Chinese Military Dictatorship Bans Car Pollution, Manages New Car Market
Ah, to be the head of a "managed" economy! Let's say you want to clean-up Bejing's foul air for the Olympics, so athletes don't retch, collapse and die of asphyxiation in front of billions of international onlookers. Simple. First, ban 300k cars in a single stroke. Sorry, your car is illegal. Drive it between now and September 1 and we'll confiscate your car and throw your ass in jail. "The next stage," ABC News [AUS] reports. "Will be for all private cars to be banned on alternate days using an 'odds and evens' number plate system. This will start on July 20 and is expected to take 45 per cent of cars off the streets." That's 45 percent of the 50 percent of Beijing traffic that remains after the first ban. Next? "Factory closures and a halt to major construction will also occur during the same period." Anything else? Raise gas prices. "State-owned oil companies, now subsidizing fuel prices, have been losing hundreds of million of dollars," The Detroit News reports. "Today, Chinese drivers pay $2.85 for a gallon of gas versus $4 in the U.S." Tomorrow, more. China's leaders will work on kicking-out foreign automakers eventually. But that's enough for today, yes?
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In other news, PRC autocrats banned farting to cut methane emissions in a show of solidarity with international initiatives to curb global warming gasses and to politely clear the miasma of fusty Beijing air for their western guests. Chinese hoi polloi are restricted to expelling said gasses on dates that correspond with their zodiac sign. To wit, since 2008 is the year of the Rat, only Rats (those souls born in 1924, 1936, 1948, 1960, 1972, 1984, 1996 or 2008 [newborns]) are permitted to fart until the Olympic torch has been extinguished. This directive will place a particular hardship on prolifically flatulent Chinese citizens born during the year of the Ox, Horse, Monkey, Dog and Pig. Roosters are instructed to leave the Beijing metro area since it is a known fact that birds don’t have muscles to control such things. Meanwhile, the Snakes and Dragons get off easy due to their traditional low-fiber diets. Back to you Robert…
The Chinese stock market has tanked in 2008(down like 50%) and they are suffering from high inflation. Not a bowl of cherries over there. And now the government starts acting like a bunch of California Democrats. Crash coming.
Shaker says "Funny — I watched a Frontline (on that wretched, left wing propaganda network, PBS) that looked at the lives of several individual younger Chinese people, and how they were dealing with the sudden entrance of their country into the 21st century. All of the people chronicled showed a high degree of intelligence and morality (they even had a story of the emerging Christianity movement there)." And implies that everything's on the up and up in China and on NPR. Yeah, right. Just like when CBS, NBC, ABC or NPR go to Iraq and interview "The Troops" and report that - hey, they're almost all voting for Obama. Yeah, right.
I believe they're also shutting down the coal power plants that surround the city for the duration of the Games. Hopefully they have enough nukes on backup or else it'll be the first non-televised Olympics since the 1930s. :)