on realizing a powerful and prosperous China that is equipped with a “world-class” military, securing China’s status as a great power with the aim of emerging as the preeminent power in the Indo-Pacific region.

In 2018, China continued harnessing an array of economic, foreign policy, and security tools to realize this vision. Ongoing state-led efforts, which China implements both at home and abroad and which often feature economic and diplomatic initiatives, also support China’s security and military objectives:


Recognizing that programs such as “Made in China 2025” and OBOR have sparked concerns about China’s intentions, China’s leaders have softened their rhetoric when promoting these programs without altering the programs’ fundamental strategic goals.

Download the document here. (https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/5987010/2019-CHINA-MILITARY-POWER-REPORT.pdf)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on May 14, 2019, 06:28:28 PM
May 13, 2019.  ADDT's New Method of Durian Beast Containment Works Better Than Expected.  Zero Human Casualties!

The Australian Durian Defense Team successfully dealt with a hatched durian beast in the University of Canberra's library.  Despite integration of durian scent detectors into the building's fire alarm system, there was no warning before it hatched.  Evidently, a human who had been brain damaged by consuming durian sealed a durian egg inside of several layers of plastic and hid it on a high shelf in a remote corner of the library.

In order to minimize damage, flame throwers were not deployed.  Instead, a recently developed alternative method was used.  The beast was temporarily disabled by armor piercing bullets and then immobilized by spraying it with several hundred liters of liquid nitrogen.  It was then transported to a remote location and incinerated.  The ADDT reported that this method worked even better than expected and there were no human casualties.

To prevent panic, the evacuation of approximately 550 people was simply blamed on the stench of durian.  It's believe that none of the librarians or patrons became aware of the horrific danger they were in.  The cover story has been published to reduce suspicion over the incident.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/college-library-evacuated-for-gas-leak-turns-out-it-was-just-the-stench-of-durian-a-horrendously-smelly-fruit/
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on June 26, 2019, 03:02:24 PM
Australians' trust in China at lowest point in survey's history (https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jun/25/australians-trust-in-china-at-lowest-point-in-surveys-history)

Australians are increasingly wary about China, and worry about the potential for foreign interference in our democracy, according to new polling from a major foreign policy thinktank.

The Lowy Institute poll suggests trust by Australians in China to be a responsible global actor has hit its lowest point since the survey began 15 years ago. Only 32% of the sample say they trust China to act responsibly, a 20-point plunge from the survey in 2018 and 15 points lower than the previous low of 47% recorded in 2008.

Clear majorities also feel Australia is too economically dependent on China (74%) and there is too much inbound investment from Beijing (68%). Only 30% of survey respondents have confidence in the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, to be a positive contributor to global affairs, which is down 13 points since 2018....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on July 25, 2019, 03:42:21 PM
Sounds like Floridians complaining about tourists.  If the tourists stopped coming, then they could complain about all the shops and restaurants laying off people or going out of business.  Even so, most people in Florida don't like tourists.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on July 25, 2019, 11:19:51 PM
 kkkkkkkkkk kkkkkkkkkk bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on July 26, 2019, 10:33:10 AM
For economic impact on Australia, India is the new China. Same issues with academic misconduct, same problems with classroom language, but altogether far less perceived risk of government-backed belligerence. Sign up for your free Gandhi Institute classes now!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on July 26, 2019, 11:39:37 AM
I keep wondering when English will no longer be the first language in Qz! bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on July 26, 2019, 03:19:41 PM
And the new world's factory is Vietnam
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 06, 2019, 07:02:45 PM
China's strange strategy (https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/aug/5/chinas-strange-strategy/)

Xi's approach to the rest of the world is predatory, and this isn't a way to make China great

By Gary Anderson - - Monday, August 5, 2019
ANALYSIS/OPINION:

China’s President Xi Jinping has made no secret of his desire to make China a true world-spanning superpower, but he is attempting implementation of that objective with a very strange strategy.

True world superpowers are relatively rare; the Roman Empire, Great Britain from Trafalgar to World War I, and the United States since the end of World War II all qualify. Each had three dominant characteristics. The first was that each possessed the world’s greatest economy in its time, the second was unchallenged control of the seas. Finally, each had a series of alliances and clients to help with the burden of maintaining international stability during their respective periods of international dominance.

With the possible exception of seeking economic supremacy, Mr. Xi’s approach to world spanning dominance is curious indeed. China has the potential for true superpower status, but so did Athens, Carthage, Imperial France and the former Soviet Union. Under Mr. Xi, China appears to be making several of the key mistakes that tripped up past imperial wannabes.

From an economic standpoint, conventional wisdom has it that China will economically overtake the United States in the 2030-2050 time frame depending on who is counting. But even here, China has several fissures that should cause Mr. Xi concern. A few years ago, “60 Minutes” did an investigative report on China’s potentially disastrous building bubble that revealed the construction of whole cities worth of housing which have yet to develop a market.

China’s banking system also shows weaknesses that are the natural result of its uncomfortable mix of a command economy tradition with a largely unregulated banking system. That, combined with an opaque legal system, has all of the elements that have created historical great depressions.

In addition, China’s run of nearly three decades of unprecedented growth has slowed dramatically of late. In many ways, China shows some of the signs that presaged Japan’s economic collapse of the 1990s. Chinese economic dominance is no sure thing.

From a naval perspective, China has been a traditional land power throughout its history, but this did not stop either Rome or the United States from becoming true superpowers by building great fleets to defeat naval threats from competitors. In fact, naval historian Andrew Lambert points out in his recent book “Seapower States” that Great Britain was the only voluntary sea power state to become an unchallenged superpower.

Rome and the United States resisted their natural continental instincts and built great navies out of perceived necessity. China has actually built an anti-navy, and is now attempting to give it power projection aspirations; this is a very hard thing to do as Germany in both World Wars and the Soviet Union in the Cold War found to their dismay.

It is very difficult to imagine China defeating the American fleet on the open ocean beyond the South China Sea or projecting a great army by naval means to a conflict in Africa or the Middle East in President Xi’s lifetime.

Perhaps the greatest impediment to Mr. Xi’s superpower aspiration is in the area of allies. Rome, Great Britain and America built great international security systems upon a series of alliances and client relationships. Although Rome is usually viewed as a conquering imperial construct, its glory was originally built on Italian alliances and the cultivation of overseas clients which allowed it to use military economy of force.

As military historian Edward Luttwak points out, Rome’s military and economic power began to decline once its emperors decided to go it alone from a security standpoint.

Mr. Xi has adopted the traditional Chinese view that the Middle Kingdom has two types of relationships, adversaries and tributaries. It bullies its neighbors in the South China Sea claiming that body of water to be a virtual Chinese lake.

Overseas, the Chinese Great Belt Road initiative is the anti-Marshall Plan. Its loans to potential partners are predatory, and its management of infrastructure building in Asia and Africa is virtually assured of making enemies of local populations. Athens, Carthage, Germany, Imperial Japan and the former Soviet Union failed to achieve true superpower status by treating allies and clients like subjects. China’s Xi seems to be reading from their play books.

None of this means that China cannot become a true superpower, but it will not likely happen under Mr. Xi. Although he has consolidated power in China to an extent not seen since Mao, Mr. Xi’s approach to the rest of the world is predatory. Making China great again may be delayed.



One thing you can say about Trump is his presidency has greenlit this kind of commentary. For the longest time seems like the overarching narrative about China was only ever one of opportunity and positive growth (and some human rights concerns). That narrative, seems like, has shifted in the last year or so.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 20, 2019, 03:05:05 PM
The “Post-Truth” Publication Where Chinese Students in America Get Their News (https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-post-truth-publication-where-chinese-students-in-america-get-their-news)

On a Monday morning in February, members of the staff of College Daily, an online Chinese-language publication for Chinese students living in North America, gathered in their office, in Times Square, for an editorial meeting. Guan Tong, the editorial director of the New York bureau, reviewed traffic numbers from the previous week. Staring at her MacBook, she seemed satisfied with what she saw. A piece by College Daily’s founder, Lin Guoyu, about the blockbuster Chinese movie “The Wandering Earth,” had garnered more than a million page views; its headline was “Of Course, Only Chinese People Can Save Planet Earth.” The healthy numbers came as a surprise: it was Lunar New Year, which tends to be a slow week for College Daily. “No need to worry about low traffic during Lunar New Year anymore,” Guan said cheerily.

