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posted by martyb on Saturday April 11 2020, @12:14AM   Printer-friendly
from the Fido-Lives! dept.

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.


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  • (Score: 1, Troll) by vux984 on Sunday April 12 2020, @01:14AM (11 children)

    by vux984 (5045) on Sunday April 12 2020, @01:14AM (#981380)

    "That's a very bold assertion with no evidence."

    Really? The policy is already several years old.

    The World Health Organization (WHO), in consultation and collaboration with the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), has identified best practices for thenaming of new human diseases, with the aim to minimize unnecessary negative impact of disease names on trade, travel, tourism or animal welfare, and avoid causing offence to any cultural, social, national, regional, professional or ethnic groups.

    https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/163636/WHO_HSE_FOS_15.1_eng.pdf;sequence=1 [who.int]

    It's pretty clear they are against regional names now.

    Or visit the CDC section on past pandemics. They're not calling it "Spanish Flu".
    https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/basics/past-pandemics.html [cdc.gov]
    https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-pandemic-h1n1.html [cdc.gov]

    What more evidence would you like?

    "Counterpoint, no it doesn't. My assertion is at least as good as yours on the matter."

    No. It's not. The difference is there's plenty of evidence my assertion is correct. Spain protested the name spanish flu. The middle east protested mers. China protests the china flu/wuhan flu. Individual cases of abuse and violence against Chinese people in America are widely reported even... this isn't "CNN histrionics and TDS".

    https://www.foxnews.com/us/texas-man-stabbing-asian-family-coronavirus-fbi-hate-crime [foxnews.com]
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2020/02/18/how-covid-19-coronavirus-is-uncovering-anti-asian-racism/#2a4b3b4829a6 [forbes.com]
    https://www.governor.pa.gov/newsroom/community-leaders-join-gov-wolf-to-call-for-end-to-covid-related-discrimination/ [pa.gov]
    https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/get-psyched/202003/it-is-called-covid-19-not-the-chinese-virus [psychologytoday.com]

    If you refuse to examine the ample evidence critically you are being willfully ignorant. The notion that there is no stigma is absurd.

    "I'd rather be associated with an infectious disease than some disgusting processed 'cheese product' any day of the week."

    According to the US Standards of Identity for Dairy Products, part of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), to be labeled "American cheese" a processed cheese is required to be manufactured from cheddar cheese, colby cheese, washed curd cheese, or granular cheese, or any mixture of two or more of these.[6] The CFR also includes regulations for the manufacturing of processed American cheese.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_cheese [wikipedia.org]

    If you don't like America being associated with American cheese take it up your own federal government and the American cheese makers producing it; America is defining, protecting, and propagating that labeling, its not being imposed on you by foreign racists.

    But what I think you mean to imply her is 'anti-Chinese sentiment' of a completely different form - racist sentiment against individuals of Chinese origin. And I have seen absolutely zero reason to believe that's what he's talking about. This seems to be a dog-whistle of sorts, most of the country understands him in the first sense, but people that are already in a virtual state of hysteria about Trump insist on reading every statement in the worst, not the best, possible sense.

    It doesn't really matter if Trump is intending it be racist or not. If you blow a dog whistle the dogs come whether you want them or not. Once you know that, and you keep blowing it, you own some responsibility for that.

    Your position, if I read it right, is that somehow despite everyone including fox news reporting increased violence against people of asian descent over covid-19, and a long history of countries protesting and reporting stigma from being named for a disease --- that nobody, nobody except for hysterical-far-left-nutters are perceving the administrations anti-chinese sentiment as having any more effect than "duly and properly informing the electorate of the misdeeds of the Chinese communist party?"

    That's some pretty spectacular cognitive dissonance you are maintaining there.

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  • (Score: 2) by Arik on Sunday April 12 2020, @11:21AM (10 children)

    by Arik (4543) on Sunday April 12 2020, @11:21AM (#981476) Journal
    There are a handful of incidents of absolute idiots doing idiotic things. These are carefully counted and reported because we do NOT approve of it, we all know it's wrong and idiotic and we as a country are firmly against it.

    In any sufficiently large population you will have a few shitheads. And that's exactly what you're looking at here. A tiny handful of shitheads scattered through the general population who are so incredibly idiotic that they hear 'chinese flu' and want to go bash the first person they see that looks chinese.

