A couple of more things:

"We didn't want to spoil everyone's happy time. You can imagine how people would have reacted if we had told them about the disease. They wouldn't eat out, nor would they go shopping or get together with family members and friends."

-- Guangdong Health Department official Feng Shaomin explaining why Chinese authorities did not alert the public to the SARS outbreak during the Chinese New Year.
As reported by the UN Wire on April 3, 2003

Yesterday's Washington Post has a very good article on al Jazeera. It was seriously very good, but I thought this excerpt merited posting:

Al Jazeera has also angered various Arab governments by covering dissident groups and allowing talk show guests to denounce Arab rulers. Frequently, the Arab rulers respond by closing al Jazeera's bureaus.

It happened in Jordan last August, when Asad Abukhalil-- a Lebanese American political science professor and a self-described "sarcastic secular lefty atheist"-- appeared on an al Jazeera talk show and suggested that Jordan's King Abdullah II is lying when he claims to be a direct descendant of the Prophet Mohammed.

After that, the Jordanian government closed al Jazeera's Amman office, the Jordanian media denounced Anukhalil and his Jewish ex-wife, and demonstrators burned his picture.

"I loved it," Abukhalil says.
(Washington Post, Style Section, 040303)

And if you needed any more reminders how pathetic and strident the conservative "movement" is, take a look at this new product. At least their immature flavor names show that their positions are all just a bunch of fat and crushed ice.

More as it develops.