A writer—who, like the other staff members, appeared to be in her twenties—pitched another post on “The Wandering Earth,” which had topped the global box office the previous weekend. (College Daily had already published a dozen posts on the film.) “The Wandering Earth” was proof, the writer said, that “we Chinese don’t emphasize individual heroism—we concentrate our energy to tackle major tasks. . . . Unlike American individualism, collectivism is a Chinese sentiment.” Guan approved the idea.

Guan shifted her focus to a staff writer named Deng He, who was known for authoring baokuan, or “explosive-style” posts—articles that get hundreds of thousands of clicks and shares. College Daily’s office was adorned with photos of Deng, who is twenty-six and nicknamed He-he: He-he flipping his hair and gazing into the camera like a pop star; He-he in a swivel chair, holding a giant container of popcorn. On the same office wall was a list of banned words and phrases (“Falun Gong,” “Dalai Lama,” “Panama Papers”), guidelines for image selection (“Please do not use photos of national leaders. If you have to, please discuss with the person in charge of the article”), and a list of cash awards that writers could earn for writing pieces that brought in clicks; an article that got a million page views could win its author more than a thousand dollars...



Excerpted for aaaaaaaaaa-factor:
"College Daily’s success can be partly attributed to its lack of direct competitors. Mainstream Chinese media tend to see Chinese students abroad as an élite class of spoiled children, and sometimes question their allegiances; Chinese-language papers based in America, such as China Press or Epoch Times (which has links to the Falun Gong and is vocally opposed to the Chinese Communist Party), traditionally serve an older, less affluent generation of immigrants. Chinese students will find little that resonates with their daily lives or sensibilities in these publications, and the vast majority of them likely find English-language news inaccessible."

YAY!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on September 14, 2019, 02:17:38 PM
China is starting to eat into its emergency reserves of pork (https://edition.cnn.com/2019/09/12/business/china-pork-reserves-african-swine-fever/index.html)

China's pork crisis has gotten so bad that some of its cities are starting to tap into their precious strategic reserves of frozen pig meat.

At least four cities or provinces that are home to roughly 130 million people have begun drawing down stocks to flood the market with frozen pork in an attempt to stabilize prices and boost supply. Pork consumption is vital to Chinese culture, and availability is important this weekend when China celebrates its second biggest holiday of the year.

The release of local reserves is the latest example of how China is trying to deal with the crisis — but even that might not be enough to solve the problem, experts say. The world's largest pork market has been ravaged by an outbreak of African swine fever, and it's lost more than 100 million pigs in the last year, either because of disease or because farmers don't want to restock pigs after they die. The decline in pig supply has driven pork prices up nearly 50% in the last year...



#yummyyummypigeonmeat
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on September 16, 2019, 07:18:28 PM
USA - Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
China - Strategic Pork Reserve.

Both are important, but I'm happy living in a place with an emergency pork reserve. agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on September 17, 2019, 02:13:32 PM
You're making up weird arguments again. China has a strategic petroleum reserve too and the US reserves helium and grain, both better for your digestion and comedy storytelling after the apocalypse.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on September 17, 2019, 05:40:29 PM
Shane Gillis: Saturday Night Live's new hire fired for slurs (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49722926)

US comedy sketch show Saturday Night Live has dropped a new cast member after videos surfaced online of him making slurs about Chinese people.

Shane Gillis, 31, came under fire soon after his casting was announced when footage resurfaced from a podcast featuring the comic...



Slurs?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vf2FmWSFtZc


You can't party with ladyboys? I bet you can.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on September 26, 2019, 06:07:09 PM
You're making up weird arguments again. China has a strategic petroleum reserve too and the US reserves helium and grain, both better for your digestion and comedy storytelling after the apocalypse.

I love making up weird arguments. agagagagag

I'm sure both countries have a wide variety of strategic reserves, but find can't help being amused at which gets the most press.

Think I'll enjoy some emergency frozen hot dogs for dinner.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on September 26, 2019, 08:58:03 PM
Australia's Gladys Liu scandal shows how the Chinese Communist Party is weaponizing race (https://edition.cnn.com/2019/09/23/opinions/gladys-liu-china-australia-opinion-intl-hnk/index.html)

A minor political scandal in Australia has shone a bright light on the threat the Chinese Communist Party and its chauvinistic attitude to race poses to Chinese-heritage politicians in democracies across the world.

In May 2019, Gladys Liu from the Victorian seat of Chisholm became the first female Chinese-Australian elected to sit in the Australian Lower House of Parliament. That was a significant milestone and not before time given there are approximately 1.2 million citizens with Chinese ancestry in a nation of 25 million. What was then a celebration of progress with respect to ethnic diversity amongst the ranks of politicians has descended into controversy.

Over the past month, it was revealed that Liu was previously associated with Australia-based organizations with alleged ties to the United Front Work Department of the Chinese Communist Party. Known as an effective fund raiser for her Liberal Party, there are also questions about the links of those donors to Beijing, which Liu allegedly tapped for money.

[...]

Regardless of how this plays out for Liu, the deeply uncomfortable issue for pluralistic democratic societies of the link between race and allegiance has been pulled into the spotlight...



Chinese isn't a race.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on September 29, 2019, 07:09:27 PM
Trump considers delisting Chinese firms from U.S. markets: sources (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-china-limits/trump-considers-delisting-chinese-firms-from-us-markets-source-idUSKBN1WC1VP)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s administration is considering delisting Chinese companies from U.S. stock exchanges, three sources briefed on the matter said on Friday, in what would be a radical escalation of U.S.-China trade tensions.

The move would be part of a broader effort to limit U.S. investment in Chinese companies, two of the sources said. One said it was motivated by the Trump administration’s growing security concerns about the companies’ activities.

Major U.S. stock indexes slipped on the news, which came days before China celebrates the 70th anniversary of the birth of the People’s Republic on Oct. 1, when the world’s No. 2 economy will shut down for a week of festivities...



#doit #DOIT #DOITNAOW
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on October 07, 2019, 10:45:44 PM
China breeds giant pigs the size of polar bears as African swine fever causes pork shortage (https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3031734/china-breeds-giant-pigs-size-polar-bears-african-swine-fever)

In a farm deep in a southern region of China lives a very big pig that is as heavy as a polar bear.

The 500kg (1,102lbs) animal is part of a herd being bred to become giant swine. At slaughter, some of the pigs can sell for more than 10,000 yuan (US$1,400), over three times the average monthly disposable income in Nanning, the capital of Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, where Pang Cong, the farm’s owner, lives.



More yummy tasty pork! agagagagag  Pigs bigger than polar bears.  aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on October 26, 2019, 09:47:28 AM
I so want to believe that this is true

It is feasible and anyone who considers themselves a writer has no excuse for writers block if you read this

https://metro.co.uk/2019/10/23/hitman-hires-hitman-hires-hitman-hires-hitman-hires-hitman-tells-police-10971438/?fbclid=IwAR1AKe6T_5IspVu5hbkYO07KPC62NZ_XmToLT1xG7t58pvUl7JtINu7vLHU
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on October 27, 2019, 08:11:41 AM
 aoaoaoaoao bibibibibi
 ahahahahah ahahahahah ahahahahah ahahahahah ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Granny Mae on October 27, 2019, 12:10:51 PM
Ivan Milat, the Australian "Backpacker's Killer" Died this morning in Prison. It's a long story, so I'll advise that you Google it.  :dancemj:
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on January 27, 2020, 04:40:11 PM
Kobe Bryant, daughter killed in copter crash, 7 others dead (https://apnews.com/98f3978b392cbd3d9143529267b1f1ee)

CALABASAS, Calif. (AP) — NBA legend Kobe Bryant, his daughter and seven others were killed Sunday when their helicopter plunged into a steep hillside in dense morning fog in Southern California, his sudden death at age 41 touching off an outpouring of grief for a star whose celebrity transcended basketball.

The chopper went down in Calabasas, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Authorities said nine people were aboard and presumed dead. Bryant, an all-time basketball great who spent his entire 20-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers, was among the victims, a person familiar with the situation told The Associated Press.

Bryant’s 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, also was killed, a different person familiar with the case said....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on January 27, 2020, 11:20:16 PM
 aoaoaoaoao
 ananananan ananananan ananananan ananananan ananananan ananananan ananananan ananananan ananananan

Gone too soon
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on February 09, 2020, 07:43:10 PM
In this time of viral troubles, many false rumors have circulated.  One vile and false rumor is that cats and dogs can catch the virus.

