ViceZilla’s Views

Another news report has surfaced about China’s attempts to sweep it’s garbage under the carpet, hoping the world won’t notice before the start of the summer Olympics next year.

I’m not exactly sure who they think they are fooling by issuing orders to “establish a good image?” All we keep hearing from the Chinese Government is “image this and image that”, as they prepare to host the Olympics.

If you put lipstick on a pig, is still not a pig?

In it’s latest display of misplaced priorities, the Chinese Government has issued new rules for it’s police force. New fashion rules that is!

As reported in the Beijing News:
“When police are in uniform on duty, they are not allowed to wear scarfs or jewelry, paint their nails, or have colorfully dyed hair. Male police officers cannot have long or curly hair, sideburns, shave their hair bald or have beards,” it said, adding female police officers cannot have hair longer than shoulder length. “Unless there is a specific job need or illness of the eye, police cannot wear colored glasses,” it added.

The Ministry of Public Security has issued the order to “establish a good image for the people’s police”, domestic media said on Thursday. The Ministry of Public Security has now shifted it’s priorities to fashion? And I thought the Bush administration was all screwed up!

OK Ministry of Public Security, lets get the facts straight, and your priorities in order! I don’t think the world, nor do the citizens of China give a rat’s ass what their police officers wear! What they do care about, and you should too, is their safety!

Whether or not your police officers are wearing clean Tidy Whities is way down on the list of things that should be looked after when compared to the quality of China’s food products, those consumed locally and exported. Then how about getting the anti-freeze out of the exported tooth paste you make? Our children deserve better than that! Oh yeah, lets not forget about your country’s track record when it comes to making, using, and exporting sub-standard drugs! Innocent people die because of your loosely regulated drug policies!

Shall we look at your environmental record? I’m by no means calling you out as the world’s only polluter, but you are the biggest! A country that constructs 2 coal powered electricity plants a WEEK just to feed your booming economy shows the world exactly where your priorities lay! The environment, and our world deserves better than that! There are alternative options you know? And your stewardship of your country’s water sources leaves much to be desired as well. Come on, making citizens in some areas of the country drink the same water that their toilets flush into is just wrong!

Slaughtering tigers, and other exotic animals for their penises, liver, stomach, heart, kidney, paws, whiskers, ears, lips, teeth, intestines, or any other body part either internal or external to grind up and make a concoction to improve your virility and stamina between the sheets is a false hope. Regardless of what your ancestors did and believed, a tiger penis does not and will not improve your virility. Take a blue pill like everybody else and leave the tigers alone!

These examples are just the tip of the ice berg of things that should be worked on if you want to “put out a good image” of China for the world to see. Granted, China will be under the microscope next year during the Olympics, so it would be a good idea to start correcting the problems rather than trying to whitewash over them hoping nobody will notice, because the world will notice.

One more thing, stop shark finning! Our sharks deserve much better than the cruel death you subject them to because of your precious soup. STOP IT!

China’s Fashion Police

Tags: The China Effect by vicezilla
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Seems my humble little blog has been banned in China. Why oh why would they ban ViceZilla’s Views?

Could it possibly have something to do with my views on their incessant slaughtering of the world’s sharks to feed their appetite for Shark Fin Soup? Let”s see, the last post I made about China was giving them credit for trying to clean up their act before the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. While making strides towards their promise of hosting a “Green Olympics”, their appetite for eating rare, or endangered animals remain unchecked, especially by the elite and government officials.

I was actually notified by someone in China who regularly reads ViceZilla’s Views, that my web page was no longer available. I checked for myself using greatfirewallofchina. Sure as hell, it was coming up as blocked, whereas before it was unblocked. I thought it had to be a technical error somewhere. So I checked again. For three days each time I checked, it reported my URL as being blocked.

I then decided to painstakingly go through my hit log on my server. I filtered out all the hits except for those originating in China. Up until last Tuesday, April 17th roughly 5% of all hits to ViceZilla’s Views were from China. After April 17th, not one.

So for now at least it seems ViceZilla has been silenced in China, but that won’t stop me from continuing to point out the country’s gross negligence towards the world’s shark population by continuing to “fin” these endangered animals all for a bowl of soup.

Banning this would be more productive

Tags: Musings, The China Effect by vicezilla
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I’m really getting a laugh over the soap opera that is China. As the opening curtain for the summer Olympics draws near, you can’t help but get a sense of panic setting in from the Asian country.

If its not one thing, its another as China continues to sweep things under it’s carpet hoping it will go away.

Doctors and nurses are forced to wear helmets and carry police truncheons in order to protect themselves from angry patients and their families. It’s pretty bad when a medical caregiver has to resort to violence in order to protect themselves from the very people they are supposedly helping! I’m thinking the Chinese health care system is in need of a serious overhaul.

