Well, it's obvious that China isn't a capitalist society. Why? Instead of making a gabillion dollars selling souvenir Olympic umbrellas, to ensure a dry and happy experience for Olympic attendees they're employing an army of thousands (scores of thousands!) to control the weather.
That's right. They're not just interested in controlling thoughts, actions, media, Tibet, nope. They're kind of behaving like a crazy jealous boyfriend to the Weather. "Where are you going to be? What are you doing? What time will you rain?" And then they send out their army of workers, like so many hosts of Cheaters to follow the clouds and force them to comply.
How? To find out, read more. 1,500 employees with 30 aircraft are set to drop chemicals into the clouds which force them to drop their water early, with an additional 37,000 part-time staff who can fire additional materials into the clouds using 7,113 anti-aircraft guns and 4,991 rocket launchers. It's elementary really. The technique, cloud-seeding, isn't new but using it to enhance the pleasure of watching the decathlon sprinkle-free, rather than say, ending a drought and preventing famine, kind of is. The state-run media claims that the Weather Modification Office (oh. not "crazy boyfriend") has "created" more than 250 billion tons of rain between 1999 and 2007.
Is it just me, or does China have a boatload of other things to worry about besides the weather? Forget selling umbrellas, China, but I have a super great idea for keeping every single spectator bone dry! It's called a roof.
Is this a storm of delusion or a downpour of utter brilliance?
Vertbaudet
Dessous
Graeme Black
I don't get the picture above. Do they send me flying on the backs of Dragons to drop the chemicals over the clouds?
Does anyone know if Falkor the luckdragon is available?
1that is nuts!
2They have other things to worry about that they need to be doing.
3in the mean time, the deluge that follows the cloud seeding can go ahead and sweep away some villagers, and China can act like it's not happening.
4Great. Glad they are controlling a natural phenomenon with a safe-sounding technique that involves DROPPING CHEMICALS on clouds. I just can't imagine that possibly being a good idea.
5this just sounds ridiculous
6This is a poorly written and very biased.
7It annoys me to no end when journalists even bloggers use statistics and numbers but give no reference point. The words you use have the power to sway your reader, take that into consideration before posting something under the news section.
8Nancita- I agree. There is no way that shooting thousands of chemicals into the air (what comes up, must come down) could possibly be safe or healthy to the citizens.
9"Forget selling umbrellas, China, but I have a super great idea for keeping every single spectator bone dry! It's called a roof."
For the marathon? That would be impressive.
I'm not super excited about them controlling the weather.
But I'm less excited about this post.
I have to agree with onabanana 100%. What did I learn here? That China plans to cloud-seed and that Citizen hates China. I only care about one part of this "news" story. Guess which?
10Well I'm certainly no fan of the Chinese government but this is simply a matter of practicality for the purposes of enhancing the competitive environment.
Using the same action to provide rain in drought prone regions is a fantastic idea, however sadly not sustainable.
11What irritates the hell out of me is that China has the capability to use this, but instead of using it to help farmers and enhance food supply, they're using it for the $#%@ing Olympics. According to the reports I've been reading, Asia's currently experiencing a severe food shortage.
Don't they have more important things to worry about than the freaking Olympic games?!
Food shortages, horrendous human rights violations in Tibet, lead paint, and more!
Seriously. I can't even tell you how badly it irritates me that the UN and the USA will step up to certain nations about their shoddy behavior, but yet we're letting China, in all their godawful glory, host the Olympics and improving trade relations with them, opening up new business deals with them, etc. How about using some of the power the USA supposedly has to make the lives of billions of Chinese citizens better or the lives of those poor people in Tibet who just want peace?
12Amen Onabanana.
13I really enjoy a large amount of something being referred to as a "boatload."
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