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Eating dogs and cats–which is an age-old delicacy in China–could soon be against the law.

It’s the nation’s first law against such animal abuse. Currently, dog and cat meat is viewed as promoting bodily warmth. But if the law passes, people who eat either animal could face fines of up to $730 or 15 days in jail. Organizations involved the practice would face fines up to 100-times as much.

“I support this proposal. Whether you judge this as a question of food security or emotions, there is absolutely no necessity in China for people to eat dogs and cats,” said Zeng Li, the founder of the Lucky Cats shelter in Beijing. “Beijing’s dog restaurants get their meat mainly from vagrant and stolen dogs. In the suburbs, dogs are hung and slaughtered in front of buyers.”

The law has been in the draft stage for over a year and will be submitted to higher authorities come April. But draft legislation can take years to approve. Drafters at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences have been consulting for more than a year with Britain’s Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Louis vuitton handbags and the US-based International Fund for Animal Welfare.

Raising cats and dogs for meat remains widespread in China. You’ll often see it advertised as “fragrant meat,” a euphemism for dog. Cat meat is more popular in southern China where activists block trucks carrying thousands of cats to meat markets.

Ending the culinary tradition is going to be difficult even it is passed in to law, as it dates back thousands of years. Dog meat was once considered a medicinal tonic.

“We are proposing that all dog and cat eating should be banned because it is causing many social problems,” said Chang Jiwen, a law professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences who heads the drafting team.

The economic impact of this law would be small as China’s affluent don’t partake in the delicacy. In fact, such traditions have received much scrutiny from affluent, pet-loving, urban middle class. And online petitions against dog and cat consumption have attracted tens of thousands of signatures.

As a vegetarian, this begs the question of why stop at just cats and dogs? What’s the real difference between eating a cow or eating your dog? I’m just saying.

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Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there lived six blind men. Each of them was very wise. Each of them had gone to school and read lots of books in braille.They knew so much about so many things that people would often come from miles around to get their advice They were happy to share whatever they knew with the people who asked them thoughtful questions.

One day these six wise blind men went for a walk in the zoo. That day the zoo-keeper was worrying about all of her many troubles.The night before she had had an argument with her husband, and her children had been misbehaving all day long. She had so much on her mind that she forgot to lock the gate of the elephant cage as she was leaving it.

Now, elephants are naturally very curious animals. They quickly tried to push the gate to the cage to see if it might open. To their great surprise, the gate swung freely on its hinge. Two of the more daring elephants walked over to the gate. They looked left and right, and then quietly tip-toed out of the cage.Just at that moment the six blind men walked by. One of them heard a twig snap, and went over to see what it was that was walking by.

“Hi there !” said the first blind man to the first elephant. “Could you please tell us the way to the zoo restaurant ?” The elephant couldn’t think of anything intelligent to say, so he sort of shifted his weight from left to right to left to right.The first blind man walked over to see if this big silent personneeded any help. Then, with a big bump, he walked right into the side of the elephant. He put out his arms to either side, but all he could feel was the big body of the elephant.

“Boy,” said the first blind man. “I think I must have walked into a wall. “The second blind man was becoming more and more curious about what was happening. He walked over to the front of the elephant and grabbed hold of the animal’s trunk.He quickly let go and shouted, “This isn’t a wall. This is a snake! We should step back in case it’s poisonous.” The third man quickly decided to find out what was going on, and to tell his friends what they had walked into.

He walked over to the back of the elephant and touched the animal’s tail. “This is no wall, and this is no snake. You are both wrong once again. I know for sure that this is a rope.”The fourth man sighed as he knew how stubborn his friends could be. The fourth blind man decided that someone should really get to the bottom of Louis vuitton handbags this thing. So he crouched down on all fours and felt around the elephant’s legs. (Luckily for the fourth man, this elephant was very tame and wouldn’t think of stepping on a human being.)

“My dear friends,” explained the fourth man. “This is no wall and this is no snake. This is no rope either. What we have here, gentlemen, is four tree trunks. That’s it. Case closed.”The fifth blind man was not so quick to jump to conclusions. He walked up to the front of the elephant and felt the animal’s two long tusks. “It seems to me that this object is made up of two swords,” said the fifth man. “What I am holding is long and curved and sharp at the end. I am not sure what this could be, but maybe our sixth friend could help us.”