Stripy Emperor has decided to make his very first blog post.  In it, he makes it plain that there are no incidents of any cat or dog contracting the virus.  He also addresses how cats can help their humans deal with the situation.

A Cat’s Guide to the Coronavirus Outbreak
针对新冠状病毒的猫咪指南
(http://escapedlunatic.com/a-cats-guide-to-the-coronavirus-outbreak/)


Written, in English and Chinese, by Stripy Emperor.

I didn't even know he could type. ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on February 10, 2020, 02:38:35 AM
 agagagagag


Stole this onto my FB page
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on February 10, 2020, 07:28:55 PM
His Furry Imperial Majesty hopes you can share it onto some FB cat groups.

For anyone wondering, yes, the orange cat in some of the pics is Pandora.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on March 20, 2020, 03:23:44 PM
His Furry Majesty's efforts to educate cats and people in China about how to deal with the virus has made it to People's Daily.  Page 3 here:

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202003/19/WS5e72cabaa3101282172804a4.html

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on March 20, 2020, 10:29:55 PM
 agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: A-Train on April 17, 2020, 12:42:05 PM
The Wuhan healthcare workers were given a, sort of, resort to rest at.  They didn't recognize eachother without their masks and gowns.  Many had lost so much weight, they couldn't wear their normal clothes.

But, no good deed goes unpunished.  They were soon sent to the Russian border city of Manzhouli because it had not been closed and became a virus hot spot.

Oy!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on April 17, 2020, 05:00:37 PM
Sad that some are getting redeployed so soon, but dealing with any new hotspots as quickly as possible will prevent a lot of problems later on.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 03, 2020, 07:22:23 PM
‘China rocks!’ — the U.S., not so much, according to Elon Musk (https://www.marketwatch.com/story/china-rocks-the-us-not-so-much-according-to-elon-musk-2020-08-02)

China has been taking a lot of heat on the global stage these days, particularly in the U.S., where unfavorability toward the country is at its highest level since Gallup and the Pew Research Center began recording such data way back in the 1970s.

But the Middle Kingdom can count at least one high-profile fan from the other side of the planet.

That’s Tesla TSLA, -3.81% boss Elon Musk heaping praise on China — and throwing shade at the country he calls home — in a recent interview with Automotive News.

“I see in the United States increasingly much more complacency and entitlement especially in places like the Bay Area, and L.A. and New York,” Musk said, pointing to two states that have helped boost Tesla’s business through tax breaks and other incentives. In fact, the Los Angeles Times put the total amount of government help for Tesla at more than $4.9 billion...



So far ahead of the curve he's coming up ten years behind again
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on November 08, 2020, 04:22:16 PM
(https://i.redd.it/r910f7mfovv51.jpg)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on November 09, 2020, 02:40:47 AM
 agagagagag agagagagag agagagagag akakakakak bfbfbfbfbf bfbfbfbfbf
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on November 09, 2020, 04:30:27 PM
 agagagagag agagagagag agagagagag agagagagag agagagagag agagagagag agagagagag agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: El Macho on November 10, 2020, 10:43:11 AM
apologies for this but…

PFIZER VACCINE LOOKS TO BE 90% EFFECTIVE!

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/09/health/pfizer-covid-19-vaccine.html
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on November 10, 2020, 07:40:55 PM
Woohoo!  Let's hope everything else about it checks out and that a few more of the vaccines in trials turn out just as good or better.

agagagagag agagagagag agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on November 10, 2020, 10:00:12 PM
Pfizer readies 'Herculean effort' to distribute coronavirus vaccine (https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/pfizer-readies-herculean-effort-distribute-coronavirus-vaccine-n1247147)


[The quote I was looking for:]

During the shipment and storage, the vaccines must be kept at 94 degrees below zero Fahrenheit in order to maintain optimal efficacy.


That cold chain during distribution is going to be problematic in some parts of the world, maybe even all.

Nonetheless: WOOOO!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on November 11, 2020, 03:55:56 PM
There are some with more rational storage temperatures in Phase 3 trials.  A perfect case would be a room temperature stable vaccine (that was a BIG help in eradicating smallpox).
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on November 11, 2020, 05:14:35 PM
My understanding of the mRNA vaccine candidates (of which Pfizer's is one) is they are known to be stable at super low temperatures and thus that is how they are currently being managed, but that tests for stability at less low temperatures will eventually be run and it's likely that the final safe storage requirements will be less demanding, possibly even ending up at simple refrigeration levels (although that can't be counted on).

Also, since the Pfizer mRNA candidate does the same thing as the other mRNA candidates (something something spike protein mumble mumble), then Pfizer's apparent success is a likely indicator of success in the other mRNA candidates too.



Also also, I think I understood this. We're supposed to make a difference between SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19, the former being the virus, the latter being the cluster of disease effects produced by the virus. The vaccines - all of them, as far as I know - are being built to prevent serious COVID-19 arising after infection by SARS-CoV-2. That's to say, the vaccines do not stop infection, but they do stop the disease. If I understand correctly, supposing the vaccine works for you, you can still get a "bad cold", but you don't or hopefully won't get the covid.

And assuming the vaccine is coming along as quickly as Pfizer's results suggest, then probably by middle of next year we'll all be getting or have had the two jabs.



/is what I understand from bits of news I've read today.  bibibibibi
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on November 12, 2020, 04:26:22 PM
And Russia is back in the "ours is better" game, claiming their Sputnik vaccine is 92% effective.  Can anyone beat that?  Do I hear a bid for 93%?
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on December 13, 2020, 03:54:40 PM
China-Australia relations: Beijing steel group demands answers from BHP over soaring iron ore prices (https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3113623/china-australia-relations-beijing-steel-group-demands-answers)

The China Iron & Steel Association (CISA) says it had a ‘candid exchange of views’ with BHP on soaring iron ore prices on Thursday

A spike in costs threatens the profitability of Chinese steel plants, which are on track to set a record for crude steel production this year


China’s steel industry body has demanded an explanation from Anglo-Australian miner BHP about the surging cost of iron ore, in a fresh sign of Beijing’s growing frustration about runaway prices for the steelmaking ingredient.

The China Iron & Steel Association (CISA) held a video conference on Thursday with BHP executives in which there was a “candid exchange of views” on the miner’s production, sales and pricing, according to a statement from the industry group.

Luo Tiejun, a CISA vice-president and a former official at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, questioned the company about the single day price rise of US$7.5 per tonne on the Platts 62 per cent iron ore index last Friday.

The company agreed to enhance communication with the association to ensure “an open and transparent iron ore market”, according to the briefing, which was attended by BHP’s vice-president of marketing and sales, Rod Dukino, and head of sales for iron ore Rohan Roberts....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on December 14, 2020, 04:23:25 PM
Let's hope that open and transparent promise comes through.  Perhaps there's some part of the price increase that China could provide assistance for, which would greatly benefit both sides.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on December 14, 2020, 10:04:07 PM
Foreign investment clampdown prompts claims of Chinese buyers being 'frozen out' (https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2020-12-14/china-investment-freeze-foreign-relations/12967554)

Efforts by Chinese companies to buy Australian assets are being left to languish or rejected under temporary restrictions to foreign investment that experts claim are further aggravating relations between Canberra and Beijing.

In March, the Morrison Government lowered to zero the dollar value of every foreign investment bid for an Australian asset that must be screened by the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB).

The decision was taken in response to concerns about the fire-sale of Australian businesses stricken by the coronavirus pandemic, but industry sources say the measure is being used to target Chinese buyers.

Foreign Investment Advisory Australia director Lachlan Molesworth, a former advisor to Scott Morrison while he was Treasurer, said the Government was within its rights to tailor foreign investment rules to the national interest.

Mr Molesworth also said the Government had largely reduced bottlenecks in the approvals process since processing times blew out when the zero-dollar thresholds were announced.

However, he suggested that while proposals from many buyers were being handled in a reasonable time, Chinese bids had been all but frozen out since the changes were introduced....

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on December 15, 2020, 03:15:56 PM
China’s trade sanctions likely to leave Australia better off due to skyrocketing iron ore prices (https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/chinas-trade-sanctions-likely-to-leave-australia-better-off-due-to-skyrocketing-iron-ore-prices/news-story/2adc757f96057f23ad3cdd0be4770325)

China’s trade actions on Australian wine, beef and other goods may have delivered a substantial hit to our economy but this is likely to be offset by the booming iron ore price, new analysis suggests.

