As for the second one: "diplomatic personnel have a duty to respect the host country’s laws and regulations". Unless the Chinese govt. points out the specific law and/or regulation(s) the data infringes upon then i don't see how they have a case for their argument...
As for the second one: "diplomatic personnel have a duty to respect the host country’s laws and regulations". Unless the Chinese govt. points out the specific law and/or regulation(s) the data infringes upon then i don't see how they have a case for their argument...
Hey its China, we'll make up a law just for the sake of being right.
It infringes upon their sovereignty because it eliminates the state's ability to lie to it's public about their health.
Do it, China. I dare you.
We do it all the time. We dont deny it.
Whereas Western governments hide expenses and corporate contacts so that they could bail them out when they're in the shit. They'll also spy on your emails, phone calls, internet history, gaming chat, all online activities whilst their own private lives are kept hidden from public scrutiny.
"Most likely, the [tuna] would have eaten some contaminated fish off the coast of Japan and then swam across the Pacific ocean." “That’s a big ocean. To swim across it and still retain these radionuclides is pretty amazing,” lead researcher Nicholas Fisher told the AP.
^I'm not sure how the size of the ocean is relevant to still being contaminated.
I saw that one earlier too. The amazement stems from the fact that apparently large migratory fish like tuna can flush the radiation from their systems due to their metabolism.
This is true; however, the way I read the story was that this is a significant increase over what is already normally there. Although, the story did say the fish caught in Cali were still far below what are deemed dangerous levels.... Checked another news story quick to look at it, got this:
There was about five times the background amount of cesium 137 in the bluefin tuna they tested, but that is still a tiny quantity, Madigan said: 5 becquerels instead of 1 becquerel. Bluefin tuna typically have low levels of naturally occurring radioactive material, such as potassium 40, which was present in the world's oceans long before human beings walked the Earth. Compared to these natural levels of radioactivity, the amount contributed by Fukushima raised the level about 3 percent, Madigan said. He said there were probably much higher levels of cesium 134 present in bluefin tuna off Japan soon after the accident, as much as 40 to 50 percent higher than normal. Cesium 134 decays quickly, with a half-life of two years. Bluefin tuna excrete it on a daily basis and it also gets diluted in their bodies as they grow.
I still wonder what levels the tuna caught in japan are showing. :P
"But we all must also accept that there is absolutely no place for the type of inaccurate and abusive attack on our catering and dining hall staff, such as we saw in one newspaper yesterday which considerably inflamed the situation. That, of course, was not the fault of the blog, but of the paper."
So the bad report wasn't even from the girl to begin with... Is it bad i'm no longer surprised by such monumental blunders?
One day old news, the horror. :P I think it's still a thing worth talking about. (Although, I have to admit that part of the reason it caught my eye was because I've been reading the Ender's Shadow series for the past couple weeks, and it sort of goes with the theme of bright child against adult bureaucratic stupidity.)
@MG, I've been looking over her blog, and I can see why the council was embarrassed enough to want to shut her down. They were definitely shorting the kids, and while she didn't do the bad report herself, it's not exactly hard to read between the lines in what she says and shows. Like this:
"It happened today! As we lined up for lunch we were officially told that we are all allowed as much salad, fruit and bread as we want and that we had always been able to.....well my friends and I never knew that. It must have been a well kept secret. Everyone is really happy about the news now. We can have fruit and a dessert, fruit if you have a starter and both salad and veg!"
Looking at the previous posts, there may have been some paper somewhere that officially said they could have as much as they wanted, but it's obvious it was not actually the case. An early post also makes the comment of "At least dad understands why I always come home hungry now." And viewers can see why just as easily. It is interesting to see the quantity of food increase as she comments about people noticing her blog and how news people visit during lunch one day (which is also a day they get tons to eat, but then the next day it's back to business as usual). Also interesting is the little comment she makes once about how it's bad to eat last, because sometimes the kitchen runs out of food. There's a post right after the "Officially allowed to have as much as we want" post that illustrates this:
"We were practicing Olympic athletic events at school this morning in PE so I was very hungry come lunchtime and it didn't help that my year were second last in the queue! My sister and I were a bit nervous that we would get into trouble asking for fruit with our lunch today so Dad printed off an email from the council and my sister put it in her school bag. I had to ask for fruit and they were unsure but when they checked it was ok."
^Really shows the true attitude of the school, no matter what they officially say. Fruit seems to be one of the main battles. Slightly after this, it comes up again, with this comment: "You can't see fruit in the picture because you get it at the end only if you've eaten the rest of your food now. "
There's also a day where it mentions that they changed the menu from chicken burger to "chicken grill", but when she goes to lunch it's exactly the same thing. So you're left thinking, 'good piece of deception there.. looks better on the menu they show to people, without them actually paying the cost for improvement.'