The sixth blind man scratched his head and thought and thought. He was the one who really was the wisest of all of them. He was the one who really knew what he knew, and knew what he didn’t know.Just then the worried zoo-keeper walked by. “Hi there ! How are you enjoying the zoo today ?” she asked them all. “The zoo is very nice,” replied the sixth blind man. “Perhaps you could help us figure out the answer to a question that’s been puzzling us.”

“Sure thing,” said the zoo-keeper, as she firmly grabbed the elephant’s collar.”My friends and I can’t seem to figure out what this thing in front of us is. One of us thinks it’s a wall; one thinks it’s a snake; one thinks it’s a rope, and one thinks it’s four tree trunks. How can one thing seem so different to five different people?” “Well,” said the zoo-keeper. “You are all right. This elephant seems like something different to each one of you.

And the only way to know what this thing really is, is to do exactly what you have done. Only by sharing what each of you knows can you possibly reach a true understanding.”The six wise men had to agree with the wisdom of the zoo-keeper . The first five of them had been too quick to form an opinion without listening to what the others had to say. So they all went off to the zoo restaurant and had a really hearty lunch.

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RIVIERA BEACH, Fla. — Chuck Dettman said he had not really considered the notion back in 2001 that he and his friends in a job-search support group would never recover from being laid off.The country was in a recession then, as now, and the professionals who had just lost their jobs met weekly at a local job center to network and trade advice. Despite the national economic problems, they remained confident that they would not only find work but would also be compensated as they had been in the past.

Eight years later, however, most of the people who formed the core of Mr. Dettman’s group have not made it back to their old income levels, even if they eventually landed jobs.“I think there’s maybe only one or two that have been successful in making what they did then,” Mr. Dettman said.Taken together, their struggles are stark illustration that it can take years for a worker’s earnings to bounce back after a layoff, and that it can take even longer for a layoff during a recession. Economists, in fact, say income losses for workers who are let go in a recession can persist for as long as two decades, a depressing prognosis for the several-million people who have lost their jobs in the current recession.

“On average, most workers do not recover their old annual earnings,” said Till von Wachter, an economics professor at Columbia University, who recently completed a working paper with two other economists that examined the long-term earnings of workers who lost their jobs in the recession of the early 1980s.

Mr. Wachter studied workers who had been with Louis vuitton handbags their companies at least three years, then lost their jobs when their employers reduced their work forces by at least 30 percent. He found that even 15 to 20 years later, most on average had not returned to their old wage levels. He also concluded that their earnings were about 15 percent to 20 percent less than they would have been had they not been laid off.

One of the main reasons for the drop-offs, according to economists, is that workers who endure a layoff are more likely to be laid off again.“What tends to happen is the worker has to start over with a new employer, sometimes in a new industry,” said Ann Huff Stevens, an economics professor at the University of California, Davis. “You’re at the bottom of the totem pole again.

The largest wage losses are typically for workers who had long tenures at their previous companies. The stability often allows them to build up skills specific to their employers or their industries and to accrue corresponding wage increases, but those skills can be worth less to other companies.Older workers’ wages usually slide more than those of younger workers. Those with college degrees do slightly better than those without.

The networking group that Mr. Dettman helped form in 2001 was initially made up mostly of former colleagues of his from Pratt & Whitney, the jet engine maker, which laid off hundreds at the end of 2000 in a restructuring. The group members were all in their 40s and 50s.Interviews with seven early members of the group found that many had been forced to drastically change their lifestyles to cope with lower incomes. Several have struggled with long bouts of unemployment. Some were laid off several times. Many have been forced to lean heavily on spouses’ incomes.

Mr. Dettman, who was a business analyst and earned just over $50,000 after nearly 20 years with Pratt, spent almost four years looking for work, exhausting his savings and his 401(k). He finally took a job as the chief financial officer of a drug and alcohol detox clinic run by his daughter and his son-in-law, getting paid three-quarters of what he used to make, without benefits. He quit two years ago to start his own Christian counseling service but has yet to draw a paycheck.

Jim Clark, 60, a former engineering assistant at Pratt who made about $49,000 a year, went back to school to earn a bachelor’s degree in organizational management but has still not found full-time paid employment. He now scrapes together about $20,000 a year as a cantor at his Roman Catholic parish on Sundays and by singing at weddings and funerals.

The only former group member interviewed who is now earning more than she did before is Karen Carron, a 19-year Pratt veteran and computer programmer. Ms. Carron , 49, who has a master’s degree in computer science, made about $69,000 a year as part of a team producing software for the F-35 Lightning II fighter jet.