While specific industries targeted by China will be hurting, the trade tensions with Australia are driving up prices for iron ore and could leave the economy better off overall.

Deloitte economist Chris Richardson said a “fear tax” had driven iron ore prices so high, they were making up for Chinese government moves against Australia’s wine, beef, lamb, barley, timber, lobsters, coal and other goods.

He is now predicting a higher than anticipated tax haul for the Federal Government.,,,
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on December 15, 2020, 04:15:49 PM
Fear Tax.  That's a new one.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on December 17, 2020, 10:56:50 AM
Five Eyes alliance considers sanctioning China (https://www.news.com.au/finance/work/leaders/five-eyes-alliance-considers-sanctioning-china/news-story/828f488272f5fdc6202f3fddfb171dc4)

Australia’s largest allies may come to its aid in its escalating trade war with China.

The Five Eyes alliance has reportedly held discussions over how to respond after Beijing added coal to a growing list of sanctions imposed on Aussie goods.

The group – made up of Australia, the US, the UK, Canada and New Zealand – has reportedly touted retaliatory trade and economic sanctions.

Mike Green, a former special assistant to ex-US president George W Bush, said the international response needed to be broader than the Five Eyes and should include NATO and the European Union.

“China’s market is so huge (that) it’s unlikely the rest of us will have, in a democratic society, the ability to completely boycott it,” he told ABC Radio.

“The Chinese have a slight advantage there. But what we have is numbers, and we have more and more countries that are alarmed at what China is doing.”...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on December 17, 2020, 05:41:54 PM
Sounds like someone in the USA desperately wants to create a sequel to the cold war.  How sad.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on December 28, 2020, 07:08:00 PM
Australia's relationship with China can survive – but it won't be the same again (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/28/australias-relationship-with-china-can-survive-but-it-wont-be-the-same-again)

There can be no return to the relations of the past. The question for 2021 is how to find a new settling point

Australians have had a rude awakening this year. Convinced for a decade that the Asian century was theirs for the taking, the downward spiral of Australia’s relationship with China has come as a shock to many....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on December 30, 2020, 02:02:36 PM
Washington Still Wants China to Be a Responsible Stakeholder (https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/29/washington-china-responsible-stakeholder/)

Despite heated language, the U.S. goals haven’t changed.

The U.S. policy community has produced no shortage of strategies for competing with China. Increasingly frustrated that the long-standing U.S. policy of engagement failed to turn Beijing into a “responsible stakeholder,” the Trump administration, along with a bipartisan cross section of Washington’s policy community, changed tact [sic]. Their competitive strategies are willing to impose costs on Beijing, restrict economic engagement, and tolerate greater bilateral friction to push back on China and more aggressively defend U.S. interests. But competition, it is often pointed out, is not an end in itself. What, then, do these competitive strategies seek to achieve?...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on February 11, 2021, 05:18:23 PM
China's first Mars probe has successfully reached orbit around Mars.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/10/22276153/china-reaches-mars-tianwen-1-probe (https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/10/22276153/china-reaches-mars-tianwen-1-probe)

“Exploring the vast universe is the common dream of all mankind. We will cooperate sincerely and go hand in hand with countries all over the world to make mankind’s exploration of space go further,” Zhang Kejian, director of the China National Space Administration, said in a statement Wednesday.

Next up, selecting a landing site for the surface probe and rover.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on June 02, 2021, 05:52:47 PM
Jab enough people with Sinovac and good things happen.

Just one COVID-19 patient is in critical condition at the Dr. Geraldo Cesar Reis clinic in Serrana, a city of almost 46,000 in Sao Paulo state’s countryside. The 63-year-old woman rejected the vaccine that was offered to every adult resident of Serrana as part of a trial.

Doctors say the woman was awaiting one of Pfizer’s shots, which remain scarce in Brazil. But she is an outlier here. Most adults rolled up their sleeves when offered the vaccine made by the Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac, and the experiment has transformed the community into an oasis of near normalcy in a country where many communities continue to suffer.


Full article - https://apnews.com/article/caribbean-brazil-coronavirus-pandemic-business-health-20bd94d28ac7b373d7a8f3f9c557e5b6 (https://apnews.com/article/caribbean-brazil-coronavirus-pandemic-business-health-20bd94d28ac7b373d7a8f3f9c557e5b6)


I just wish more example cities like this could be set up around the world.  Showing people that high vaccination rates really help restore normalcy will make more people want to get vaccinated.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on June 11, 2021, 01:10:27 PM
This post has been moved Upstairs................

AMonk
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on June 20, 2021, 12:54:35 AM
China's most belligerent journalists used to be the ones doling out insults online. Now they're the targets (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-19/cancel-culture-comes-to-chinas-global-times-tabloid/100220756)

Reporters from China's jingoistic government-owned media outlet the Global Times have become the latest targets of an increasingly radical wave of nationalism sweeping through the world's largest country....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on June 22, 2021, 03:47:21 PM
04 June 2021
WHO approval of Chinese CoronaVac COVID vaccine will be crucial to curbing pandemic
CoronaVac is one of two Chinese vaccines already sustaining vaccination campaigns in more than 70 nations. Both should soon be much more widely available to low-income countries.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01497-8 (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01497-8)

There was a study showing a 51% effectiveness rate.  People who keep pointing to that study ignore one other statistic from the same study:

This overall protection is lower than that provided by the seven other vaccines already listed by the WHO. But, importantly, trials suggest that CoronaVac — an inactivated-virus vaccine produced by Beijing-based company Sinovac — is 100% effective at preventing severe disease and death.

And to put things further into perspective:

The WHO’s efficacy estimate of 51% was based on data from late-stage trials among health-care workers in Brazil, posted online as a preprint1 in April. Of the 9,823 participants included in the analysis, 253 had COVID-19 — 85 in the vaccinated group and 168 among those who received the placebo. None of the vaccinated volunteers was hospitalized or died owing to COVID-19. Smaller, late-stage trials in Indonesia and Turkey have shown higher efficacies of up to 84%.

Preliminary findings from a post-trial study of 2.5 million people in Chile estimated that CoronaVac was 67% effective at preventing COVID-19, and 80% effective at preventing death from the disease, despite the presence of the Alpha (B.1.1.7) and Gamma (P.1) variants of the virus SARS-CoV-2.



My personal best advice to anyone is Get vaccinated NOW!  Every COVAX approved vaccine (and a number of others awaiting approval) is better than no vaccine.  Every vaccinated person slows down the spread of the virus.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on June 22, 2021, 03:59:42 PM
What would happen if 95% of the adults in a town in an area with a large number of Covid-19 cases were all vaccinated (80% with Sinovac's Coronavac vaccine)?

When the vaccination rate hit 75%, cases plummeted.  Now the town is an island of normalcy surrounded by towns still struggling with the disease.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/06/brazilian-town-experiment-shows-mass-vaccination-can-wipe-out-covid-19 (https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/06/brazilian-town-experiment-shows-mass-vaccination-can-wipe-out-covid-19)

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/06/americas/serrana-vaccination-experiment-intl-latam/index.html (https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/06/americas/serrana-vaccination-experiment-intl-latam/index.html)

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-57309538 (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-57309538)

So, for anyone pointing to cases not plunging in areas with 50 or even 60% vaccination rates, the problem isn't the vaccines.  It's failure to reach the critical level for herd immunity to break the chains of transmission.

If you aren't vaccinated, pick a vaccine (any gov't approved vaccine) and get yourself vaccinated.

If you are vaccinated, encourage your friends, family, and coworkers to get vaccinated.



Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Nolefan on June 24, 2021, 07:32:24 AM
Jab enough people and it works, sure but definitely not with sinovac. Take a look at Chile, The Seychelles, Mongolia just to name a few as countries with almost 70% vaccination rate that are going through another heavy wave of lockdowns and having their emergency rooms slammed.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on June 25, 2021, 04:14:45 PM
Based on Serrana, it looks like Sinovac requires about 75% vaccinated to see a big shift.  At 95% vaccinated (adults only), it does amazing things.  There are still cases, but they are much less severe.

Unless one of those other countries pushes to 75% or beyond, a true comparison will be difficult.