    We lock these people up and punish them. But we don't need to destroy our own language in a futile attempt to eliminate every word or phrase that might possibly trigger some idiot to do something idiotic. Which is what you seem to be proposing.

    In contrast, in China right now, similar incidents are happening on a large scale. They are not counted, they are not reported. The CCP doesn't lock the perpetrators up, it encourages their behavior. That's what it looks like when a country is /actually/ racist.

    --
    If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
    • (Score: 2) by vux984 on Sunday April 12 2020, @11:34PM (8 children)

      by vux984 (5045) on Sunday April 12 2020, @11:34PM (#981749)

      "There are a handful of incidents of absolute idiots doing idiotic things."

      Didn't look at the links did you? 650+ incidents reported to police by Asian American's in a one week period in the US. That's reported incidents, not collected from random twitter posts. Extrapolate that globally. And then add the additional orders of magnitude of harrassment and abuse that didn't get reported, because most people aren't going to call the police if someone screams "Go home to china" and throws some garbage at them from a passing car.

      "A tiny handful of shitheads scattered through the general population who are so incredibly idiotic that they hear 'chinese flu' and want to go bash the first person they see that looks chinese."

      How "tiny" is large enough to merit a 2nd thought? Given we can and DID predict this will happen why not make the choice to head some of it off? It literally costs nothing.

      "But we don't need to destroy our own language in a futile attempt to eliminate every word or phrase that might possibly trigger some idiot to do something idiotic."

      "Destroy our language"? By choosing to name a virus COVID-19 instead of "ChinaFlu"? How is this a destruction of our language?
      And this is a global pandemic, the economy is ground to a halt, people are dying, they're digging mass graves in New York, people are losing their jobs by the millions, their health insurance cancelled, their investments hit hard, their futures uncertain. People who would not normally be triggered are on edge right now. Good leadership should be reassuring people right now and encouraging calm, not agitating them.

      "In contrast, in China..."

      Remains a country with a truly shitty government. "China is worse" is not a justification.

      • (Score: 2) by Arik on Monday April 13 2020, @01:17AM (6 children)

        by Arik (4543) on Monday April 13 2020, @01:17AM (#981779) Journal
        It's a tiny number in relation to the population you're talking about. And the solution is to enforce the law and take the idiots to jail, which is exactly what happens. When you take that approach, the stupidity (at least this particular form of it) is extinguished.

        When, instead, you fall all over yourself to attack other people, people who are not shitheads but just don't happen to agree with your linguistic proscriptions, you do the opposite. You *encourage* this kind of idiocy, you legitimize it, you excuse it. When you blame Trump for their actions, you implicitly relieve them of responsibility for their own actions, and that's wrong and harmful.

        "they're digging mass graves in New York"

        Typical deceptive soundbite. Oh, it's true, they are digging mass graves on Hart island. That's been going on for more than a century, though. Only now is it worth reporting on, because Trump! All his fault, him and that time machine of his.

        ""China is worse" is not a justification."

        No, it's not a justification, it's a reality check. You have country A where racist attacks occur occasionally and result in investigations, punishment, and universal denunciation of the offenders; and country B which actively encourages racist attacks, punishes no one, doesn't even keep track of them statistically, no concern at all. And you're pointing at country A and shrieking 'racist' - demanding that we all give up our very language in order to appease the racist, fascist regime in country B.

        Your position is illogical and unethical.

        --
        If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
        • (Score: 2) by vux984 on Monday April 13 2020, @05:03PM (5 children)

          by vux984 (5045) on Monday April 13 2020, @05:03PM (#982077)

          "When you take that approach, the stupidity (at least this particular form of it) is extinguished."

          Have leadership take people that are scared, rile them up about a target, and then arrest anyone who acts out. vs Have leadership recognize people are scared, and make an effort to keep them calm and avoid giving them a target, and then arrest anyone who still acts out. And you prefer the former because?

          "Only now is it worth reporting on, because Trump!"

          No, not 'because Trump', 'Because people are scared'. And for a century those grave sites were reserved for those people who were not claimed by family, and they were buried once a week. Now the burials are happening 5 days a week, and there's a real potential that people who would be claimed under more normal circumstances are going unclaimed do to the shutdown and travel restrictions. Surely, that's all a little newsworthy.

