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#1 2005-11-26 9:48 am
Chinese Lies, disease, chemicals and earthquakes
How bad is the SARS epidemic? Eh, not bad. Nothing to report, really.
(Potentially devestating disease... let's pretend it's not here. Damn it, China.)
How bad is bird flu? Bird flu... what bird flu?
(Holy smurfing smurf, you smurf. SARS wasn't bad enough, you're going to pretend THIS ONE ISN'T THERE EITHER?!?)
How bad is the chemical spill in the river? It's just a tiny one, nothing to worry about.
(No, that's ok. Don't tell an entire metropolitan area that their drinking water is about to turn toxic. No problem. Oh, sucks to be Russia, too.)
and today...
How big was the earthquake? Oh, it only killed 14. Nothing big.
Earthquake strikes central China
Hundreds of thousands have fled their homes, fearing aftershocks
An earthquake has killed at least 14 people and destroyed thousands of homes in central China.
The tremor had a magnitude of 5.7 and its epicentre was near the city of Ruichang in Jiangxi province.
Hundreds of people are reported to have been injured in the quake, which also hit the neighbouring province of Hubei.
In the Ruichang area a total of 420,000 people left their homes, fearing aftershocks, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency.
"Basically, everyone in Ruichang is huddling in the street," a civil affairs official told AFP news agency.
Anyone else think it might have been worse than they're letting on? Has anyone else noticed that that quake was in the general vicinity of the Three Gorges Dam?
Ahem...
There are two hazards uniquely identified with the dam 2; sedimentation modeling is unverified, and the dam sits on a seismic fault. Excessive sedimentation can block the sluice gates, which can cause dam failure under some conditions. This was a contributing cause of the Banqiao Dam failure in 1975 that precipitated the failure of 61 other dams and resulted in over 200,000 deaths. Also, the weight of the dam and reservoir can theoretically cause induced seismicity, as happened with the Katse Dam in Lesotho.
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#2 2005-11-26 9:57 am
- ShnickyShnack
- ::: title edited due to Satanic influences :::
- From: Rockin' out
- Registered: 2001-05-25
- Posts: 22237
Re: Chinese Lies, disease, chemicals and earthquakes
Well, it's not really in the vicinity of the dam ... I'd say it's around a thousand miles away, if not more. As for the resulting panic, that's not surprising either. China has experienced some horrific earthquakes, though it's been awhile since the last one (in 1976, I believe it was ... killed maybe a quarter million people).
But yeah, the communist party is basically a government of gangsters. You know that, I know that, and guess what, people in China know that. They're willing to put their own power above everything else, even if potentially millions of lives are at risk.
Sad thing is, this sort of thing has happened before in China's history -- the end of the Qing dynasty a century ago, when the country was falling apart because the government was incapable of reform but completely unwilling to step aside. And later the Nationalist government under Chiang Kai-shek, same thing. Each time the nasty-ass government has fallen, it's been replaced by something worse.
Let's hope the successors to the communists set a new pattern.
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#3 2005-11-26 1:57 pm
- Proost
- Member
- From: chair
- Registered: 2002-12-08
- Posts: 1748
Re: Chinese Lies, disease, chemicals and earthquakes
Yep stupid country. Too proud to ask outsiders for help of any kind. That river problem could have stopped much faster with outside help but no.
Invade I say, give them freedom! Though in a way China ain't that much different then the USA. I mean they also would not ask help or listen to other countries kinda.
Last edited by Proost (2005-11-26 2:09 pm)
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#4 2005-11-26 4:56 pm
- SonicSamurai
- Tachikoma!
- From: Section 9
- Registered: 2003-01-28
- Posts: 5129
Re: Chinese Lies, disease, chemicals and earthquakes
As an aside, I still dont exactly buy Bird Flu.
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#5 2005-11-27 10:59 am
- lamewing
- Apparent Microsoft Astroturf Salesman
- From: Fort Worth, TX
- Registered: 2001-02-23
- Posts: 1521
Re: Chinese Lies, disease, chemicals and earthquakes
SonicSamurai wrote:
As an aside, I still dont exactly buy Bird Flu.