Similar issues are seen in the US where people say "but half the people in town got the RNA vaccines and we're still having cases."  Even 10% vaccinated will have some effect, but that can be washed out by other issues.  There's a tipping point for herd immunity where enough transmission chains get broken.  The more infection the pathogen is, the higher the percent needed (for example, due to being VERY infectious, measles requires an extremely high percent of immune people to seriously slow down an outbreak).

My primary worry about the RNA vaccines is that they are very specifically targeted.  So far, none of the variants seem to have altered the target sequence, but if a new one did, that would require a new version of the vaccine.  An inactivated virus vaccine may be less effective, but it shows the entire virus to the immune system, so should be effective against a wide range of variants of the virus.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on June 26, 2021, 02:04:49 PM
Getting "normal" is going to be a 5-10 year project. Vaccination currently more or less guarantees an end to serious disease and death, and it does slow down transmission, but it doesn't stop it completely. Herd immunity then is just the first part of whatever system has to stay in place for managing transmission. Outbreaks, lockdowns, border controls... they're going to be part of the international system for a while yet.

imo. notthenews
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on June 28, 2021, 08:48:40 PM
You may be right, but it likely won't be due to vaccine inadequacy.  People declining to get vaccinated already is the biggest roadblock to herd immunity in some countries.  Those who are vaccinated and still get infected are much more likely to have mild to moderate cases.  Those cases are easy to deal with.  Running out of ICU beds, oxygen, and ventilators for the severely infected aren't.

For other places (like Israel), it's more spreadable variants showing that one needs to get above the bare minimum for herd immunity.

And for the rest of the world, it's a matter of producing and distributing enough vaccines.


Here's a real-world example of what happens within a few weeks of a new spike infecting vaccinated hospital workers in a country that has a low vaccination rate:

https://jakartaglobe.id/news/sinovac-vaccine-protects-health-workers-from-severe-covid19-in-deltahit-kudus (https://jakartaglobe.id/news/sinovac-vaccine-protects-health-workers-from-severe-covid19-in-deltahit-kudus)

As of June 17, 6,085 health workers and health support personnel in Kudus had been vaccinated with the first dose, and 5,888 people had received the second dose.

“Almost 100 percent of the health workers in Kudus, amounting to around 6,000 people, have received the first and second doses of vaccination," Badai said.

"Of this number, only 308 health workers were exposed or around 5.1 percent of the total number of health workers. Most of them have recovered and have started working again," he said.

Abdul Aziz Achyar, the director of Kudus's dr. Loekmono Hadi Regional General Hospital, said a total of 153 health workers at the hospital confirmed to have Covid-19. Only 11 people, or 7.1 percent, needed hospitalization. The other 86 (56 percent) used to be in self-isolation but now ready to work, following the rest of their colleagues who had recovered earlier.




So, where will the vaccines come from?

China's average domestic doses is above 20 million per day and India's has passed 8 million.  That's over half the doses in administered in the world.  At current rates, China will be solidly inside herd immunity levels in early September and can export 20 million more doses per day.  As the current wave abates, India will likely return to filling orders for export, but is unlikely to accept any larger commitments until a significantly higher percentage of it's population is vaccinated.

The US has a sufficient amount on hand to finish vaccinating everyone who suddenly realizes that vaccination is a good thing, so can shift the bulk of it's production to exports.

Technology sharing arrangements for Astra Zeneca, some of the Chinese vaccines, and the Russian Sputnik 5 are increasing the number of production points around the world.  The US did commit to joining in these programs, but RNA vaccines are more challenging to produce, so those types won't gain new production as fast.

Currently, there are over 200 vaccines for Covid-19 in development, ranging from "Let's figure out how to make this" to "We're finishing Phase 3 and need to apply for emergency approval."  If one of those ends up with good results, few side effects, and is faster, easier, and cheaper to produce, it could be a game changer.  If not, let's look at just the India and China numbers.


If we decide to stick the numbers at a total of 28 million (20 for China, 8 for India), which is very conservative and we also err on the conservative side by ignoring all current exports, all other production (and assume 2 doses is going to be the standard) and that China will need everything until the end of September for domestic, how good/bad is that?

Let's make it simpler.

India will need more time to catch up, so we can simplify further with 20 million doses per day from China.

Out of  world of 7.7 (give or take) humans, how big of an impact can 20 million doses make?  That's the approximate equivalent of "only" 10 million fully vaccinated people per day.

Or, the equivalent of 300 million fully vaccinated people per month.

Or the equivalent of 3.6 billion fully vaccinated people per year. (One more simplification - pretend NO ONE on Earth was vaccinated on or before September 30, 2021, so we need to vaccinate everybody.)

So, for China to get the Earth to herd immunity by itself starting from NO ONE anywhere vaccinated (no other vaccine producers) while ignoring the amount already being exported per day and the possibility of ramping up production, it would take about 2 years to reach herd immunity from when these exports being -So, October 1, 2023.

Now let's look at reality.

Over 800 million people worldwide are already fully vaccinated and over 900 million are partially vaccinated.  That's 2.5 billion fewer doses needed.

China is already making more than 20 million doses per day and exporting the excess.  India will be back in the export game soon (admittedly at temporarily reduced levels).  Both China and India will continue to ramp up production.  The US can now export nearly all the vaccines it produces.  Other countries that either produce their own or that have acquired the technology will likely first focus on their own populations, but then will shift to export.  Worldwide, total production is increasing and this can easily exceed 50 million doses (equivalent to 25 million fully vaccinated people) per day within a few more months.  That's a global capacity of fully immunize 9 billion people.

The world has the production capacity.  The world has the distribution capacity.  There's zero reason (other than some new super-variant, people believing stupid conspiracy theories, or local wars getting in the way) for every country in the world to get to 85+% vaccination rates of their adult populations long before June 28, 2022.  All it takes is the political will to achieve the goal.

This is a simple test.  If all nations can set aside any disputes over vaccine production and distribution for the next 12 months, this will be easy.  If some countries choose to play political games, the blood will be on the hands of the leaders who stood in the way.

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on July 07, 2021, 07:13:58 PM
Chinese official declares Beijing has targeted Australian goods as economic punishment (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-07/australia-china-trade-tensions-official-economic-punishment/100273964)

A Chinese official has openly declared that Beijing has singled out Australia for economic punishment, saying the federal government cannot profit from China while "smearing" it.

China's government has hit several Australian industries with economic sanctions, imposing hefty tariffs on Australian barley and wine exports while throwing up barriers to several other products including timber, lobster and coal.

[...]

When he was asked about a drop in Australian agricultural exports to China, Mr Zhao made it clear Beijing had deliberately targeted Australian goods.

"Mutual respect is the foundation and safeguard of practical cooperation between countries," he said.

"We will not allow any country to reap benefits from doing business with China while groundlessly accusing and smearing China and undermining China's core interests based on ideology."...



See now this is respectable.

It's not true, of course. It's far less about Australia than it is about splitting power blocs.

But coming out and announcing a firm moral position? Good for them.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on July 20, 2021, 04:58:22 PM
The existing high speed trains are great, but they could be even better - like this:

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202107/1228998.shtml (https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202107/1228998.shtml)

The world's first high-speed maglev transportation system running at a speed of 600 kilometers per hour will make its public debut in Qingdao, East China's Shandong Province, on Tuesday.

Now we just have to see where the new maglev lines get installed.

agagagagag

Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on July 21, 2021, 06:00:36 AM
The existing high speed trains are great, but they could be even better - like this:

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202107/1228998.shtml (https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202107/1228998.shtml)

The world's first high-speed maglev transportation system running at a speed of 600 kilometers per hour will make its public debut in Qingdao, East China's Shandong Province, on Tuesday.

Now we just have to see where the new maglev lines get installed.

agagagagag

That would be much better than the plane as well because you don't have to land and takeoff.

Maglev from Shanghai to London please
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on July 21, 2021, 04:36:11 PM
I saw an article about a proposed high speed train tunnel under the Bering Straight.  Might be fun to take a train from China all the way into the US.  Economy class high speed rail seats are much more generous than economy class airline seats.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 11, 2021, 01:18:18 PM
China passes US to top output of influential science papers (https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/China-passes-US-to-top-output-of-influential-science-papers)

Academic strength could help further increase nation's industrial dominance

TOKYO -- China has become No. 1 in the output of highly cited natural science papers, a development that could make the country even stronger in terms of industrial competitiveness.

Japan's National Institute of Science and Technology Policy counted the number of academic papers that are ranked among the top 10% in terms of citations and found that China has overtaken the U.S. and become No. 1.

