Toppled over

The photo of the day. From BBC-

Que Jingde and Zhang Zhiqin of Shanghai Meidu Real Estate both received life terms for the June 2009 collapse.

According to China Daily, Zhang had allowed an unqualified contractor to build an underground car park.

This, combined with a large pile of excavated earth on the other side of the building, caused it to topple to one side, the paper said.

The building, a large apartment complex in Shanghai’s “Lotus Riverside” development, fell over almost intact.

It was empty at the time of the collapse, but a worker who had returned to the site to collect his tools was killed.

Contrast the justice handed down in Shanghai compared to that in South Korea when a building collapse took 500 lives. The longest prison term handed down for Sampoong was ten and a half years.

The way the building collapsed in Shanghai is pretty amazing. It looks like something made with Lego.

One in five

Is anyone shocked by this news?

An x-ray analysis of the bones of competitors in the Youth Games in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong discovered that 3,000 of the 15,000 athletes, or 20 per cent, had misrepresented their age.

Two thousand of them were too old to be eligible for youth competition, while one offender was seven years older than he claimed.

Suspicions of age-faking have dogged Chinese sport and caused embarrassment for China during last year's Olympic Games in Beijing. He Kexin, a gold medal-winning gymnast was investigated by the International Olympic Committee after being accused of being only 14 years old and ineligible.

Although Miss He was eventually cleared by the IOC, suspicions linger on and Bruno Grandi, the president of the International Gymnastics Federation recently gave an interview to the German press in which he said that there was "strong circumstantial evidence" of age falsification by the Chinese.

Steps are being taken to prevent a repeat at next year's Asia games. What happened in Beijing has so tainted Chinese sports, its going to be awfully hard to accept anyone's word that age shenanigans won't be happening there also.

The biggest loser

What if there ever was 'So who wants to be my mistress competition?' In China a millionaire hosted one when the economy forced him to make cutbacks.

At the time, the businessman, identified only by his last name -- Fan -- was married and had four other mistresses, according to the Peninsula Metropolis Daily newspaper in Qingdao.

The women knew of one another, but none elected to break up with the man and give up their rent-free apartment and a 5,000 yuan ($730) monthly allowance, the reports said.

When the economy soured, the businessman apparently decided to let go of all but one mistress.

He staged a private talent show in May, without telling the women his intentions. An instructor from a local modeling agency judged the women on the way they looked, how they sang and how much alcohol they could hold, the Shanghai Daily said.

If a mistress loses their job in China, are they eligible for unemployment?

This already wacky story, soon went over the edge.

The judge knocked out Yu in the first round of the competition based on her looks. Angry, she decided to exact revenge by telling her lover and the four other women to accompany her on a sightseeing trip before she returned to her home province, the media reports said.

It was during the trip that Yu reportedly drove the car off the cliff.

Yu died, the rest survived. What kind of idiot gets in a car with a fired mistress?

The story isn't over yet.

Fan shut down his company after the crash and paid Yu's parents 580,000 yuan ($84,744) as compensation for her death.

The four other women left him, as did his wife when she learned of the affairs.

The woman almost kills him and four others, but he pays compensation. Some how I don't feel sorry for Mr. Fan.

Hat tip- Below the Beltway

The Knucklehead of the Day award

Today's winner is China Central Television aka CCTV. They get the award for the following-

BEIJING - China's state-run television broadcaster apologized Tuesday for an unlicensed fireworks display that sparked a blaze that destroyed a luxury hotel in the network's headquarters complex in downtown Beijing.

The fire, which sent off huge plumes of black smoke and showered the ground with embers, left one firefighter dead and a handful of others injured, the official Xinhua News Agency said. The blaze was put out early Tuesday after burning for more than five hours at the unfinished Mandarin Oriental hotel.

Xinhua quoted Luo Yuan, a spokesman for the Beijing fire department, as saying that fireworks set off to celebrate the Lunar New Year were to blame for the fire that destroyed the nearly finished Mandarin Oriental hotel.

He was quoted as saying CCTV had hired a fireworks company to ignite several hundred large fireworks in an open area by the hotel. Video footage posted on Youtube showed spectacular bursts of fireworks above the top of the building in downtown Beijing.

"According to the Beijing fire department, this fire occurred because the person in charge of the construction of the new building project of CCTV, without permission, hired staff to set off fireworks that violated regulations," China Central Television said in a statement on its Web site.

