Poor Mojo's Newswire

Counterfeit, shoddy and dangerous products are widespread in China, whose exports have been rocked in recent months by a spate of safety scandals, ranging from pet food to medicine, tires, toothpaste and toys. Officials raided the factory and seized about half a million pairs of recycled disposable bamboo chopsticks and a packaging machine, the Beijing News said.

The owner, identified only by his surname Wu, said he had sold the recycled chopsticks for 0.04 yuan a pair and made an average of about 1,000 yuan ($130) a day.

Wu, who had no license to sell the goods, said he had sold 100,000 pairs a day when business was good.

He goes on to say, "Legal codes and cases are the “operating system” of the nation, ... The system only works if we can all openly read the primary sources,... It is crucial that the public domain data be available for anybody to build upon.”

Excuse me?

They are already publicly available. Virtually every county in the nation has at least one public law library, and every law library attached to a publicly run law school is also open to the public. A large number of private law schools also serve the public. Anyone can walk in and have access to the library's holdings (including the case reporters and statutes), and get expert research assistance from a law librarian. I ought to know -- in my work, I have helped a huge number of members of the public find the laws, cases, and legal forms they need. It was my job to do so, and they didn't pay a dime, save for photocopies and taxes.

The survey reveals a nation whose book readers, on the whole, can hardly be called ravenous. The typical person claimed to have read four books in the last year — half read more and half read fewer. Excluding those who hadn't read any, the usual number read was seven.

William Stanley Sutton III, 25, added ProstaMate last week to a soda he gave to 21-year-old Lauren Ashley Tucker, according to documents charging Sutton with reckless endangerment, assault and poisoning.

Tucker felt sick to her stomach and vomited after drinking the 20-ounce soda that "tasted nasty and burnt her throat,'' according to court records. She went to the hospital Aug. 9, and the hospital reported a possible poisoning to police.