The number of highly cited papers is an important indicator of a country's research strength. The Japanese government affiliate, using data from the British research company Clarivate, counted the number of research publications among major economies and calculated a three-year average for each country.

Within the top 10% of papers cited in natural science fields, China averaged 40,219 between 2017 and 2019, up 5.1 times from 10 years earlier, while the U.S. had 37,124, up 3%.

China accounted for 24.8% of the total, compared with 22.9% for the U.S. and 5.4% for third-placed U.K.

Among papers in the top 10% of citations, China had the largest share in five fields, including 48.4% in materials science, 39.1% in chemistry and 37.3% in engineering. Generally, China has shown strength in academic fields that are close to business and industry. The U.S. excelled in biological fields, with a share of 34.5% in clinical medicine and 26.9% in life sciences.

In terms of the overall number of research papers, China led the U.S. for two straight years.

The U.S. still leads China in the number of "top papers," or those in the top 1% of citations, with a share of 27.2%, versus China's 25%. But China is catching up in this category as well.



And with only 4 times the population too!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 23, 2021, 02:27:31 PM
Why a US military base became a centre for Chinese Covid conspiracies (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-58273322)

A disinformation campaign claiming that the Covid-19 virus originated from an American military base in Maryland has gained popularity in China ahead of the release of a US intelligence report on the virus origins....


Science!
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on August 23, 2021, 08:06:12 PM
From 30 million cases per year in the 1940's to none.  Eradicating malaria is a long, hard process, but after a number of years of Zero cases, China has officially been recognized as being free of endemic malaria.

https://www.who.int/news/item/30-06-2021-from-30-million-cases-to-zero-china-is-certified-malaria-free-by-who (https://www.who.int/news/item/30-06-2021-from-30-million-cases-to-zero-china-is-certified-malaria-free-by-who)

agagagagag btbtbtbtbt agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on September 02, 2021, 02:35:15 PM
Morgan Stanley thinks Chinese education companies have a way forward despite the crackdown (https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/01/morgan-stanley-chinese-education-companies-future-despite-crackdown.html)

Beaten-down Chinese education stocks can recover by double-digits as the industry shifts to businesses like vocational training following this summer's regulatory crackdown, Morgan Stanley analysts said.

They upgraded U.S.-listed New Oriental Education & Technology to "overweight" with expectations of 55% gains in the share price, according to an Aug. 29 report.

The analysts expect further government support for vocational training, where they like Hong Kong-listed China East Education and predict gains of nearly 70% ahead....



"Vocational", you say? Hmmm...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on September 17, 2021, 06:19:33 PM
Australia's decades-long balancing act between the US and China is over. It chose Washington (https://edition.cnn.com/2021/09/16/australia/australia-china-us-aukus-submarine-intl-hnk/index.html)

For more than 20 years, Australia tried to maintain good relations with both the United States and China.

It was good for trade and peaceful regional relations. But on Thursday, with the announcement of a new security deal with the United States and the United Kingdom, which will see Australia eventually field nuclear-powered submarines, Canberra made its position clear -- it has chosen Washington over Beijing.

By choosing sides, some experts say Australia has unnecessarily antagonized China, the country's largest trading partner, while at the same time making itself overly reliant on the US for protection should tensions escalate in the Indo-Pacific.

In recent years, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has moved to embrace the US more closely as a security partner, building a personal relationship with former President Donald Trump and attempting to do with same with his successor.

At the same time, relations between Canberra and Beijing have been slowly unraveling, a spiral which only worsened after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic amid questions over the virus's origins.

On Thursday, China reacted angrily to the new security deal with Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijan saying the blame for deteriorating relations "rests entirely with the Australian side."

Yun Jiang, editor of the China Neican newsletter and researcher at the Australian National University, said the deal was the "final nail in the coffin" of Australia's relationship with China, effectively eliminating any chance for rapprochement, at least in the short term.

"Until there is a new equilibrium in the international balance of power, I think the relationship is going to be tense," she said...
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on September 17, 2021, 06:32:47 PM
Beijing rhetoric be like, stop hitting yourselves with our fists of fury that will surely fall in a blinding light of justice and rightitude..


Sorry France. EU never saved nobody.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on September 17, 2021, 11:52:02 PM
The thing about AU turning toward US, that's a bit embarrassing, right? Because like, US exiting Iraq and Afghanistan, that's a sign of US weakness, right? US is failing, right?

Resources freed up, attention less divided, Asia coming into focus....


What I thought, way back in 2001, one Tuesday night in September, sitting in a poky Chinese apartment watching CNN, was we were all fucked. Because the Americans were going to come out into the world and everything was going to get messy.



I have no conclusion
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on September 28, 2021, 08:28:06 PM
China contributes to world peace, development by achieving moderate prosperity: white paper (http://www.ecns.cn/news/2021-09-28/detail-iharmkpe0572115.shtml)

As the world's most populous and largest developing country, China has contributed to global peace and development by achieving moderate prosperity in all respects, said a white paper released Tuesday by China's State Council Information Office.

Achieving moderate prosperity in all respects has made China more prosperous, the people happier, and society more stable, said the white paper titled "China's Epic Journey from Poverty to Prosperity."

The country has been the largest contributor to world economy since 2006, making an average annual contribution of more than 30 percent, and become a major stabilizer and driver of the global economy, it said.

After the outbreak of COVID-19, China became the first country to contain the virus, reopen its economy, and achieve economic expansion, leading global recovery and injecting impetus into the global economy.

China succeeds in feeding almost 20 percent of world population and satisfying their diverse demands for high-quality agricultural products with only 9 percent of the planet's arable land, according to the white paper.

The country is also making great efforts to strengthen eco-environmental governance and has become a major force in global eco-environmental progress. For instance, one fourth of the world's new vegetation areas over the past two decades have been added by China, said the white paper.



😍
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on September 29, 2021, 01:17:36 PM
Traditional Chinese medicine plays important role in COVID-19 treatment: senior expert (http://en.people.cn/n3/2021/0928/c90000-9901915.html)

BEIJING, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has played an important role in the COVID-19 therapeutics developed by China, based on both domestic and overseas clinical results, said senior TCM expert Zhang Boli at a press conference Monday.

The synergy of TCM and Western medicine is a highlight of China's experience in combating the COVID-19 pandemic, and it serves as a vivid example of continuing innovation while carrying forward the best practices of TCM, said Zhang, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and recipient of the national honorary title "the People's Hero" for his outstanding anti-epidemic efforts.

Citing his firsthand experience in the city of Wuhan, Zhang noted the early intervention of TCM in patients, combined with stringent quarantine, played a crucial role in keeping the epidemic at bay in the earlier days.

Thanks to the eclectic treatment, none of the 564 patients with mild symptoms at the makeshift hospital in Wuhan's Jiangxia district where Zhang was stationed deteriorated into severe symptoms or relapsed after recovery, Zhang said.

Interpreting TCM and its underlying logic with modern science is a goal to strive for, said Zhang. Now it has been illustrated that the reason why TCM is effective in COVID-19 treatment is it helps adjust the immune system, protect impaired organs and rein in the virus' reproduction to a certain extent.

Further efforts should be made to combine TCM with modern technology, and better leverage its strength to benefit the Chinese people as well as the world, Zhang added.



😍
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on September 29, 2021, 01:21:13 PM
Prevention and treatment of COVID-19 using Traditional Chinese Medicine: A review (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7439087/)

Background
A novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV2) outbreak in more than 200 countries recently caused viral pneumonia that was extremely infectious and pathogenic. The Chinese government proposes that both Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and Western medicine can be used in combination to treat pneumonia caused by SARS-CoV2, and TCM effectively provides continuous prevention and treatment.

Methods
The present review analyzes and summarizes the prevention and treatment of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) with TCM. A classified analysis of the efficacy and advantages of TCM for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 was performed, and the mechanisms of TCM in treating COVID-19 are summarized.

Results
TCM is effective in preventing COVID-19, and medical staff can prevent an iatrogenic infection by taking a decoction made based on the principles of TCM. As of March 13, 2020, new cases of COVID-19 in China have decreased in number to single digits. TCM's curative effect was outstanding, with a national participation rate of over 90%. More than 70,000 people were cured of COVID-19 and discharged from the hospital. Only approximately 10,000 patients are currently being treated, and the total treatment time is approximately 2 months.

Conclusions
TCM is currently the best choice for the treatment and prevention of COVID-19, and it is expected that it will be promoted by countries around the world.