CCTV said it was deeply grieved "for the severe damage the fire caused to the country's property."

The 159-metre (520-foot) Mandarin Oriental, designed by Netherlands architects Rem Koolhaas and Ole Scheeren, was part of a stunning CCTV complex that helped transform the capital's skyline for last year's Olympics.

Carelessness and stupidity took a life and caused millions of dollars of property damage. The Chinese would be wise to make sure the hotel owners are properly reimbursed. Nothing scares off foreign investors quicker than the risk of losing your investment without compensation.

In the meantime I name China Central Television aka CCTV today's Knucklehead of the Day. Below is a video of the fire.

Sizing things up

What happened to the days when students would watch 'On the Waterfront' or 'The Miracle Worker' at school? From myjoyonline.com-

A university in Taiwan has opened a course to teach students how to appreciate and analyse porn movies.

The Mass Communication Department of Providence University opened the course this semester, reports United Daily News.

To pass the course, students must give a 15 minute presentation in which they analyse an audience's psychological reaction to a porn clip from an academic perspective.

One worried student, who did not wish to be named, commented: "If I get a very good score in this course, I don't know how I'll explain it to my parents."

The student has things reversed. How do you explain to your parents why you are taking this course.

When registering for the voluntary course, students signed a paper agreeing that if the scenes were too explicit, they could choose to leave the classroom.

The teacher, assistant professor Miss Chen Mingmei, said no students had ever left her class but some would briefly cover their eyes during the stronger scenes.

I'm glad to hear that. By the way how does one become a professor of porn movies?

Suspended death penalty

Don't you wish the Chinese took product safety as seriously as they do corruption.

Beijing's former Vice Mayor Liu Zhihua was sentenced to death for taking bribes but was given a two-year reprieve, Chinese official media reported Sunday.

According to a report carried by the China Daily, the sentence was handed down Saturday by the Hengshui Intermediate People's Court in Beijing's neighboring Hebei Province.

The court found that Liu, 59, and his mistress Wang Jianrui pocketed a total of about 6.97 million yuan ($1.02 million) when Liu was vice mayor of Beijing from 1999 to 2006, during which time he oversaw various projects around the city, including construction projects for the 2008 Olympics.

It said Liu abused his power to get contract projects and loans, while he offered promotions for others in exchange for benefits.

So Mr. Liu will get to live two years knowing he'll be executed. I don't know if that is a sign of mercy or not to the former vice mayor.

Fake Duck blood

The latest product scandal from China.

Duck blood tofu is cubes of clotted duck blood. According to a recent report from Reminbao, the majority of duck blood tofu now served in Beijing restaurants is made from less expensive pig or buffalo blood. In addition, evidence has emerged that producers are adding formaldehyde to the duck blood.

Reminbao.com reported that the law enforcement officials from Sanhe City in Hebei Province closed the Duck Blood Processing Plant in Qiao Guantun Village on November 12. The plant covers an area of 40 square meters, inside was a large caldron filled with duck blood.

There were four plastic barrels in the plant, each weighing around 55 pounds. The barrels were filled with a white odorous liquid that was found to contain high concentrations of formaldehyde.

A source within the Sanhe City law enforcement said that the producer likely added the formaldehyde to act as a preservative and to increase the toughness of the duck blood tofu.

The article goes on to tell how one can tell real duck blood from the fake variety.China continues to resemble the USA about 100 years ago so far as food and consumer product safety go. If these suppliers faced civil penalties maybe they would clean up their act but I thinik we will continue to read stories like this for some years.

Hat tip- Japundit who writes- "Is there anything in china that is real & genuine?"

Getting carried away

Helen Alfredsson won the Grand China Air LPGA by 3 shots. From the BBC-

Helen Alfredsson won the Grand China Air title in Haikou with a magnificent seven-under-par 65 in the final round.

The Swede finished three strokes clear of Taiwan's Yani Tseng in the first LPGA Tour event to be staged in China.

Alfredsson, 43, carded eight birdies and could afford a bogey at the last following a poor chip as she took her career earnings past the $5m mark.

England's Karen Stupples led by five at the start of the round but a 75 left her five off the pace in fourth place.

