I've just checked all non-Chinese Xinhua's for to-day and it's not there.
It's as upbeat as GWB on the US economy! Off to the Chinese site.

I haven't read it all - it takes about 6,000 characters to battle through the news and even the great Estrafucius has only half that; but I know "si xing" (death penalty) when I see it.
And a propos of not very much: "si" death sounds almost the same as "si" = 4 and that's why "four" is such an unlucky number.
Yes: it's quite true.

And "life" in the Chinese characters really does mean "life" as far as other punishments are concerned

I can certainly understand the concern considering the seriousness of the situation, and since a violator is running the risk of handing a death sentence to an innocent, I can understand the equality of the punishment to the crime.

There's probably good reason for this, just as there are always idiotic consumers that prove need for stupid warning labels on products such as hair dryers and butane lighters.

The only sign of hope, Thomas is that the Chinese Govt. are at last going to admit the truth and then all this speculation will die down ,and we'll see what most of us here all know already -that it peaked months ago but no one was admitting that it existed.
But -as I've frequently posted: when I recall my own Govt.'s handling of BSE and CJD -I'm not rushing to throw the first stone.

There is some politics in this: most of those arrested already were servants of the previous leader and those who will be arrested will also be old regime people. It's about more than health.

And it's a serious step: my college is the last school of its sort left open in Dalian, my city. And I've spent a large part of today buying and testing Braun ear-thermometers and arranging for large bilingual notices: everybody entering the college has to be tested and if it's above 37.6 they're refused admittance. An administrative nightmare!
We've been warned to expect a "spike" in the next few days: this will be the local municipality admitting the full number of cases and deaths. Officially it's one dead, one almost dead, and 100 isolated (that's a city of 6 million, cyberchums) -rumour has been 7 deaths for a good while (no new ones for a month).
It is actually peaking and declining but this sudden semi-honesty will temporarily make it look worse.

China does have the highest or one of the highest(I havn't checked today), populations on this planet. Now as impressive as it sounds it don't help them at all. Perhaps they are resorting to extreame measures of poplation control. Besides I have learned the more one hears about something the less likely its true. Or at least as propaganda/media goes.

Actually, advisor, they're pretty good at population control: the one family-one child rule is almost universal in the cities.
Of course, what the peasants get up to is anybody's guess.

As for media and propaganda, it's a constant education to watch how something local is all over the Western media and then it disappears because a new story arises.
I have seen almost nothing on SARS in China in the Western web-press that is 100% the case.

We should've done that with AIDS.

We should've done that with AIDS. Posted by Illmatic67

Ill, why do you do this? You normally do a fine job posting, good, intelligent, articulate, educated discussion. Then you go and say crap like this.

They have mobile execution vans. And you can be arrested and thrown in a labor camp for up to three years before they have to tell you why you were arrested and sentanced to labor for the period of time that you spent in the camp. This country has no heart. The people mean nothing to the government. Anyone out of line becomes one in line for execution. This country sickens me. What can you expect from such a horrible government???

Originally posted by Illmatic67
We should've done that with AIDS.

Please Ill dude listen to the one who rides the dragon.

Your statements are not only dense, but they are lacking sense.


(I'm a poet, and you must know it)

It's not quite that simple, Abe-V. You will see in China, as in most of the East a private concern for family, friends and the unfortunate that usually puts the West to shame.
Certainly it's not a people without a heart. Rather, it's a very different notion of government.

Originally posted by Estragon
It's not quite that simple, Abe-V. You will see in China, as in most of the East a private concern for family, friends and the unfortunate that usually puts the West to shame.
Certainly it's not a people without a heart. Rather, it's a very different notion of government.

I blame no innocent citizens of the great land of China, I blame the brutal regime in place there. That is all.

At its simplest: the Chinese place little value on individuality, "personal freedom", or the right to break the rules.
And that's why governments punish anything that affects the collective values harshly. We may not, of course, share those collective values; but it's at least debatable that the Chiense fondness for a bullet (very cheap and quick) is remarkably worse than the American fondness for long, slow, legal executions.

It may also be why an unaccompanied American or British woman will feel safer on the streets of Beijing, Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur at 2 a.m. than she ever will on the streets of Washington, New York or London.
You pick your values, you pay the price.