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China reclassifies dogs as pets instead of livestock
China's Ministry of Agriculture issued new guidelines Wednesday that reclassify dogs as pets instead of livestock, part of the country's response to the coronavirus pandemic.
"As far as dogs are concerned, along with the progress of human civilization and the public concern and love for animal protection, dogs have been 'specialized' to become companion animals ... and they will not be regulated as livestock in China," the notice said.
The coronavirus is believed to have originated in horseshoe bats, which may have passed the disease to other wildlife species for sale in the markets of Wuhan, where the virus was first detected.
Following the outbreak, China banned the breeding, trading and consumption of wildlife.
Also at Reuters.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mendax on Saturday April 11 2020, @05:45AM (15 children)
Those fucking Chinese will eat anything that moves that they can catch. The wet markets are barbaric. Perhaps I am applying my Western prejudices to the Chinese but I think some Chinese eating habits are barbaric. I am now prepared to be flamed and am donning my asbestos underwear.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2020, @06:16AM (3 children)
Now, Roadkill Possums! Them's some fine eating. And Huckabee Squirrel, but you want to "chip" um, or it destroys the brains, which are good eating and the vector for the transmission of mad Squirrel disease to humans, also known as Arkansas Republicans. (Case in point, see "Tom Cotton", or "Huckabee".) So, yeah, Chinese wet markets have nothing on the fierce tradition of feeding yourself via the second amendment is shithole states like Arkansas. Or Missouri. Don't want to be racist, or anything.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2020, @06:18AM (1 child)
Man Dies from Extremely Rare Disease After Eating Squirrel Brains [livescience.com]
Not that rare, it seems.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 11 2020, @01:36PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2020, @08:24AM
And do please try the "Arkansas Bar-B-Qued rabbit! Some of the bones are a bit long, for Rabbit, but it is Arkansaws! Nothing like that Alabama nonsense, where "the secret is in the sauce!"
(Score: 4, Touché) by maxwell demon on Saturday April 11 2020, @08:28AM (3 children)
What distinguishes your disgust of the Chinese eating dogs (or whichever other animal you had in mind) from e.g. a Hindu having disgust of Americans eating cows, or a Muslim having disgust of Americans eating pigs?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2020, @08:35AM (1 child)
Peruvians and their darn guinea pigs! French eating horsemeat! Canadiens eating poutine! Oh, the horror!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2020, @09:53PM
Holy shit you know what a Canadien is! However FYI, poutine is widespread across Anglo Canada (and the Francophone pockets outside of Quebec) too.
(Score: 1) by Arik on Saturday April 11 2020, @09:00AM
It /is/ kind of gross. I don't want to do it myself. But... I know lots of people that eat pig. That's easily as gross. I don't hold it against them.
People just eat weird shit. You gotta accept that and move on.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Arik on Saturday April 11 2020, @08:57AM (3 children)
s/Chinese/Humans
And no, I'm NOT saying there aren't serious differences and some real problems with where China is at compared to first world western nations in regards to hygiene. There are.
I'm just saying, keep perspective. Our species has been around for a rough quarter of a million years. The idea of dietary restriction, of deliberately NOT exploiting every available source of nutrition, is only really attested to from about 800 bce, and likely originated about 400 years earlier. Much of the planet, not just China, has similar markets today - and in the prosperous western world, we had them too, as late as your fathers time, or perhaps your grandfathers.
This is in large part a function of economics. But thanks to cannibalistic western policy China has gotten very wealthy very quickly over the past few decades, so the culture hasn't quite caught up to the wealth.
And the racist and xenophobic state response doesn't bode well for that front either.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 11 2020, @02:07PM (2 children)
It has gotten somewhat better than the days when they were just as closed off and paranoid as North Korea, FWIW. Maybe that will mean future improvement.
One thing that I think is interesting is that China could have been just as culturally varied as Europe, if it weren't for the much greater homogenization of empire (up to the present).
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Arik on Saturday April 11 2020, @03:02PM (1 child)
I guess you haven't heard. Foreigners are being blamed for the wuhan virus, despite it making no sense. Foreigners are refused service everywhere, from food to medicine to housing. Foreigners that have paid their rent in advance are still evicted from their apartments. Foreigners that have been in China continuously since before the outbreak started, who have their official papers showing they have been tested and are clean - they are still turned away. A father of anglo origin, with a Chinese wife and their child, appears at the emergency room before the child injured himself. Father ticks all the boxes above - has been tested and cleared, hasn't left China since before it began - and they still won't let him in the hospital. Absolutely senseless, as they DID accept his wife and child inside, and obviously if he had the virus then they would have been exposed as well.
It makes no sense from an epidemiological point of view, it's pure politics. You want to talk about exploiting xenophobia for political gain? That's exactly what's going on. The CCP deflects blame onto the foreigners, and the people are conditioned to accept it, so it doesn't need to make sense.
China is on the verge of pogroms, if they aren't happening already.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Saturday April 11 2020, @04:29PM
Well, it's action consequent to greed, thoughtlessness, ignorance and stupidity, with a leavening of jingoism and superstition to round it out.
Hm.
Okay, yeah, that's a pretty good description of politics.
Carry on.
--
Dear life: When I said "This can't get any worse",
it wasn't a freaking challenge
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2020, @01:41PM (2 children)
And I think girls being "strongly encouraged" to sign "virginity" contracts with their fathers is barbaric. And I also think so-called mothers forcing/blackmailing their little 6-10 year-old daughters into participating to disgusting/degrading mini-miss beauty contests is barbaric.
And yet, both examples above are integral parts of the culture of some regions of a supposedly advanced and civilized country: The United States of America.
But still, those two examples pale in comparison to the most primitive, prehistoric, barbaric principle of all: Social darwinism; the principle that it is not only ok for children to suffer and die because of the choices/sins/crimes/skin-color of their parents, but that it's actually how things should be. And this belief is held strongly by at least half the population of the aforementionned country.
(Score: 2, Touché) by khallow on Saturday April 11 2020, @02:20PM (1 child)
I find it interesting how people try so hard to pretend that the US is worse. Even African Americans, Native Americans, and Polynesians (which by far are the worst affected ethnicities historically in the US IMHO) don't have the above as bad as Tibetans or Uighurs in the present day.
As opposed to 13% more [scmp.com] boys born in China than girls? We can play this whataboutism game all day. But there's no point to defending China by pointing out weaker flaws in the US.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2020, @08:45AM
Wha? What the everloving hell are you on about, khallow! Other than the fact they get preyed upon by the LDS, what are you talking about? Wounded Knee? Being sold, whether down river or up! Nothing to compare. Or, have you been listening to Aquaman about Mauna Kea? His super power is that he can talk to fish. Knows nothing about volcanic mountains.