          "And you're pointing at country A and shrieking 'racist' - demanding that we all give up our very language in order to appease the racist, fascist regime in country B."

          I'm talking about "country A" because I'm strongly tied to country A, and am very invested in how things go here. I'm not "shrieking racist" and I'm not demanding you give up your 'very language'. Country B is 1000s of miles away and I'm more concerned with home.

          "No, it's not a justification, it's a reality check."

          But the fact that its China is beside the point. If it had originated in Louisiana they'd want it named COVID-19 too to avoid the stigma on its residents, the loss to tourism that stigma would bring, and to head off people around the country vandalizing cars and and hurling abuse at folks with Lousiana plates etc. Vandalizing cajun restaurants, etc, etc.
          My primary motivation here is the well being of American's of Asian descent, you know, actual American citizens.

          "Your position is illogical and unethical."

          I think precisely the same thing about yours.

          • (Score: 2) by Arik on Monday April 13 2020, @11:57PM (4 children)

            by Arik (4543) on Monday April 13 2020, @11:57PM (#982306) Journal
            "Have leadership take people that are scared, rile them up about a target, and then arrest anyone who acts out."

            But the middle clause doesn't seem to have actually happened, that may be the root of our disagreement.

            "No, not 'because Trump', 'Because people are scared'."

            And you don't think that has anything to do with four years of Trump hysteria?

            "And for a century those grave sites were reserved for those people who were not claimed by family, and they were buried once a week."

            For a full century, are you sure?

            I'm not, I'm going on vague memories from another decade, but I'm fairly sure they had one or two spats of extra activity previous to this one.

            "I'm talking about "country A" because I'm strongly tied to country A, and am very invested in how things go here."

            I'm sympathetic to the argument, I've used it myself in other circumstances. But it doesn't seem to cover the position you're defending, because the US has done nothing wrong at all in this specific situation. Unless you believe the story that the CIA created the COVID?

            "If it had originated in Louisiana they'd want it named COVID-19 too to avoid the stigma on its residents"

            And they could want in one hand and squat over the other and see which one filled up first.

            It would be called the Metairie Flu or something similar and the name would stick and everyone would get over it. Louisiana doesn't have anywhere near the pull of the CCP.

            You seem to be hyper-sensitive to 'stigma.' Rich daddy right?

            "people around the country vandalizing cars and and hurling abuse at folks with Lousiana plates etc."

            Anyone that would do that is obviously a shithead who was going to be buried under the jail sooner or later. Let's get em out of the way.

            "My primary motivation here is the well being of American's of Asian descent"

            I appreciate your desire to be our white knight, but please, don't.

            --
            If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
            • (Score: 2) by vux984 on Tuesday April 14 2020, @01:27AM (3 children)

              by vux984 (5045) on Tuesday April 14 2020, @01:27AM (#982331)

              "But the middle clause doesn't seem to have actually happened, that may be the root of our disagreement."

              I cited hundreds of incidents reported to police per week and find that significant enough to warrant at least minor consideration. (And by minor I mean on the scale of following an established policy to name the disease something neutral, which costs nothing.) You dismissed it as too tiny to matter. We do seem to disagree there.

              "And you don't think that has anything to do with four years of Trump hysteria?"

              Interesting question. What are you saying? I may be misunderstanding your point here.

              I'm reading that as you are asserting that it's largely left-wing people with TDS that are the idiots being triggered to violence?

              I expect the fear crosses the political spectrum; certainly the loss of jobs has, and the people dying has. And while I don't have any data on the party affiliation of the perpetrators of violence against asian americans, I'd be pretty skeptical that its all hysterical TDS liberals. And I don't really think that would even make sense -- TDS liberals don't listen to anything Trump says; and if anything they just blame Trump.

              It doesn't really make sense that they would be attacking asian americans because of something Trump said. It would make more sense that idiots who members of Trump's base who are scared would be more likely to take cues from Administration's lead on this.

              "but I'm fairly sure they had one or two spats of extra activity previous to this one."

              And they were probably newsworthy too. Doesn't really change anything.