Alfredsson began her charge with threes at the first two holes and covered the front nine in just 31 shots before another three at the 10th took her to the top of the leaderboard.

Playing three groups ahead of the overnight leaders, she also picked up shots at 14 and 17 before a five at the 18th provided the only blemish on her card.

"I was four up and didn't have great pressure on me for the chip, but it was not a great shot," she admitted.

Despite the error, the final groups were unable to challenge her 12-under-par total of 204, but Tseng, who won the LPGA Championship as a 19-year-old earlier this year, returned a 68 to pip Laura Diaz (72) for the runner-up's cheque.

"Since I almost caught up with the leader, I am very happy with the position I finished. It was a three-day event - you never know what would happen if it was a four-day tournament," said Tseng.

This was Tseng's fifth runner-up finish of the year. I have to imagine Tseng has the Rookie of the Year title sown up. If would have my vote.

Were the mainland Chinese golf fans pulling for Tseng who is from Taiwan? It is hard to tell, because there is no television coverage of the tournament outside of Asia.

Helen Alredsson would get my vote for comeback player of the year. Since finishing 2nd at the US Open, she's had a incredible run. Four weeks to the ADT Championship and the million dollar winner.

We won't get off

I doubt you will read about this happening in the United States.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Fifty-two passengers on a Chinese airliner whose flight was cancelled due to bad weather refused to disembark and instead spent the night onboard before finally leaving to their destination, local media said on Friday. The passengers boarded for their 8 p.m. (1:00 a.m. EDT) flight from Beijing to the eastern coastal city of Yantai, but after more than three hours of sitting on the tarmac, the airline cancelled the flight, the Beijing Morning Post said.

"Most of the about 200 passengers disembarked to complete flight transfer procedures, but a Mrs. Shi was one of 52 passengers who refused to get off," the newspaper said.

"Mrs. Shi said that she and her colleagues had to get to Yantai for a meeting, they were on a very tight schedule, and could not accept the cancellation of the flight."

At 3 a.m. the airline finally told them they could take a 7.30 a.m. flight to Yantai.

"The passengers said that in the 12 hours or so they spent on the aircraft, the crew provided continuous service, and all along offered food and drink," the report said. Chinese media frequently report stories of badly behaved passengers refusing to get off delayed aircraft or running amok at airports following delays, but also criticise airlines for not giving enough information to passengers about delays.

The crew stayed around to give them service. Just incredible, if it's true.

Some 20 years ago I was flying from Florida to the Philippines with connections in Dallas and Los Angeles. My plane left the gate in Dallas around 5 p.m. We didn't take all till around 8:30. The presence of thunderstorms in the area, preventing my flight(and others) from taking off.

This was in the days when passengers could smoke on board. When we finally took off, passengers cheered. I don't remember anyone getting angry about the delay. If they did, it was kept to themselves.

Today if a airline keeps passengers confined to a plane for 3.5 hours or no matter what the reason, it is likely to be on the evening news. The lawsuits to follow soon afterwards. Have times changed that much?

Half burnt

According to Reuters, some Chinese businesses are taking desperate measures due to the rising cost of fuel.

HONG KONG, Dec 7 (Reuters) - China's worst fuel crunch in years has led a crematorium to dump half-burnt corpses to try to save on diesel costs, a Hong Kong newspaper said on Friday.

Villagers in Hengyang county, in the southern province of Hunan, discovered the practice when an "unbearable stench" started coming from the site, and tried to block a road on Wednesday to stop funeral vehicles from delivering more bodies.

The village sent people to investigate the smell and the South China Morning Post said they saw "crematorium workers putting half-burnt human remains and organs in plastic bags and throwing them into a nearby ditch".

"As the price of diesel rose, we saw more and more bags thrown out from the crematorium," the paper quoted Xiao Gaoyi, a village representative and one of the witnesses, as saying.

China was hit by its worst fuel supply crisis in four years from October to November, as a widening gap between low, state-regulated domestic prices and market-driven international prices forced Chinese refiners to cut output.

Fuel in many parts of the country was rationed and there were long queues at petrol stations.

An increase of nearly 10 percent in the prices of domestic diesel and gasoline from Nov. 1, the first in almost a year and a half, failed to lift refining margins back into the black.