Don't worry, if it ever mutates so as to be transmittable to humans, you will be able to get it for free.
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#6 2005-11-27 11:34 am
- Pithecanthropus
- Roast Master
- From: St. Cloud, MN
- Registered: 2002-12-30
- Posts: 4510
- Website
Re: Chinese Lies, disease, chemicals and earthquakes
Don't forget another Chinese lie: "Nepal belongs to us."
Regarding the Bird Flu, I heard an epidemeologist on Minnesota Public Radio the other day who was saying that right now the risk of getting it is extremely low, unless you live in very close contact with infected chickens. The problem, he said, is that the infection could very easily mutate (sorry, IDers) and could potentially kill 2 out of every 100 people worldwide (that's still millions and millions of deaths).
Grandfatherly advice: You can drink 'em pretty, but you can't drink 'em smart.
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#7 2005-11-27 11:37 am
- ShnickyShnack
- ::: title edited due to Satanic influences :::
- From: Rockin' out
- Registered: 2001-05-25
- Posts: 22237
Re: Chinese Lies, disease, chemicals and earthquakes
Pithecanthropus wrote:
Don't forget another Chinese lie: "Nepal belongs to us."
Do you mean Tibet?
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#8 2005-11-27 2:16 pm
- hal9k
- Member
- From: Studio Apt. w/view in WMass
- Registered: 2005-02-25
- Posts: 1082
Re: Chinese Lies, disease, chemicals and earthquakes
Don't forget Taiwan, too.
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." -- the late Hunter S. Thompson
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#9 2005-11-27 2:55 pm
- Robert B.
- Reality Deficient
- From: The pit of despair
- Registered: 1999-03-09
- Posts: 10300
Re: Chinese Lies, disease, chemicals and earthquakes
YELLOW PERIL, OH NO!!!
"Evil will always triumph because Good is dumb."
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#10 2005-11-27 4:16 pm
- Pithecanthropus
- Roast Master
- From: St. Cloud, MN
- Registered: 2002-12-30
- Posts: 4510
- Website
Re: Chinese Lies, disease, chemicals and earthquakes
Yes, I mean Tibet. oops...
Grandfatherly advice: You can drink 'em pretty, but you can't drink 'em smart.
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#11 2005-11-27 4:34 pm
- ShnickyShnack
- ::: title edited due to Satanic influences :::
- From: Rockin' out
- Registered: 2001-05-25
- Posts: 22237
Re: Chinese Lies, disease, chemicals and earthquakes
hal9k wrote:
Don't forget Taiwan, too.
What? Taiwan is a part of China.
BLASPHEMER!! THE MASSES WILL STRIKE YOU DOWN, IMPERIALIST SPLITTIST SWINE!
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#12 2005-11-27 5:08 pm
- hal9k
- Member
- From: Studio Apt. w/view in WMass
- Registered: 2005-02-25
- Posts: 1082
Re: Chinese Lies, disease, chemicals and earthquakes
Hong Kong Phooey!
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." -- the late Hunter S. Thompson
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#13 2005-11-27 5:34 pm
- Ribtorus
- Member
- Registered: 2002-07-11
- Posts: 14041
Re: Chinese Lies, disease, chemicals and earthquakes
Number one super guy!
Do you believe in magic in a young girl's heart, How the music can free her, whenever it starts, And it's magic, if the music is groovy, It makes you feel happy like an old-time movie,
I'll tell you about the magic, and it'll free your soul
...St. Sebastian
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#14 2005-11-28 10:27 am
- ShnickyShnack
- ::: title edited due to Satanic influences :::
- From: Rockin' out
- Registered: 2001-05-25
- Posts: 22237
Re: Chinese Lies, disease, chemicals and earthquakes
A small matter: China says avian flu is mutating in humans "to a certain degree" -- but there's nothing to worry about!
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#15 2005-11-28 11:22 am
- jerwin
- Sophist
- From: The Garden of Pure Ideology
- Registered: 2003-01-01
- Posts: 7292
Re: Chinese Lies, disease, chemicals and earthquakes
Interesting. While poking around on google news, I came across WHO refutes reports of China hiding bird flu cases. Of course, I am a Barbarian, outside the Great Firewall of China, so the details could be had (with some difficulty, as anti-Japanese sentiment could be politically useful, but a name could only bring internal dissension) . Apparently, the researcher who accused China of covering up deaths was Masato Toshiro. Is there anything to his story?