One day old news, the horror. :P I think it's still a thing worth talking about. (Although, I have to admit that part of the reason it caught my eye was because I've been reading the Ender's Shadow series for the past couple weeks, and it sort of goes with the theme of bright child against adult bureaucratic stupidity.)
@MG, I've been looking over her blog, and I can see why the council was embarrassed enough to want to shut her down. They were definitely shorting the kids, and while she didn't do the bad report herself, it's not exactly hard to read between the lines in what she says and shows. Like this:
"It happened today! As we lined up for lunch we were officially told that we are all allowed as much salad, fruit and bread as we want and that we had always been able to.....well my friends and I never knew that. It must have been a well kept secret. Everyone is really happy about the news now. We can have fruit and a dessert, fruit if you have a starter and both salad and veg!"
Looking at the previous posts, there may have been some paper somewhere that officially said they could have as much as they wanted, but it's obvious it was not actually the case. An early post also makes the comment of "At least dad understands why I always come home hungry now." And viewers can see why just as easily. It is interesting to see the quantity of food increase as she comments about people noticing her blog and how news people visit during lunch one day (which is also a day they get tons to eat, but then the next day it's back to business as usual). Also interesting is the little comment she makes once about how it's bad to eat last, because sometimes the kitchen runs out of food. There's a post right after the "Officially allowed to have as much as we want" post that illustrates this:
"We were practicing Olympic athletic events at school this morning in PE so I was very hungry come lunchtime and it didn't help that my year were second last in the queue! My sister and I were a bit nervous that we would get into trouble asking for fruit with our lunch today so Dad printed off an email from the council and my sister put it in her school bag. I had to ask for fruit and they were unsure but when they checked it was ok."
^Really shows the true attitude of the school, no matter what they officially say. Fruit seems to be one of the main battles. Slightly after this, it comes up again, with this comment: "You can't see fruit in the picture because you get it at the end only if you've eaten the rest of your food now. "
There's also a day where it mentions that they changed the menu from chicken burger to "chicken grill", but when she goes to lunch it's exactly the same thing. So you're left thinking, 'good piece of deception there.. looks better on the menu they show to people, without them actually paying the cost for improvement.'
Its one day old but significant as the news is no longer valid as the council has reinstated the permission to photograph. Plus I doubt this kid wrote all of this herself and just has a father who'd like to 'stir up a little 15mins of fame'.
Just because she can take pictures again doesn't invalidate anything. The quality of school lunches continues to be a problem, not just in this small town, but in many places around the world. In fact, what this story teaches is that, far from being the '15 minutes of fame' you are disparaging, the adroit use of social media was a legitimate and effective tool in achieving change.
Oh i didn't realize you posted that before it was resolved. I first heard about it after the ban was withdrawn and first saw the linked page was updated to reflect that.
Anyway, looking over the blog i'm not sure i agree with your assessment. Yes there are the odd moments where she does have something bad to say about they way the system is run, but it barely resembles anything malicious.
Besides, the ban was originally issued because the council claimed it was an attack on the catering staff, which like i pointed out wasn't her fault, not the lack of quantity in the meals (which as the blog goes on gets mentioned less and less).
Hmm, I wasn't think of it as her being malicious, not in my mind anyway, just that her posts exposed problems which embarrassed the council, and ultimately caused the attack on the catering staff by the newspaper, which was actually a good thing because it caused improvements, like the increases in quantity we can observe. But the reading between the lines is more like, when a kid is worried that she's going to get in trouble for asking for fruit that she's been officially told that she can have, you know there's something going on there. I mean, despite the announcements about it, the catering staff was still unsure if she could have any and had to check. That pretty much screams that 'official' policy and actual policy were not quite on the same level.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic to the school and council though either. I do all the purchasing for the school I work at right now, and food bills can be super expensive, which can be esp annoying when you see kids throwing away half of what's on their plate. It's money down the drain. And I totally get why the main issue seems to be giving the kids fruit, because that is easily the most expensive item per quantity on the bill. However, bluster, deception, and the bullying of 9 yr olds are not the best way to deal with something like this, so I am happy they got smacked down. :P
Just because she can take pictures again doesn't invalidate anything. The quality of school lunches continues to be a problem, not just in this small town, but in many places around the world. In fact, what this story teaches is that, far from being the '15 minutes of fame' you are disparaging, the adroit use of social media was a legitimate and effective tool in achieving change.