The China MSM has been known to get facts wrong before, so you have to wonder if its true. If this happened in the US, it would only take moments for someone to blame it on President Bush or Vice-President Cheney. Anyone going to blame Chinese President Hu Jinato?

I didn't think so.

Hat tip- Japundit
Linked to- Blue Star, Bright & Early, Populist, Right Voices, Right Wing Nation,

The Knucklehead of the Day award

Today's winner is The China National Chemical Construction Corp. They get the award for the following.

BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese state-run company has been ordered to pay a record $65 million (32 million pounds) in compensation, plus interest, for destroying a Malaysia Airlines plane with falsely declared cargo of caustic chemicals.

The Airbus A330 was ruined when 80 canisters belonging to the Dalian branch of the China National Chemical Construction Corp. leaked an extremely corrosive chemical, oxalyl chloride, in the cargo hold in March 2000.

The crew of the passenger flight from Beijing detected an acrid odour before landing in Kuala Lumpur en route to India and five ground handlers were taken ill when unloading the canisters to be sold to an Indian company.

The passengers disembarked without incident, but the $130 million aircraft was so badly damaged that the manufacturer concluded that it could not be repaired.

The Beijing Higher People's Court ruled on Wednesday that the Dalian company should bear the main blame by declaring the canisters contained a safe chemical in the form of powder, the Beijing Times said on Thursday.

The company had to pay five foreign insurers for Malaysia Airlines $65 million plus interest in compensation, ending a five-year lawsuit, the newspaper said.

Their improper shipment of chemicals didn't just destroy an airplane but endanger human lives. That is way I name The China National Chemical Construction Corp. today's Knucklehead of the Day.

Linked to- Adam, Bright & Early, Leaning Straight Up, Mad Pigeon, Random Yak, Right Wing Nation, Rosemary, Woman Honor Thyself, Yankee Sailor,

Lottery cheats

A different type of crackdown is taking place in China.

BEIJING (Reuters) - China plans to issue its first comprehensive rules for the lottery industry next year, aiming to stamp out a growing tide of fraud, the official Xinhua news agency said Sunday.

Lotteries have become hugely popular in China, where many forms of gambling are banned, helping to raise billions of dollars for public welfare and education projects.

But lottery-related crimes have also been on the rise and underground schemes have become rampant across the country in recent years, bankrupting many families.

Earlier this month, a lottery ticket seller was sentenced to life in prison for taking advantage of a system flaw to illegally cash in 28 million yuan ($3.8 million) in winning tickets.

"Lack of laws and regulations on lottery supervision has become a significant factor that has impeded the sound development of the industry," Xinhua quoted Ding Feng, deputy head of the Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council, or cabinet, as saying.

Government run games can be fixed, my wife tells me those in the Philippines have an uncanny habit of being won by government employees or people associated with politicians. Here in the United States, cheating is a little more subtle. With state lotteries spending a half million dollars contesting a five dollar winning ticket or lotteries showing no sympathy to a dying man.

Don't get me started on casinos either. Read these posts of mine to see how they are rigged too. Gambling today looks to be more and more an act of foolishness. Then people like myself continue to play these games. A sucker is born every minute, right?

Linked to- Adam, Bright & Early, Populist, The World According to Carl

Cautious Chinese

The Chinese don't want HIV/AIDS to spread during next year's Olympics. So here's their plan.

BEIJING- Beijing, preparing to host the 2008 Olympics, has ordered hotels to provide condoms in all bedrooms in a bid to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS after cases of infection soared 54 percent in the first 10 months of this year.

Announcing the move, the official Xinhua news agency made no direct reference to the Games, saying only that all the Chinese capital's 700 hotels must comply by the end of 2008.

With many thousands of visitors due to crowd into the city for the Olympics, which run from August 8 to August 24, every hotel is likely to be sold out.

While hotel managers must provide condoms for their guests, Xinhua said, they are not required to make a loss. The city health bureau said it was up to them how much to charge.

I thought the state set the prices in a communist nation. Then who says mainland China is communist any more?

Will the Olympic athletes get condoms too? If they do, will they be charged?

Author John Le Carre may have termed China's plans as 'extra special service'. Blogger GI at ROK Drop ponders if Chinese hotels will put condoms on pillows like some do with mints.

Linked to- Bright & Early, Bullwinkle, The World According to Carl,

The Knuckleheads of the Day award

Today's winner is Moose Enterprise and its CEO Manny Stul. They get the award for the following.

