China's solution to food safety? Capital punishment.

China just executed its former chief of the State Food and Drug Administration, Zheng Xiaoyu. He was convicted of dereliction of duty and taking bribes to approve unsafe goods. Yes, he was corrupt and deserved to go to prison, but execution? The sentence was set on May 29 (2007) and he was executed just 42 days later.

The Chinese government is worried about their ability to export food and drugs, and they should be, given that they put antifreeze in toothpaste because it costs less than other, non-toxic sweeteners. Recently, they also exported snacks tainted with salmonella.

But seriously... do they really think swift executions are going to give them good press? Especially considering the West's already critical opinion of human rights in the PROC?

Your tax dollars at work

Fun facts about people running the country:

1. Scott Charbo, the Chief Information Officer of the Department of Homeland Security, has a Masters in plant science*. In his 2 years as CIO, he has racked up almost $6 billion in IT expenditures. The DHS sustained over 800 IT security breaches during that time.
2. Dick Cheney's office tried to dissolve the Information Security Oversight Office, a division of the National Archives. The office is charged with auditing the classification and declassification of information by the government. Cheney's office feels that it is exempt from this executive order, and when challenged by the office, Cheney tried to eliminate it. The initiative was established by Clinton and amended by Bush in 2003.
   

* No hate to plant science majors, but the CIO of DHS should have a more applicable education.