Hmm, I wasn't think of it as her being malicious, not in my mind anyway, just that her posts exposed problems which embarrassed the council, and ultimately caused the attack on the catering staff by the newspaper, which was actually a good thing because it caused improvements, like the increases in quantity we can observe. But the reading between the lines is more like, when a kid is worried that she's going to get in trouble for asking for fruit that she's been officially told that she can have, you know there's something going on there. I mean, despite the announcements about it, the catering staff was still unsure if she could have any and had to check. That pretty much screams that 'official' policy and actual policy were not quite on the same level.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic to the school and council though either. I do all the purchasing for the school I work at right now, and food bills can be super expensive, which can be esp annoying when you see kids throwing away half of what's on their plate. It's money down the drain. And I totally get why the main issue seems to be giving the kids fruit, because that is easily the most expensive item per quantity on the bill. However, bluster, deception, and the bullying of 9 yr olds are not the best way to deal with something like this, so I am happy they got smacked down. :P
Its not bullying of the 9year old, in fact its nothing of the sorts. Its the consequences of her actions which have led to the bullying of staff at the school who have no control whatsoever to what they serve.
The people who complain about the food being poor are also the same people who are unwilling to dosh out a few extra pennies in tax.
Yes, which is a fact she did not fail to recognize. I think this is something that actually supports my point, look at how she started up a little charity and gave all the money away to the charity Mary's Meals, which opens kitchens in several countries around the world to serve food to kids in schools who would never get any. And thanks to her 15 minutes of fame, she's now raised.... £87,619.53 http://www.justgiving.com/neverseconds
Not bad for "just has a father who'd like to 'stir up a little 15mins of fame' " eh?
And please, a critical news story in the paper doesn't count as "the bullying of staff" if her being forbidden her camera and told to shut down her blog aren't.
Yes, which is a fact she did not fail to recognize. I think this is something that actually supports my point, look at how she started up a little charity and gave all the money away to the charity Mary's Meals, which opens kitchens in several countries around the world to serve food to kids in schools who would never get any. And thanks to her 15 minutes of fame, she's now raised.... £87,619.53 http://www.justgiving.com/neverseconds
Not bad for "just has a father who'd like to 'stir up a little 15mins of fame' " eh?
And please, a critical news story in the paper doesn't count as "the bullying of staff" if her being forbidden her camera and told to shut down her blog aren't.
Problem was, the story was stirred up by tabloids first. Which lead to the initial decision to ban her from using her camera. And being a tabloid, there was nothing critical, just a bunch of trash sensationalist drivvel.
Ixta, she never 'started' a charity, she only supported it. At the end of the day, yes she gets some cash for it, she gets a lot of publicity, everybody wins...so where's the news?
You're getting awful technical here to put her down.
"Last year my friends and I started a club, which the school let us run, called Charity Children. We raised money for Mary's Meals. In our first sale we raised £70 in three hours which is enough to feed 7 children school lunches for a WHOLE YEAR! A lot of kids go to school everyday just for the food. Each lunch costs 6p to make."
So she started a club to raise money for a charity well before she even started blogging, and then funneled the publicity from the blog into raising a not-insignificant amount of money for the same charity.
I'm really not sure why you're so dismissive of this.
Comments
http://www.chinasmack.com/2012/stories/us-says-china-can-report-air-quality-of-american-cities-too.html
I thought this one was interesting too.
As for the second one: "diplomatic personnel have a duty to respect the host country’s laws and regulations".
Unless the Chinese govt. points out the specific law and/or regulation(s) the data infringes upon then i don't see how they have a case for their argument...
Do it, China. I dare you.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002943714_asianair21m.html
I'm curious if there's an update on this research they were doing...
Whereas Western governments hide expenses and corporate contacts so that they could bail them out when they're in the shit. They'll also spy on your emails, phone calls, internet history, gaming chat, all online activities whilst their own private lives are kept hidden from public scrutiny.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/29/bluefin-tuna-radioactive-radiation-health_n_1552838.html
“That’s a big ocean. To swim across it and still retain these radionuclides is pretty amazing,” lead researcher Nicholas Fisher told the AP.
^I'm not sure how the size of the ocean is relevant to still being contaminated.
Source: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10809238
There was about five times the background amount of cesium 137 in the bluefin tuna they tested, but that is still a tiny quantity, Madigan said: 5 becquerels instead of 1 becquerel. Bluefin tuna typically have low levels of naturally occurring radioactive material, such as potassium 40, which was present in the world's oceans long before human beings walked the Earth.
Compared to these natural levels of radioactivity, the amount contributed by Fukushima raised the level about 3 percent, Madigan said.