(The original Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung article is here
Some subjects actually enjoy pain, and withhold information they might otherwise have divulged in order to be punished.
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#16 2005-11-28 12:11 pm
- Troutski
- Dutuwende
- From: Dry Rot, Texas
- Registered: 2001-03-28
- Posts: 3545
Re: Chinese Lies, disease, chemicals and earthquakes
So on the fourth day of a crisis in China, after thousands have been evacuated, remaining residents line up to receive delivieries of trucked in water? The foreign minister apologizes? I thought the Secretary of State was supposed to shop for shoes during a crisis. Shouldn't Premier Wen Jiabao be playing a guitar or something?
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#17 2005-11-28 12:54 pm
Re: Chinese Lies, disease, chemicals and earthquakes
SonicSamurai wrote:
As an aside, I still dont exactly buy Bird Flu.
In China you don't have to - they give it away for free!
-=-
Seriously - I don't really buy it yet.
It potentially could be a very serious problem, the odds of that happening are low (in my uneducated non scientific analysis) - but it could happen.
It is the could happen that the media is feeding off of.
If something like bird flue did become a serious issue, I'm guessing we would be hit by the aftermath.
Say China and India and Pakistan and North Africa and Mexico etc. go through devastating plague that our doctors are able to curb here.
All our outsourcing is affected - Wallmart which has driven local businesses out now suddenly can't stock their shelves. Parts for our foreign car become scarce. Etc.
If you protest from the left, you are romanticized.
If you protest from the right, you are demonized
-- Greg Gutfeld
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#18 2005-11-28 12:57 pm
Re: Chinese Lies, disease, chemicals and earthquakes
oatmeal wrote:
How bad is the chemical spill in the river? It's just a tiny one, nothing to worry about.
I saw that movie - they'll be OK - there is a civil war ship there with lots of gold.
If you protest from the left, you are romanticized.
If you protest from the right, you are demonized
-- Greg Gutfeld
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#19 2005-11-28 1:11 pm
- ShnickyShnack
- ::: title edited due to Satanic influences :::
- From: Rockin' out
- Registered: 2001-05-25
- Posts: 22237
Re: Chinese Lies, disease, chemicals and earthquakes
jerwin wrote:
Interesting. While poking around on google news, I came across WHO refutes reports of China hiding bird flu cases. Of course, I am a Barbarian, outside the Great Firewall of China, so the details could be had (with some difficulty, as anti-Japanese sentiment could be politically useful, but a name could only bring internal dissension) . Apparently, the researcher who accused China of covering up deaths was Masato Toshiro. Is there anything to his story?
(The original Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung article is here
A good rule of thumb to follow in China is this: official reports of good news are exaggerated by a factor of ten, while official reports (if any) of bad news are downplayed by a factor of at LEAST ten.
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#20 2005-11-28 2:48 pm
- Troutski
- Dutuwende
- From: Dry Rot, Texas
- Registered: 2001-03-28
- Posts: 3545
Re: Chinese Lies, disease, chemicals and earthquakes
And do you have any doubt that the USA government would behave exactly the same way?
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#21 2005-11-28 2:50 pm
- ShnickyShnack
- ::: title edited due to Satanic influences :::
- From: Rockin' out
- Registered: 2001-05-25
- Posts: 22237
Re: Chinese Lies, disease, chemicals and earthquakes
Troutski wrote:
And do you have any doubt that the USA government would behave exactly the same way?
Not sure. But they can't. Not the way the Chinese can. Not liking the government is still a criminal offense, you know.
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#22 2005-11-28 7:23 pm
Re: Chinese Lies, disease, chemicals and earthquakes
Troutski wrote:
And do you have any doubt that the USA government would behave exactly the same way?
We still have freedom of the press.
If you protest from the left, you are romanticized.
If you protest from the right, you are demonized
-- Greg Gutfeld
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