FIVE children have now been admitted to hospital after swallowing toxic Bindeez beads contaminated with the illegal date rape drug GHB, or fantasy.

However Moose Enterprise, the Melbourne toy company behind the beads - q-have on most youngsters' Christmas wish lists - has refused to reveal the identity of the Chinese manufacturer.

Toy stores worldwide were yesterday on alert following the Australian recall as Moose Enterprise went into crisis mode, hiring top spin doctor firm Royce Communications.

Two pre-schoolers were admitted to hospital in Auckland, New Zealand after injesting the beads and a 19-month-old Toowoomba toddler is recovering in Brisbane's Mater Hospital.

A 10-year-old girl fell unconscious and a two-year-old also needed hospital treatment in Sydney earlier this month but both recovered.

The tiny coloured beads in the Bindeez craft toy are supposed to contain a non-toxic glue which when sprayed with water sticks them together to form shapes.

Tests have revealed some of the ingredients were swapped for the chemical 1,4-Butanediol, which turns into liquid fantasy, also known as GHB, when injested.

It can cause drowsiness, coma and death and was a factor in the death of Brisbane mother Dianne Brimble on the P & O cruise ship Pacific Sky.

Moose believes only some batches of the toys are poisoned and said the company was not aware of and did not approve of the substitition of the chemical.

It plans to add the exceptionally bitter chemical Bitrex to the new shipments of the beads to put children off eating them.

Both the NSW and Queensland fair trading authorities believe the contamination was more likely to be accidental than deliberate.

Moose said yesterday it had been in touch with the unnamed Chinese manufacturers.

Moose CEO Manny Stul said the company's products were manufacturered by "internationally-approved toy manufacturers in China and are subject to world standard international testing

Another Chinese goods disaster. Moose Enterprise not identifying the manufacturer is unconscionable. This company or companies certainly do business in other parts of the world. People need to be warned but Stul and his company refuse to do it. That's my Moose Enterprise and its CEO George Stul are today's Knuckleheds of the Day.

Also blogging on this news- Don Surber, Dr. Taylor at Poliblog,

Linked to- Big Dog, Bright & Early, Leaning Straight Up, Outside the Beltway, Perri Nelson, Populist, Right Wing Nation, Rosemary, Third World County,

Coming Home

Knucklehead and rapist Kenneth John Freeman has decided to stop fighting extradition back to the United States from Hong Kong.

HONG KONG - An American man accused of raping his daughter and posting the videos on the Internet has agreed to be extradited from Hong Kong to the United States, his lawyer said Monday.

Kenneth John Freeman, a former reserve sheriff's deputy on the U.S. Marshals Service and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's most-wanted list, has been challenging the extradition request since he was arrested while traveling in Hong Kong in May.

"After due consideration, Freeman decided he will consent to surrender and be sent to the United States," Freeman's lawyer, Giles Surman, told a Hong Kong court on Monday.

But the attorney added: "Freeman maintains his innocence."

*****

Freeman, 44, a computer adviser and bodybuilder, fled his home in Seattle last year after his 17-year-old daughter told her mother that he had assaulted her four years earlier.

The teenager also told her story on national television, which helped identify her as the victim in a series of child pornography videos on the Internet, according to the U.S. Marshals Service.

Freeman, once a volunteer reserve sheriff's deputy, was charged in Benton County Superior Court in Washington with three counts of child rape and jumping bail. He faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment if convicted.

He also faces federal charges of producing and distributing child pornography.

Freeman decided to cut the process short partly because he was concerned the continued media coverage would influence a future jury, his lawyer said.

If found guilty, I hope Freeman rots in jail for the rest of his life. As to his motives in returning home, I'm certain they have nothing to do with press coverage but his personal welfare. Chinese prisons are unlikely to be a hospitable place for anyone. Also the Chinese have been known to execute people for far lesser offenses than raping one's daughter. Freeman probably prefers a life behind bars in the United States.

Linked to- Commonsense America, High Desert Wanderer, Morewhat, Yankee Sailor,

The Knucklehead of the Day award

Today's winner is Pang Jiayu. He gets the award for the following.

BEIJING (Reuters) - A corrupt senior Chinese official was denounced by his 11 mistresses after some of their husbands were sentenced to death for graft, state media said on Friday.