He said there were probably much higher levels of cesium 134 present in bluefin tuna off Japan soon after the accident, as much as 40 to 50 percent higher than normal. Cesium 134 decays quickly, with a half-life of two years. Bluefin tuna excrete it on a daily basis and it also gets diluted in their bodies as they grow.
I still wonder what levels the tuna caught in japan are showing. :P
Typical that these people would try to stop the bad reports by banning the girl rather than by actually fixing what's wrong.
So the bad report wasn't even from the girl to begin with... Is it bad i'm no longer surprised by such monumental blunders?
(Although, I have to admit that part of the reason it caught my eye was because I've been reading the Ender's Shadow series for the past couple weeks, and it sort of goes with the theme of bright child against adult bureaucratic stupidity.)
@MG, I've been looking over her blog, and I can see why the council was embarrassed enough to want to shut her down. They were definitely shorting the kids, and while she didn't do the bad report herself, it's not exactly hard to read between the lines in what she says and shows. Like this:
"It happened today! As we lined up for lunch we were officially told that we are all allowed as much salad, fruit and bread as we want and that we had always been able to.....well my friends and I never knew that. It must have been a well kept secret. Everyone is really happy about the news now. We can have fruit and a dessert, fruit if you have a starter and both salad and veg!"
Looking at the previous posts, there may have been some paper somewhere that officially said they could have as much as they wanted, but it's obvious it was not actually the case. An early post also makes the comment of "At least dad understands why I always come home hungry now." And viewers can see why just as easily.
It is interesting to see the quantity of food increase as she comments about people noticing her blog and how news people visit during lunch one day (which is also a day they get tons to eat, but then the next day it's back to business as usual). Also interesting is the little comment she makes once about how it's bad to eat last, because sometimes the kitchen runs out of food. There's a post right after the "Officially allowed to have as much as we want" post that illustrates this:
"We were practicing Olympic athletic events at school this morning in PE so I was very hungry come lunchtime and it didn't help that my year were second last in the queue! My sister and I were a bit nervous that we would get into trouble asking for fruit with our lunch today so Dad printed off an email from the council and my sister put it in her school bag. I had to ask for fruit and they were unsure but when they checked it was ok."
^Really shows the true attitude of the school, no matter what they officially say.
Fruit seems to be one of the main battles. Slightly after this, it comes up again, with this comment: "You can't see fruit in the picture because you get it at the end only if you've eaten the rest of your food now. "
There's also a day where it mentions that they changed the menu from chicken burger to "chicken grill", but when she goes to lunch it's exactly the same thing. So you're left thinking, 'good piece of deception there.. looks better on the menu they show to people, without them actually paying the cost for improvement.'
Its one day old but significant as the news is no longer valid as the council has reinstated the permission to photograph. Plus I doubt this kid wrote all of this herself and just has a father who'd like to 'stir up a little 15mins of fame'.
Anyway, looking over the blog i'm not sure i agree with your assessment. Yes there are the odd moments where she does have something bad to say about they way the system is run, but it barely resembles anything malicious.
Besides, the ban was originally issued because the council claimed it was an attack on the catering staff, which like i pointed out wasn't her fault, not the lack of quantity in the meals (which as the blog goes on gets mentioned less and less).
I'm not entirely unsympathetic to the school and council though either. I do all the purchasing for the school I work at right now, and food bills can be super expensive, which can be esp annoying when you see kids throwing away half of what's on their plate. It's money down the drain. And I totally get why the main issue seems to be giving the kids fruit, because that is easily the most expensive item per quantity on the bill. However, bluster, deception, and the bullying of 9 yr olds are not the best way to deal with something like this, so I am happy they got smacked down. :P
The people who complain about the food being poor are also the same people who are unwilling to dosh out a few extra pennies in tax.
http://www.justgiving.com/neverseconds
Not bad for "just has a father who'd like to 'stir up a little 15mins of fame' " eh?
And please, a critical news story in the paper doesn't count as "the bullying of staff" if her being forbidden her camera and told to shut down her blog aren't.
Also:
http://www.explosm.net/comics/2832/
Ixta, she never 'started' a charity, she only supported it. At the end of the day, yes she gets some cash for it, she gets a lot of publicity, everybody wins...so where's the news?
"Last year my friends and I started a club, which the school let us run, called Charity Children. We raised money for Mary's Meals. In our first sale we raised £70 in three hours which is enough to feed 7 children school lunches for a WHOLE YEAR! A lot of kids go to school everyday just for the food. Each lunch costs 6p to make."
So she started a club to raise money for a charity well before she even started blogging, and then funneled the publicity from the blog into raising a not-insignificant amount of money for the same charity.
I'm really not sure why you're so dismissive of this.