              "Louisiana doesn't have anywhere near the pull of the CCP."

              Perhaps. I should have speculated a virus whose first cases originate from Mar-a-Lago instead. They have some pull with Trump; and there's no way he'd let his beloved golf-course get tarred by that brush like that. Not only would he refuse to call it MaralagoFlu -- I'd bet he'd try to sue anyone that did.

              "I appreciate your desire to be our white knight, but please, don't."

              That's a bit much.

              • (Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday April 14 2020, @02:21AM (2 children)

                by Arik (4543) on Tuesday April 14 2020, @02:21AM (#982357) Journal
                "I cited hundreds of incidents reported to police per week and find that significant enough to warrant at least minor consideration."

                Well here's the thing. "Hundreds of incidents per week" doesn't mean anything, without establishing a baseline, without establishing severity. How many incidents per week do we have in a country of this size, without extra factors? You don't tell us, and your sources don't appear to tell us. The bare statistic without the necessary backdrop is meaningless.

                I'm reminded of a recent moment when I got stuck somewhere with nothing to do but watch the tv. It was on the "news" and the talking head was telling me that they had calculated that if we did nothing 200,000 people would die over the next year. But he didn't say how many people die normally. He gave no baseline. So what did he really say?

                And anyway, the point isn't how many "incidents" there are it's that they are dealt with appropriately. Nobody thinks this is ok. This isn't like the permanent wars overseas, or the tendency to lawlessness among the police, where there are significant constituents that actually think this is ok. This shit is universally condemned.

                If we take the other view, then at some point, some arbitrarily high level of 'incidents' and our rights disappear?

                "I'm reading that as you are asserting that it's largely left-wing people with TDS that are the idiots being triggered to violence?"

                I'm a little more nuanced than that. Each side provokes the other, it's a feedback loop. But a largely pseudo-left-wing media has been whipping up hysteria on both side, and their go-to instrument for that has tended to be TDS.

                And since you gave me a couple more paragraphs focused on the voting habits of the people assaulting overtly asian-americans and I don't want to just ignore it, I'll grant that my gut would be they're more likely to be right wing than left in voting terms. Andy Ngo aside...

                But here's the thing, I guarantee you, go to any local (R) gathering and suggest you go out and find an asian-american to assault. Do it.

                You won't get one word of encouragement, I guarantee you. Not one person is going to give you a thumbs up on that. They're going to look at you like you just announced your medical results; you hit the trifecta! Herpes, Leprosy, AND Bubonic Plague!

                And it's not at all unlikely some of the people staring daggers at you are going to be asian-americans themselves, of course.

                "Perhaps. I should have speculated a virus whose first cases originate from Mar-a-Lago instead. They have some pull with Trump; and there's no way he'd let his beloved golf-course get tarred by that brush like that. Not only would he refuse to call it MaralagoFlu -- I'd bet he'd try to sue anyone that did."

                Well said. I have no disagreement with you there.

                But I would be happily against him on that, and continue to happily call it the Palm Beach Flu. My friends in the ACLU would doubtless defend me if necessary.

                --
                If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
                • (Score: 2) by vux984 on Tuesday April 14 2020, @08:12AM (1 child)

                  by vux984 (5045) on Tuesday April 14 2020, @08:12AM (#982463)

                  "The bare statistic without the necessary backdrop is meaningless."

                  I'd argue the bare statistic without context is not meaningless -- it's suggestive -- and given its being reported widely and across the political spectrum there's "probably something to it". CNN is apt to distort the numbers for a narrative, but Fox news will call them out on it, and vice versa. Like the report that Trump was a shareholder in Sanofi raising the spectre that he was trying to make money off a vaccine -- and then others came out of the woodwork to give it the missing context. He has a couple dozen shares directly, and holds broad mutual funds that have Sanofi among their holdings and that it's a giant nothing-burger.

                  And I'm not seeing that here. I'm not seeing fox news debunking those numbers by giving them context. They're either quietly affirming the increase in violence, reporting on certain egregious cases, or deflecting the story and focussing on China's misdeeds and that we can't let them off the hook, can't appease them, can't trust the WHO, etc: some of your previous arguments. So that's highly suggestive to me that their is meaning in the numbers. If there wasn't they'd be falling over themselves to show us why its just TDS.

