waveparticle

dewme said:

Re: “… announced the lawsuit to members of the press at the site, where the bridge has now been barricaded off.”

It seems to me that local highway maintenance authorities are fully responsible for ensuring that proper signage, warnings, and barricades are put in place that correspond to changing local conditions. When did Google Maps become responsible for assuring that the local conditions and road and infrastructure maintenance and safety concerns are maintained in an up-to-date state at all times?

Google Maps is not an authoritative source of anything that it does not have direct control and responsibility for keeping up to date. It’s a convenience service, not a highway maintenance or public safety service. If a tree falls across a road Google is not responsible for updating its mapping service so drivers don’t run into the tree. It doesn’t matter if the bridge collapsed yesterday or ten years ago. Google has no responsibility at all. If their mapping service is out-of-date or deficient, like a paper map would be, it’s simply a sucky private service with no official responsibility whatsoever. If it sucks, stop using it.

The local officials responsible for road maintenance should have put up proper signage , warnings, and barricades as soon as the bridge was in an unusable state. Maybe they could get members of the press help them put out public notices to inform the local citizens that the bridge was no longer usable. Is that not the reason why the press was invited to the presser, to help get the word out so no one else makes the same mistake the victim made? 

Yes, this is a tragic event. But why turn it into a deep pockets money grab? 

tmay said:

waveparticle said:

maltz said:

waveparticle said:

Another US push for democracy! LOL One should keep in mind the National Security Council always has an ax to grind toward China. The better trustable source is the US State Department. 

Well, the state department also strongly advises against travel to China, and many companies and universities have policies that if you must go, don't bring any electronic devices into or out of China, or if you do, wipe or even discard them upon your return.  Nearly everyone is diversifying manufacturing out of China as fast as they can, even Apple.  The cat's been out of the bag for a few years now (even before COVID) that China is NOT friendly to the West - everyone is pretty much on the same page about that now.

This travel advisory is most likely directed toward some people involved with politics. I saw a news yesterday. The Chinese court sentenced a Chinese American living in Houston, Texas for espionage. He has been a leader of China unification. This is a surprise. You should keep in mind in US there are many Chinese who are anti-CCP. Then there are Americans who try to assist them. One example is a Republican congressman.

On the bucolic campus of Purdue University in Indiana, deep in America’s heartland and 7,000 miles from his home in China, Zhihao Kong thought he could finally express himself.

In a rush of adrenaline last year, the graduate student posted an open letter on a dissident website praising the heroism of the students killed in the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.

The blowback, he said, was fast and frightening. His parents called from China, crying. Officers of the Ministry of State Security, the feared civilian spy agency, had warned them about his activism in the United States.

“They told us to make you stop or we are all in trouble,” his parents said.

Then other Chinese students at Purdue began hounding him, calling him a CIA agent and threatening to report him to the embassy and the MSS.

Kong, who goes by the nickname Moody, had already accepted an invitation from an international group of dissidents to speak at a coming online commemoration of the Tiananmen massacre anniversary. Uncertain if he should go through with it, he joined in rehearsals for the event on Zoom.

Within days, MSS officers were at his family’s door again. His parents implored him: No public speaking. No rallies.

Moody realized it didn’t matter where he was. The Chinese government was still watching, and it was still in charge. Just before the anniversary event, he reluctantly decided not to give his speech.

“I think that the Zoom rehearsals were known by the Chinese Communist Party,” he said. “I think some of the Chinese students in my school are CCP members. I can tell they are not simply students. They could be spies or informants.”

https://cset.georgetown.edu/article/even-on-u-s-campuses-china-cracks-down-on-students-who-speak-out/

Remind me again how China values academic freedom.

There are stories like this in academic institutions throughout the Western world. The long arm of the CCP never sleeps.