What's in the News

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.

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. 

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

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? 

We need a bogus headline: "14 dead after terrorists poison rhino horn"

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. 

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?

China Plans Huge Buses That Can DRIVE OVER Cars

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.

i showed my friend that video of the super bus and he said 'they should learn how to use lanes first

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.

EL:

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?

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.

Fascinating:

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

A fascinating talk on privacy vs data revealed to servers:

http://www.softwarefreedom.org/news/2010/feb/10/highlights-eben-moglens-freedom-cloud-talk/

The computer is your friend.
The computer wants to make you happy.
Trust the computer.