                  I can also, however, offer that there are peer reviewed studies of other epidemics and pandemics that HAVE also shown visible ethnic minorities have been stigmatized and blamed for the disease. And I argue that the WHO naming policy is based on that work, not as an appeasement of the Chinese CCP. The fact that I can't give you a peer reviewed study, and full context over what's happening right now doesn't render the argument without merit. The value of science, even social science, is that there is predictive value in it; so its reasonable to assert that if we publicly identify a visible minority and blame them for the disease that it WILL lead to violence against them.

                  Finally, outbreaks of infectious disease can cause already vulnerable social groups, such as ethnic minority populations, to be stigmatized and blamed for the disease and its consequences (Person and others 2004). During the Black Death, Jewish communities in Europe faced discrimination, including expulsion and communal violence, because of stigma and blame for disease outbreaks (Cohn 2007). Modern outbreaks have seen more subtle forms of discrimination, such as shunning and fear, directed at minority populations linked with disease foci. For example, Africans in Hong Kong SAR, China, reported experiencing social isolation, anxiety, and economic hardship resulting from fears of their association with Ebola (Siu 2015).

                  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK525302/ [nih.gov]

                  "But here's the thing, I guarantee you, go to any local (R) gathering and suggest you go out and find an asian-american to assault. Do it. You won't get one word of encouragement, I guarantee you. Not one person is going to give you a thumbs up on that. They're going to look at you like you just announced your medical results"

                  Generally, I take your point and I agree.

                  "If we take the other view, then at some point, some arbitrarily high level of 'incidents' and our rights disappear?"

                  No, I am not suggesting we take away your right to say WuFlu or ChinaFlu or anything else. I think its irresponsible and harmful name, and I think you should be persuaded to choose to call it COVID-19, the neutral and official name selected by the WHO, and think all that goes triple for Trump and members of his administration.

                  But if you continue to choose not to, I think you are making the wrong choice, but if someone tried to actually stop you: I'll donate to the ACLU to defend you myself.

                  • (Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday April 14 2020, @09:49PM

                    by Arik (4543) on Tuesday April 14 2020, @09:49PM (#982792) Journal
                    I don't want to beat it to death - your methodology of combining Faux and CNN may be roughly correct in many cases but I would caution against putting too much weight on it. And obviously, in a sense, any 'incidents' are too many. But I do think it's disingenuous and harmful to make that out like it's something "structural" or something any significant faction in society or in government actually encourages. I just don't see that. In a nation this large you have a lot of idiots, some of them are acting badly, the part I revolt at is blaming their actions on anyone other than them. And I think that's where this conversation started - with the idea that these attacks are Trump's fault because he says 'China Virus' instead of 'Corona' or 'Covid.' I just don't see that as valid. If he called it Corona would that be inciting violence against Mexican beermakers? It's just absurd to me. Someone stupid enough to do something like that (attacking a chinese person because of the chinese virus, or a dutch person because of the dutch cough for that matter) is going to be a problem with or without a specific excuse, and just giving credibility to the 'excuse' itself is a step too far in my opinion.

                    "No, I am not suggesting we take away your right to say WuFlu or ChinaFlu or anything else."

                    Good, then I guess we agree more than it appeared at first.

                    "I think its irresponsible and harmful name, and I think you should be persuaded to choose to call it COVID-19, the neutral and official name selected by the WHO, and think all that goes triple for Trump and members of his administration."

                    I see your point, I don't completely disagree (though the WHO's word is completely worthless to me at this point, the rest of your point I see,) but I think it's a reality that most people are going to use common names, not Linnean. Maybe that's not a good thing, but I don't think we can change it. And I do think that any attempt to police the common language is a very bad idea.
                    --
                    If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
      • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday April 13 2020, @08:37AM

        by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Monday April 13 2020, @08:37AM (#981884) Homepage
        > Extrapolate that globally.

        God no, don't. The US is "special".
        --
        Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
    • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday April 13 2020, @08:42AM

      by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Monday April 13 2020, @08:42AM (#981886) Homepage
      ust FYI, there seems to be a new term for this act of cherry-picking tales of the idiots; cherries no more, now we're nut-picking.
      --
      Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves