Medclinician, I do not read Chinese. I wonder how many of our readers do? So what is the point in printing Chinese on this board?I even seriously doubt if you read and understand Chinese.  Johnray1

Johnray1 wrote: Medclinician, I do not read Chinese. I wonder how many of our readers do? So what is the point in printing Chinese on this board?I even seriously doubt if you read and understand Chinese.  Johnray1

I have a very limited understanding of Chjnese as opposed to Vietnamese. I do think you underestimate the Chinese readership of this site. And it was for that reason part of the post was in Chinese.

China Surpasses U.S. in Number of Internet Users

By DAVID BARBOZA

SHANGHAI — China said the number of Internet users in the country reached about 253 million last month, putting it ahead of the United States as the worlds biggest Internet market.

The estimate, based on a national phone survey and released on Thursday by the China Internet Network Information Center in Beijing, showed a powerful surge in Internet adoption in this country over the last few years, particularly among teenagers.

The number of Internet users jumped more than 50 percent, or by about 90 million people, during the last year, said the center, which operates under the government-controlled Chinese Academy of Sciences. The new estimate represents only about 19 percent of China’s population, underscoring the potential for growth.

By contrast, about 220 million Americans are online, or 70 percent of the population, according to the Nielsen Company. Japan and South Korea have similarly high percentages.

Political content on Web sites inside China is heavily censored, and foreign sites operating here have faced restrictions. But online gaming, blogs, and social networking and entertainment sites are extremely popular among young people in China.

It is more likely the Chinese are going to find out what is happening with Bird Flu on a site like AFT than in their own country. When you do a scan of the thread here I started on the Chinese coverup of Bird Flu it was #1 in one of search engines used by U.S. intelligence and Law enforcement.

Understand posting things concerning China is dangerous for some of us. In my own personal life, my extreme tracking of things better left untracked including the spread of flu right now across the United States has not made for a happy prosperous life.  If you will research many reporters and writers, truly great scientists, and many of us who data mine and post that which does not get us government grants, costs us the support of high up congressmen and women and government agencies, and reduces us to almost abject poverty at times, there is not a lot of money to be made in truth.

Quite bluntly, we are shutting down our lab, and our life support is the Internet and living on often Top Ramen and Seven-up while our dogs and cats are poorly fed is the price of taking on the tigers, who can work behind the scenes to make life unfun for the those seeking and posting truth.

A thousand posts, a thousand toes I have stepped on, and some of those toes have cost me grants, very very large grants and help in our research in longevity.

JohnRay -whatever my opinion may be worth, from your posts here, and williness to let people know you are a practicing M.D. is of great merit to the credibility of the atmosphere of the site. There are MANY health professionals here, many .gov, and you might be quite surprised to find out, it might give you a chill to note those working for other governments may bind this an extremely informative place.

I learned this a long time ago John. I was getting emails from Iran, from Pakistan, from Afghanistan, from China- from places all over the world. And about 3 years ago I had this moment of clarity where I realized how GLOBAL we are.  And as soon as you cross the language barrier, you step out the censorship and media control - at least in the outer world flowing into the U.S. These people have not been programmed how to look at America wants itself to appear. True, countries heavily color our image to their people, and some people we knew in Russia doing an interview in this one town before they got chased out (lucky they weren't jailed or worse) saw America under LBJ as a nuclear cowboy toting menace that was about to send in missiles and blow them up.

So as you reach into other languages.. something magical happens.. you go from our spin to their spin. But in the midst of it - you find some facts.. and stuff you will NEVER find in American media. Why block news that most people cannot read. And this goes in Spades to Chinese. Why worry about an article in Chinese which may hold some pretty serious stuff when no one in the U.S. may take the time to translate and put it up on the net.

I know you datamine as we all do, and while I may not know Chinese.. I know other languages.. and I will tell you we have sifted through Arabic, French, Vietnamese, the dialects in Thailand, and ESPECIALLY China.  Our best source is the bilingual student. I have spent many a night in Europe in cities overlooking Mainz, in Paris, in Rome,in London - talkng to students learning.

The Chinese translated in the post was not an article - it was why the page was missing. Our schooling in Chinese history as opposed to the Western Civilization. It is one my pet peeves that we are constantly making these trans-cultural statements with no clue as to how the Chinese think or feel. They aren't just "The Chinese." They are people not exactly like us but who take pride in their country and want it to be the greatest nation on Earth. Sound familiar. And racism runs rampant in the veins of almost every country on earth. The gods of one nations are the demons of another- and sometimes those gods and demons are leaders.

If we do not become more aware of China and Japan, and several extremely well known Senators are quite proficient in the language as well as culture and have been to China. Why make it a point to travel to China and meet the future powerhouse of technology and manufacturing. Because they will be. We are already joined at the hip economically.

Yeah... sometimes it may seem that MC is two bricks shy of a load - but my purpose here is to get the arm chair generals out of their chairs, and those who yawn as millions starve and die into prepping and admitting a Pandemic is on its way. Since China is probably one of our few saviors in avoiding a nasty depression, for their own interest maybe, but still - we need to go global- and if not- get up to speed - the food market - we can't grow our own food. Read Time Magazine.. latest issue- we are hiring countries to grow our food-

So let me wrap it up here John, since I respect your profession and you taking our time to post here. China is where Bird Flu will probably start the Pandemic. I am heavily betting on Guangdong Province.. and then through one of the heavy duty ports.

You realize of course the blackout of news of what is going on in China is not entirely China doing it. We have to go through contacts in Hong Kong to get real news. The smoking bird is there so to speak. The evidence we have widespread Avian Flu in China right now is there.. and total denial of the event is hardcore in China.
Don't you think students would be interested. They can't read it in China. Don't you think they have the capability to mask their IP- jump through Dresden. Germany- and then  come on here like any other American or Brit looking very much like you or I. There are hackers and code rippers in India and China that make a living peddling our stuff- illegally and can pass through our protects and security like butter.

I write for some of them. Its their land (homeland). Its their families. Its their Pandemic which will kill 2/3 of their 1.3 billion population. I have written and been ripped many times.. we are in this together. We beat it together or we die in unison. Its that simple.

When you post.. I learned a long time ago - you NEVER know who is reading. It  is many peoples jobs to read 24/7.

More than 12 people in China have Avian. And over 2 billion birds are given a vaccine which hides the infection. Over 100,000,000 people in China have birds in their backyards. How many do you think are tested for hipath Avian? Not a lot.

The bits and pieces are just what I pick up in buffers. Buffers are tough to mess up- they leave a binary trail and to wipe them is beyond the tech of what we have in terms of a billion web pages that are up.  Not all.. but enough to leave irritating little fragments of a jewel of an outbreak article which is wiped. Do they wipe it? On purpose. Is the check in the mail? Is the guy you must talk to "in a meeting"  The more you have to loose (this is spin talk - the bigger lies and disinformation you MUST put out there.

I thank the many excellent and sacrificing people here who take pieces of what I can dig up and post some highly informative data, and post that are far better than my sometimes incoherent scribblings.

It's a detective story John. And sometimes the the fragment that seems meaningless can be the key to blowing up a suppressed outbreak or series of outbreaks which need to get out there.

Medclinician