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The Baskerville Papers ‘ These papers were given to me by Sir Charles Baskerville,’said Dr Mortimer.’He asked me to take good care of them.You may remember that Sir Charles died suddenly three months ago.His death caused much excite ment in Devonshire,the county where Baskerville Hall is.Sir Charles was a sensible man,but he believed the story which is told in these papers.’

Dr Mortimer went on:’The story is about the Baskerville family.I have come to see you because I need your help.I think that something terrible is going to happen in the next twenty four hours.But you can’t help me unless you know the story in these papers.May I read them to you?’

‘Please continue,Dr Mortimer,’said Holmes,and sat back in his chair with his eyes shut.

Mortimer began to read in his high,rather strange,voice:

I,William Baskerville,write this for my sons in the year 1742.My father told me about the Hound of the Baskervilles.He told me when it was first seen,and I be lieve his story was true.I want you,my sons,to read this story carefully.I want you to know that God punishes those who do evil.But never forget that He will forgive those who are sorry for any evil they have done.

Over a hundred years ago,in 1640,the head of the Baskerville family was Sir Hugo Baskerville.He was a wild and evil man.He was cruel and enjoyed hurting peo ple.Sir Hugo fell in love with the daughter of a farmer who was a neighbour of his.The young woman was afraid of the evil Hugo,and avoided him.One day,Hugo heard that her father and brothers were away.He knew that she would be alone.So he rode to the farm with five or six of his evil friends.They made the girl go back to Baskerville Hall with them,and locked her in a room upstairs.Then they sat down in the great dining hall to drink.As usual,they drank bottle after bottle and soon they began to sing and laugh and shout evil words.

The girl upstairs,who was already very frightened,felt desperate when she heard the terrible things they were shouting.So she did a very brave thing.She opened the window,climbed out of the room and down theivy on the wall.Then she started to run across the moor towards her home.

A little while later,Hugo left his friends and went up stairs to the room to take her some food and drink.When he found an open window and an empty room,he behaved likea man who was mad.He ran down the stairs.He screamed that he would give himself to the Devil if he caught the girl before she reached home.Some of Hugo’s drunken friends told him to let the hounds chase her,and so he ran from the house and unlocked the dogs.Then he jumped onto his black horse,and rode off over the moor with the hounds running and crying around him.

Hugo’s friends fetched their horses and followed him.There were thirteen of them.After a mile or two they passed an old farmer and asked him if he had seen Sir Hugo and the hounds.The manlooked half mad with fear and spoke with difficulty.He said that he had seen the girl and the hounds running close behind her.Sir Hugo had been riding just behind the hounds.’But I have seen more than that,’the old man said.’Behind Sir Hugo I saw a huge and terrible hound running silently.May God keep me safe from that hound of hell.’

The thirteen men laughed at the old man and rode on.But their laughter soon stopped when they saw Sir Hugo’s horse running wildly towards them without a rider.

The thirteen men moved closer together as they rode on.They were suddenly afraid.Over the moor they went until,at last,they caught up with the hounds.

Everyone in the county knew that the Baskerville hounds were brave and strong.But now they were stand ing at the head of a deep valley in the moor with their ears and tails down.They were very frightened.Hugo’s friends stopped.Most of them would not go on,but three were brave enough to go down into the valley.

The valley had a wide flat floor.In the middle of the flat ground stood two great stones.They had stood there for thousands of years.The moon was shining brightly on the great stones,and between them,on the flat ground,lay the girl.She had fallen there,dead of fear and exhaus tion.Sir Hugo’s body Louis vuitton handbags was lying near her.But it was not the sight of Sir Hugo or the girl that filled the men with fear.It was the sight of the huge animal that was standing over Sir Hugo.Its teeth were at his throat.It was a great black creature that looked like a hound.But it was larger than any hound they had ever seen.

As they watched,it tore out Hugo Baskerville’s throat.Then it turned towards them.Its eyes were burning brightly.Its body shone with a strange light.Blood ran from its mouth.The men screamed and kicked their horses.They rode back up the valley as fast as they could go.Later that night one died from the horror he had seen.The other two were mad for the rest of their lives.

That was the first time the Hound appeared,my sons.It has been seen many times since then,and many of the Baskervilles have died in strange and terrible ways.Be cause of this I warn you not to cross the moors at night.The Devil finds it easy to do his work when the world is dark.