Charles on… anything that comes along

Fascinating story in The Economist:

The government blames middlemen who collect milk from dairy farmers. They allegedly added water to increase its volume and, to disguise this, mixed in melamine, a chemical used to make plastics, which can deceive inspectors about the milk’s protein content. Melamine gained notoriety last year when several pets in America died after eating food contaminated with it by Chinese-made additives.

The central government has boasted it was quick to react to the latest problem. But the chronology revealed so far suggests otherwise. It has fuelled speculation of a delay to make sure the Olympic games in August were not marred by a food scare.

(Emphasis added.)

The government of Gansu province in China’s west says it told the Ministry of Health on July 16th about an unusual upsurge of kidney stones among infants who had all drunk the same brand of milk. It was not until September 1st that the ministry says its experts tentatively concluded that the powder had caused the sickness. Still, nothing appeared to happen.

Prodding from the government of New Zealand may have been what eventually goaded the Chinese authorities into action. On September 8th it told them what it had learnt from Fonterra, a New Zealand dairy company that owns 43% of Sanlu [until recently one of China’s biggest producers of milk powder]. Fonterra says it was told by Sanlu of a problem with the powder on August 2nd, six days before the games.

(Emphasis added.)

Now, of course one should usually not ascribe to malevolence what can be ascribed to incompetence, but with the tainted milk thing really kicking off (European ban, children still dying) I’m not persuaded that someone who could have taken action didn’t see it, but suppressed it.

After all, what’s the deaths of a few children compared to favourable worldwide TV coverage?

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• At the Guardian: another podcast, and how much will net access at the Beijing Olympics be limited? (27 February 2008; score: 52.44%)
• London wins Olympics: and now interviewers start saying "Yes, but.." (6 July 2005; score: 42.13%)

Giles Coren managed to make himself a figure of fun with his incredibly ranty email to the subs at The Times.

And elsewhere, Bruno Ganz’s incredible scene from Downfall - the film about Hitler’s last days - has been covered endlessly in the corridors of YouTube, where it’s been used (with subtitles) about Xbox modding, the European referendum in Ireland, Vista, and on and on.. (it’s a fully-fledged meme).

And now, we present the chief sub’s office in The Times. Dim the lights…

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• 'Missing' plutonium: just as you are missing money you still own (17 February 2005; score: 30.27%)
• Now will you believe I don't write the headlines? (30 September 2004; score: 19.85%)

A very quick thought on the financial perhaps-it’ll-turn-into-a-full-blown crisis now engulfing the US stock markets.

Why, rather than writing up a bill said to be “the size of two bookends” to justifying the $700 billion bailout (really, a purchase of “toxic” assets whose real value is uncertain - so how are they sure they’re worth $700bn? - meaning that Wall Street gets real money to play with, while the US government owns lots of dilapidated homes in Florida) - why, instead of that, didn’t they just follow the example of one of the biggest companies around?

After all, when Google wanted to launch a new browser, it didn’t do it with big long thick press releases. (Or if it did, I certainly whizzed past it.)

Instead, it hired a cartoonist to explain it. Which he did, very thoroughly, making the problems of runaway processes, browser hangs, Javascript compilation and regression testing comprehensible to anyone who has got past moving their lips while they’re reading. (Unless they’re giving speeches, of course, President Bush.)

I do think there’s just a chance that a cartoon might have made it all moer comprehensible. Not least to the poor American electorate who are going to have to explain to their children why their banks are all owned by China. And their car makers. And supermarkets. Though their houses - ah, their houses are their own. In fact, everyone’s.

I wonder what that comic would read like, though? Anyone care to hack the Google Chrome one? It’s Creative Commons, after all.

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