The news comes just days after a senior provincial Communist Party official was executed for blowing up his mistress with a car bomb.

"Second wives" are common among government officials and businessmen in China and are often blamed for driving men to seek money through bribes or other abuses of power.

Pang Jiayu, 63, former deputy head of the provincial political advisory body in the northwestern province of Shaanxi, was sacked and expelled from the Communist Party for graft, Xinhua news agency reported.

"Pang did not expect that he would be brought down by his own 11 mistresses," the official People's Daily said in a report carried on its Web site.

Pang, who was also Party boss of Baoji city, had lured several women, mostly "pretty and young" wives of his subordinates, to be his mistresses, it said.

He helped them "make big money" by assigning them or their husbands huge government or other financial projects, it added.

In one water-diversion project in which Pang's wife and mistresses were involved, water pipes exploded and collapsed only half a year after completion, it said.

The mistresses decided to denounce Pang to the Party after some of their husbands were sentenced to death for graft in cases related to Pang.

The Party's discipline inspection commission said in July that they would deal with the case severely.

11 mistresses. How did Pang keep it up? Cue the sarcastic laughter. A corrupt government official being brought down by his almost dozen mistresses isn't something you hear every day, and helps to make Pang Jiayu today's Knucklehead of the Day.

Linked to- Big Dog, Bright & Early, Cao, DragonLady, Liberty Pundit, Leaning Straight Up, Perri Nelson, Right Voices, Rosemary, Samantha Burns, Webloggin, The World According to Carl, Yankee Sailor,

Out of Gas

China Airlines is back in the news again

TOKYO - A China Airlines plane made an emergency landing Wednesday at an airport in western Japan after it ran out of fuel in the second incident involving the Taiwanese carrier this week, an official said.

The jet was en route from Taipei to an airport in central Japan, but its pilots requested a landing at Kansai International Airport, saying the plane did not have enough fuel to complete its journey, according to airport official Maki Yamanaka.

The plane landed safely at Kansai shortly before 9 p.m., and there were no reports of injuries to the passengers or crew, Yamanaka said.

Officials could not immediately say how many people were on board or identify what kind of plane it was. The plane was refueled and was expected to continue on to Chubu International Airport, its intended destination, Yamanaka said.

This comes shortly after the incident on Okinawa where a China Airlines 737 caught on fire.

Commercial flights running out of fuel is a rare occurrence, but has happened in the past. Fuel exhaustion caused plane crashes include

Avianca Flight 52 outside of JFK airport New York in January 1990
United Airlines 173 outside of Portland Oregon in December 1978
ALM 980 in the Caribbean May 1970

I knew of those three crashes without having to reference Wikipedia. Call TFM a aviation disaster buff.

You would think commercial pilots would be aware of fuel needs before taking off in addition to monitoring consumption during flight. Apparently some people at China Airlines forgot those important tasks. When combined with their poor safety record, it is only stronger reason people should avoid this airline at any cost.

In news related to the Okinawa incident.

TOKYO (AFP) - China Airlines painted over its logo on the charred remains of a burnt-out plane as investigators Wednesday sifted through the debris to find out why the jet blew up moments after landing in Japan.

Television footage showed a maintenance crew in green suits whitening out the name China Airlines on the plane's mangled body as well as the Taiwanese carrier's plum flower emblem on its tail.

*****

China Airlines official Yoko Kuroda confirmed the carrier had whitened out the corporate logo late Tuesday with the permission of Japanese authorities.

"Our officials in Taiwan said they recognised that there was a precedent for painting over logos," said Kuroda, from the marketing branch of the airline's Tokyo office.

She declined to say the reason for the move.

The blotting out of a crashed plane's company name or logo is actually quite common. I own this book. In it are articles on both Air Canada and Air Florida incidents. Both show the airlines having taken the same step as China Airlines did on Tuesday. I guess the airlines do this to cut down on the bad publicity a crash is giving them. A wrecked airplane certianly isn't good for business.

Linked to- Conservative Thoughts, Morewhat, Right Wing Nation,

China Airlines

There was a close call in Okinawa last night.

TAIPEI, Aug 20 Asia Pulse - A passenger jet of Taiwan-based China Airlines (CAL) (TAIEX:2610) caught fire shortly after landing at Okinawa's Naha international airport at 10:26 a.m. local time.