Still on the subject of health care, it is reported that about 200,000 people die each year in China because of drug “misuse”. The report stresses that the deaths have nothing to do with “fake” drugs that are on the market, only the legitimate ones.

In an attempt to put U.S. consumers’ minds at ease after China’s recent spate of tainted foods exports, the Chinese Government has released a statement. “The Chinese government pays a great deal of attention to consumer safety. China is a responsible country when it comes to protecting consumers’ health and security,” said Li Chuanqing, a vice-minister of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.

Phew! What a relief. If the Chinese Government says it’s food products are safe, who are we to claim otherwise? Give me a break!

Somebody should tell the Chinese Communist Party leaders that in the free world, actions speak louder than words. I would, but I’ve been censored!

On a more positive note, I came across an op-ed piece in the China Daily Newspaper. The writer is unidentified, but he speaks out against the demand for Shark Fin Soup.

Here is the person’s article in it’s entirety.

Say no to shark fin soup
(China Daily)
Updated: 2007-05-21 06:38
We are no longer what we were. More and more of our daily choices are being felt in remote corners of the world.
This time, it is not our thirst for ore or oil. It is our obsession with shark fins.
The World Conservation Union has appealed to the European Union to stop exporting shark fins to China because of the drastic drop in the number of sharks.
China and the EU are singled out because we are the No 1 consumer, and they the No 1 exporter. Some rare species of sharks are on the brink of extinction because we like the taste of their fins.
Shame on us.
This is a loss of biodiversity that is relatively easy to reverse.
Shark fins are not a regular dish on the dinner table of an ordinary Chinese home. They are favored by the rich.
For China’s nouveau riche shark fins are symbols of wealth and class.
Though the rich makes up only a small portion of society, the absolute number of shark fin consumers is still shockingly large given the nation’s huge population.
They share that misperception because shark fins are expensive. And they need expensive foods to prop up self-confidence.
Shark fins carry exorbitant price tags because they are scarce, their processing is complicated, and they are cooked with rare and expensive ingredients.
But shark fins’ vaunted unusual nutritional value turns out to be unfounded.
They are indeed rich in protein, but no more than meat, scientists say. As for taste, the accompanying fancy ingredients are responsible for the coveted flavor of shark fin soup.
Many who have tasted plain shark fin say it is tasteless, like fine vermicelli. In fact, there are reports of dishonest restaurants substituting vermicelli for shark fin.
So we do not have to kill the sharks to guarantee our protein intake or the dishes’ special taste.
Our challenge is to inform our wealthy but ignorant shark fin afficienados.
If they cannot change their status symbols to something that does not threaten our planet’s species, our authorities should take action.
(China Daily 05/21/2007 page4)

Tags: The China Effect by vicezilla
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Its time for the Global Community to put their foot down and start putting pressure on China to clean up it’s exported foods act. If that means banning all foods imported from China until the situation gets better, then so be it. This situation is getting ridiculous!

Imported seafood from China has been found to contain Organochlorine pesticides such as DDT. A new study found samples from markets that contained concentrations of contaminants high enough to pose threats to human health.

This is DDT; nasty stuff people! And its finding it’s way onto our dinner tables from once again, food imported from China.

Samples of shrimps, crabs, and mollusks were analyzed for 21 organochlorine pesticides. Of those, DDT and HCH (hexachlorocyclohexane) were detected most frequently and measured at the highest concentrations. These highest concentrations were observed in mollusks, specifically oysters, mussels, and squid. Concentrations of DDT in some of this seafood were high enough to pose human health threats. Other organochlorine pesticides present were at concentrations high enough to pose human cancer risks.

China exports 3.2 million metric tons of seafood products, which is 10 percent of the global export volume. Exports primarily go to Japan, Korea, Canada, the United States, and the European Union.

Once again, the questionable quality of foods imported from China has put us on alert again. For the sake of our own and family’s health, its time to actively seek out and refuse to buy foods imported from China.

Report Here

Tags: The China Effect by vicezilla
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After poisoned animal feed product arrived on our pet food shelves from China, we were outraged. But according to Hong Kong residents, they have tolerated substandard and potentially harmful Chinese food products for decades.

From vegetables laced with too many pesticides to meat and fish loaded with controlled drugs and industrial chemicals, foodstuffs from the mainland have often presented risks for consumers in Hong Kong, experts say.

China has strict rules governing food meant for export, but is less particular about produce intended for its domestic market, Fred Li, a legislator who sits on a legislative committee on food safety said.

If the poisoned animal feed exported is any indication of their ’strict rules” for exported food, I can only imagine what kind of non-existent rules are in place for food meant for domestic consumption is!

Source

Tags: The China Effect by vicezilla
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