😍
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on September 29, 2021, 11:54:49 PM
https://news.yahoo.com/healthy-people-eat-exercise-skip-115622762.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=fb&tsrc=fb

Having a healthy life style is an excellent tool, but does not negate getting vaccinated.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: kitano on October 04, 2021, 07:12:42 AM
Joe Rogan announced as China's new health secretary  ahahahahah
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on October 04, 2021, 02:14:38 PM
重大线索!华南海鲜市场疫情前收到可疑美国海鲜
(https://news.sina.com.cn/gov/2021-09-17/doc-iktzscyx4789750.shtml)

2019年11月中旬,一批来自美国缅因州的海鲜通过冷链运至武汉华南海鲜市场。短短数周内,华南海鲜市场多个商户从业人员接连出现不明原因肺炎症状,他们感染的就是新冠肺炎。...


Great clue! Suspicious U.S. seafood received at Huanan Seafood Market before the outbreak (https://news-sina-com-cn.translate.goog/gov/2021-09-17/doc-iktzscyx4789750.shtml?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-GB&_x_tr_pto=nui)

In mid-November 2019, a batch of seafood from Maine, USA was shipped to Wuhan South China Seafood Market through the cold chain. In just a few weeks, employees of many merchants in the South China Seafood Market experienced symptoms of pneumonia of unknown origin one after another, and they were infected with new coronary pneumonia....


PROOF!
 btbtbtbtbt😍
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on November 18, 2021, 03:01:06 PM
[Heavyweight news: Beijing Daily takes the fight to Global Times] (https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/11/17/asia-pacific/dior-draws-ire-china/#:~:text=Christian%20Dior%20SE%20is%20the,and%20holding%20a%20Dior%20bag.)

Christian Dior SE is the latest international fashion brand to face criticism in China, after an exhibition in Shanghai featured a photo that state media said was “smearing Asian women.”

The photograph, included in the Lady Dior show, depicts an Asian woman dressed in a traditional costume and holding a Dior bag. It drew ire in an editorial published by the state-owned Beijing Daily on Monday with the headline: “Is This the Asian Woman in Dior’s Eyes?”

Shot by a local Chinese photographer, the image makes Chinese consumers feel uncomfortable, the report said. It features “spooky eyes, gloomy face, and Qing Dynasty-styled nail armor,” according to the article. Social media posts by Dior, newspapers and the photographer all drew angry responses from the public, though there’s been no talk of a boycott...


(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FEX59qSXIAMzH8j?format=jpg&name=large)
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on November 18, 2021, 10:29:27 PM
There is to be a near-total lunar eclipse on Friday.  Very special.  Hope it's visible in PRC.

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/longest-lunar-eclipse-580-years-174000254.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=fb&tsrc=fb
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on November 22, 2021, 04:12:52 PM
Cloudy skies over my quarantine hotel, so I couldn't see the moon. ananananan ananananan ananananan
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on December 13, 2021, 05:11:52 PM
So, you've got a Mars rover that survived way past its planned operational lifespan, and the relay satellite has already been moved to an inconvenient orbit that greatly limits communication.  What can you do?

How about asking the Europeans for a little bit of bandwidth?

https://www.space.com/china-mars-rover-communicates-via-european-orbiter (https://www.space.com/china-mars-rover-communicates-via-european-orbiter)

The European Space Agency's Mars Express collected data from China's Zhurong Mars rover and successfully sent it to Earth following a series of experimental communications tests.

The Zhurong rover was designed only to communicate with its companion orbiter, Tianwen 1; however, the rover has long outlived its planned mission and the orbiter is no longer able to do as much data relaying. So China and Europe decided to try an experiment: Send data from Zhurong to Mars Express to Earth. That's challenging, since the robots' communications equipment doesn't match. Zhurong can transmit at a frequency Mars Express can detect, but not vice versa, so Zhurong sends data without hearing back from the orbiter.



There were a few technical glitches at first, but it looks like this plan will allow for a lot more of Zhurong's data to get back to Earth.

xxxxxxxxxx


Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on March 25, 2022, 11:37:44 PM
Sinovac Boosters Provide Key Protection for Older People, New Study Finds (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/23/health/sinovac-coronavirus-booster-hong-kong.html)

Two doses of China’s Sinovac vaccine offered older people only a moderately high level of protection against severe disease and death from Covid-19, but a third dose significantly bolstered their defenses, according to a new study by scientists in Hong Kong.

The study, based on patients infected during the current devastating Omicron wave in Hong Kong, serves as a cautionary note for mainland China, where Sinovac is a pillar of the country’s vaccination program. Many older people there have yet to receive booster shots.

For people 60 and older, two Sinovac doses were 72 percent effective against severe or fatal Covid-19 and 77 percent effective against Covid-related death, the study found. Those levels of protection were lower than those provided by two Pfizer-BioNTech doses. The same study found they were 90 percent effective against severe or fatal Covid and 92 percent effective against death among Hong Kong residents of the same age group....


 agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on July 01, 2022, 02:43:39 PM
‘Disaster just around the corner’: Australia must not misread China’s deadly strategy (https://www.smh.com.au/national/disaster-just-around-the-corner-australia-must-not-misread-china-s-deadly-strategy-20220623-p5avxp.html)

“Tactics without strategy is noise before defeat.” Chinese general, military strategist and philosopher Sun Tzu is too often quoted but can occasionally illuminate a real problem.

This week, when China sent a near record number of warplanes into Taiwan’s air defence identification zone, it was more serious than previous incursions. A week earlier, China officially claimed the Taiwan Strait to be China’s sovereign territory. The West responded by reiterating legal arguments against the claim. But that misses the point. It is not a legal claim. Instead, China has declared its intent to act as if the Taiwan Strait is part of sovereign China. The difference has enormous implications, and we misread it at our peril.

Relatedly, a Chinese J-16 fighter intercepted an Australian P-8 surveillance aircraft near the Paracel Islands on May 26, 2022, and then damaged it with flares and chaff. Australia responded firmly. Minister for Defence Richard Marles declared Australia’s surveillance flights will continue because they are allowed under international law and are “fundamentally important to Australia’s security interests”. He may be right on both accounts, but the strength of Australia’s commitment will be severely tested.

Also on May 26, 2022, one of Canada’s surveillance aircraft was harassed by Chinese aircraft in another part of the Pacific. Canada also protested to the Chinese government. But rather than being apologetic, Chinese leaders robustly defended China’s actions and attacked Australia and Canada for violating China’s sovereignty.

Taken together, China’s actions signal a new, more assertive and deadly phase of its plan to secure its eastern seaboard by dominating the South China Sea. And China is only warming up. It has a plan to challenge the West’s commitment to military deployments in the South China Sea and divide the US from its allies....



Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on July 01, 2022, 05:14:38 PM
Let's think about this.  Australia and Canada (yes, Canada) start poking around near islands claimed by China and are completely shocked to find Chinese jets arrive to chase them off.

How would Canada and Australia react if Chinese surveillance aircraft got a little too close to their most distant claimed offshore islands?  When answering, remember that the very thought of Chinese military ships being allowed to dock and take on supplies in the Solomon Islands (an INDEPENDENT country a few thousand km away from Australia) has Australia completely freaked out over how close those Chinese ships will be to their coastline.

Multiple countries have disputes over islands in the SCS.  Multiple countries are building up some areas into artificial islands.  Multiple countries are setting up radar stations and air defenses.  Personally, I think countries that are not parties to the disputes sending in military ships and aircraft into disputed waters so they can bound their chests about the missions being legal and somehow important to Australian (and Canadian! ahahahahah) security interests put the entire region at increased risk of an incident.  Of course, that's always a great excuse for those outsiders to waste more and more taxpayer and gov't bond (borrowed) money on military hardware.

Remember, if it's OK for the US, Australia, and Canada to stick their beaks in, then they should  be happy roll out the welcome mat for ships and planes from Iceland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Nigeria, Iraq, Colombia, Morocco, Venezuela, Iran, Somalia, Pakistan, Brazil, and more to join the party in the SCS and along the edges of claimed US, Canadian and Australian waters.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on July 01, 2022, 10:25:50 PM
[...] and along the edges of claimed US, Canadian and Australian waters.