All 157 passengers and eight crew members aboard the Boeing 737-800 were able to escape to safety, a CAL spokesman said, adding that two of the crew members were rushed to hospital to be treated for smoke inhalation.

The plane had just pulled up to the gate to disembark passengers at 10: 27 a.m. local time when the left engine exploded and caught fire, according to the CAL spokesman, Sun Hung-wen.

None of the 157 passengers, including 17 Japanese citizens and 24 foreign nationals, were harmed, Sun said.

The Boeing 737-800 had departed from Taiwan Taoyuan international airport at 8: 23 a.m. Taipei time, carrying four tour groups from around Taiwan.

That no one was seriously injured or killed appears to be a small miracle. Thanks be to God for that.

This fire appears to have been started by one of the plane's engines once the craft was on the ground. Fires on planes still in the air have had disastrous consequences. The worst being the Saudia Flt. 163 disaster which took the lives of all 301 people on board.

What happened on Okinawa was the first incident involving China Airlines in five years. The airline doesn't have a good reputation. Most of this due to easily preventable deadly crashes in Taipei and Nagoya during the 90's, the Flight 611 disaster in 2002, plus a non-deadly accident in Hong Kong where a brand new 747 overshot the runway. (Admittedly Kai Tak airport wasn't one of the safer airports in the world, but the pilots tried landing in near typhoon like weather.) Things have been better of late, but I would only fly China Airlines as a last resort.

Like I'm going to be traveling to China any time soon. Right?

Linked to- Leaning Straight Up, Mark My Words, Morewhat, Third World County, Yankee Sailor,

Standing Army

Exhibit A in why China has the world's largest standing army. I'd certainly come to attention for them. So what do you think of that recruitment photo?(Safe for the office or work)

While I'm thinking of it, here is a Marx brothers routine from Duck Soup.

Rufus T. Firefly: Now that you're Secretary of War, what kind of an army do you think we ought to have?
Chicolini: Well, I tell you what I think, I think we should have a standing army.
Rufus T. Firefly: Why should we have a standing army?
Chicolini: Because then we save money on chairs

Beautiful Chinese women and The Marx Brothers in the same post. Only TFM could think of that or is that statement totally irrelephant?

Hat tip- Japundit
Linked to- Adam, Big Dog, Blue Star, Bright & Early, Perri Nelson, Pirate's Cove, Right Voices, Third World County, Webloggin, The World According to Carl, Yankee Sailor,

The Knucklehead of the Day award

Today's winner is Zi Beijia. He gets the award for the following.

BEIJING - A Chinese court on Sunday sentenced a reporter to a year in jail for faking a television story about cardboard-filled meat buns, state media reported, in a case that drew widespread attention to China's poor food safety record.

Zi Beijia, 28, pleaded guilty to charges of infringing on the reputation of a commodity during his trial at Beijing's No. 2 Intermediate Court, the official Xinhua News Agency said. He was sentenced to a year in jail and a fine of $132, it said.

Zi's buns story, reportedly shot with a hidden camera, alarmed people in China already worried about the nation's food safety and further hammered the country's reputation as an exporter. China has been under international scrutiny for problems in products ranging from pet food to toothpaste.

The video report appeared to show a makeshift kitchen where people made steamed buns stuffed with cardboard softened with caustic soda plus a little bit of fatty pork.

The Beijing court heard that Zi paid four migrant workers from China's northern Shaanxi province to make the buns according to his instructions, Xinhua said. The buns then were fed to dogs, it said.

The story was first broadcast on Beijing Television's Life Channel on July 8 and then again on China Central Television. It also was widely seen on YouTube.com.

The court heard that Zi edited the footage at home and hid the truth from Beijing Television, where he was working as a freelance reporter. Xinhua said he faked the story to advance his career.

Sentencing the reporter to jail is a predictable overreaction from Chinese authorities. Mr. Zi should never be employed as a journalist again, that's all. That doesn't excuse the journalistic hoax that he committed,(TFM never posted the news to the blog. So I didn't fall like it like some other blogs did) therefore Zi Beijia is today's Knucklehead of the Day.

Linked to- Bright & Early, Cao, DragonLady, Leaning Straight Up, Mark My Words, Morewhat, Perri Nelson, Third World County, The World According to Carl,