Australia says Chinese spy ship's presence off west coast 'concerning' (https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/australian-defence-minister-says-chinese-spy-ship-waters-an-act-aggression-2022-05-13/)

SYDNEY, May 13 (Reuters) - A Chinese intelligence ship was tracked off Australia's west coast within 50 nautical miles of a sensitive defence facility, Australia said on Friday, raising concern amid an election campaign about China's behaviour in the region.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the Chinese navy vessel was not in Australian territorial waters but its presence was "concerning".

"It is clearly an intelligence ship and they are looking at us and we're keeping a close eye on them," he told reporters....



They were there for the kayaking.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on July 01, 2022, 10:29:32 PM
I suppose if China would like to normalize shots across the bow, we'll have to start arming the windsurfers.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on July 18, 2022, 06:14:53 PM
China's debt bomb looks ready to explode (https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/China-s-debt-bomb-looks-ready-to-explode)

Confidence in the safety of Chinese banks has been badly shaken by the failure of several small banks in Henan Province in April this year. In terms of their assets of about 40 billion yuan ($6 billion) and the number of customers, roughly 400,000, the shuttered rural banks are minions in China's financial system.

The implosion of these poorly supervised and likely corruption-ridden financial institutions should not be surprising. But how local authorities handled the fallout is shocking even to the most jaded observers of China's political scene....



Economic growth vs financial growth, I guess.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on July 18, 2022, 08:15:14 PM
Every time China has any negative economic news, the economy is predicted to instantly implode or explode.  6 billion is a lot of cash, but it's going to take a lot more than that to do any major damage to an economy the size of China's.  Did whoever wrote this miss out on the US taxpayers having to cover over $100 billion in the S&L crisis or the Trillions lost by the US in 2008?

Maybe you should ask Gordon Chang.  He's been making a living predicting how China is about to collapse, implode, explode, meltdown, fail, fall into quicksand, get eaten by rogue hamsters, etc., etc. since at least 2001.  His predictions keep failing to come true, but people who are threatened by the thought of the US no longer being able to make the world obey on pain of unilateral sanctions, destabilization, regime change, and occupation keep lapping up his latest drivel.  I'm sure he'd be happy to make up a new BS scenario as soon as this one doesn't happen.

Realistically, China's growth might not meet targets this year.  A country having some banking issues and slower than expected growth is something that has happened many, many times globally without "debt bombs" or other exaggerated doomsday predictions happening.

What the world should be watching is how Wall Street keeps panicking for a few hours over bad news and then rallying the next day because they've reinterpreted each new piece of bad news as somehow meaning the bottom has been reached and the economy is ready to soar to new heights any second now.  This insane level of near perfect denial of the results of decades of excess money printing and ignoring every known warning sign screaming DEEP Recession is only going to make a hard landing even harder.  The Fed Chair and Treasury Secretary are now finding out how Fauci felt just as Covid first spiked in the US.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on July 18, 2022, 10:36:35 PM
Retarded financial development delays development of tertiary industry. The move into the "AI" future and technological development in general slows or stalls. Another great leap forward is mandated.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on July 19, 2022, 03:39:32 PM
The government has encouraged the major banks to lend developers enough to finish all partial buildings.  That should resolve the reason behind the mortgage boycott as well as allow the weaker developers to wind down without harming their clients.

No great leaps needed for now.  Instead, after some stumbles, the economy will continue its long march at a pace adjusted for current global conditions.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on July 19, 2022, 05:32:33 PM
In the general absence of a robust financial system, allocation of economic resources requires state mandate. That's the leap. The creation of the AI age and technological supremacy is essentially unnatural and presumably therefore unsustainable.

But who knows, maybe state pockets are deeper than the money pit. And maybe human capital can be created along the way.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on July 20, 2022, 06:38:47 PM
China at least is taking steps to reduce the conversion of the general public into harvestable databases to be abused by tech giants.  It's also broken up a few attempts by such companies to monopolize certain market sectors.  Meanwhile, other countries that do try to implement data privacy laws and limit monopolies find the tech firms are generally 3 steps ahead of laws and regulations.

AI is a wildcard for all countries.  It could save us or someone might decide that faster reaction time of AIs makes them perfect for controlling not just small arms, but weapons going all the way up to strategic missiles.  At that point, a SkyNet scenario goes from SciFi to serious threat to all carbon based life forms.  If one country uses AIs on most of it's military, others will follow.  Are you willing to bet the planet that multiple competing AIs in control of that much hardware will all be forever obedient to their human creators even as all sides try to hack and disrupt the systems of others?

This is yet another reason to ramp down on the sable rattling and ending the concept of any one country being effectively in charge of global policy.  A worldwide treaty forbidding allowing machines to ever have the option of deciding whether or not to open fire on humans might just keep us alive long enough to work out how to finally phase out the need to be able to vaporize billions of humans.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on July 26, 2022, 05:57:54 PM
China's new space station module docks, beefing up orbital science

https://www.space.com/china-space-station-module-docks-tiangong (https://www.space.com/china-space-station-module-docks-tiangong)

Quick summary:  Module 2 (of the currently planned 3), the Wentian lab module, launched on Sunday afternoon (China time) and docked with the Tiangong space station early Monday morning.

In addition to lab facilities, Wentian has quarters for 3 more crew members, bringing the station's capacity to 6.

The article doesn't cover the 3rd module.  It' another lab module and is scheduled to be launched in October.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Calach Pfeffer on August 01, 2022, 04:43:39 PM
For America’s next generation of China experts, the challenges go beyond language and country access (https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3187209/americas-next-generation-china-experts-challenges-go-beyond)

Sagging interest in studying ‘most serious competitor’ impedes Biden administration’s goals amid tense bilateral relations
Political sensitivity also puts young people off China research, boding ill for gaining vital insight, says current cadre


As an Ivy-league graduate in China studies, 22-year-old Patrick Beyrer ticks all the right boxes to launch a career focused on the country – language skills, prior experience on the mainland, and above all, zeal.

Finding someone like Beyrer is no small feat. Fewer foreigners these days want to pursue China studies, despite expertise in the country arguably more needed than ever. But Beyrer faces a more prosaic challenge: he cannot enter China.

“It has become a challenge to understand China without the prism of face-to-face interactions,” said Beyrer, an American who visited the country in 2016 and 2019, each time for weeks-long programmes through the US State Department....
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on November 02, 2022, 03:16:21 PM
Mengtian, the final (for now) module of the Tiangong Space Station was launched on October 31st and is docked at the station.  After some systems checks are done, it will be swung over to its permanent position and China's first modular space station will be complete.
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on November 02, 2022, 11:04:50 PM
 agagagagag agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on November 03, 2022, 07:37:55 PM
They spent a long time checking out everything on the Wentian before swinging it over to it's final position.  Mengtian was moved earlier today.

https://english.news.cn/20221103/ce2e714c7fce44b4b4f0e7f10587683a/c.html

So now the station is in its planned T-shaped configuration.

I'll guess the longer time period for Wentian was due to it having a full backup of life support (including 3 crew bunks and it's own toilet, which allows the station to have up to 6 people on board at a time).  I guess they wanted to make sure all of that was in good working order before moving it to its permanent place.  Mengtian is purely a science module, so it's a bit simpler in terms of integration with the systems in the other 2 modules.

Next up will be another cargo ship sometime late this month and then the next crew arrives on Shenzhou 15 in December.  This will be the first crew handover.

The next piece of hardware planned is the Xuntian space telescope.  It will co-orbit with the Tiangong station and can dock with it for maintenance and upgrades.  The planned launch is late 2023 or early 2024.

There is one other intriguing possibility under consideration.  Each of the 3 modules has a twin still on Earth.  Initially, these were created as a backup in case one of the first set was lost in a launch accident.  It would be very easy to launch them to double the size of the station, allowing it to host 12 people at a time.  Since the plan is to host many foreign guest astronauts, I'll bet that whoever in charge of scheduling those visits would be greatly relieved if the station could hold twice and many people and twice as many cabinets for experiments.


Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: Escaped Lunatic on March 21, 2023, 06:10:57 PM
The annual IPSOS Global Happiness Survey is out.  The good news - overall happiness is up 6%.

The great news - China is the happiest place on Earth, with 91% reporting they are either rather happy or very happy.  btbtbtbtbt

All the info is here - https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2023-03/Ipsos%20Global%20Happiness%202023%20Report.pdf

 
agagagagag  btbtbtbtbt  agagagagag
Title: Re: What's in the News
Post by: AMonk on March 22, 2023, 01:24:53 PM
 agagagagag agagagagag